Lighting design is one of the most interesting professions today in various fields like Performing arts, Film, Television, Photography, Display, Interior and Exterior Architectural lighting. Compare to other first world countries like United States of America and West Uropian Countries Lighting design for performance is an emerging field in India, but already good numbers of designers are doing a very good job, some of them are working with bare minimum equipment, in contrast others are using state of the art equipments in their productions.
Lighting designer has to be a good listener, a careful interpreter, and a skilled craft person. The lighting designer will continuously learn in each production or project. He has to handle challenges, difficulty, human negotiation, and new troubles to solve. Many failures and success are part of this creative occupation. In the process, lighting designer can make many mistakes, but it is a stepping-stone for the designers’ growth. At the same time, we have to avoid the same mistakes happen repeatedly.
The History of lighting design in Drama and Theatre leads us in a state of recalling of our memory of utilizing the light in the day-today activity and improvement in the modern life activity. Apart from this, mankind’s creative endeavor utilizing light in various performing activities from the primitive era to the twenty-first century is well known to everyone. Men’s fascination about the sun, moon, lightening, forest fire, light emitting insects and various natural light emitting sources have played a leading role in our life which leads us in to a state of fascination firstly then our sense leads us to utilize and produce various products for human consumption which may be utilitarian or creative in nature. However, the live performing arts like drama, dance etc., and the recording performing arts like photography, cinema and television has benefited out of this knowledge.
Stage lighting has changed dramatically in recent years, with computer
control, memory systems and more. Now it is impossible to think or visualize lighting by oil lamp, candle, or gaslight. However, by looking back into the past will help us to learn, understand the underlying principles.Lighting design principles include: a) Illumination: Minimum light requirement to perceive the performance. Revelation of Form: To revel, three-dimensionality of onstage elements and manipulating the perception of shapes. Focus: Focused light directs the audience's attention to a particular part of the stage or focuses their attention from one after the other. Mood: Based on various reasons e.g., Psychological (Happy, Sad) Seasonal (summer,
winter) and etc. The tone of a scene is determined by this. Location and Time of Day: On stage creating, establishing, and changing time and space. Projection/Stage Elements: Projection of image and scenery relevant to performance is carried out to establish the narration. Plot: Well conceived lighting change in acordance with the scene makes the performance progress.EARLY STAGE LIGHTING
In India different kind of performances performed in various seasons during the year. Day performance and night performances are utilized sunlight, moonlights, and manmade lighting sources in the early period. Most of the performance places are very near to temples. Their direction and alignment always toward sun light, the main entrance direction towards east is a common phenomenon. At the same time the early Greeks built their theatres as open-air theatre and aligned those in relation to the sun light, to use natural light for performing space. For example, the theatre of Dionysus, Athens (about 330 BC), and the theatre at Epidaurus (about 340 BC) are ancient public theatre facilities. To take advantage of the different types of natural lighting from dawn to dusk, perhaps they performed their plays at different times of day. This type of planning was evident in our folk and ritual performances to utilize the lighting condition of the time, day of the particular season of the year. Based on this we can conclude that lighting design is as old as development of theatre.
The development of theatre lighting over the centuries, using both natural sources in the beginning then gradual inclusion of artificial sources. The sun, candles, torches oil, gas, electric arc and lime lighting, all have had a place in early stage lighting.
MODERN STAGE LIGHTING
The invention of electricity, electrical instruments, and goods has played a major role in the improvement of lighting design. In the late 1800's stage lighting design advanced along with the improvement of the incandescent lamp design and performance. This invention allowed for the development of small, secure, convenient lighting equipments that could be easily placed anywhere around the stage, and then controlled by a remote electrical dimmer system.
At some point in the early 1900's as stage lighting continued to develop, certain parallel lighting industries began to evolve, borrowing many basic principals from the field of stage lighting design. The modern fields of display, photographic, film, and television lighting design all have evolved and developed from the fundamental roots of early stage lighting design. These days stage lighting design is recognized as a field blends science with art.
FUTURE STAGE LIGHTING
In the developed countries, Stage lighting was revolutionized in the 1930's after the invention and development of electrical incandescent lamps.
Further, the development of the Plano convex spot light and ellipsoidal reflector (Profile spot light) fixture enhanced the design and procedure. In 1960’s the advancement in the Silicon rectifier (SCR) Electronic dimmer provided another radical change in operation flexibility. In 1970’s introduction of the automated lighting fixture is radical change in the lighting industry again. The advancement in color filter technology has recently produced colors, never before seen in lighting design ranging more than 200 colors. Development of new light sources like Xenon, Metal Halide, Fluorescent, Induction, and Sulfur lamps are now available.
Utilization of computer Lighting software now provides assistance with paperwork, drawings, design, and Execution of lighting design. In India the spread of the above advancements are slowly happening in big cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and New Delhi. However, it is an emerging field so very few people are having expose to this new developments. Nevertheless, I hope in the near feature lighting design will become a sophisticated and advanced industry in India.
