Lighting Designers' Secrets

We all know lighting designers have a few tricks up their sleeves—that’s how they continually manage to astound us with their luminary feats. But do these masters of illumination have any words of wisdom for those of us who are uninitiated in the mysterious arts of their trade? Do they ever.

The Higher the Ceiling, the Better

It seems like time and time again these days, we are going into venues that just are not suited for the show. One of the biggest problems I encounter as a lighting designer is the mix of video lighting and rigging. These usually have a lot to do with each other for events. Most corporate shows these days need to be approached as if we are lighting for television, which means that most of our lighting is going to be “white” (as opposed to lighting for the stage, which is generally pinkish), and without the proper trim height with proper rigging, stage and room layout, there is the potential to destroy the look of a beautiful set with all the white light on the speaker washing out the lighting on the set behind him or her.

One of my upcoming shows is a prime example of this. There is a 15-foot-high by 50-foot-wide screen directly behind the stage. The ceiling height is 18 feet. The stage is 12 feet deep and the screen is right up on the back of it. The nearest points in the room for me to hang a front-light truss are 35 feet from the stage. If you want to light the stage from that position, almost half of the screen will be blasted with white light. The front light cannot be dimmed because the screen behind the talent would be dark in the IMAG (image magnification) shot.

The features planners need to look for in a venue depend on what they want to do. If they want a big screen such as the one described above, they need to make sure there can be enough distance between the talent and the screen so that the lighting on the former will not compromise the lighting on the latter, while still leaving enough room for all seating. There should also be a place in the room that gives a good angle for lighting. Every set or concept is a little different, but a good rule of thumb is the higher the ceiling, the better.

—Chris Hammond, lighting designer/production designer

Don’t be Afraid of new Digital Technology

Southwest Show: This event, with production design by Southwest Show Tech, is so alive it practically jumps off the page, thanks to a Catalyst media server, programmed by Chris Hammond.The newer digital technology, such as Catalyst media servers, is a very powerful tool programmed by lighting designers/programmers to really bring a show to life. There seems to be a fear about using it, which is perhaps due to people simply not being familiar with the equipment or believing that the cost will be too high. This is just not true. If you think it through carefully, your actual set can be relatively cheap and you can use that money to bring it to life with lighting. When we use the digital media with projection, the possibilities are endless. You can be in a city one minute or a forest the next, among other features I don’t have the space to write here!

—Chris Hammond, lighting designer/production designer

Light Your Tables Right

Table-Lighting: With this lighting, the food will look as exquisite as the tables.

Everybody has pinspotted tables either using pinspot light bars or a very narrow par lens to highlight or even light up the tables. Now, this is a relatively inexpensive way of doing tables, but the more elegant—though costlier—way is to actually use a leko or ellipsoidal unit, which allow greater adjustment and focus, along with a gobo that contains a break-up pattern. This method not only lights up the table beautifully but gives it texture as well, rather than straight, harsh lights. The best gobo to use is a heavy-leaf gobo, such as the Rosco 77102 Abstract Leaves and Lee 151 Gel Roll (Gold Tint) or Apollo 7050 (Fatherless Amber). The trick is to first focus the gobo on the table—but not too sharp. Focus right in the middle between perfect and fuzzy, and then use the iris to make the light just spill on the table and slightly on the chairs. This will give any centerpiece and tablecloth the right texture to make it feel as if you are eating under a tree. I suggest the gold tint because it is the best tone to light food—it has the right amount of amber to make the potatoes look fresh, the vegetables seem like they have just been picked and the meat or chicken look succulent. Also, keep the intensity level at about 45 percent—this way it doesn’t overpower the guests.

—Noah Hammer, principal and senior designer, Infinite Designs

Balance Colors That Look Good With Colors That Make you Look Good

This event gets the gold medal—with its golden hues, it’s both beautiful to look at and beautiful to be seen in.There are beautiful colors to look at and beautiful colors to be seen in. An environment should have three main attributes: It should be beautiful to look at (the wow moment); it should be beautiful to be in, making everyone feel fantastic; and it should make everyone look their absolute best. As simple as this may sound, it’s not—and it’s primarily about color. Colors such as purples, blues and greens are lovely to look at, but do not flatter the skin. Colors that make people look their best (ambers, pinks, peaches, honeys and apricots) are pleasant to look at, but not necessarily the most dramatic. So the idea is to craft an environment that creates a dramatic and beautiful atmosphere while at the same time creating a flattering one.
—Bentley Meeker, president, Bentley Meeker Lighting & Staging Inc.

