wemeck said:
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Book McCandless is 5 lights two fronts, two sides, and one back. All lights, with the exception of the backlight, should be 45 degrees from the object.
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Book Pillbrow is just
McCandless five
point system with a sixth light placed between the two front lights, and centered on the area. Pillbrow recommends a
neutral color for the sixth light.
Neutral as compared to the warm and cold
Gel colors used.
What do you all do for lighting style?
And what are your choices for
Gel Colors or Color Theory?
Do you put in a warm on the left and cold on the right?
Or do you put all the same
Gel across the front lights? Our resident LD does.
Oh my...Stanley
McCandless @ Century Lighting...again..will this industry ever get over that false-god mad-man with a
torch as the end-all be-all of lighting design <gggg>.
Ship's
point is the best said
point so far--the
McCandless method is A method but not THE method to
stage lighting. There are so many different aspects and different NEEDS for each lighting project that there is no one-method. I think,
IMO, what a lot of folks tend to miss when they look at
McCandless is that it teaches you NOT how to light every
stage all the time--but it teaches you to THINK and consider ALL the various points and aspects OF the
stage and its surroundings. Whether you choose to put a 5 or more lights on one area--that is up to you depending on th
effect and conditions. The
book should be called Do what I see--not what I Do. There are so many aspects to lighting, and it all varies from situation to situation. The
mark of a good LD is to learn the various needs and aspects of all the different things you may have to light. If you did
McCandless for TV--you'd be shot. If you tried to do
McCandless for an Orchestra--they
orchestra would lynch you once they got done squinting at you. If you tried to do
McCandless for archtectureal lighting--you would be over budget and thensome. If you tried
MCCandless for
IMAG video presentations in a corporate environment--the video guys would kill you for off-balancing their color by making one side warm and the other cool. Learn from
McCandless the BASIC root he has to teach--that you need to observe and THINK about what you are lighting, and WHY. Also that you must experiement and SEE what and how light works on a person, an object, a surface, a texture. Think about shadow, color mixing (and please do NOT use his color ideas<g>), VARIOUS angle and
intensity, and the positions you have to work with--not everyone has a
venue that can DO his theory in full because of hanging points, dimmers or lack of instruments. Here is where you have to THINK...this is where that spacial accuity testing (thinking in 3D in your brain and being able to move an object around in your head to figure out a problem) comes to
play.
I have met very few designers who stick with
McCandless thru and
thru...the ones who do and do nothing else (the McMindless as I
call them) tend to have the worse lighting skills and design ideas cause they try to apply his methodology to everything they do without thinking beyond the formula--whether its a musical or a drama or a ballet dance. Part of being a designer is DESIGNING...not copying what someone else said because they said it first.
MCCandless is a BASIC theory to teach you how to look at an object, how to look at a
stage, how to look at color mixing ideas to attain certain attribute--but you have to understand that those attributes do NOT apply to everything under the sun. Think OUT of his box...make your own box that WORKS. It works cause it works in a situation you thought about--not cause you "think" it will and nothing else will.
McCandless teaches you the positions to think of when lighting a show and what to consider if you think about WHY he chose those area's to light from--but it is NOT the end-all be all of how it is done.
As for lighting the front
wash with ALL one color...that is not a great idea cause it does what Matt said--it washes out and flattens the look. You NEED shadow..you need color temperatures, you need those
gel choices to blend in. If I used R33 or 34 (A pink) then everyone would look pink and saturated and
flat...pink is not natural--pink has no shadow, pink has no tone. I use a warm and a cool front--with a
no-color wash as well for general punch...but that is again only in a few instances. In general--the way I color a
stage I do not use warm from one side and cool from another..that drives me insane to see that cause you get such a mish-mash of blendings depending on how a person is turned--and if one of those warms or cools go out--suddenly that person is one sided and cool or warm on that side only and it looks even dumber.
If I use a cool color--I use it evenly around the
stage, and more then likely I will color mix. For example: If I have 4 lights from the left that are cool--I have 4 matching lights from the right that are cool too--and my front
wash in that cool tone will be a cool
gel but of a different hue--one I selected cause the color mixing of the two colors made a different color. Another example: IF I have 2 warm and 2 cool from one side--I have 2 warm and 2 cool from the other side as well in a mirror image--but I make the
wash and coverage even so I am not bringing up a cool on one side and a warm on the other--its either ALL cool, ALL warm, or a mid variance between the two. Depending on the moods and the looks and the actual SHOW I am lighting and what it calls for will depend on my mixing and color saturations I choose. For example--we currently have 3 different blue gels in our
house plot... The Front cool
gel matches the Top (down) cool gel--the High-Side light is a lighter hue to give a cool brighter accent to the sides or be its own independant color, and the backlight is a deep saturation congo. Varying levels gives me different moods of each.
Positions stay the same-- front, side, back, top (down), and occasionally a front high L&R. Depends on the show tho...for
IMAG I will use redundant pairs of
leko's on a slightly crossed shot to give depth to the
face and add contour, lightly frosted
no-color, and 1-2 backlights with
no color frost for the shoulders, head and to add depth, and a color
wash & uplight for the
backdrop, and then there is signage and other considerations. I am missing the "45 degree" side lights from
McCandless..closer to Pillbrow..but still not quiet either of those two. Yet to do anything different will not transfer to video in an acceptable way. For theater--I tend to stick with a lite warm, a light cool front, a different side warm and cool, a saturated back, and a
neutral/warm and cool top light that match the front
wash, and
neutral or
no color specials for punch. ALL colors reverse-repeat from SL to SR crossing at Center. Then for dance & traditional ballet--you have shoulder sides, mid-sides and shin busters/ankle lights added to the mix of design. So---Is this
McCandless? Pillbrow? A mix of both or neither? Am I right or wrong for doing this style and THINKING about the show and project before I toss up someone elses outdated theory all these years for my own? Well so far I've never had a complaint or bad review...if it works and works well--it works.
Please take
McCandless et al for the thought provoking process it SHOULD be about, and learn how to adapt for the mood you need and the position of the happenings on
stage, and not for the gospel many think it is. GOOD designers take the tools, theory's, ideas
etc and make it their own with a lot of forethought and skill at makeing what they see in their head appear on the
stage. They THINK about the show from a "mood" and "angle"
point of view..not a theory on how a
book says it should be lit. The BEST way for you to learn to adapt and how to do the BEST lighting possible is to KNOW your fixtures and their washes/beam spreads
etc and applications, KNOW how angle, texture and shadow work (and think about it from the audience view--not your view in the booth 30 feet upstairs and 70 feet away from the
stage) AND think and
play with color mixing and how colors work to be additive, subtractive, saturated, tonal or
neutral, and think about the mood and
effect you need to help create or enhance on
stage for the show you are doing. Take a light--light up a vase or person and then move it around to various angles and SEE what it does for yourself--you not only have X&Y (height and distance) but you have Z to think about (Z being the variance factor--angle or
intensity). Then when you think you have all that down as a science--add
GOBO and shadowplay with patterns to that thought process for effects you can achieve with those as well to aid in your designs to help with those moods & feelings and accents to the show.
hope that helps get the wheels in your brain turning....
-wolf