keropawesome.blogg.se - Stage lighting design

Stage lighting design full#

Gas was produced by heating coal at extreme temperatures for hours and then cooled and condensed into storage tanks. It was first introduced in 1815 at the Olympic Theatre. Gas lighting was revolutionary when it was first being used in the theatres and was a fourth of the cost of candles or oil lamps.

Oil lamps along with candles were expensive to maintain and replace at the rate that they needed to be.

Because there were in closed, the flame was able to be steadied and therefore brighter. Oil lamps were designed by Aime Argand and they provided greater illumination than the candles.

Hot wax and grease would drip on the audience and actors.

The wick of candles required trimming and relighting which is why intermissions were needed throughout the performance.

Candles caused a lot of heat and oxygen depletion causing people to faint in the theatre.

Sanatini also invented the spotlight by placing a polished sink behind a light source allowing light to be directed to a certain part of the stage. He did this by lowering metal cylinders on top of the candles to dim the light without putting the flames out. Nicola Sabatini designed a numerous amounts of lighting innovations that allowed lighting to be dimmed for the first time. Thousands of candles were required to light a stage and were in chandeliers or footlights, where hundreds of candles would be on the edge of the stage to light faces. This is where colour was first utilised with the use of amber, red and blue water in flask placed in front of candles. Sebastiano Serlio, an Italian architect was one of the first to talk about utilising candles in theatres.

With the development of indoor theatres, people could no longer rely on sunlight to be the primary source of lightingĬandles started to be used in the court theatres of Italy in the late 1500’s.

Not all the light was kept out of the audiences eyes.

They could perform their shows at different times of day to get a different kind of natural lighting. This allowed the sun to hit the stage yet keep it out of the audiences eyes. These stages were built on hills and faced so that the sun would come from behind the audience.

Stage lighting design full#

The first uses of lighting for theatre can be drawn back to the Greeks and the Romans who strategically built their stages in order to harness the full potential of the sun. Here she explains some of the developments in stage lighting history from the Greeks to present day. Intern Madison Mahrlig studies Theatre lighting design and Arts management at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.