The 0 Solution to 3-D Lighting

The use of haze at a headliner stage creates dimensional shafts of light. Courtesy: Southwest Show Tech Inc.In these days of virtual reality and 3-D interactive gaming, it is increasingly difficult to win guests’ attention. But one tried and true method is to use a variety of different haze and fog generators to bring true three-dimensional presence to the shafts and rays of light emitting from each lighting fixture. Even the simple gobo with some haze in the room will bring true dimension to any event.

—Jonathan Martin, principal designer, Southwest Show Tech Inc.

Tell us About Your Budget

Let your lighting designer in on your budget—whether your event takes place at the Ritz-Carlton, as did this event, produced with J & S Audio Visual Inc., or a less ritzy location. Courtesy: R. Wright ProductionsOne secret is to communicate the ins and outs of your budget. For the smaller budgets, with events such as awards shows and dinners, lighting designers can create textures and colors that will project onto the tables or audience area, which can enhance an environment and the mood you want your audience to be in. You can accomplish this with the simple means of multiple (depending on the size of the area you are working with) ellipsoidal fixtures with break-up gobos and colored gels shooting over the audience with a little atmospherics, like a hazer to help display the beam effect. For the bigger budgets, options include intelligent moving lights, which can perform the same looks in a more advanced way, but with the added feature of movement.

—Robert Wright, event production manager, lighting designer, audio engineer and consultant, R. Wright Productions

Tight Schedules Don’t Have to Impact Creativity

The use of lighting ‘previsualization’ can dramatically increase the lighting designer’s ability to adjust to challenging schedules. Previsualization uses a 3-D model of the scenery or décor and proprietary lighting rendering techniques to allow lighting designers and creative team members to program the entire show “off-line” with incredible realism and accuracy. This greatly reduces the time spent on-site to program lighting and allows a higher degree of creative flexibility when faced with tight schedules. Less time spent programming on-site also helps manage labor costs, and allows for adjustments to be made before the lighting system is installed. This technology is equally applicable to business theater, themed events, exhibits and concerts.

Courtesy: Lightswitch, Inc.


For example, everything from a simple study in lighting angles…

…to a full “photo-realistic” image of the lighting can be produced. And this is a rendering, not a real photo!!

Rendering: Courtesy: Lightswitch, Inc.

The previsualization model…




before

…and the real thing!

after

—John Featherstone, principal and senior designer, Lightswitch Inc.

Airwall Hangers are an Affordable Alternative

Airwall hangers, such as those pictured above, can be used instead of rigging or pipe and base. Courtesy: Noah HammerThe airwall hanger is one of the best-kept secrets in the corporate events industry. Occasionally I’m in a venue that has no rigging points in the ceiling, or there is no budget for motors and riggers, so I look to the airwall hanger. This innovative piece of equipment helps to either hang fixtures directly on it, or you can use two of them with a pipe to create a lighting position in almost any airwall track in the world. Since airwall itself weighs almost 500 pounds per panel, hooking these hangers with even three lekos still weighs less than the wall. I use them mostly if I am in a ballroom with low ceiling heights, if there is no rigging available or even as a cable run to go to the dimmer racks. There are different makes of airwall hangers, but the most popular is Aluma-Lok, which is the only kind that will not affect the airwall’s warranty. So if you are looking for an affordable way of spreading light either on a stage or to highlight tables around a small ballroom but don’t have the budget for rigging or do not want to see ugly pipe and base around the room, this is the way to go.

—Noah Hammer, principal and senior designer, Infinite Designs

Don’t Forget the Outside!

In this example, large-format projection is used to turn the hotel where the event is staged into a giant canvas for event- and brand-specific projection. Photos Courtesy: Lightswitch, Inc.

Often the first impression guests have of an event is the facility’s exterior. Lighting and projection can help build a sense of excitement before guests even set foot in the building. Not every project is appropriate for this approach, but in many cases exterior lighting and projection can be used to ‘own’ the building, add excitement and heighten the impact of the event. Large-format exterior projection can be surprisingly affordable for the impact it delivers, and architectural lighting can bring a building to life with color.

