I recently came across a great article outlining how working in theatre while in school prepares you for adulthood, and I started thinking about how my time in college theatre had helped me on my career path in lighting. Today, as I find myself more and more involved with the world of video, I realize that working with media servers has helped me be a better lighting programmer too. How so?
Intensity Levels and Perceived Brightness
• The perceived brightness of a piece of content playing on a projection screen or LED wall can be impacted by the intensity levels of lighting on the stage around it. When pro-gramming both the media server and lighting for a show, it’s important to balance the two and adjust lighting to complement a video look. When light levels are strategically bal-anced, they will complement rather than compete with video.
• If an image appears washed out on a display surface, I try to avoid using the contrast channel on my console to correct it if at all possible. But we don’t always have that luxury, so making adjustments to brightness and contrast from the console is sometimes necessary. Just keep in mind that while you are making the clip appear brighter, you are in fact distorting levels within the image.
Color Saturation
• Working with live video has given me a much better understanding of color saturation. If the image is overly saturated, then it can tear, a term used to indicate saturation has reached maximum levels affecting both highlights and shadows in the image. Therefore, it is best to render the piece of content with the correct color space settings to be sure you will see the desired results. And because corporate clients pay a lot for their corporate logo to be on the screen, this is really the preferred option, in my opinion.
• On broadcast shows or others using image magnification (I-Mag), I’ve learned to pay attention to my choice of colors in my automated lighting as well. Certain colors are too saturated for the camera to see any subtle differences, and they appear distorted on camera. And I’ve learned the importance of a good camera white balance with all key lights so that the colors in both my stage lighting scenes and in the video clips appear true.
Visual Structure and Transitions
A video clip and a lighting cue have similarities as well. At the most basic level, a video clip will evoke the same feelings and emotions that a tasty lighting cue can trigger. But that’s only a basic concept. I’ve come to recognize that what’s in the clip and how it’s assembled (with layers, effects, transitions, etc.) has a lot in common with a lighting cue. For lighting, this is usually a stage wash, a chase or an effect, and a transition between cues using crossfade timing. And what happens in those transitions can be just as important as what’s happening in the final state of the cue. In a video clip, the transitions can be exciting, with wipes, sweeps, strobes and blackouts. They are not simply always a crossfade. So, thinking about this from a lighting programmer’s perspective, I sometimes find exciting and/or subtle ways of making transitions between cues beyond just a crossfade. Something as simple as staggering a delay time on the intensity channel while having the lights begin a position change at the end of a song can add a very nice, delicate accent to the show. And as a designer, I love pulling highlights like that out of an otherwise ordinary moment in the show.
A Holistic Perspective
Last but not least, programming with both media and lighting has taught me the art of compromise. When we are strictly the lighting programmer on a show, we may not focus on any specific video aspects of the show, unless perhaps we are pixel mapping, for instance. As a result, we can miss out on additional opportunities to have a cohesive looking show. I’ve found that, by working with video in the corner of my eye, that I can make the producer and/or director a lot happier, and that means the client will be happier too.
Overall, whether you are programming lighting or video or both on a show, the workflow is very similar. And identifying those similarities only increases your efficiency, sharpens your skills, and elevates your game.
