The Lighting Design Process

This video was completed during the coronavirus quarantine.

I am at a point in the semester where ordinarily, I spend two or three classes in one of our theatre spaces experimenting with lights. One of the goals is to bring beginning theatre students to an understanding of how a lighting design is often composed of washes and specials, and what those terms mean. I also try to create and understanding of the light plot, the hang, and the focus as merely being the preface to the actual art of the lighting design, which happens when we create and run cues with the rest of the company.

Since there is no way to bring my students together in a theatre space right now, I have turned to some of my virtual tools. I have a virtual theatre complex that I built many years ago. I use the spaces within it to demonstrate concepts in various tools and videos.

Today I made a ten-minute video that, hopefully, makes up for a lot of the demonstration that I usually am able to do. I made this for my Intro to Theatre Design class, which is composed of undergraduate B.A. students emphasize all aspects of theatre, not just design and technology.

It should be very suitable for high school students as well as university.