The teacher's too busy to teach? Eesh.
That being said, there's not *that* much to talk about.
Footlights are typically low-profile fixtures at the front
edge of the
stage, facing upstage.
@Lextech mentioned
LED tape, but I've also used ColorBlast 12s, ColorForce fixtures,
R40 striplights, individual lightbulbs in scallop-shell housings,
fluorescent tubes, worklights, Christmas tree lights, and probably a few other things I can't remember anymore.
A few tips:
Low
profile is nice, if you don't want your front row audience complaining about having a light in their
face. (Especially an older
fixture that might leak light out the back.) Sometimes I'll hang lights off the front
edge of the
stage; a railing in front of the
orchestra pit (if it's used) is also typical. On occasion I've used a light that's set by a crew member just prior to use, then struck afterwards -- happens often in dance and musicals. In contrast, sometimes you *want* the audience to go, "Ooh, there's a light there!" But, typically, steer toward the instruments being as invisible as possible.
Footlights developed to help compensate for front lighting from relatively high positions casting odd shadows on actors' faces by filling in light on the
face from in front and down low. Depending on other lighting positions you have, they might not be necessary for that purpose anymore. They still provide a particular look and feel ("performing on a vaudeville
stage"), and on a few shows I've done a groundrow and only ever ghosted lights, mostly to remind actors not to kick them.
Because they're from in front, and low, and on actors' faces, and much closer than other
stage lights, and because most performers aren't used to light coming from that direction, many performers will complain that they're too bright and blinding them. Be compassionate.
In addition to filling in light on a performer's
face from below,
footlights can also be used for a spooky
effect when needed (think the old Halloween trick of holding a flashlight under your chin; only en masse.) Similarly, it's a cool
effect to cut from general
stage lighting to just one footlight
uplighting a soloist. Additionally, you can often use them to cast shadows onto the
backdrop, which looks really cool for dance numbers.
Keep that last
bit in mind, because for more naturalistic scenes, you won't want to be casting shadows onto the
backdrop. It's often a
bit of a trick to focus
footlights correctly, since you don't want to focus too low and light too much of the
backdrop, but also don't want to focus too high and light up the electrics over the
stage; but you need to illuminate a performer standing right in front of the
footlights, as well as a performer standing midstage, some distance away from them. I've given over to using tilting striplights like the GLP Impression X4 Bar 20 (what a mouthful) or the Chauvet ColorBand Pix M USB to allow for covering both purposes.
Lastly, because
footlights are in full view of the audience, and because there often isn't any
power or data available on the front
edge of the
stage, keep all the cable clean and tidy, and make certain all your displays are facing away from the audience.
