I am a Lighting Director, not a Lighting Designer. I can design, but it’s not my primary passion. I enjoy taking other people’s creative visions and overseeing them to completion. On the road, I am usually the public face of the lighting team though. I’m the one who is most visible to the public. To the layperson, I am the designer, operator, and provider of everything lighting. They will often come up to me after the show and congratulate me on everything from timing, to atmosphere, to the size and scope of the lighting rig. Even though I was a part of the overall design, I am not the person who should be credited with the design of the show. Instead of trying to explain all of this to the general concertgoer, I often just smile and say, “Thank you.” I know that I’m not the designer, but I don’t have the time or the motivation to explain to every single person that credits me as such that I’m not fully responsible. My family can be forgiven for introducing me to their friends as the Lighting Designer for major bands because they don’t know the intricacies of what I do. However, this progression can get tricky when other professionals think that a director is passing themself off as a designer. Correct attribution matters because reputations are on the line.
Circle Bar
I was credited as the Lighting Designer for the Center Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas (which closed in 2020 and reopened as Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in 2021). In truth, I was not. The actual designer wished to remain anonymous for political reasons. They put together the design, they sold the concept, and they facilitated the gear. When it came to providing the final touches, they had insurmountable differences with the end clients. After several discussions, the actual designer reached out to me and asked me to take over the project. I come from the rock ‘n’ roll world, and we all agreed that my name would be more appropriate as the designer for such a prestigious project. As a former employee of The Hard Rock Hotel, I was intimately aware of the workings of the room and the crew. I saw the project to completion and made the end client happy. In several trade magazines I was touted as a lighting designer, even though I knew that I had only made certain choices long after the physical design had been completed. This led to other companies reaching out to me looking for designs for upcoming projects that I had to politely decline by saying “I’m not the actual designer.” I am proud to say that I programmed the Circle Bar, and I did make many choices that influenced the final product, but the physical design is not one of them.
Jason Mraz
In 2022, I had the pleasure of doing the Jason Mraz LalalaLiveSongs Summer Tour. This was a unique situation to say the least. Based on her reputation, Tess Falcone was selected as the designer of the tour, and she submitted beautiful renderings of what she envisioned the tour could look like. Due to budgetary restraints, her visions had to be scaled back significantly. The final drawings consisted of the previous designer’s flown rig and her floor package. Due to time restraints and her busy schedule, she knew that she would be unable to attend final rehearsals and the run of the tour. Her most important choices as the designer were to choose a vendor and a director to see her vision come to light. She attended one band rehearsal, sent me the song list, and some color recommendations. She willingly told me that I would be the only one responsible for making sure that the client was happy and that she trusted any decisions that I would make on her behalf. For all intents and purposes, I became the Associate Lighting Designer for this tour. This is where the lines between designer and director can become blurry. Tess never saw the show live and the only design choices she made were to fit the client’s budget and to hire me. I appreciate the trust she placed in me, and the situation was mutually beneficial for everyone involved. The only accolades that she received as the designer was a check in the mail. Sometimes, that is the only reward that matters.
Attribution
Other forms of entertainment have much more highly developed languages of attribution. In films, for example, credit is acknowledged once and for all and in detail at the end of a film. Even Broadway tours have a program that describes which roles every person played. In corporate events, and concert touring, the delineations are much fuzzier. It’s a collaborative effort involving various individuals and disciplines. With so many spoons in the soup, it can be difficult to decipher who is responsible for which elements. Sometimes, the artists themselves have a significant say in the lighting design. They may have specific preferences or creative ideas that they want to incorporate into their performance. Sometimes they are completely hands off and only want to focus on the music. Either way, we will never see the artist themselves attributed as the Lighting Designer even though they’re the ones who made the design choices.
Borrowing Ideas
Often, lighting designers draw inspiration from previous concerts, theater productions, or art installations. These influences shape their creative process and contribute to the evolution of their designs. No one designer can claim responsibility of the standard three upstage truss and one downstage truss design that we all rely upon, but many times a designer is credited for putting four lines on a plot, populating them with the spots, washes, and beams that the local vendor has available and collecting a check. This is perfectly acceptable, and greatly appreciated for festivals, but this will not win design awards. The real wow factor comes when a designer pulls from art exhibits, personal experiences, and external stimuli to put together a design that brings us to a new level. Part of the problem is that we could not possibly attribute all the influences that have led to the final project. Most of the time, design is a compromise, a rushed commercial enterprise, and drawn from multiple influences. Even if there were the time, the roles on a design project are incredibly fluid: ideas come from all over, designers come and go, bits of a project are farmed out, last-minute changes are made, and so on.
Personal Credit
For better or worse, we live in a day where the gatekeepers of attribution have been made almost obsolete. Even if a trade magazine or award show fails to attribute someone with the design of a project, designers now have seemingly limitless opportunities to promote themselves. On a portfolio site, a blog post or a Facebook page, designers are free to make their own assertions about their contribution to any given project. This was not the case even a few years ago when opportunities for recognition were restricted to a handful of contests and trade publications. Without the gatekeepers in place, actual and fake designers are free to self-promote themselves in any way they see themselves.
Reach Lighting Director at Large Chris Lose at close@plsn.com
