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May 2012

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How-to Guide to Lighting Design and Fixture Selection

Having the right tools, and knowing how to use them are two different things. While most church lighting guys haven’t invested the seven years of university study required by the lighting design profession, you can learn the basics and the build your own style and method.

by David Martin Jacques

Lighting design is a complex art form. It encompasses a unique combination of art and technology. The lighting designer creates imaginative atmospheres that express the feeling and meaning of the moment. These atmospheres originate in the lighting designer's imagination and art. In order to create this art, the lighting designer must also know the technology, as well as what tools are available.

For most people, it takes seven years of university study to be properly trained for entrance into the lighting design profession. But that does not mean that it is impossible for you to create effective lighting atmospheres by choosing appropriate fixtures. Understanding the basic approach to lighting design and choosing fixtures basically comes down to indentifying your church's needs, and applying the right tools to meet them.

Creating the Design

The first step in creating your lighting design is to identify what needs your particular worship space requires. Whether for worship, theatre, opera, dance, or video broadcast, I always consider this as the beginning of the creative process.

The functions of lighting are clear to most professional worship designers and consultants. The lighting must create visibility and focus, reveal the space, create modeling, support the composition of the worship service, and finally, support the message.

Creating visibility is the most obvious function of the lighting. Although one may think of visibility only as adding light to reveal a subject or object, it is crucial to understand that lighting designers create shadows as well. The lighting designer reveals what the audience sees and what they don't see through shaping the space and directing focus for the audience. By revealing the space, the lighting designer generates interest and assists in the emotional engagement of the congregation.

When creating visibility and focus, it is also important to assess whether or not image magnification (IMAG) is being used. If so, lighting the space becomes even more challenging. Due to the limitations of video, the lighting designer must be very careful with intensity and contrast. I will refer you to the excellent article written by Jim Kumorek entitled: "How to Guide: IMAG (Image Magnification)" in Church Production Magazine (http://www.churchproduction.com/go.php/article/14694). In this article, he explains the best techniques to consider when considering lighting for video.

In addition to lighting for the camera, the lighting designer must be careful to keep light off the video screens. Choosing the appropriate angles of light-along with choosing lighting fixtures that are able to shutter the light off these screens-is necessary to achieve this.

Speaking of video, modeling is another crucial function of light. As the congregation is often sitting at a long distance from the stage area, the lighting designer must use angles of light to create highlights and shadows on people and objects that emphasize their three-dimensional properties. This is called modeling. The most useful angles to achieve modeling are sidelight and backlight. These angles separate the objects from the background, adding depth to the stage area. This is especially important when IMAG is being used.

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David Martin Jacques is a professional lighting designer and consultant. He has designed hundreds of productions in the United States and throughout the world. David also consults on new worship facilities and renovations. He serves as Head of Stage Design for California State University Long Beach.   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)