Designing a Self-guided Lighting Course...

[ScorpioTech89]

Hello all, I used to be on the forum ages ago when I was first in college, but that username and email are long gone so I made a new account. It's been a few years out of the theatre world other than occasional stage crew or lending myself as a male actor when needed. But I am looking into in the next year applying for cruise ship work, ideally lighting technician, but as I've been "off-grid" so-to-speak, trying for a stage staff position may be a better intro.

However, while trying to update myself in theatre lighting and such, I have been doing a lot of research in regards to what I know a lighting tech can or should know. I've seen plenty of Computer Science self-guided learning courses on the internet, with a guide and links to articles and information...and was thinking while I was going through this I could create my own for Lighting.

I know http://www.onstagelighting.co.uk and the forums here have a lot of valuable information, and having a guide may be of some use for others in the future.

I suppose my question is for help in specific knowledges.
Some generals and Specifics I have already cultivated into a Table of Contents

The idea sprang up when I was searching for articles concerning intelligent/moving light programming and stumbled upon this article with links to other articles on onstagelighting's website ( http://www.onstagelighting.co.uk/intelligent-lighting-control-guides/ ).
I know there are plenty of programs to download to simulate boards/consoles and learn on your PC, links to those will be included in the console section.

======================
Safety

Lighting Consoles
- ETC
- Hogs
- GrandMA and MA2
- etc

Lighting Fixtures
- Pars
- Fresnels
- Ellipsodidal
- Scoops
- Moving Lights

Types of Lamps

Connectors and Cords

Care and Maintenance
- Changing Lamps
- Regular Maintenance
- Moving Light Repair
- Motors
- Power Supply

Science and Math of Electricity

Programming Boards
Programming Moving Lights

 

[Footer]

Computer science works well online because what you are doing is on a computer... and you are learning on a computer. This business is not really like that. Our wiki here covers a lot of the stuff (if not all). Add that and a few text books and your there. Outside of that, the real nuts and bolts of this business is people skills, time management, intuition, personal management, and work ethic.

Good luck to you on it, but just know that this is really a business that has to be learned hands on.

 

[ScorpioTech89]

Yes, that I understand, as far as the whole business and all of that goes.
Even in Computer Science you need to learn people skills, team-working skills, time and resource management, etc. Those can be trained too in my belief with the right mindset and access to knowledge (as well as situations to test that knowledge)
This idea is just an expanded knowledge database for lighting. Similar to that of the wiki yes, but more link based to other articles, magizine/ezine PDFs, google books excerpts.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ehep0rLNtcUd5HCWKiNHlX3d_w2yk_zy5l7iYODTBuE/pub

The above link is to a published page that will be updated as I continue, but it already has the basic list above, expanded with links to some things. Such as the online tutorials and board-showcases for the major brands of consoles.

Lifehacker had a link to an aGupieWare article http://blog.agupieware.com/2014/05/online-learning-bachelors-level.html
With links to courses of online video classes from well-known colleges/universities. MIT, Harvard, Yale, etc that had recorded their classes and stored them online available to the public for free. Following this course load you gain the knowledge, but unless you practice it in it's environment (in comp-sci on the computer) you won't retain or comprehend it all that well.

I'm just looking to create a database of links to others' articles and such that will provide a thorough enough knowledge base that can be referred to and help others learn the craft while I go through and re-learn it myself. Going to go into my local theatre and work out an internship to allow myself to work on stuff. Talking to the TD there, he was the one that told me about the PC versions of the boards that could be utilized to practice programming on each console and creating an environment to practice.

Going to Lx Design a couple shows I hope this summer here, but their board is an old ETC Ion or Eos, and it's the one board I've had any real practice with, so it won't expand my knowledge, just help in cementing it (again).

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I think the biggest issue with this is that it doesn't teach any of the design aspects of lighting.

 

[ScorpioTech89]

This is mostly electrics and such, yes. That's the aspect I need to re-acquaint myself with personally...the design stuff I do remember from class; design and mood came naturally to me even before college with my local community theatre.

At some point if I continue on with this project, I can add in articles and topics on lighting theory and color mixing, Psychology of light and how it affects an audience, etc. I think I still have the textbook I used in class for Psych for the Theatre Arts and it lists some online resources I can utilize for that maybe.

Care and Maintenance
- Changing Lamps
- Regular Maintenance
- Moving Light Repair
- Motors
- Power Supply

The above part is more what I need reference material for. I've changed lamps, and even built my own small mechanical dimmer light-ops board for use in found spaces with only wall outlets, but I haven't had much experience with actual maintenance nor with motorized moving lights...so not sure what maintenance actually entails.
I'm a natural tinker in some aspects, and have repaired many things from cars to computers, so the mindset for repair and maintenance I have, just not the knowledge nor the hand's on experience.

(And an edit to my previous post, the board I've worked with most often isn't an ION or Eos, it's an Insight 2x...so yeah, not quite familiar with some of the modern toys.)