Sure there are other methods. lots of them. But they all come from some of these basics. I'm a
power wash guy so this is the stuff I love.
First let me explain the three that have already been mentioned, then I'll blow your mind. The most heard of one is
McCandless. Warm and cool at 45 degrees off the down light.
Boom, that's your area.
McCandless created his
system for natural lighting looks. However you may not realize that all Systems are not created equal.
Remember Stanley was designing in the time of the "Realists" so the closer light could get to actual nature the better for the show.( Note: A Friend of mine pointed out to me a while ago that a "true"
McCandless system is almost impossible outside of film since you can easily get a 45 degree from the target, what is hard is getting a true 45 from the
stage to the pipe. A "true"
McCandless system is both. so if you did your design strait from " a method of lighting the
stage," already, you would be creating a bastardization of the
McCandless system.
What Gafftaper is referring to is called a clock
system, a four corners
system, or an "
Arena system."
Arena systems are great for small spaces with low grids. I think, they were developed in the 60's as a doubled up
McCandless, but I don't know. The most important use for them is coverage. if your actor turns around.
Arena systems allows the actor to be covered with a warm and a cool no matter what director they are looking in. For small intimate spaces where you need coverage,
arena systems rock.
Arena is One down light, two warms at diagonals of each other, and two cools at the opposite diagonals. You can create this same
system on a
proscenium, but most people don't since the audience isn't surrounding the actor.
The third
system is the one that Rochem was referring to and that is called the "jewel"
system or the five points
system. I have heard that this
system was invented as a method of lighting Russian ballet That could be both dramatic and realistic at the same time. It is two high sides at 90 degrees from the target, a back light, a down light and strait on front light.
If you draw out your area in this way it will look like a jewel. with the addition of Trees for lower
level side light this is still a popular
system for dance, but it works amazingly well for theater also.
Now, here's where I blow your mind. take a sheet of paper and draw out a
McCandless system as if you were viewing it from above. Picture the
system on the pipes in your theater. Now do the same thing for a Jewel
system. Now put one on top of the other overlapping on top of the down light. See, you can combine the two systems. So you have a warm and a cool from 45 degrees out and a front light, and a back light, and two high sides. If you can find a space that this works in (and there are some that it won't) and you can find enough dimmers you can get nearly 360 degrees of lighting per area. ( put all three together and you will have 360 degrees) I haven't found a name for this
system yet, so I refer to it as the "combined" lighting
system.
Ready for more? As long you stay symmetrical you can add any instruments to any part of the
system, for instance, two colors of warms and two colors of cools, three different colors of front light, four (total) high sides, dual back lights, or my personal favorite two colors of down light.
Something to take into
effect is that systems are just the bone structure of a lighting design. If you have the
stock you can add specials all day. but you will find the more you use certain systems, the more your specials can be covered just by taking down everything else and bringing up one or two instruments. The stronger your bone structure the less extra coverage you will need to make the design work.
For the future trusses and Moving head instruments are re-defining our understanding of what is possible in terms of
system lighting. I recently had a discussion with a
programmer who wondered if we would ever need to understand
McCandless in the future with all of the technological innovation going on now, but to me that's like saying we don't need to read Descarte (invented the essay) now that we have word processors. On a recent
load in of
Frost/Nixon I noticed that the designer only used front light and side light and but created a circle of light around the center that created cross lighting for any side. It was a pain for the tour L.D. to focus, but watch out it could be in your text
book a few years from now.
And then,there's concert lighting which is a whole other ball
park. So in closing. remember all of this stuff, but no matter what keep applying the Trudeau method, you will, because you have to. Don't be afraid to re-draft, and if something isn't working for you, lose it. You have more names to
play around with now, and more ideas to mess with, but design is (dare i say), a little creative at times. have fun.