Backstage - from 'Prompt', August 2004

Welcome to 'Backstage', a feature where we look behind the curtain at technical theatre topics. In this issue I am covering the basics of stage lighting, which will look at getting the best out of smaller stages.

Introduction

In a smaller venue we are often limited in our technical resources. However, it is still possible to obtain acceptable results even when we only have a handful of lanterns to use.

Stage lighting has to serve a number of purposes but its main one is to provide 'visibility' so the audience can see what is going on. Unless we have this visibility to start with there is little point in developing the lighting further to include purposes like 'mood' or 'texture'. So for this issue I will concentrate on getting the actors seen by providing a good general cover of light.

Note also that I said actors, only when we can see the actors on all parts of the stage do we need to worry about seeing the scenery.

Terminology

Like any technical subject stage lighting has its own 'language'. Two words you will find useful are…

• Lamp
• Lantern

The lamp is what is often called the 'bulb'. A professional lighting engineer will tell you that bulbs are what you put in the ground; lamps are what generate the light.

The lantern is what is often incorrectly called the 'light'. Light is what we see, the lantern is where it comes from.

Lanterns

On the smaller stage there are two types of lanterns used for general lighting…

• Profile Spot
• Fresnel

The profile spot is used for hard-edged areas of light and for use in positions further back from the stage; they will project the light over a greater distance than other types of lantern. They often have a number of adjustments for the lens and can include shutters inside the lens tube for masking off unwanted areas of light. The profile can be recognised by the clear, curved lens on the front.

The fresnel can only make a soft-edged pool of light. It has a lot simpler construction with only one adjustment which varies the size of the pool of light. It can be recognised by the stepped lens on the front. To mask out unwanted light from a fresnel we use a set of 'barn doors', which are four hinged flaps that fit in front of the lens. Even by using barn doors you can only make soft-edged areas of light.

Basic Positioning

Let's take a small stage and provide it with a general cover of light by adding lanterns one at a time…

• 1 Lantern - it has to go front of house (FOH) so we can see the actors. To get the wide coverage we need it will probably be a fresnel but we have a choice where to put it. The simple choice is in the middle but this leaves the lighting rather 'flat' so we might want to put it off to one side to give the light a direction.

• 2 Lanterns - again they need to be fresnels FOH but now we can have them on opposite sides to give us crossing light to add interest and to move the shadows out to the sides.

• 3 Lanterns - so far all the light is coming from the front. This will make the scene 'flat'; the actors will not stand out from the background. So let's put lanterns number 3, another fresnel, high at the back of the stage, and off to one side, pointing forwards and across the stage to give us some backlight.

• 4 Lanterns - now we have a choice. We could keep our 2 fresnels FOH for our general cover and add two profile spots FOH so as to be able to divide the stage into left and right areas, but this loses our backlight, or we could have the 2 fresnels FOH and simply add another fresnel on stage to our 3 lantern example. I'd put the 4th lantern on stage, high at the back, in the middle, pointing the same direction as the other backlight. This will strengthen our on stage cover and keep the direction.

• 5 lanterns - now we can do something interesting. We keep the first of the fresnel backlights but now have 4 lanterns FOH, 2 each side, to enable us to divide the stage into two areas, each with crossing light.

• 6 lanterns - we add back the 2nd backlight from our 4 lantern rig to balance things out.

• 7 lanterns - another choice. With 4 fresnels FOH to cover the front of the stage we could add 2 profiles FOH to cover the back, reducing us to a single backlight or to our 6 lantern rig we add another fresnel on stage to give us more backlight.

• 8 lanterns - With 8 lanterns we can really start dividing up the stage. We can have 4 profile spots FOH, all on the same side, to cover 4 areas of the stage and 4 profiles at the back of the stage, on the opposite side, to provide a complementary backlight.

• 9 lanterns - To the example above we add a fresnel, FOH on the opposite side to the profiles, to give us a fill light to take out facial shadows.

I hope you can see that by adding one light at a time, and considering what it adds to the general cover, you can quickly develop an interesting lighting set-up with only a few lanterns.

Safety

There are three safety issues to consider when using stage lighting…

• Electricity

Even if you hire the lanterns they should be inspected before use for signs of damage, especially to the power cable. It is also important that they have a regular PAT (portable appliance test); lanterns which are left in position should be tested annually, for anything which gets moved around you should do it more frequently.

• Heat

Lanterns get hot, very hot. To move a lantern which is on or to focus it I'd recommend using a good pair of 'riggers' gloves. Leave any hot lantern at least 5 minutes before trying to carry it down a ladder.

• Falling Objects

All lanterns should have what is known as a 'secondary suspension' to catch it should the main fixing point fail. This used to be done with a safety chain but is now done with a wire-rope safety bond.

Conclusions

In a large theatre they often have hundreds of lanterns lighting the stage. But if you analyse how they have things set you will find that they are still applying the same basic steps as above. They might have more lanterns doubled or tripled up to light the same area with different colours. They usually have a bigger stage to light so they need more lanterns just to get the coverage and they might have divided the stage into more areas. But the basics are the same.

Don't be afraid to experiment. If you have the time, why not try lighting your stage with first one, then two, then three, and so on, lanterns to see what you can achieve.

In the next issue I will look at Gels and Gobos. Colours and patterns are all around us and play an important part in 'what' we see. Using simple techniques can bring a performance to life.

Recommended Reading

There are a number of books suitable for people starting out with stage lighting; here are a couple of personal recommendations…

• Stage Lighting step-by-step - Graham Walters
• The Stage Lighting Handbook - Francis Reid
• Stage Lighting Design a practical guide - Neil Fraser