“There are a million ways to skin a cat,” or so the saying goes.
I was thinking about this the other day in regards to visual style while in my studio designing a lightplot. I was thinking about it because as I was devising the lighting scheme I noticed that I was engaging in a somewhat new process. I don’t mean the steps I take to create a plot, but rather the inner creative journey.
At its most basic level there are three ways a three dimensional figure can be lit, from the back, from the side or from the front. These can be expanded upon ad nauseum as they are in various lighting methods but in the end those are the options. Light from above and light from below ultimately fall into one of these three categories while diagonals are at most a combination of two of these and ultimately do not function independently from the three core directions.
These three directions each serve a distinct and critical role in defining the form of a three dimensional object, specifically the human form.
Light from behind defines that object as distinct from its background and contextual surroundings. Body as existential entity.
Light from the sides defines the physical form itself. Body as sculptural object.
Light from the front defines the features. Body as emotional subject.
Nearly every show I light has some version of these three elements. Depending upon the compositional needs of the piece one may be highlighted over another. Dance, for example, traditionally focuses on sidelighting while theater often focuses on frontlighting. But these traditional rules of thumb get broken to truly create art.
I used to hear designers say some version of “I always use such and such a color backlight” and would be fairly shocked every time I heard it. After all, isn’t every show unique and distinct from every other show?
Making what could be generic responses specific is what differentiates craft from art. Taking that one step further, it becomes important to have those “generic responses” be a function of the piece at hand rather than conforming the design of a particular piece to some platonic ideal of angle and color that does not approach the nuance of the specific work in front of you.
Sometimes that specificity is a function of the demands of the venue or the scenery or some other physical constraint. Other times the choice is wholly artistic. Some designers choose to fight the venue and make the space conform to what they have determined is necessary. Others use the space as a guide to figure out how light best moves in this particular voluminous space. Neither one is right or wrong, but which approach is taken determines so much about the final design, and often tells us much about the designer.
I like to challenge myself regularly by paying attention to ruts I fall into and questioning them. Sometimes it will be with color, so I try to use a new color or color combination on every show I do. Sometimes it will be with angles and how I build the sidelight or backlight systems. Sometimes it will be with the quality, whether the light is hard or soft or broken.
This recent plot I set up several different challenges. In every area in fact. And while I have no idea if the final outcome will look startlingly new or more of the same, the internal process of creating it was quite a ride. Do I really need sidelight? Why use that color? Should I light that directly or indirectly?
Having a style is a wonderful thing. But there is a risk that an effective style can soon become a rut. Without an engagement in the work and a critical eye to the creation, one can find themselves explaining how they “always do such and such.” Yet with the right degree of criticism, that “always” can become incredibly freeing.
Breaking light down to its most basic elements allows the designer to really focus on the compositional approach for the particular piece. It allows us to look at a show scene by scene and determine whether or not we need backlight, for example. If we do, what is that? Are we lighting the actors from behind with spotlights or lighting the scenery from the front? If a spotlight, is it from straight behind or diagonal? One big light or a bunch of smaller ones.
The options are at once simple and infinite. Even when talking about clear backlight, there are literally thousands if not millions of permutations as to what that actually means in practical terms. Straight back, angled, hard, dappled, direct, bounced, the list goes on. Clear might even be a general term to indicate very unsaturated colors, yet still for all intents and purposes be clear.
Thus it is possible to always use such and such a color backlight and yet never repeat the same choice over hundreds and hundreds of shows. There are, it seems, a million ways to hang a light.
Tags: angle, art, color, composition, design, drafting, style, theory
amen
you hit the nail on the head– even in set design sometimes people think that there is one way of doing something. I’m a designer because, well, I like Designing things, not replicating what I did on my last show, or what someone else did for this play before.
Yes. I do find it is the design part of being a designer that is most fun.