Although this site is about sound, it is also very useful to know some general knowledge about lighting. I started out in sound and now i do work in lighting as well. But when working in sound you will find yourself working as a team - sound and lighting. So it is important to know about lighting as it is equaly important for lighting engineers to know about sound.
So lets start from the basics then. General a lighting system is in a format called DMX (Digital Matrix). You can get two main types. These are intelligent illumination or standard illumination, Intelligent lighting refers to fixtures that have automated or mechanical abilities that standard lighting doesn't have. DMX light rigs consist of 4 main parts -
- The rig itself - This is all the truss and stage system that basically holds everything up
- The fixtures - These are the lights (or smoke machines, pyrotechnics etc) themselves
- The Dimmer - The dimmer is half the control, its job is, funily enough, to dim the fixtures. The dimmer controls the intensity. Some fixtures don't need a dimmer but i'll go into that later
- The Controler - This can be called several different names - Light desk, light remote, lighting board, console, there are loads. But the purpose of this is the other half (the more important one) of the controls. This is where the engineer will control what the fixtures are doing, how intense they are, and when they are on or off. The desk sends out a digital signal through a cable to the dimmer. You can also use computers to control DMX lights.
Starting from the top this is a detailed explaination of the whole light rig, also the order i have wrote this is generaly the order you would set it up.
Truss
I can guarentee you that every single stage system in the world will made out of a scaffolding type structure, usually this structure is made of what we call truss.
Also you would add flat peices of stage on suports for the actual stage itself, you can make pedastal type structures to put say amps on, another great addition that most people use is drum risers. They elevate the whole drum kit so it can be seen more. I saw a video of Travis Barker (Blink 182) drumming and at one point his riser began to be raised up by several ropes and pullies, then it spun slowly upside down (i still haven't worked out how they would have done this). That should give you some idea of the things you can do with this.
Dimmers
After building the stage your ready to put in the dimmer racks. Each type of dimmer will look slightly different. Dimmers are the devices that control the brightness of the light, they do this by changing the RMS power output which in turn changes the amount of power going to the light, therefore changes the intensity or brightness of the light. They are exactly like the circuit breakers you would find in your house - the switches which control all the power in your house that are probably in the cupboard under the stairs, these are the same as lighting dimmers.
Here is the front and back of some lighting dimmers:
Back Front
These particular dimmer racks were used for a 120 channel rig, and as you can see they take up a fair amount of space. Also there are alot of multicore cable spitting out of the back. These cables go to each light, and one cable goes to the desk in the front of house.
Fixtures
The next step to the rig is to add the fixtures. There are litteraly thousands of different makes of light and hundreds of types to choose from. But every rig has to have these things:
- Full covereage, of where everything is going to take place, of white light
- General washes of colour which has at least the 3 primary colours - Red, Green Blue (called RGB colour)
- Special effects that will wow the audience
Ok so thats that, now theres the deal of what each type of fixture is called... Heres a list of SOME of the fixtures and some details about them.
Par Cans - Every rig should have these in them, as these are the lights that will provide the full coverage of the stage. Par cans can be left as just white light or you can put filters in them.
Fresnels - These lanterns are almost identical to par cans, the only difference is that they have a different lense. This changes the beam so that it isn't as hard on the edges, and you won't see the beam of light like you would with par cans. Fresnels are better for theatre lighting where you need a general wash instead of just one area lighting.
Profile - Profile lanterns produce clearly defined spots of light and are the most focussable and versatile of the lanterns. Meaning that they are very good at pointing out detail, and say following a subject around the stage. Although to do this can be very hard as you don't know where the person is going to go next.
Moving Heads - These lights send out a very powerfull beam that is usualy very focussed. They come under the category of inteligent lighing because of the way their 'personality' can change rapidly. For example the beam may be blue, and at the press of a button it can change to red and it can be flashing (strobe). Moving heads are used along with ordinary luminaires because they are just the 'party piece' of the rig. Intelligent lighting is purely for effect only.
Flood Lanterns - Ok so theres not much to put here, these fixtures do exactly what it says. They send out a wide, out of focuss beam that floods the area around them. The actualy beam is similar to that of stroboscopic lights (they look the same too), the only difference is that flood lights don't flash.
Strobe - Strobe lighting is a feature of any intelligent light, and not a type of lantern itself as to regular misconception. It is short for stroboscopic, which basically means flasshing at very fast and regular intervals. When someone says "strobe light" they will most probably be refering to a flood light that has the stroboscopic feature
Blinders - Blinders are a very useful light to get the crowd going. They are very bright lanterns that often come in groups of at least 4 (most of the time it's 6 though). Blinders are placed around and/or above the stage aimed at the audience and are used to send bright white light out to the crowd at particular moments of the event.
