Alright. We know our job, we have our five functions of a lighting designer – Visibility, Composition, Form, Style, and Mood. The next question is then of course, “What are my tools?” I have lights and a light board, but “How do use them to achieve my vision?”. This is where my 6 elements of lighting design comes into play. These are controllable properties of light that you can use to paint a stage picture and to create something artistically satisfying.
As with any art form, this list of elements is distilled from the artists that came before us.
As with any art form, there are variations on this list as defined by other designers.
This list is simply the ones I’ve chosen to teach when explaining to my students the art and craft of lighting design.
Intensity & Shadow
Line & Direction
Color & Contrast
Texture & Quality
Dimension & Focus
Movement & Pace
We’ll unpack each of these individually in the next several lessons to help you understand how they can be bent and altered to create a compelling look on stage. And if you need to remember what they are, I would advise another stitched pillow … I’m sorry. AI is truly stupid … but sometimes it’s fun. I’d buy this pillow. I think I’m going to run over to the costume studio and use the embroidery machine …
