Free lighting workshops - Old Mill Theatre - March 18, 20 and 22

The Old Mill Theatre is running FREE lighting workshops on March 18, 20 and 22 from 7pm to 10pm each night. They will be facilitated by Don Allen in association Noel O’Neill, director of No Bed of Roses, currently in rehearsal. Don is a well-known lighting professional and has run many similar workshops. To register your interest, email oldmilltheatre@iinet.net.au. There is a limit of 20 participants. People can choose to come on a night that suits them, as you may only be interested in one aspect or cannot get to the other two nights. After covering safety and basic stage lighting principles, the lighting design requirements for No Bed Of Roses will be discussed. A lighting plan will be created, along with associated paperwork such as a dimmer channel and patch sheet. Then the lights will be rigged, focused and plotted. Some of the lighting will be preset for the continuity of the workshops because there is not time to start from scratch (as a guide to rigging, 30 minutes per light is needed to rig and focus. More than 30 lights will be used so there is not time to do it all). The workshops include the following areas of stage lighting split over three nights with some overlap: stage safety, rigging safety, objectives of stage lighting, properties of light, electrical safety, basic lantern types, lighting angles, lighting desks (programming and use), power usage (watts), dimmer control, patching and cables, rigging a show, colours, special effects, basic stage lighting design, lighting plans, documentation, script analysis, square one rig, technical rehearsals and desk plotting, and focusing. All participants will receive a set of notes on a CD-ROM (to save trees). Please wear enclosed shoes. If you want to do some pre-reading, look at: Stage Lighting Design 101 by Bill Williams http://www.mts.net/~william5/sld.htm. Go to this site for data on Strand Lighting which is a lot of the old lighting still found in community theatres: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/index.html (the Old Mill has Coda4 cyc lights). This is the Selecon site for their data sheets and details on the Acclaim Axial zoom profiles the Old Mill uses: http://www.seleconlight.com/ The ALIA Lighting Links page maintained by Andy Cidor is a good starting point because it provides links to all areas of theatre lighting: http://www.alia.com.au/links/index.html. The LSC Maxim is an ideal lighting desk (the Old Mill has a maXimM desk): http://www.lsclighting.com/products/consoles/maxim-console.

THEATRE STAGE LIGHTING COURSE content for Old Mill Theatre Theatre lighting is a mixture of technical and artistic skill. TECHNICAL SKILLS – Stage Lighting Mechanics - First Session - Don Allen Stage safety. Safety Guidelines For The Entertainment Industry http://www.liveperformance.com.au/site/_content/document/00000027-source.pdf Safety Induction. Regulations Health Public Buildings Act http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/cproot/1718/2/Public%20Buildings%20Guidelines%20Final.pdf Working At Heights Code Of Practice http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/PDF/Codes_of_Practice/code_falls.pdf Rigging safety. Lantern yoke, locks, safety wire, colour frame, accessories Ladder safety Platform ladders Scaffold Objectives of stage lighting. Illumination or Selective Visibility Dimension or Composition – keeping it 3D Selectivity – revealing and hiding Atmosphere or Mood – controlling the audiences perception of time or place. Properties of light. Direction Intensity – Dimmers, neutral density gels Shape – shutters, barndoors, gobos, edge focus, smoke or haze. Colour – black and white are colours Movement – walking through gobos, rotating gobos, moving lights, projection. Electrical safety. Lethal current Earthing of lanterns Circuit breakers Fuses Cables Visual Inspection before Every use. Testing and Tagging Basic lantern types. Floods Profiles – Base Down and Axial or Ellipsoid Gobos Fresnels – lens – barndoors Parcans LED’s Lighting angles. McAndless method – front keylights 45 degree each side and up and backlight Dance – Sidelight, backlight and frontlight Music – Atmospheric, light sheet music, liaasse with musicians Lighting desks Basic Presets Modern theatre desk - programming and use Computer based – Light Factory - programming and use. Moving lights desks – Power usage Watts is power consumption of a fixture Three phase power Dimmers Conventional Sine Wave Switching options Patching and cables. Colours. Additive Mixing – Primary RGB, Secondary CMY Subtractive Mixing Gels - Swatch books – The Art of Light – Lee http://www.clearlight.com.au/media/Lee_Filters/lee_filters_brochure.pdf The Rosco Guide to Color Filters http://www.clearlight.com.au/media/Rosco_Filters/rosco_filters_brochure.pdf Split gels Dichroic colour filters Colour Scrollers Special effects. Gobos – fixed and moving Effects projectors – Flame, water ripple, clouds, snow, strobes, u/v, moons, stars Lamps, candles, scrims, haze, smoke   ARTISTIC SKILLS – Stage Lighting Design - Second session - Don Allen Basic stage lighting design. Stage areas – usually same as director – DSL,DSC,DSR, MSL,C,R, USL,C,R Script Analysis – read through to get feeling, then to get cues and state changes use a pencil and put tabs of pages for lighting cues. Lighting plans. Drawing Scale – usually 1:25 Scale pland and side elevation of the set Stencils – speed up drawing plan, protractor, ruler, erasor - http://www.clsa.com.au/sales/stencils/stencils.html Legend Fixtures Circuit or patch – octagonal box Desk channel - circle Dimmer channel – square box Documentation. Script analysis. Rigging a show Focussing. Square one rig. Technical rehearsals - Third Session - Ursula Andinach Desk plotting. Setting Fade Times Stage workers for scene changes Recording Scenes Editing Scenes Recording Stacks Assigning Stacks Editing Stacks Running s show Lamp checks. Updated 3 March 2013

Two places only remaining- we currently have 18 people booked for this (that's provided eveyrone turns up!!)

Are you going to be running more of these workshops?

I may not have time to run any more free basic courses this year as I have business commitments.