Lights

Lights can set the mood and affect the layout of a scene through the use of beam color, intensity, shape and position. Just as colors affect design parts, beam colors can lend a feeling of warmth or coolness to the scene. A beams's intensity, shape and position help to establish a specific part of the design as having the focal point of the scene.

Lighting is great fun! It can change a design into a scene. Here, lights create golden sands, palm trees, and a comet-filled sky for a spot-lit Cleopatra.

Lantern Types

The cyclorama lantern shares its name with the flat curtain found upstage which it is often used to light. Although it consists of only a reflector and a lamp, a cyclorama can paint beautiful colors on large areas. The shape of the reflector and the lamp determines the characteristic of the beam. A symmetrical reflector produces a beam which is equally distributed above and below the horizontal axis of the lamp. An asymmetrical reflector is well-suited for lighting the cyclorama curtain.

The PAR (parabolic aluminized reflector) lantern produces an intense, oval-shaped beam which can be rotated to cause the beam to appear tall or wide. Gels placed at the front of a PAR affect the beam's color. Unlike other lanterns, the beam is created in a sealed unit which contains the lamp, lens and a parabolic reflector. The shape of the reflector and the placement of the light filament affects the width of the beam. PARs are usually positioned above the stage or in the stage wings to create color washes.

The Fresnel is noted for the soft beam it creates, a Fresnel lantern is easily identified by the stepped concentric rings at its lens' surface. The beam's width is adjusted by changing the distance between the lamp and the lens. The intensity of the beam is brightest at the center of the lens and darkest toward its edges. Gels placed at the front of a Fresnel affect the beam's color. Barn doors are used to shape the beam.

The beam produced by a pebble convex is not as soft as a Fresnel. However, it is softer tha a profile's. The beam's width is adjustable like the Fresnel's, and barn doors are used to shape the beam. If a Plano-Convex lens is associated with this lantern, the beam has a sharp edge. Gels placed at the front of this lantern affect the beam's color. The lens' exterior has a pebbled surface.

There are two types of profile lanterns: the fixed beam spot and the zoom spot. The fixed beam spot offers superior optical characteristics, but its beam width is less variable than the zoom spot. Both lantern types include shutters, gobo and iris slots to shape the beam. Gels placed at the front of a profile affect the beam's color. The device adjacent to the profile lantern is called an iris. It is used to reduce the beam's diameter.

Gobos

When a gobo is inserted into a profile lantern, the lantern's beam takes on the shape of the gobo. Can you see, by looking at a light beam's path, why a gobo must be inserted upside-down and backwards in to the lantern in order for the gobo to be displayed correctly?

Positions

Just like in a real theater, lanterns may be positioned above the stage, in the stage wings or in the house. Lanterns above the stage are called electrics. Booms and tabs are in the wings. Lanterns in the house may be positioned below an opera box, recessed into the walls on either side of the audience, hidden in the ceiling or clamped to the balcony railing.