2 Bar Lighting

[Barreller]

Really interesting thread with much food for thought. I wonder if the move towards thrust stages will change thinking. At the RST in Stratford much use is made of the semi-circle of Source Four profiles rigged under the first gallery more or less at actor's head height and which are fitted, naturally, with colour changers. I think that they are incandescents and not leds. The face lighting is superb. I have a feeling that the "usual" 45 degree angles would not be achievable there. Shadows don't tend to be noticeable or maybe there are so many that I just ignore them. I've just lit a show and tried to use some of the principles in my humble Town Hall with most of my profiles on lowish bars around the auditorium and fresnel washes on the usual FOH bars. I think it worked OK. Well at least nobody moaned!!

[timsabre]

They have a LOT of fixtures at RST (I've only been as a punter) - the trouble with that low lighting position is that you can't use much brightness or you do get shadows everywhere, plus you blind the actors and the audience on the other side of the stage if it really is thrust.

 

I would say on the show I saw there, the lighting was mostly from more conventional angles and the very low profiles were just providing a bit of fill, or occasionally for special effect.

[Brian]

Shadows don't tend to be noticeable or maybe there are so many that I just ignore them.

 

Shadows on the floor are usually not a problem; that's where we are used to seeing them. It's shadows on the scenery and furniture that our brain flags up as unnatural.

[Jivemaster]

Much of the world's lighting is done by the sun, it casts shadows downwards, or horizontally for short periods at sunrise or sunset. Humans have been conditioned to accept this as normal.