How Do I..? How To..? Stage Lighting FAQ

Readers of On Stage Lighting regularly get in touch, via the comments or  Twitter, to ask their stage lighting related questions. Many of these questions start with “How Do I…?” or “How To..?” so here’s some of the more common ones, together with some quick answers and other stage lighting resources that could help you.

• How do I light a Stage?
• How to do lighting..? / How to design lighting for…?
• How much lighting do I need…?
• How do I work out how much power I need for lighting?
• How do I connect up a lighting system?
• How do I control lighting using my laptop / PC ?
• How do I persuade my school drama teacher to buy some moving lights?
• How do I get a job in stage lighting?

If you have any “How do I…?” questions, put them in the comments box below. We are planning on adding to this article as more stage lighting FAQ come up – you might even have some better answers for other readers. Also, if you find any other good online resources we haven’t mentioned, let us know.

How do I light a Stage?

The real answer, of course, is “How ever you like!” – there isn’t a mystical scroll containing “The Rules of Lighting Designe”. But that’s not what were talking about. When asking “How to light a Stage?” people are trying to find accepted principles and practices that are a good starting point to lighting a stage successfully.

Lighting a stage for visibility (surely the lighting designer’s primary purpose), there is a method that can be adapted upon to fit your own situation. The basic principle is to divide your stage into areas and light each area using a number of lighting fixtures. The edges of these areas are blended together to try to achieve a seamless, controllable light across the stage. Each area can have lighting from different angles – front light, side light, backlight etc. – for good visibility from the audiences view and to add clarity to the form of actors and other stage elements such as scenery.

Rules of thumb about these lighting angles is sometimes known as the McCandless method (after Stanley McCandless, author of a book outlining it). Two front lights (per area) from an angle of 45 degrees from horizontal, 45 degrees either side of centre from in front of the stage. These are traditionally coloured in a warm gel from one side, cool from the other, to allow mixing of either a warm or cool “keylight” with the opposite angle filling in. These front lights, together with a steeper back light from behind, do give a pleasing light on stage. Each area being individually controlled, we can highlight certain areas of the stage depending on the action.

Most stage lighting design books have a section explaining the use of these methods. Rules of thumb, rather than laws of physics, they provide a good starting point on “How to light a Stage?”.

• Books On Stage Lighting
• Lighting Intro
• Choosing Spotlights
• Guide to Backlight

How to do lighting ….? / How to design lighting?

This kind of question ranges from “how do I do lighting for a band?” to “How to design lighting in a…?”. Like lighting a stage, there are no rules to how you go about “doing the lighting”. Starting points are:

• A lighting system you have or budget to hire one.
• Places we can put lighting equipment. Rigging options.
• How much power is available. (I’ve only done few lighting designs that didn’t need mains power)
• Things that we need to light on stage so the audience can see.
• Fluffy design stuff like mood, atmosphere, time of day etc.

There are plenty of resources online which have the answer to specific “How to do lighting…?” questions. These include:

• • Blue Room Lighting FAQ’s – Including links to useful threads that have covered common stage lighting questions.
  • Stage Lighting Primer – The basics of stage lighting and design in an easy to digest format. We also have review of Stage Lighting 101 – Bill William’s more comprehensive writing on lighting design.
    Your First Lighting Design – A Crash Course
  • Stage Lighting Books – Some really good books on lighting reviewed

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How much lighting do I need for…?

Working out how much lighting you need for a particular task gets easier with experience. Starting out, you need to work out:

• How big an area needs to be lit.
• How far from the stage your lights will be.
• How much control do you need over different lighting elements.

Once this has been worked out, you can calculate how much lighting you need. A large area, lit from a long distance needs high powered, narrow angle fixtures (2000W is a standard high powered fixtures used in large venues). Conversely, an area lit from a short distance such as 3 metres might require a good number of wide angle, low powered lights (300w – 500w) to give a good coverage.

Of course, once you have worked out what you need, you still have the thorny issue of how much you can afford and how much electrical power is available. See:

• Stage Lighting Systems – A beginner’s guide to the basics of a stage lighting system.
• Blue Room Equipment FAQs – A host of related threads on choosing equipment
• Beam Angle Calculator – A simple bit of Javascript that works out the beam angle required, based on throw distance and area diameter.

How do I work out how much power do I need for stage lighting?

This ones easy. The physics is Electrical Theory – Power Law and is based on a simple equations to help you work out how much power is required. Knowing your available power source in Ampheres / Amps (A or I in the equation) plus the known voltage in your venue (volts / V), you can work out the maximum power (P) available in Watts – I (amps) x V (volts) = P (watts). You can also reverse the equation, knowing two of the paramaters.

• A handy electrical power calculator
• Power law explained at Wikipedia

How do I connect up a lighting system?

Any lighting control system, inlcuding DMX512, has different elements that work together to process the signal. Using the correctly rated cables to connect up a DMX lighting system is a matter of understanding DMX and how it talks to lighting equipment:

• Guide to DMX basics
• Fault Finding DMX
• Book on DMX control systems

How do I control lighting using my laptop or PC?

This question has been very popular in the last few years. Using a laptop or PC, a DMX USB dongle and some lighting control software you can put your computing power to good use and control a lighting system. Although not the same as a dedicated console, PC lighting control software can be FREE and the hardware used to output DMX is inexpensive. If you are willing to trust your show to a laptop, we have some useful links for you:

• PC Lighting Control Software
• Cham Sys MagicQ PC – Free Software available from Cham Sys
• DMX USB Dongle from Enttec
• Stage Lighting Software for the iPhone

How do I persuade my School Drama Teacher to buy some moving lights?

This is question is far too common. The question should be “Does my school need to buy some moving lights?”. The subject has been covered many times, here is some good reading on the question of moving lights and their uses in small venues:

• 
  Should I buy Intelligent or Conventional Lighting?
• Blue Room threads on “What lighting equipment should I buy?”
• Small Show Lighting Design using Moving Lights

How to I get a job in Stage Lighting?

There are many people in the business who would question whether you really want a job in lighting at the moment (See Boom and Bust in the Lighting Business) but no matter. The entertainment industry always seems to have plenty of hopeful talent trying to make their way in. Today there a number of options to getting a job in the stage lighting business – formal education, work experience, working your way up from the bottom. The subject of which was the best education to get a real job was covered in our serious of interviews with major stage lighting employers:

• Getting a job in Theatre Lighting
• Becoming a Lighting Designer
• Getting into Production Lighting
• Working in the Lighting Hire Business
• And finally, the round up : What Education Do I Need to Get a Job in Lighting

Some other related links on jobs in stage lighting:

• The Best Way to Learn Stage Lighting
• StagejobsPro Backstage recruitment wesbite.
• The Stage – Industry newspaper with jobs that advertises jobs.
• Freelance Lighting Technician – The Inside Story
• Blue Room Job Board – Opportunities to get work experience often come up here, as many of the advertisers are struggling shows with small budgets.

That’s about it for the moment. Don’t forget, we are going to be adding more stage lighting FAQ to this page. Put your “How Do I…? or “How To…? in the comments box below. Or you could get in touch via Twitter.