The act of pointing the lights into the desired position is referred to as “focusing,” and it is important that the fixtures point to the correct locations. The tricky part is that from the console it can often be difficult to determine if the light is actually going to illuminate the actor, musician or set piece without having that subject stationary on stage while you position each fixture accordingly. Although it seems it would be easy to just point each fixture at a given location, this does not always work out as expected. This is because the height of the focus is difficult to determine. For instance, if you are pointing fixtures at the mic stand for a band’s singer, you might just get all the circles of light aligned at the base of the stand. However, when the singer takes his or her position, he or she will only be lit from the knees down!
—From “Getting Focused” by Brad Schiller, PLSN, March 2016, page 65
