Stage lighting is an art form. It’s used to illuminate a performance venue and make an impact on an event, giving visual direction and shaping the environment.
Stage lighting can help you capture the audience’s attention and enhance stage production in a number of ways.
The right stage lighting can:
Illuminate the stage: The most basic objective for stage lighting is to illuminate the performers, sets, and props so the audience can clearly see everything they’re meant to see onstage. Inadequate lighting can take away from production. For example, dim light will make it harder for actors’ facial expressions to come through — even for audience members seated close to the stage. Illumination is also important for the people on stage, so they can see where they’re going and see the other dancers, actors, or musicians.
Highlight different areas: Stage lighting can also help you direct audience members’ eyes to where they should go. In the most dramatic instances, the majority of a stage may be dark with just one spotlight shining on a focal point. In many other instances, the lighting engineer can start with a wash, which covers a wide area and acts as a base layer of light. Then, they can use accenting to guide the audience’s attention to a particular area, like a speaker in the foreground.
Set the scene: Lighting can also help you create the visuals you want in a scene. In some instances, this means creating optical illusions with lights. You may use a moving light to make it appear as though the sun is rising, or make the stage go dark as an actor flips a prop light switch in a room. You can also use backlit scrims to create the illusion of a starry night, a sunny day, or even a fire.
Control the mood: Stage lighting can also have a major effect on the mood. The idea is to match the lighting to the content of the show to encourage the right emotions in the audience. This could mean a soft, warm glow for a happy scene in a play or dim, cool hues for a sad ballad during a concert. Certain colors are associated with different moods. For example, blue is often associated with sadness, and red is associated with intense feelings, as love or aggression.
In using different colored lights to illuminate a scene, lighting color design combination skills:
Monochromatic: A monochromatic color scheme is limited to different shades of the same color. This is a good choice when you want to keep the lighting simple or emphasize one color.
Complementary: Complementary colors are opposite of each other on the color wheel. Pairing these opposites together is a good way to create contrast. For example, you could pair blue and yellow or red and green. You couldn’t layer complementary colors because they will create muddy hues.
3in1: Can use three different colors in a scene for more visual variety. When these colors create a triangle on the color wheel, the color scheme is known as a triad.
Adjacent colors: By pairing adjacent colors — that is, colors next to each other on the color wheel — can create a faded effect from one color to the next.
Cool or warm colors: You can also invoke a certain mood and color theme by combining colors of the same temperature. For example, combining red, orange, and yellow can make the scene feel warm.
The colorful stage light will have 7 colors produced by simply turning on or off each of the RGB beams. The colors are red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet, and white.
The full-color stage light allows the individual RGB beams so that just about any color or intensity can be produced.
We’ll meet with your team for an in-depth consultation where we discuss your goals and parameters for a lighting design project and learn more about your venue. We can then create an original lighting design that is customized for your stage and your goals.