Short lighting courses in Perth

Hi there,

I've been doing a fair bit of work with some student productions, helping out here and there, green room and front of house work, stuff like that, but working in theatre lighting really intrigues me. All my previous experience (of which none involves lighting) in theatre, has been done at the dolphin theatre, but I'm happy to learn anywhere..

I'm just wondering
* What the standard prerequisite is to be able to work with lighting, even as an assistant in a theatre.. surely it's not the Cert IV from WAAPA/TAFE..
* I saw a while back (few years ago) that there was a guy offering free basic lighting courses for a small fee (you had to buy $25 membership to the theatre).. now, the only theatre lighting courses I can find in perth are the three-year-long fulltime courses.. :S Does anyone know where in Perth you can do a short lighting course at a reasonable price? (Reasonable doesn't have to be $25, just not $1000..)

Cheers

- The big T

Hello Big T

The next Lighting course will be held at the Garrick Theatre on

Sunday 19th September from 9 am to Midday
Sunday 26th September from 9 am to Midday
Sunday 3rd October from 9 am to 5 pm. and includes Directors Guide To Stage Lighting.

The courses are free to Garrick members, I charge $100 a workshop at other venues. I provide a cd with handouts, reference data etc.

I provide free advice via this web site and free training to schools and clubs to try and improve the standard of theatre lighting in perth. You will find other contributers such as Joe Mccabe will also answer questions on lighting.

My prerequisite for theatre lighting is enthusiasm, common sense and a willingness to learn. Theatre Lighting is an art so you need an artistic appreciation of what you are trying to light and if doing dance or musicals you need a sense of timing to synchronise you lighting changes to the music beats.

Use the search site feature and you will find my previous posts including on line resources such as Stage Lighting 101 which is an excellent guide to theatre lighting.

There is an Australia wide association, the Australian Lighting Industries Association ALIA at www.alia.com.au that provides resources on subjects such as Testing and Tagging and organises lighting tours to some of the shows that come to Perth where you meet the Lighting Designer and learn their design techniques. plus news items such as the new PerthConvention Centre having 180 Martin X10 fixtures located above the tables in the main convention room.

Hope that helps.
Don Allen

Thanks for all the info, I'll definetely come along to one of them, probably the 9-5 one. Is it acceptable for me to join the theatre so I can come along to the workshop, or is that considered a loophole?
I'm prepared to pay for the course if it is, but if I joined the theatre, I'd definetely become involved in the theatre..

I had already found the alia website, thanks for the tip anyway.. I think it's a bit pointless for me at the moment to go on tours and such considering I know *nothing* about lighting.

I'll have a look at your resources soon! Thanks for everything!

the big T

(by the way, when i said prerequisites, i actually meant what courses theatre managers usually wanted you to have done before they let you use their rigs.., but i'm pretty sure i have the prereqs to come to your course :D)

Hello Big T

The 9 to 5 workshop is set up for Directors to demonstrate to them what theatre lighting can do to help improve the quality of their production, which lighting is a partner with the other areas.

Good lighting , which can be a bare 60 watt globe suspended in the middle if a stage dimmed down to a dim glow, or a square one rig of over 60 lights and 24 dimmer channels doing a comedy, can assist a production by providing the mood, atmosphere and motivation to complement the set and blocking. good lighting is usually not noticed by the audience and rarely get acknowledged.

Poor lighting usually occurs due to poor or no planning process and inexperienced or untrained lighting crew and is usually independant of what equipment is available.

Yes you can join the Garrick on the day of the course and we hope you will come back and do shows for the Garrick, but if not, hopefully you are doing lighting for other clubs so Perth theatre still wins.
You need to learn the basics and principles before you can light shows properly.

I start all of my lighting workshops by getting the participants to go outside and point out to them what natural and artificial lighting is doing to the environment around them, after all that is what we are trying to recreate on stage, then point out that it is is physically impossible to do with our limited budgets, but with with planning and practice, we can start to approach the same look.

The Directors Sunday course is free if your club is a member or affiliated with the ITA.

If you want to learn the basics of theatre lighting then you should do the first two Sunday mornings.

Don Allen