Dim lighting, or light in unnatural colors and from unusual directions is always great for a spooky effect.Įstablishing mood is often confusing for a beginning designer. Bright, colorful lights create a festive, party atmosphere. Strong, white, overhead lighting can suggest a serious, workplace or institutional mood. Lighting can also establish or enhance a mood. In a haunted house, the creepy exhibits are brightly lit, while the patrons wander in the dark.
In a nightclub, for example, the dance floor is usually brightly and colorfully lit, while the tables are isolated in their own separate "islands" of light. Using light to define space is also useful outside of the theater. More subtly, a lighting designer can give the impression of two separate locations on stage at the same time, simply by isolating them in separate pools of light. This is most obvious in theatre, where the stage is brightly lit and the auditorium is darkened. A lighting design that doesn't provide illumination is like a chair without a seat no matter how pretty it may be, it is still basically useless.Īnother function that light serves is to define space. While this may seem painfully obvious now, it can be easy to forget when one is confronted with a huge selection of lighting fixtures. The first and most important function of light is to provide illumination. This week, I'd like to take a look at the functions of light in entertainment. Similarly, when a lighting designer sets out to design lighting for a theatrical production, haunted attraction, or nightclub, he has a set of functions that lighting serves and a choice of components to meet those functions. We can judge the effectiveness of the chair's design by how well it fulfills those functions. His decisions will be affected by which functions he feels are important, and which less so. During design process, he chooses components to serve those functions. For example, when a carpenter sets out to make a new chair, he has in mind a set of functions a chair can serve (provide a place to sit, be comfortable, be pleasing to the eye) as well as a set of components he can use (legs, seat, and back). It doesn't have to be.Īt the most basic level, all design can be expressed in one phrase design is making choices. What do you think of when you think about lighting? Often, when I speak to non-designers, they talk about lighting design as if it were an arcane and mystical art.
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