Lighting Part 1: On the very first day of technical theatre we were introduced to Becca who was going to tell us about technical theatre. Before we got to the lesson she gave us a sheet and lectured us on the health and safety guidelines as it was very important when working with very dangerous and heavy equipment or in case one of us got hurt which none of us did Firstly Becca told us about how it's to do with lighting and sound and basically setting up a stage for a production, dance choreography or etc. She gave us another sheet that contained some technical terms for lights such as Fresnel which are the original type of lights then she mentioned a follow spot and she said how they only had one, it's job is simple it just follows the actor, dancer whoever it is.
After going through the different types of lighting and their jobs or purpose we began to do some practical work. This involved us learning how to rig, what that is, is when u have to take lights off and on the lighting rig which is the long metal that holds the lights at the top of the theatre. We started with unscrewing the 'hook' which is a metal hook that allows the light to stay secure on the top of the theatre then we had to unclip the support which is a wire that loops around to support the light so that if somebody was to not screw the hook in properly then the support would hold the light and stop it from falling on anyone. We were told that it's crucial to have it because if you don't then you get fined for not having it but also it's very very dangerous to not have anything support the light. Then we were told to unwind the cable that connects the light to the main control station and let it hang, then carefully lift the light and take it out of the lighting rig and place it gently on the floor. We were told to try as many times we needed so that we understood and we could help one and other. We had to the do the steps back in reverse so then we could work on the plug and socket which is another cable which is sort of smaller and connect it to the light and then repeat it again if needed or if we wanted.
Continuing on we were told about the other things and we were shown the equipment upstairs.
We worked on lighting again except we learnt about how to create a general wash Becca showed us a video on it however the video was made in America so some of the technical terms were very different like they said a Rig was called a trust so she just said to focus on the actual making of a general wash so first thing it showed us:
What this is showing is that the stick figure would be the actor, dancer or who ever is performing and that the lights would have to be 45 degrees up and 45 degrees out and if you can't get it exactly 45 then go lower than 45 instead of higher because of the focus. Then it shows us that the lights have to be in a criss cross pattern as you want to allow the lights to fill the stage and the reason you do it in a criss cross pattern is so you don't get any shadows because as Becca told us how shadows are a nightmare. We finally did it ourselves however this time instead of working with the lights on the rig we worked on the side lights so first we had to turned them around and also match them up to the other ones so then they were facing towards one and other, this was because we needed to make sure there weren't any shadows however there still was but this could have been due to some of the lights being brighter/ stronger than the others.
Moving forward we then went to another room where we were given another assignment by Becca but before that she gave us and introduced us to some new things which were gels and gobos. A gel is something that is made out of plastic and it's what gives the lights colour if you were to add some colour to the stage and a gobo is basically like a stencil for a light so you would put it in front of a light and it would outline or shape the picture or whatever you wanted to show. The assignment was to listen to the chosen song 'Relight my fire' by Take that and we had to create our own lighting installation to the song with a partner. My partner Bradly and me decided on a range of stuff, my ideas were we should have disco colours, neon colours as it would show its a 90s song, Bradly thought that we should have flashing lights that go with the beat and how it will make it more exciting. Another idea I had from doing research was use a gobo with spots and have two colours at the same time which would make it more alive.
Lighting Part 2: Throughout the week I did research on the chosen video 'Relight my fire', I did this by looking at the video again and again and make notes on the different colours using in specific verses or lines. For example I noticed that in the beginning of the video the music opens up in a specific way, it starts with two people walking and as they open a door, from it comes a bright white light with the music along side it, I thought that this was a way for the video to invite it's audience and tell them 'the party has began'. As well as observing the video, I took in consideration that it gave out a disco fever type of atmosphere mostly due to the colours. The disco sound is made up of "four on the floor beats", syncopated bass lines, string sections,horns, electric piano, synthesizers and electric rhythm guitars, from reading this I thought that the music video contained those features, because of that I started to look at the disco genre and different music videos such as "Night Fever" and "Bogie Wonderland", although the video relight my fire is set in a night club, it created the mood of disco due to the colours used in lighting.
We began by getting straight in to it, this time I was given somebody else to work, Adam, he helped me a lot as I was very new to this and had never done anything like it before. I was told the basics and on working on the lighting machine and how to program my own lighting cue, it was so much fun I was definitely scare at first but as soon as I understood the mechanics of it I did pretty well. I was shown the spread sheet of the theatre and all the lights and how to use it. At first I wanted to create a story using lighting so I used the side lights to create a dim and dark mood effect and then used the LEDs to create a bright light to show hope followed by a black out, finally I ended with a rainbow in background using the gels and I thought that for my first time I managed to produce a good lighting program.
Moving on to the project Adam and I thought that we should make the lights have some kind of reaction to the beats so we began using lights to create that effect. In the beginning of the song relight my fire the beat is very quick so we used the side lights to create flashes to compliment the beats but it still looked bland so I decided to add colours in the background to liven it up more and it was effective. We used different colours as the beat repeated to show the repetition. Then I wanted to incorporate some of my ideas such as using the gobos and then Adam said to use the gobos and the movers and it looked fantastic, looking at the lighting sequence that we created as an audience member I enjoyed it and it gave me the feeling of disco which is what I was aiming for and it made me want to dance.
To evaluate I thought that overall everything that I created with my partner's help was excellent but there was more that I could have done to make it look breath taking like use gradients and maybe the disco ball to literally present the idea of disco into the atmosphere.
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