Reprinted from the Jul/Aug 2006 issue of Church Production Magazine

Raising the lighting “bar” but keeping the reverence By C. Andrew Dunning

It is probably safe to say that most people have been to at least one “pop” concert — be it country, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, or whatever. They’ve gotten an idea of what concert lighting looks like. Many churches are trying similar approaches in the lighting of their weekly services. When done well, the objectives of concert lighting and lighting for “normal” church services are the same. In fact, for some churches, the difference between the two may be a little fuzzy. In this article, I will be comparing concert lighting techniques to those used for most traditional church services. There are certain elements to consider if you’ll be lighting concerts at your church or if you’ve been given the mission of using lighting to give your services a different feel.

Visibility
The first objective of stage lighting is making sure that the audience sees what it’s supposed to be seeing or that the audience is looking where you want them to be looking. (See Richard Pilbrow’s book, Stage Lighting Design, for a discussion of the objectives of stage lighting.)

While a lot of traditional church service lighting tends to rely on general washes (largearea lighting) with minimal emphasis on highlighting individual areas, more theatrical lighting directs the congregation’s “eye” and enhances the visual dimensionality of the people it is illuminating by dividing general washes into areas and by changing intensities and using different colors. Areas where one is supposed to look will be brighter. Other areas will be dimmer. Specials (fixtures allocated to light specific people or things) or followspots may be used. Light is directed from multiple angles, including from behind the people on-stage.

PQ: Remember, whichever style is your aim, good lighting is still good lighting. Regardless of approach or style, lighting done poorly can end up taking away from a concert or a service instead of enhancing it.

When taking a concert approach to stage lighting, a designer may also wash the stage with light but, if stage washes are used, they are likely to be made up of different, independently-controllable colors and are typically produced using a large number of PARs. “Wash” colors tend to be fairly saturated and may include colors like amber, red, blue, and lavender. Picking the right colors can give you the basis for mixing others, like orange, magenta, and purple. Specials are important in concert lighting. Though they are typically placed in traditional locations, they are also often used in “unconventional” positions, such as on the ground. Some sort of “white” (no-color, bastard amber, or color correction) is common for them.

Followspots are also used heavily. Followspot colors range from flesh tones through versions of the more saturated colors used in the washes.

Extremes in contrast and color are not only a lot more easily tolerated, but are encouraged – as are more theatrical angles, like side light. For example, a look with singers lit with amber side light, a band lit with red light, and a blue background will result in visual “layers.” Because this technique increases the perception of depth between subjects, each-other, and their backgrounds, the musicians will visually “pop out” from each other and from their surroundings. In addition to being a great effect, using side light for the color washes is often a great option if you are limited in your fixture quantity.

Photo (below): Lighting can be used to draw the audience’s attention to what you want to them to look at, by selectively accenting what’s important on stage. Photo courtesy of C. Andrew Dunning.

Photo (above): Specials, such as this PAR placed in front of the performer, further enable the lighting designed to draw attention to, or creatively illuminate, objects or people on stage. Photo courtesy of Michael J. Trifillis.

Eye Candy
While typically not a priority for traditional church stage lighting, for concert lighting the most-emphasized objective is achieving an attractive stage picture by painting the stage with light. Seen by many as the necessity for concert lighting, the most common element is the myriad of beams of colored rear light shining through haze. These beams might be moving or still. They might involve groups of lights of all one color or a mix of colors. They might be solid shafts of light or might be broken up using gobos. The emphasis is on increasing quantities of fixtures, historically PARs, to expand the scale of the spectacle. The goal is to make available an assortment of colors, each applied to multiple fixtures. For example, a lighting plot might have 48 rear PARs. A designer might choose to have 8 colors with 6 fixtures per color. (Fewer colors, but with more fixtures per color, will give each color more impact.) In this case, I’d try to include red or magenta, orange, yellow, green or teal, blue (dark and light), purple or lavender, and, again, some sort of “white.” If I had more lights, I’d increase the number of fixtures per color and/or add in more colors.

Another form of “eye candy” is the use of lighting to create backgrounds to enhance the stage picture. Lighting can be used to project abstract patterns or to indicate a locale or a time of day, as with a lot of theatrical lighting. Not only can they be eye-catching, but, used carefully, either can enhance the dimensionality of the singers and/or speakers standing in front of them. (See “Softgoods and Lighting” in the September/October 2005 issue of Church Production Magazine for a deeper discussion of this.)

One word of caution: You might be thinking that all that you need for concert lighting is a bunch of bright colors and flashing lights. Please shelve that thought. Don’t immediately jump to using every color in the rainbow in every look. Using many colors at the same time can easily produce a visually confusing stage picture. Instead, try using fewer colors for each look, keeping yourself to two or three. Also, avoid the temptation to be constantly flashing the lights or changing the lights with every beat in the music. Though concert lighting does tend to be much more heavily cued than lighting for most church services, try to find the major parts in the music you’re lighting and make your lighting changes with them. This will give your looks more impact and will make a more memorable visual statement for a given service element.

Emotion and Mood
While, when it comes to lighting, this objective is often either very subtle or not a priority for most “traditional” church services, for concerts and for churches desiring a more theatrical or concert feel, this last objective is the goal - what you get if you’ve done everything right. You, together with the other creative arts, have directed the mood and emotion at your concert or service. Because lighting is dynamic and has the ability to change with the service, you’ve helped to guide your congregation/audience on that journey. You have created a lasting impression for your congregation.

For a sad or somber song, try using darker, more subdued colors, like blues and lavenders. For a background, wash a curtain with an out-of-focus teal pattern. Keep cues simply and subtle, with movement minimal.

For an upbeat element, use brighter colors, perhaps with wild angles in the lighting, lots of movement, and obvious cues. Choose less organic patterns and have them more sharply in focus.

Equipment Considerations
Though there are a few “standards” when it comes to concert lighting equipment, like the afore-mentioned PAR, you can take this approach with just about any stage lighting fixture. I’ve seen (and gotten) some great results from traditional theatrical fixtures like fresnels and ellipsoidals. Whatever type of fixture you end up using, you’ll need to plan on multiple fixtures for each color you pick and you’ll need to make sure you have enough dimming circuits to accommodate them.

Painting both the hazed air as well as the stage with light in ways that augment the mood of the song can dramatically increase the impact of the concert. Photo courtesy of C. Andrew Dunning.

You’ll want a lighting console that will allow you to respond to changes quickly. For a “conventional” console, you’ll want to make sure that each channel has its own fader and “bump” button. A console with programmable presets (places to store looks) is a huge asset. While they can be used, theatrical consoles can be time-consuming to program. For an “intelligent” console, you’ll want something that utilizes quick programming features, such as a palette system, an effects or shape generator, and “on-the-fly” capabilities.

You’ll need a way to produce haze so that beams of light will be able to be seen. There are several good units available. A smoke machine will work, but is more suited to creating billowing clouds of smoke than for simply “thickening” up the air. A couple of notes here: Make sure you talk to your church safety/security personnel before using either kind of device. You don’t want to be accidentally setting off fire alarms. Talk to the people who control your building heating and air conditioning systems. Turning off or adjusting portions of those systems may prevent your nice, beam-producing haze from being sucked out of your room.

Conclusion
Remember, whichever style is your aim, good lighting is still good lighting. Regardless of approach or style, lighting done poorly can end up taking away from a concert or a service instead of enhancing it. On the other hand, concert lighting techniques can greatly enhance concerts and special events that you may hold – and can even help to enhance “milder” church services.

C. Andrew Dunning is a lighting designer and owner of Nashville-based Landru Design - www.landrudesign.com.