Lighting state 4

The aim of this lighting state is to first establish we are in a new time, and secondly to introduce our second season- summer.We wanted to maintain our theme of sun position and cyc establishing the time of day, or life. We believed that summer was the teenage, high paced years of a persons life and tried to show this through bright, warm and positive colours.

To achieve the time of day we wanted to position a warm yellow sun at the highest center point of our cyc and took the cold blue flood out, leaving a warm sunny skyline, this immediately establishes mid day its warm,its bright and this should have raised spirits within our audience. However we never made it this far.

We decided within a group discussion that although the seasons change, in the early stages elements of the previous season still remain. To show this we decided to keep our 'tree's' in as they were.

Lighting state 3

In this third lighting state we wished to progress more with our idea of birth or rebirth being a part of spring. Our aim was to bring to life flowers or trees on stage to provide a more literal element of our piece.

The flowers were achieved by placing cut umbrella's on the stage. The inspiration for this idea comes from a previous production i was involved in where they are used to the same effect (see pic above). We then used profiles and spot lighted our 'trees' using branched gobo's and vibrant floral coloured gels. Although we did not see this in effect within the correct lighting states, i feel that we really did bring our tree's to life within the piece in a powerful and exciting way and had it all come together at the right time i beleive we would have fully achieved our aim within this lighting state.

Lighting state 2

This lighting state see's the introduction of more specials added to our wash. Our aim within this state is to establish our idea of time representing seasons.

With a profile rigged withing the cat walk we aim to create the image of a sun rising through placing an orange circle on the lower section of cyc. We felt that this would give our audience a time of day reference for spring with that time being early morning. However due to the lack of focusing, when we reached this stage the sun was not positioned correctly and therefore the effect and reference was lost.

We wished to provide further visual interest and create a skyline to match our season and sun rise. To achieve this we aimed to place a cold blue gel in one flood light, another warm orange gel in a separate flood and light the cyc. At the right intensity we should have been able to create a warm spring morning with a little of winter still present. Again this is not what we achieved as by performance we had not programmed our lighting cues thus far.

Lighting State 1

Our first lighting state is the introduction of spring. Running with our theme we aim to create the idea of new life without drifting away from the colours and image of spring.

In order to achieve this we first created a wash of colours we associate with spring. Within a group discussion we decided we like the idea of delicate colours to match nature during this time of year. We tried to achieve this through our 3 point wash by placing a light blue, rose and green gels in our 3 fresnels.

In addition to this we wished to create the image of rebirth as a metaphor for flowers rise in spring and the birth stage of life. To achieve this we placed two par cans on stands directed at the audience. By fading in the intensity with the wash the audience are momentarily blinded by the par cans white light before being able to see the world we have created on stage the audience should feel a slight overwhelming or sublime, an new experience or being reborn into our piece.

During performance we had not focused our parcans or backstage fresnel, therefore the wash did not achieve its full potential and our par cans blinded our audience on what was probably an almost dangerous level for the duration of our first cue immediatly creating discomfort and a negative atmosphere to start the show. I do believe however that had we focused the lights properly we would have achieved our aim for this state.

ground and lighting plan

The concept of our piece is to create the 4 seasons in a visual and entertaining way in the attempt to provoke the emotions felt during each season.
We decided that each season was like a stage of life from birth to death and tried to incoporate this element of seasons growing and changing over time.

We aim to create washes through a 3 point lighting plan with our fresnels and had to add an additional 2 to the front so that we can change the washes with seasons.


The stars represent umbrella's which will be explained in a seperate post and these will be lit by the profiles above them.

We have floods to create a skyline and add a temperature to each season. These will work with the 3 profiles placed in the catwalk to create a sun positioned on the cyc.

The par cans are placed on stands and directed towards the audience for reasons explained later.

Lighting cue sheet

Introduction to Theatre Making 3

After being taught the correct procedures and given some information about lanterns and the differences in functions and purposes we were divided into groups again and asked to produce a brief lighting rig and performance to show what we had learnt.

After learning from our mistake the week before our group decided to go with simplicity. We quickly drew up a lighting plan that involved a 3 point general cover using fresnels to use a wash for the section of the stage we were working on for our first lighting state.

Having rigged these we decided we wanted to highlight our chair within the piece from 45 degrees in front of and above. This created a shadow behind the chair and closed the space for our second lighting state.

Our third and final lighting state saw the introduction of a par can from a side bar. With the barn doors we were able to open up the light to again open the space but from a new perspective when used with the profile. It also moved the shadow of the chair heightening a visual interest for our audience.

Again with the introduction of colour and more lighting states i feel we can progress from what we discovered during this practical.