WJEC/Eduqas GCSE Drama: Designing Drama

TASK 1.9 Create a mini world and light it artificially to create the senses of sunlight and moonlight. 1 Use cardboard to create a small scene which includes a cut-out window. 2 Use torches (perhaps on a mini tripod) to experiment with lighting the scene. 3 Try coloured gels to create different times of day and night. You could also consider different weather conditions. DESIGN TIP Stage lanterns are very bright. It is crucial that they do not shine onto the audience and dazzle them. Light in the real world is usually the starting point for stage lighting. (You might explore non-naturalistic effects later.) As the lighting designer, you have a number of tools with which to control light on the stage: the number of stage lanterns the types of lantern (see pages 18–19) where lanterns are positioned (angle and distance) the shape of beam produced the intensity of the beam projected The colour of the beam. Lighting in The Wider Earth creates ripples, waves and sparkles as well as the naturalistic blue of under the sea. Natural light The key to natural lighting is to re-create the quality that comes with different times of day and weather conditions. There are several shades of warm, straw-coloured gels available that suggest sunlight. You could use cooler blue colours for an overcast day, and paler blues for moonlight. Angles The angle of lighting to suggest sunlight, for example, is also very important. If it was early morning sunlight, would you want your ‘sunlight’ to come from a steep angle or a shallow one? (How high is the Sun in the early morning?) Side lights at different heights can create the same effect. Key lights There is always a key light in the real world. It might be natural sunlight coming through a window, or moonlight, or the artificial light of a desk lamp, for example. A lighting designer will always be aware of the key light and will generally reproduce it on stage with a lantern or group that is more intense than the others. If the light is supposed to be coming from inside the room through artificial lighting, you could show the source of this light, such as a bedside lamp. Naturalistic (real-world) lighting on stage Chapter 1 Practical Guide to Lighting Design 23