Lighting Design 101

In this day and age, lighting design has become one of the integral parts of a concert/theater/production tour's success.  A well designed show can have people all across the country talking about how great the production is.  That word of mouth is an important part of a tour or artist's success.

For me, concert lighting is about making a performer seem larger than life.  If a designer accomplishes this, the audience will be wowed by the production.  I'm not talking about taking the focus off of the performer, but instead enhancing the performance with solid looks and impeccable timing.  The looks of the show are important; however, I think the most important part is the execution of those looks.  If a designer creates a great look and overuses it, that becomes boring to me.  With today's moving light technology, there is so much that can be done that the same look shouldn't be seen more than a half-dozen times within a 2 hour show.  Another thing that typically happens on tours of today is the overuse of video walls and content.  I'm all for using content to enhance the show, but when the continuous content causes the cues that are executed perfectly with the rhythm of the music to be lost then it's overbearing.  Here's a show that I did recently with Bobby Rush that used NO video, whatsoever.  I was pretty happy with the final outcome.

Many times looks can be related to the feeling or lyrics of a song.  For example, when I was 17 I was on a mini-tour with Sammy Kershaw.  Sammy has a song called "Matches" about arson (not really LOL).  I was using a par rig on the show and for that particular song (which was a ballad) I used deep reds and ambers from the top during the verses and added some blues from the bottom during the choruses.  Simple effect that painted a picture for the audience.  One of the best looking shows in the recent past has to be the Brad Paisley show from 3 years ago.  Dean Spurlock was the designer and added a lot of custom content to the show.  If a designer can use video to add to the lighting show and help the audience understand what the artist is trying to accomplish with a song, then I think video should be added into a show.

Ticks - Brad Paisley Live, Lighting Design by Dean Spurlock

Not the best quality, but notice the ticks on the video wall.  This entire show had references like this and was well thought out.  At one point, during the song "Whiskey Lullaby" an image of Allison Krauss is displayed during the duet.  I thought that was a very thought out addition and added to an incredibly designed show.

That same painting a picture principle can be used in theater productions.  My favorite example of good lighting in a theater production is the Broadway version of Disney's "The Lion King".  The designer painted a picture during the entire production.  The night scenes used a lot of blues and deep lavs.  The daylight scenes used more reds and ambers and yellows.  Overall, a phenomenal production that left me stunned and wanting to see it again just to marvel at how well the design was executed.

I had the privilege of designing for Miss Mississippi and Miss Georgia USA recently.  I know, I have a tough job, right.  The group came into Harrah's in Tunica, which is my home venue.  Since they rented the room, we provided all of the equipment that we had on hand for them.  With that production-style show I had to paint a picture like a theater designer would and also create some well-executed looks for the production dance numbers that the girls did.  So that show utilized a little of the theater side of things and a little of the concert side of things.  Sorry guys, no pictures.

Flexibility is key.  When we took the show to Georgia, I adjusted the design to fit an entirely different venue.  In Mississippi, I had an arena setting with 24 moving yoke fixtures and about 40 LED's at my disposal, not to mention all of the conventionals.  In Georgia, we were in a High School theater (a nice one mind you) that was a little out of my comfort zone.  I brought 6 moving yoke fixtures with me as a floor package and there were barely enough conventionals to make any washes that could be used.  So, I created a couple of no color specials and 4 color washes of red, amber, blue, and congo blue (UV) and made the show happen.  Didn't look as good as Mississippi, but overall I would consider it a success.