THE LIGHTING DESIGNER
The Profession
In the middle of Twentieth century, lighting designers (or LD) from all over the World and particularly European countries and North America developed and refined the methods of modern lighting design for theatre, dance, concert, and opera. Whether working in a small theatre or in a large theatre the lighting designer is an important member in any modern production. From beginning to conclusion, lighting designer collaborates with the director and with other designers (set, costume, and make-up) to ensure that the production is properly illuminated in all respects. The stage lighting designer is usually responsible for the design and management of every aspects of lighting for a normal theater production. The lighting designer (LD) after watching sufficient rehearsals in collaboration with the director and the scenic or stage designer the LD is responsible for providing an Instrument Schedule and a Lighting Plot. Most of the time the lighting designer are allowed to start his work in the end of production process, but people anticipate him to perform magic, miracles and to make the sets, costumes and actors look magnificent. The Schedule is a list of all required materials, including gel colors, gobos, color wheels, barndoors and other accessories.
The lighting plot is typically a plan view of the theatre in which the performance will take place, with every luminaries marked, including its 'rough' focus (the direction it should be pointing), its instrument number, any color/gobo/accessories required, and the specifics of its connection to the lighting control systems (channel number). In the beginning, lighting was taken care of by the technicians. These forms the basis of the work the Lighting Crew is to undertake, under the supervision of the Head Electrician and the direction of the Crew Chief. Today, in different kind of entertainment industries many lighting designers work around the world. However, in India very few persons are working as a professional Lighting designer.
According to the requirement of productions, Lighting designers often tend to specialize in specific working procedure, and method. The real differences from one lighting design to another are the methodology and equipment types involved. Specialization for Theatre, Dance, Film, Opera, Television, Theme Parks, Outdoor Pageants, Trade Shows and Industrial or Corporate productions are differs. For example, the theatre designers may use an 8" to 10" lens – 1000 to 2000 watt fresnel, the television and film designer may be used to working with a 20" to 30"- 1000 to 10,000 watt fresnel.
According to their particular discipline, the lighting designer must have knowledge and experience with the lighting methods, fixtures and hardware that are available in the market where he works.
When lighting profession grows some stage lighting designers may also specialize within a specialty. For example, a 'dance' lighting designer may work only in the field of modern dance, or a drama lighting designer may works only in the field of theatre plays. All lighting designers have to have a complete understanding of their tools and both the material and theoretical aspects of lighting, in spite of the lighting discipline they wok. Some times a lighting designer may work for various discipline of his art; most of the Lighting designers are doing it nowadays. The basic principals of light, vision and design, apply regardless of the lighting design discipline.
The role
The role of the theatre LD is to create an overall 'look' for the show in response to the text, but bearing in mind issues of visibility, safety and cost.
Pre-production
The LD will read the script carefully and make notes on changes in place and time between scenes - such changes are often done just with lighting - and will have meetings with the Director, Designer and production manager during the pre-production period to discuss ideas for the show and establish budget and scheduling details. The LD will also attend several later rehearsals to observe the way the actors are being directed to use the stage area ('blocking') during different scenes, and will receive updates from the stage manager on any changes that occur. The LD will also make sure that he or she has an accurate plan of the theatre's lighting positions and a list of their equipment. The LD often takes into account the show's mood and director's vision in creating a lighting plan. All this information is vital for the preparation of an accurate lighting plan and lighting plot. 
The plan is a scale drawing of the theatre's stage and auditorium lighting positions with the show's lanterns marked on it. Next to each lantern will be information for any gel, gobo, animation wheel or other accessory that needs to go with it, and its channel number. Professional LDs usually use special computer-aided design packages to create accurate and easily read plans that can be swiftly updated as necessary. The LD will discuss the plan with the show's production manager and the theatre's lighting chief to make sure there are no unforeseen problems with the plan before the latter places a hire order for any specified extra equipment.
The lighting plot is a list of the lighting states that the LD intends to use for each scene during the show. Ideally, a pre-production lighting plot will have levels specified for every lantern and up and down times for each lighting state, or cue, but it is accepted that there will usually be many changes during the technical rehearsal of the show.
During fit-up and technical rehearsals
The lighting designer is responsible, in conjunction with the theatre's Master Electrician, for directing the theatre's electrics crew in the realization of his or her designs during the technical rehearsals. The LD usually sits at a temporary desk somewhere in the auditorium where they have a good view of the stage and talks to the lighting board operator/programmer over a headset. The LD will direct the focusing (pointing, shaping and sizing of the light beams) and gelling of each lantern before recording a version of the lighting plot. At an arranged time the actors arrive and the play is worked through in chronological order, with occasional stops to correct sound, lighting, entrances etc. The lighting designer will work constantly with the board operator to refine the lighting states as the technical rehearsal continues, but because the focus of a "tech" or "cue-to-cue" rehearsal is the production's technical aspects, the LD may require the actors to pause ("hold") frequently. Nevertheless, any errors of focusing or changes to the lighting plan are corrected only when the actors take a break.
Once the show is open to the public audience the lighting designer will stay and watch several performances of the show, making notes each night and making desired changes the next day. However they can only make changes during the preview process of the show; once it officially opens the lighting designer can no longer make changes to it. But without affecting the overall design subtle change is unavoidable because lighting design is a performing art. Each and every performance is entirely different in creating experience. The designing process and execution of the lighting queue are different the previous establishes the skeleton and the later is fluid and dynamic evolving activity. So two important stages in lighting design is lighting design and execution, a good design may be spoiled by a bad execution; a bad design may be enhanced by the way of execution. If both this stages gel together a lighting design will give good experience to every one involved and participated in performance.
posted by Balasaravanan at 6:11 AM
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