—John Featherstone, principal and senior designer, Lightswitch Inc.

Amp Up Your Event Space With LEDs

sst-led: Here, LED fixtures are used as interior color-changers inside a curved metal bar. Courtesy: Southwest Show Tech Inc.Not since the advent of automated lighting have we seen a greater renaissance in the theatrical lighting and video industries. High-intensity light emitting diodes (LEDs) are now available in a seemingly endless palette of professional-quality theatrical and display fixtures.
The original LEDs have long been used in the event industry as novelties, such as the ever-popular glowing plastic ice cubes and as interior illumination of translucent props. Originally designed for the architectural markets, this new generation of LED fixtures is now available as professional-quality, programmable theatrical lighting fixtures. Compact, lightweight and rugged, these fixtures are easy to transport and require minimal labor on-site. Multicolor LED fixtures allow smooth color mixing and a high efficacy of light output to power usage. Perhaps the greatest advantage is the ability to plug eight units or more into a normal 20-amp wall circuit, greatly reducing power consumption charges from the venue. Rechargeable battery packs are also available for LED units for those applications in which access to power is scarce, such as a tent or table centerpiece.

You can use these fixtures for a wide variety of applications, including colored wall washes, foliage uplighting, truss toners, color-changing pinspots, stage washes, signage lighting and full-scale furniture illumination.

—Jonathan Martin, principal designer, Southwest Show Tech Inc.

Use Lighting to Create Mood

Mood is created by contrast. It is, very simply, sculpting with light. When lighting an event, there are things that are striking (and not so striking) about our environment. A crown molding, fresco, frieze or perhaps even tattered wallpaper is better left in the shadows. Our eye is drawn to and adjusts to the brightest object in its field of vision. Highlighting elements that have been brought in—flowers, bands, dance floors, etc.—draws the eye to objects that we want visible in our environment, and in so doing, hides the things we don’t want seen. Too much contrast, however, will detract from an environment (how often is something too bright?), and light in one’s eyes can be very uncomfortable. That is primarily about angles. I have a rule that I like the lights to be just a little lower than I think they should be—the eye will adjust, and as long as it’s safe, it’s very sexy to have the moodiness.

—Bentley Meeker, president, Bentley Meeker Lighting & Staging Inc.

Get a Backup Generator

Always consider a backup generator to your main generator. This should be seen as an insurance policy. Generators are mechanical machines just like the car you drive to work, and there is always the possibility that it can fail without warning, no matter how reputable your supplier is. I usually ask myself or my client the following: What are the repercussions if the generator does not recover? Are there any security risks? Is this a high-profile event? Is there enough shore (facility) power to keep the essential areas powered? If asked, many generator suppliers will extend a discount for backup generators up to half-off if they are not used—which is your goal. And if they are, it may end up being a lifesaver.
—Curtis E. Stahl, co-owner, Images by Lighting

Enhance the Overall Look With Ceiling Washes

Because this hotel foyer didn’t offer much space for décor, Digital Lightning used break-up pattern gobos on the ceiling in blue to create a ceiling wash and uplighted the walls in gold to give the space an “event” feel.Ceiling washes are one way to enhance your event with lighting. This type of lighting is very popular so that the room feels totally complete. As in other forms of decorative lighting, color on the ceiling will add to the overall look of the room. Special looks can be achieved via break-up patterns (subtle or intense), which ultimately become a form of artwork. Light reflects off of an all-white or light-colored ceiling to bathe the room or tent in a glow. For taller ceilings, patterns can be used to tie the ceiling into the event.

—Vincent DiGiorgio, president, Digital Lightning

It’s Never too Early to Engage a Designer

When you hire a lighting designer, you are paying for their experience, expertise, creativity and ideas. The earlier you can engage a designer in the creative process, the more value you will get from the talents you are paying for. Likewise, if you hire other creative consultants—scenic designers, décor designers and so on—take maximum advantage of your team’s skills. Encourage collaborative brainstorming, open communication, and the free flow of ideas, and challenge the team to exceed your expectations.

—John Featherstone, principal and senior designer, Lightswitch Inc.