Lighting Flashcards
Backlight
Light coming from upstage, behind scenery or actors, to sculpt and separate them from the background.
Barndoors
An attachment which is fixed to the front of a lantern to cut off the lighting beam in a particular direction(s).
Blackout
The act of turning off (or fading out) stage lighting.
Board
The main control for the stage lighting.
Burn out
A coloured gel that has lost its colour or melted through due to excessive heat in front of a lantern.
CMY
Cyan/Magenta/Yellow - the three secondary (additive) colours of light which are used in moving lights for colour mixing.
Cross fade
Bringing another lighting state up to completely replace the current lighting state. Also applies to sound effects/music. Sometimes abbreviated to Xfade Or XF.
Dimmer rack
A number of individual lighting dimmer circuits built into a single case.
Consists of a single power input, a lighting control (DMX512) input and sockets to connect lanterns.
A dimmer rack can be set to respond to any control channel by setting its start address (known as “addressing” the rack)
Fade
A fade is an increase, diminishment or change in lighting or sound level.
Flood
A lensless lantern that produces a broad non-variable spread of light.
Followspot
Usually, a powerful profile lantern fitted with its own dimmer, iris, colour magazine and shutters mounted in or above the auditorium, used with an operator so that the light bear can be moved around the stage to follow an actor.
General cover
Those lanterns in a rig which are set aside purely to light the acting areas. The stage is normally split into a number of areas for this purpose, which can then be
isolated or blended together as required by the director.
Gobo
A thin metal plate etched to produce a design which can then be projected by a profile spotlight. There are hundreds of gobo designs available - common examples are breakup (foliage), windows and scenic (neon signs, city scapes etc.).
Lantern
General term for unit of lighting equipment including spotlight, flood etc.
Lighting plot
The process of recording information about each lighting state either onto paper or into the memory of a computerised lighting board for subsequent playback.
