by Stephen Ellison
I chose to start with the basics in this series of articles, the physics behind understanding fixture placement. Lighting as an art form is relatively new compared to the art of painting. When I was young and in art class, we were taught to appreciate how the artist depicted lighting and intensity. The most important thing I learned in that class was about intensity and where you first look. The eye is drawn to look first at the brightest spot on the painting.
I keep this in mind as in all my designs, and this influences the choice of where to place fixtures. I have been reading, hearing, and seeing too much emphasis on front lighting. While light that lights the front of a person is important, this is the last fixture I turn on when painting the picture. I consider myself an artist, and my medium is light. I therefore was taught to paint a picture using light. The picture in this article is the cue for the sermon, so all the fixtures are for that purpose. In the next article we will go into the worship lighting.
If you are going to paint a picture you start with the background and end with the foreground. So, the first place to start placing fixtures is upstage, or the back wall. Lighting the back is all about fixtures that have good color mixing, coverage, and soft focus. This is where we can paint in broad strokes and set the mood.
As a lighting designer you are responsible for a few things:
- Illumination
- Focus
- Mood
When you start the painting, you are setting the mood with the background color, it’s intensity and purity. While Illumination is very important, creating a strong color base will drastically help set the Mood. The color choice for the base helps with both strong moods and subtle one’s, it is our understanding of the color to set the mood that is important. Be careful of getting trapped by conventional color representing a mood. The best example is the color red, red can be anger or it can be love, you have to know when and how much to use for the mood you are trying to express.
Back to fixture placement, the background fixtures are the most flexible in placement. You can set them on the floor or at the ceiling. At this time, you would also add in fixtures which enhance the architecture or the set. A nice even wash over the back wall is useful but you may only be given the edges of the wall around a screen or video wall; here you may want to use angles of wash.
Moving onto lighting the platform, starting upstage you want to add fixtures to provide back light. Back light is used to define the people from the background. In this time of video streaming back light is very important to giving the audience of the video the illusion that the people are three-dimensional. Even if you choose to light them with a complimentary color to the background they will stand out because of the light on the head and shoulders. Depending on the depth of the stage you may need more than one row of them, so allow a row for every 10 feet. In the sermon cue you only need the row covering the downstage. It is important to check the focus of this row by sitting in the front row of seats. You do not want to be blinding that row of seats. These fixtures may need to be almost directly down in angle if the first row is close to the platform, and the Pastor walks close to the edge.
The next set of lights are the most important, yet the one’s most often left out. There is a famous book that came out in 1932, “A Method of Lighting the Stage”, by Stanley McCandless. This method employs nine to eleven fixtures and is dominated by the front lights at a 45° to the performer, thus you must have at least two fixtures. I have found that what is achieved by this method can be better achieved with good sidelight. The problem I see in a lot of churches is areas of light and dark as the Pastor walks from one side of the stage to the other. They are not moving up and down stage just side to side. Properly installed side lights will create this corridor and provide an even wash across the stage with less fixtures.
Front lighting by itself is the cause of most variations of intensity along that corridor. Frequently the choice of fixture for the front light is a spotlight, one that can focus so that you can use shutters to cut light off of places, like the front of the platform, that you don’t want it. This ability to focus is also the reason for intensity dips. The light produces a field that has an even amount of light across the whole beam. When you use them from the front you need to overlap them just enough to eliminate any drops in intensity while also not overlapping enough not to have dips.
Here is where the side lights play a significant role. Back to our painting, as we add fixtures into the cue starting at the back we add the back light and then the sidelight. If you stop there and look at a person you will find that the sidelight has almost totally illuminated the face leaving a line down the nose not lit. When you then add in the front lights you will find that you need less intensity to fill in where the side light ends and also fill in the shadows in the face. Now as someone walks across the platform the changes in light levels will not be a distraction, and the video will be improved.
When you hang the front lights use one fixture for every ten feet of platform width plus one. This way you can start at the center and then evenly space out on either side. Another trick is to add a Light Frost gel after you have focused to improve the blending. If you do not have to worry about light spill you may want to use a soft edge fixture such as a Fresnel or PAR, they will blend much easier and with Barndoors you can keep them from spilling everywhere.
Stephen has been involved in lighting since running a followspot in 7th grade. He received a BFA in Lighting Design from North Carolina School of the Arts and has worked in the industry ever since. For the last 26 years he has specialized in House of Worship lighting design, teaching at conferences and trade shows, and writing articles in various trade magazines. He was the lighting editorial advisor for 10 years to Technologies for Worship Magazine. He has been working as Technical Sales Specialist for The Light Source for the last 6 years. He is an ETCP Certified Theatre Rigger and Entertainment Electrician.
