LIGHTING BASICS

Wow, that could be a whole book about lighting basics! I suppose it depends on what you want to do. Band & Stage lighting are very different from club/disco lighting. But here are a few pointers.

Most lighting now runs with DMX as its control protocol, older stuff on 0+10v analogue (0-10v for old strand kit). Pro lighting kit will mainly use 5 pin DMX, but 3 pin is what most cheaper & club style units use.  (5pin is stated as being the excepted pro standard in both the 1990 & 2008 ETTA/PLASA DMX standards documents)
You have two general sections to lighting, generics (par cans, fresnels, profile spots, floods) and Intelligent (moving heads, waggly mirrors, club fx). Though we now have a third which crosses over the two, that being L.E.D. stuff.
Generic stuff need Dimmers (or switch packs) for the stuff to work, Intelligent and LED need just 'hot' (always live) power with a control signal.
Both dimmers and intelligent lighting can be run from the same control source, either a nice desk or as seems to be a growing direction, via a program like Magic Q on a PC/laptop with a DMX dongle attached (normally a USB to DMX device/box).
All desks/dongles DMX runs with 512 channels per universe (one output from the desk) so a desk with 4 DMX outs has 4 universes with a total of 2048 channels available to control.
A group of units (light or dimmers) running from one universe (out to in to out to in  etc.) is called a string and the very last out  MUST have a DMX terminator in it (this help the digital signal no end, trust me).

Some other basic stuff, always have a safety chain/wire in all lights hanging (that is rated to take the weight of said unit). The colour in the front of generic lights is called GEL (LEE & ROSCO are the two main manufacturers).

Got loads more info in me head, but this will do for now.

Cheers
Ben


Edited by Preacher - 11 January 2009 at 8:06pm

That terminators bit reminds me of old SCSI chains in servers, nowadays the drives/controllers are intelligent ennogh to know they are at the end. Surley DMX stuff has got that sorted?

nickyburnell wrote: That terminators bit reminds me of old SCSI chains in servers, nowadays the drives/controllers are intelligent ennogh to know they are at the end. Surley DMX stuff has got that sorted?

is there a place were i can get a list of what does what /when/ how

Edited by TRE4U2NV - 11 January 2009 at 10:19pm

any links gents

Bit more.

When lighting a stage it is lit from several angles/positions. You have: Front, side, back & top light. In theatre a lighting designer will place each light in very specific places, to do specific jobs, lighting actors and sets and either trying to look dramatic or make the scene look like real life. So unless your looking to do theatre stuff I wont go into all of that, it takes years to learn properly.
In Band lighting, a lighting designer will do a similar thing, but the actual lights themselves and their beams become part of the experience, being dramatic or even being the set. With loads of 'mid-air' beams dancing about, changing colour etc.
So for bands it is generally loads of Back light doing beam shapes etc, a bit of side light doing the same, and maybe a bit to light the band. Not much top light unless dramatic effects are needed, some front light to light the faces of the band, drum kit, keyboard, brass section etc., and usually a couple of follow spots on the band as they move about so you can still see them whatever the rest of the lights are doing. Also a lot of the time the lights are used for their projector properties, making effects on the band, or back drop (this stems from the 60s light shows). And is sometime called as being 'artie'!
Another band lighting thing is lighting the audience, with blinders. Bands love seeing the audience, and this can also add good dramatic effect to the music.
Now ware you place the lights, to do what you want is down to you. You should look at other rigs/shows and see how others have done it. Also experiment with positions, moving a light a few feet can make a big difference. But you must remember that once set, you will have to get several (loads) of different looks from them to keep the whole gig looking good. This is part of the reason why we ended up with moving lights, as you needed hundreds of par cans to do loads of different looks. Which took loads of power, dimmers etc. and loads of truck space on tours.
Light don't always have to be in the air/hung on truss. I love putting lights on the floor, or short side booms (scaff poles with bases or short bit of truss standing on end).

Lighting bigger band tours is an art form, with loads of planning, and  talks with  the band/artist giving input in how they want their music to 'look'.  This is why many LD's like working with smaller bands, as you get to do a lot more of what you want!