"Even with basic LED lights, YOU can do a lot of dimming and color effects." - Amy Justice, Lighting Director, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA.
In the world of lighting, effects and how they are utilized are what will raise your lighting up a level in effectiveness. And effects can be achieved in a variety of ways, from the features in your lighting console, accessories you attach to your theatrical fixtures, to the features found in your intelligent fixtures. Churches with a small budget and basic lighting rig to those churches with a million-dollar moving light rig can create interesting and effective lighting effects.
Starting points
The first step in creating excellent lighting effects only involves one piece of equipment: you.
“It all has to do with appropriateness,” states John Weygandt, a Chicago-based lighting designer. “In considering effects, I'm feeling more than thinking, understanding the music as a listener and especially as a worshiper. The effects you apply have to support the music, otherwise it's just random effects dropped on top of it. I want my effects to be supporting what the music is trying to accomplish.”
“You want to start by understanding what I would call the through-line of the entire worship set,” Weygandt continues. “I want to know how the entire package is going to be assembled—i.e., this is where the highest point of worship is to be; this is another point where everything can just stop and do a ‘freeze frame' of the lighting. It goes back to the structure of the worship time and what the worship leader is trying to accomplish.”
“In worship, each song has a story to tell,” states Amy Justice, lighting director at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. “The purpose of lighting is to always support that story and not distract from it. So with lighting effects, it should support the story and go with the ebb and flow of the music. It would follow and support the emotion it's invoking.”
The basics
“When you don't have much for sophisticated equipment,” states Florida-based lighting designer, Helena Kuukka. “A lot of people will tell you to just ‘be creative,' or ‘think outside the box,' and after you hear it a few times you want to slap the person. What does that mean?”
You can achieve some interesting effects with little to no investment. “For a ballet I worked on, the director wanted the feeling of light reflecting off a lake,” Kuukka says. “We didn't have any fancy gear that would just do this. So, we filled a large container with water in the wings off stage, and positioned a basic theatrical fixture to shine across it. When we needed that effect, I brought that light up and a stage hand stirred the water with a stick. It worked great.” [Of course, water and electricity don't mix. So safety precautions are important in a situation like this, keeping the fixture back from the water.]
"In considering effects, I’m feeling more than thinking…"
John Weygandt
Lighting Designer, Chicago, IL.
With conventional fixtures, you have the options of putting patterns in your profile fixtures and changing the focus of the fixture to create texture across the stage and on backdrops, helping to create a mood. Kuukka suggests using split gel colors in one fixture, where you cut gel into smaller pieces and tape them together, side-by-side, using something like Apollo Design's Scroller Tak tape to fit in a standard gel frame. “This can look way more glamorous than what it is,” she comments.
Your lighting console may also give you some options for creating interesting effects with basic lighting fixtures.
“When you don't have the option of creating the specific look being requested, think about what the essence of the moment is,” says Kuukka. “There was a play I worked on with a young man falling in love, and the script described him as seeing fireworks in the sky. The director says, ‘I want to see fireworks, whatever that means.' As part of the scenery, we had an arch with 40 light bulbs in a row. I created a chase that flashed those light bulbs once around. It spoke of the effect that was needed, and it wasn't trying to be realistic, but it was dramatically effective and spoke to the moment.”
The Next Level
If you can't afford moving lights, the next best option is equipping your conventional fixtures with accessories that give you some of the options you find in moving lights. Profile fixtures that accept pattern holders can be outfitted with gobo rotators controllable from the lighting console—and let you add motion to the textures you project. Color scrollers and mixers can be added to conventional fixtures for a fraction of the price of a moving light. And you can turn your conventional fixtures into an intelligent fixture by using a product such as the City Theatrical Auto Yoke. Dan Larson of Willow Creek Community Church related to me that they love their Auto Yokes equipped with ETC Source Four profile fixtures—they let you aim your profile fixtures where you need them; the color temperature matches your other conventionals; and they are far more reliable than a moving light, requiring significantly less maintenance.
Moving Lights
The king of effects is the moving light. Beam and profile fixtures deliver a variety of effects that can be added to the beam via commands from the lighting console. And this gives you a significant amount of flexibility. Many have multiple gobo wheels, letting you combine effects in interesting ways. And you can change the size and focus of the beams, as well as the color.
“There are three main types of effects that people use,” according to Justice. “There are dimming effects, color effects and moving effects. They can be combined to create any number of looks. Within those effects you have a lot of attributes you can control. You don't have to do just one basic effect, and a lot of consoles let you change the interleave pattern (which fixtures within a group of fixtures are affected) or the curve being applied to an effect.” The curve sets how the effect changes over time—it may be smooth and gradual (a sine wave curve), or sharp and sudden (a square wave or ramp curve).
"Even with basic LED lights, YOU can do a lot of dimming and color effects."
Amy Justice
Lighting Director, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA
“Consoles also give you preset effects you can apply to fixtures as a quick starting point,” Justice continues. “But you can then edit those effects and tweak them to get just what you want.”
When thinking about effects, Kuukka tries to stay away from the obvious when she can. “I was racking my brain trying to create candlelight flicker for the last supper,” she says. “But trying to simulate the flicker just never looked right. Over the years what I did was give up on the flicker and added just a touch of rotating gobo on the background, and it spoke to the environment and made it feel like flickering light. It was almost unnoticeable, but again, it spoke to the moment—and was very effective.” With moving lights, remember that you can layer effects within a fixture. Kuukka says, “Layering effects in moving lights by combining patterns with other patterns, adding rotation, blurring the pattern by taking it out of focus, adding a prism into the beam—it can add a lot of texture.”
As a designer, it's easy to find yourself in a rut, especially if you don't have a lot of time to program your services. “I try to be careful not to use the same kind of effects all the time,” states Weygandt. “You can rely on something that works too heavily. When I'm getting stuck, I look at all the attributes of the movers in the rig, and see what attributes I have to work with and try doing something else—perhaps taking a gobo in and out of focus instead of always rotating it.”
Don't Go Crazy
The amount you can do also depends on the culture and demographics. “You can do more effects in a youth service than a traditional adult service,” comments Justice. “But, I think that less is always more. You don't want to distract people from worshiping God. We should enhance and add, and never detract. It's always good to start small and work your way up as needed. When you first introduce effects into your service, don't go big right at the start as it'll be a huge distraction, [because] people aren't used to it.”
“My primary concern for over 20 years has been inexperienced lighting designers will spend most of their time on effects,” adds Weygandt. “If you do that you lose the more important things, like selective visibility. Effects should be in their proper place and priority.”
Bringing it Home
“Moving lights are great,” says Kuukka, “and when you have them, you should use them. But you need to know your instrumentation, and understand what it's capable of. Even with moving lights you can stay away from the obvious—it doesn't need to strobe just because it can.”
She continues, “Whatever you use, it should be used with care, forethought and restriction. Just because something is cool doesn't mean you should do it. You should always ask ‘Why am I doing this?' Effects can take over and get old in a hurry, as well as be distracting. However, when used intelligently, they are great tools.
