Photo courtesy of The Naz, Grove City, Ohio
A stage is just a structure. It's an area of physical space that we use to deliver different presentations to an audience from. What you do with this physical space is what makes it more than a structure. Every element works together to deliver a presentation that creates an atmosphere, whether it is for the better or worse.
Lighting is critical to stage design. It brings color, life, and creates a “world within a world.” It visually communicates what the music is doing. During a big part of the song, big punchy lighting is needed to drive it, but during a slow song, a more subdue lighting set reinforces what the music is causing us to feel. Music facilitates emotion, but the stage and lighting design reinforces it. This doesn't happen by chance. It starts with a well-planned design for the size and shape of your stage.
A lot of people think a small stage is much easier to design than a larger stage. In some cases this can be true. For example, the biggest advantage that comes with a smaller stage is the ability to have a smaller budget. The number of lighting fixtures needed on a small to medium size stage is obviously less than that needed for a larger stage. This allows you to be freer with the types and number of fixtures you choose due to cost.
If you're working with a large stage however, you might think this means you need more fixtures to create the same look and feel fewer lights could give you on a smaller stage. Church budgets typically aren't friendly to this sort of need. If you have a large stage, chances are the whole structure is not used. Keep this in mind when designing. Just because there is a large physical space, does not mean a large number of fixtures are needed. Thanks to today's technology, many fixtures are “double- threat” lights. For example, a moving head wash light with a narrow beam can double as an in-air effect light. Be creative with the types of fixtures you purchase. Flexibility is good. Fixture selection for a large stage can be hard depending on your budget, but not impossible.
Sometimes churches will purchase the same types of fixtures for their entire lighting rig which greatly limits the number of different looks you can create. Each type of lighting fixtures has its own uses and purposes. Washing a stage with color from LED pars or moving head washes is just as important to the stage design as the in-air effects given from profiles and beam fixtures.
Visibility, motivation, composition, distribution, and intensity all play factors in lighting design and the overall stage design. The purpose of stage lighting is to finish off your staging look and create multiple atmospheres, not just one. This doesn't just come from being creative with your fixture selection, but in the fixture placement as well.
Layering the lights around your stage is very important in creating these different atmospheres. In order to accomplish this, think about placing the different types of fixtures in locations where they can stand on their own. In other words, if you have four profile fixtures, six beam fixtures, and eight moving head washes, each of these groups should be able to provide a look on their own without the assistance of other lights. This doesn't mean they won't be used together, it just allows for your stage design to have multiple looks.
When designing fixture placement, think about how the lights can be arranged in order to be used in multiple ways/areas around the stage. When using moving lights, try to see beyond where the light is located in physical space, and consider where it could be “panned” or “tilted” to accomplish a look in another location of the stage. This is one of the great advantage of intelligent fixtures: in most cases you'll need fewer fixtures to create multiple looks.
For example, if four profile lights are located on the outer corners of the stage, instead of using all four focused evenly across a particular area, focus two of them on a soloist while the other two are focused on the keyboard accompanist on the other side of the stage. Then in the next song, place a gobo in all four profiles and evenly fan them around the stage to create an entirely different look. Use the stage lighting to direct the audience's attention, but position the fixtures for multiple effects, not just one.
No matter what type of fixture you choose or where it's located on the stage, the lighting is going to make or break the atmosphere you're trying to create from the whole staging design. You won't get it right the first time, but with a well thought out plan (and much prayer), you will find that things will begin to work in ways you didn't think of during the planning process.
Our main goal is not to distract, but to enhance. Our purpose is not to be seen, but to assist in making God's presence known to the audience. That is why we design.
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. - Romans 11:36
