When learning stage lighting, it’s tempting to try to use every available tool at your disposal to create a drafting masterpiece that could cut it at Tate Modern. It’s all you can do in half an hour while they’re unloading the truck, anyway. If it’s to show the local crew where to hang up stuff, a fag packet sketch is going to be fine. The plan doesn’t need to be complex, it just need to fulfill its purpose.
VECTORWORKS STUDENT THEATRE GROUND PLAN FULL
I have probably drawn as many plans on the back of tour schedules as I have CADed and Wyg-ed up full english breakfast drawings. After the design is finalised, the lighting crew use the plan to rig, plug up and focus the fixtures while the LD refers to the plan to find dimmer channels when setting the light levels.
During the design stage, the LD uses it to experiment with angles and placements. The plan (some people call it a “plot” or the “Desperate” in Lampie rhyming slang) is the bird’s eye representation of the venue, lighting positions and fixtures. Originally drafted on paper (cave painting of fire beacon designs have yet to be found) CAD has taken over but let’s forget about grids, snaps and polysplines for the minute. The lighting plan is the Lighting Designers tool, planning the location of lighting equipment and communicating information to everyone else. Image by JohnandKeturah on Flickr A Stage Lighting Plan is…?
*Note that there are CAD video resources at the On Stage Lighting YouTube channel, including tutorials on Vectorworks and AutoCAD. This article looks a the basics of planning a lighting design and the real purpose of drawing a good stage lighting diagram. On Stage Lighting regularly hears from first time lighting designers including BTEC students, asking the best way to draw lighting plan. All kinds of lighting design software are available today, the benefits of CAD and visualisation tools are undeniable.
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