Photo courtesy of Hope Community Church, Raleigh, NC.
As a lighting designer and consultant, I am constantly asked what steps a church can take to improve their lighting. Most expect to hear about some hot new piece of gear they should buy, but to me it's more simple than that, just work the basics.
What are the basics? Here are five first steps to more effective lighting design.
1) Know the Reasons for Using Lighting
Broken down into its basic parts, there are four primary purposes for using creative lighting. These are visibility, selective visibility, mood, and modeling.
First, we use lighting for visibility. This is the primary reason for lighting, because if the subject is not lit and is in the dark, the audience will not see it.
The second reason we use lighting ties directly to the first. Selective visibility is the use of lighting to call attention to an area of the stage that you want the audience to focus on, while not calling attention to an area of the stage you don't want the audience to focus on.
Selective visibility is the use of lighting to call attention to an area of the stage that you want the audience to focus on....
The next reason for using lighting is mood. Creating mood with lighting can be accomplished in several different ways. It can be done with intensity, color, lighting angles, or a combination of all of the above.
The last reason for using lighting is for modeling. Essentially, using lighting for modeling is doing nothing more than making the subject of the lighting stand out from the background--or making the subject more visually interesting--or, in a nutshell, making it all pretty.
Modeling can be accomplished in a number of ways, including variations in intensity, color, the angle that the light is projected from, or a combination of all of these.
Modeling can be accomplished in a number of ways, including variations in intensity, color, the angle that the light is projected from, or a combination of all of these.
The next concept to understand is that lighting is communication, and lighting enhances communication.
Lighting is communication in the sense that it provides visual cues to the audience. For example, when we use selective visibility, we tell the audience where to look and where not to look. When we make the audience and the stage lighting bright, we tell the audience we want them to participate. When we darken the audience and highlight one portion of the stage we tell the audience to quiet down and pay attention to what we have lit. If we light the stage with the color red, we create a feeling of evil or tension. But if we light the stage with a sky blue, we convey the feeling of peace. We are effectively communicating concepts and commands to the audience via the lighting. However, lighting tends to have its greatest impact when we use it to enhance the communication that is happening on stage.
... when we use selective visibility, we tell the audience where to look and where not to look.
As I said before, intensity, lighting angles, and color don't create the emotion. Instead the visual cues provided by the lighting immerses the audience in an environment that, when taken in context with the other emotional content that is being put forth from the stage, help to powerfully communicate the subject.
2) Plan Ahead
I often find that many churches put little or no thought into the lighting for their productions. Either they start planning the production too late to be able to carefully plan their lighting, or they don't put any thought into it at all and just “wing it.” Either way, they are not as effective as they could be if they planned ahead.
Lighting designs don't have to be overly complicated. Start by making lists. List out the colors that you want to use for a musical number or the areas of the stage that need to be lit for a particular scene in a theatrical presentation or for worship, and continue to develop the plan as needed. Once the plan is done on paper, put it into action in your lighting rig.
Once the plan is done on paper, put it into action in your lighting rig.
Your plan will also help you figure out how much time you will need to allot to hanging, focusing, and programming the lighting. Obviously, if you are adding a great number of additional fixtures, it will take longer and require more manpower than if you don't need to add additional fixtures. Also, if there are only a few simple scenes, programming time will be short, while many complex scenes will take some time to program.
Eastside Christian Church, Anaheim, Calif.; Image by Tajmia Loiacono.
3) Know the Capabilities of Your Tools
I can't tell you how many times I have been hired to help a church design a new lighting rig only to find that the current rig would work just fine if they only knew how to use it correctly. Needless to say, to be successful at lighting, you need to know how to use the tools of the trade.
The three primary conventional fixture types that you will encounter in lighting for church are ellipsoidals, PARs, and Fresnels. Each of these fixtures have different characteristics and capabilities that make them better for different purposes. PARs and Fresnels excel at lighting large areas, while ellipsoidals are ideal for precision lighting.
The better you understand how your console works, the more complex the lighting scenes that you can build.
In addition, you might also have moving lights, LED fixtures, and color changers that add all sorts of capability to your lighting rig. Spend time learning what functions each fixture type has and how to control them.
Don't forget about your lighting console. While it's not a light, it is the “brains” of the lighting rig. The better you understand how your console works, the more complex the lighting scenes that you can build.
To sum up, the better you know both your fixtures and console, the better equipped you are to take full advantage of these tools.
4) Take Time to Experiment and Grow In the Art
Lighting is a technical skill that you will understand better the more you do it. But lighting is also an art, and while you can quantify the technical aspects of lighting on a piece of paper, the artistic part of lighting is only seen once the lighting rig is hung and you can actually manipulate the various lighting elements. Because of this, be sure to take time experimenting and trying new things so you can further your understanding of the art.
... the artistic part of lighting is only seen once the lighting rig is hung and you can actually manipulate the various lighting elements.
Try all of the different features of your lights and see how they actually affect the beam of light and the quality of the light.
Try different hang positions and new angles and see how it looks--what shadows it casts, Sometimes the shadows are as interesting as the light itself.
Sometimes the shadows are as interesting as the light itself.
Try different materials, like cloth, plastic, and wood, to light and see what looks interesting.
Experiment with color and color combinations. Color is one of the primary mood setters and is important to making a presentation look good.
While you can do a lot of design on a piece of paper, ultimately you won't know what it looks like until you actually hang the rig and light it up.
5) Learn From Your Mistakes
Once you have a rig hanging, light up your stage and critically look for the trouble spots.
When you find them, figure out what you need to do to fix them. This serves two purposes: eliminating the problem that you see, but also figuring out what went wrong so you can avoid it next time, on paper, before you hang the rig, saving you time.
You wouldn't believe the number of people that know they have issues but never bother to figure out what the problem is--and how to fix it.
Also, as you do various productions there are always going to be those lighting scenes that don't work. Don't just let it be. Change what you need to change to fix it. Make it the best you can.
To sum up, while these tips may seem simple, putting them into practice takes a lot of hard work and dedication to the craft. But in the end, you'll see big payoffs.
