Lighting Basics

To do basic stage lighting you only need one thing. You need lights. Ok, so lights is plural. For proper lighting you need to light the person from three angles. I have gotten by with two angles, but the proper way is with three. You only need three for the purpose of reducing the shadows on the person being lit. Sounds pretty simple till the person starts moving. The person moving around on the stage is one of the reasons why there are always so many lights hanging from the bars. The other reason is you may want some color to bring out different aspects on your stage. Coloring on the stage is a different topic which I will post at a later time.

When it come to basic lighting on the stage you don't want to blind the person. So remember to place the lights high enough to not be in the person's face and far enough out to achieve approx. a 45º angle. It doesn't have to be exact, just close. The angle helps minimize the shadows on the face. Just remember, the higher you place the lights, the further they'll have to be placed in front of the stage. The further you get from the stage area with the lights will also determine to fixture you need to hang. Different fixtures are designed for different throw distances. The throw of the fixture is from the fixture itself to the stage area. The further you get from the stage the more the light will spread, so keep that in mind when ordering light fixtures.

Light fixtures used for lighting stages come in many shapes, sizes and names. If you're close to the stage, within 15 feet or so, the par cans and fresnels will do just fine. I work on mostly the mid sized range in lighting, which is between 15 and 50 feet. A combination of fresnels, pars, ellipsoidals and border lights are what are normally used.

I know you'll ask "What brand is the best?" I can only answer that ETC makes one of the best lights but you will pay for it. Altman makes a very robust and long lasting fixture. I have acquired some used Altman fixtures that work just as well as new ones. I don't sell either of these brands on my website although I do have an ETC look alike fixture that works just as well made by Lightronics. Very good inexpensive fixture and equipment line that is very durable and long lasting(and most of it is made in the USA).

Hope this helps answer some of your questions. If you have a question please feel free to e-mail me at info@controlyourstage.com and I will get back as quickly as physically possible.

Running The Sound ... The Basics

No matter what the brand and style of sound equipment used, this will at least get you up and running reasonably quick. Hook up the microphones and speakers as you would normally do(assumes basic knowledge of setup skills). Turn everything on. If sparks don't fly and smoke doesn't come out of the equipment we can move on (otherwise replace what smoked and fried and then move on). Turn up the channel with the microphone on it until you just barely hear a ring. Then back it off until the ring goes away. It is always a good idea not to have too many people in the room during the setup as they would get annoyed at the testing of the equipment. That's really all I ever do when setting up the equipment initially. Once people arrive at your venue, no matter whether a church, theater, or concert, you will have your starting points set for your microphones. They are normally at a sufficient setting there to be heard at most non rock concert events. Concerts have a similar set of rules. You would need to be able to adjust the settings on the fly at these events. If your a novice at sound equipment then you won't be by the end of the concert. Concerts also have instruments to deal with as do some churches which just plug into the board and turn to a reasonable level (some people may not like to hear it as loud as you do). There you have some very basic running of the sound equipment rules and maybe ideas.

Tonight's Show (Small Production) aka My church's VBS

The curtain broke in the middle of the show. Actually it was the 20 year old rope that broke. The curtain for some odd reason didn't move after that. It is amazing, however, how quickly it was fixed after the show. It only took 20 minutes and a bunch of elbow grease (a little real grease helped as well). This just shows the wide range of production areas I am involved in. I don't just work on lighting and sound. It is always good to know a little of everything cause you just never know when you'd need it.

Welcome to the new blog

Welcome to the new Control Your Stage blog. Hopefully this blog will contain relevant information for most industry professionals or novices alike. Guess we'll just have to see now won't we? My writing isn't perfect so forgiveness may be requested for typos which will probably happen.