A set standing on the stage needs to be carefully lit to make it visible to the cameras and to give it mood and atmosphere. Production designers with basic knowledge of lighting instruments and techniques can work with the video lighting director or film’s director of photography to bring out the set’s qualities. This chapter describes what instruments produce different qualities of light.
TWO TYPES OF LIGHTING INSTRUMENTS
Stage lighting has two fundamental qualities: diffuse and directional. Diffuse light covers broad areas and is flat such as the light given off by a bare frosted lightbulb or daylight on a cloudy day. Focused light is directional such as that given off by a flashlight.
Diffuse Lighting Instruments
The following types of instruments give off diffuse light:
• Scoop—A large bulb in a scoop-shaped reflector.
• Broad—A group of lamps set next to each other on a white surface.
• Softlight—A lamp hidden from view, reflecting off a white surface.
• Striplight—A row of lamps used to illuminate large areas of backings or walls.
Directional Lighting Instruments
The following types of lights give the lighting director control over the direction, shape, and color of the light beam:
• Fresnel [freh-nell] spotlight – After struggling with the old thick glass spotlight lenses, which were inefficient and tended to shatter and fall on actors’ heads, Augustin-Jean Fresnel invented the Fresnel lens which overcame these difficulties with a series of concentric ridges and immortalized the name Fresnel. His lens produces a beam of light that can be shaped.
• Ellipsoidal spotlight—This light can produce a sharply defined beam of light. It gets its name from the elliptically shaped reflector inside the housing. Metal slides placed inside the lens housing can cast patterns and shapes on set surfaces.
Long strips of electrical outlets hang in the stage grid. Lighting instruments secured to the counterweighted pipes are plugged into individual outlets. Each circuit connects to a patch panel on the lighting board below where groups of lights can be connected together. Dimmers control the amount of electricity flowing to each lamp or group of lamps, giving the lighting director control of light intensities.
The following sections describe other means of shape and pattern control that help the lighting director, besides the intensity of the light beam.
Barndoors
Each of the Fresnel-lensed spotlights carries a set of four black metal flaps called barndoors attached to the front of the lens housing. This set of flaps can rotate and swing in and out to shape the light beam.
Channels on the front lamp housing can accept frames holding a sheet of gel, short for gelatin, which was used before plastic gels were available. Transparent gel sheets come in hundreds of colors, patterns, and frosted mediums.
Pattern
To produce soft patterns on surfaces, lighting technicians hang or stand-clamp a cutout called a cookie, or cukie (named after a Mr. Cukaloris), a few feet in front of a light. These wood or metal cutouts carry patterns of window frames, foliage, or abstract designs that can break up an otherwise blank surface.
Flags
To further control the spread of a light beam in front of a light’s lens, technicians use flags. These are metal rectangular frames filled with opaque black fabric, which keeps the light beam from spreading.
Reflectors
The unclouded sun produces harsh light and deep shadows. To bounce reflected light into unwanted shadows, directors of photography use reflectors surfaced with foil or white surfaces. Supported on stands, the reflectors can be adjusted at many angles and directions. Large panels of translucent fabric, called silks, are stretched over a set to soften harsh sunlight.
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Now that we have seen lighting’s basic tools, in the next chapter two lighting directors demonstrate their methods of lighting a set. See which one you want to light your next production.