Becoming a Technical Designer
A technical designer’s job role is split into two aspects. Designing the lighting and designing the sound. These are two major roles for any theatre company, as they create atmosphere for the play. “Simple illumination of a stage space is relatively straightforward, but does not contribute artistically to a performance, other than allowing the audience to see the action” (Palmer, 2000, 98). Because of this, I, as a technical designer, needed to create a lighting and sound design that would both fit with our theatre company performance, but also heighten the atmosphere on stage. This was a vast job for me as I had never designed the technical aspect of a show before. This meant that I had to find out what my role included. While researching my role, I found that not many theatre companies have one person to do both lighting and sound. Many companies have one individual to create the lighting design, another to create the sound design and finally a Technical Director to oversee the whole project. I was doing the job which three people would usually do. With this in mind I had to research both roles separately. Firstly, I researched the role of a lighting designer. To understand the different lighting effects that could be used in the LPAC, the stage we were performing our debut show, I had to talk to Darren Page, the Head Technician at Lincoln Performing Arts School. Darren told me about the various lights that could be used during a performance and he also informed me about the effects that they can create. With this information in mind, I was able to go home and think about the various different effects that could be used in the show. Of course this was early days and the script for our show had not yet been written. However, sitting in the workshops with the actors and planning different ways to heighten the atmosphere of the show became very useful to me in the long run. I also acquired the help of Google. I was able to research the roles within a lighting designer. My research showed me that a lighting designer:
“•Evoke the appropriate mood
- Indicate time of day and location
- Shift emphasis from one stage area to another
- Reinforce the style of the production
- Make objects on stage appear flat or three dimensional
- Blend the visual elements on stage into a unified whole” (Aact.org, 2016).
The second role that I looked at within my job title was my sound technician role. This was a little less complicated as it meant that there was no equipment involved, unlike with the lighting. My research showed me that a sound designer:
“•motivate actions onstage and indicate events taking place offstage
- establish the time of day, season and weather
- locate the action in a specific place
- create mood and changes in mood
- stimulate audience expectations of what is to come
- provide information about the characters
- build transitions between scenes
- offer shortcuts that rapidly advance the plot or recall past events” (Aact.org, 2016)
This new information enabled me to stick to my own job role within the theatre company. Once I had worked out what my job included, I had to spend a lot of time in rehearsals, watching the performers and speaking with Chloe, our director, about different techniques of lighting and sound I wanted to use.
Lighting
After researching different techniques to do with lighting, I became very interested in the Gobo lighting effect. Gobo lighting allows you to “not only project simple messages or names but can also create environments and scenery for an incredibly low amount of money. Fundamentally gobos are a steel or glass stencil that blocks and lets light through” (Stagelightingstore.com, 2016). I felt that this would be a good technique to use when creating the fire during the last scene of our show.
Zelda Fitzgerald was burnt to death during her stay in a mental asylum during the 1940’s. This made fire an important aspect of our show. However, creating a believable fire on stage was something that had to be thought about carefully. I researched the types of questions that needed to be answered when creating a believable fire.
“How does the “mood” of the fire affect how we build/create it? First, do we need visible flames or just an indirect flickering glow. Is the color of the fire a warm glow or a cold heat?” (Hstech.org, 2016)
With these questions in mind, I set out looking at different effects that could be used to create the right mood that I wanted.
Previously mentioned, I was really interested in the way that Gobo lighting effect worked. I looked at various ways to use the projection of images. However, after researching this for a while I realised that this may look cliché and that having the flames visible via Gobo could look comical. After discussing this with Darren and a couple of other technicians at LPAC, I managed to find a way to create the right atmosphere through orange and red LED lighting. This was more effective to the performance as it allowed the fire to flicker. The use of haze also gave it the smoky effect that I needed for it to look believable.
Other lighting techniques that I used were the back lighting pulse. This was accomplished through the LED bars which are situated at the back of the stage. Having this allowed us to pulse the LED’s and slightly blind the audience. This was to symbolise the fast forward in Zelda’s life, we also used this as a scene change. We wanted the Zelda’s, even the ones who were not in the Zelda Zone, to be lit at all times, so having the back LED lighting instead of a blackout allowed the audience to view all of the Zelda’s throughout the whole performance.
Additional to the back lighting, washes such as a sepia wash and a white wash were used during our show. The sepia wash was to place the Zelda’s and the Zelda Zone in the 1920-1940’s era. As the researcher, who was played by me, was lit by a plain white desk lamp, this separated the two eras from one another.
The white wash was to create a clinical feel whenever the nurse appeared on stage. This was to foreshadow the fact that Zelda would end up in a mental hospital. It also showed that the nurse was the illness inside Zelda’s head, constantly pushing her back.
Spotlights were used during our production to highlight the characters who were the most important and essential to the scene that they were in, for example the two Zelda’s (Hannah and Megan’s cross over) and the nurses scene was highlighted with a white spotlight to put more significance on the two Zelda’s and to take away from the nurse.
The research that I did helped a lot in knowing which lights to use for different scenes.
Sound
Researching the job role of a sound designer allowed me to be able to stick to my job role. It meant that I was able to create atmosphere for different scenes using mood and volume. There were various things I had to think about when creating the sound for our performance. Firstly, I once the script had been finalised, I had to decide on what songs I wanted to play and where. For ages we had ummed and arred about which song to use during our Quintuple (chair duet) scene. Originally it had been another song from Post Modern Jukebox’s albums, however, I felt that this did not fit with the beat in which the actors were moving. It took us a while before finally settling on Post Modern Jukebox’s version of Seven Nation Army. I took this song, along with the original version by The Strokes and put them together so that the house music, which involved more modern day tracks to separate the 21st century from the 1920’s, cross faded into a 1920’s version of the same song. This was to take the audience back in time and make them feel like they themselves were stepping into Zelda’s time zone. Other songs I used, such as The Charleston, brought our show to life and made Kates scene, where she played Zelda who was stood on top of a taxi, more enjoyable for the audience to watch. I added The Charleston into the performance because it is a well-known song and dance of the 1920’s and was likely to be played at most parties during that era. “They danced the Charleston on restaurant tables and recklessly rang fire alarms. When the firemen arrived and searched for the blaze, Zelda pointed to her breasts and screamed, “Here!”” (Shaw, 1987, 5). Knowing that Zelda did in fact know and love The Charleston allowed me to use it in the production, meaning that not only the writing was very close to her life, but also the music too. Using sounds, such as the ringing in an ear (tinnitus), allowed me to be able to make the music sound like it is way too loud for any human to be able to hear. This ringing in the ear also put the audience in Zelda’s perspective as they were deafened by this horrid ringing too. Finally, Smile by Nat King Cole. I used this to juxtapose the way that Zelda had died. It was also to show the audience how throughout her life Zelda had been forced to smile for Scott, to help his career grow and to look pretty and happy for him.
Reflection
In reflection on my own work and the various roles I had to perform under the title role of Technical Designer, I feel like even though it was my first go at designing the lighting and sound, I did a pretty good job for a novice. It means a lot to me, on my first ever go at sound and lighting design to have a review as good as this one: “The story was emotive, the set was fantastic and the lighting and sound was genius. The sound particularly took me as they used remixes of modern songs that had been made to sound like music of the era” (Ordinary Acts of Bravery, 2016).
There were a few things however that I would change if we ever did the show again. For example, my original way to backlight the Zelda’s was to have five white lights on five different booms. This would have lit the audience more and made the fast forward more blinding for them. I feel like this would have been better as then the Zelda’s would have become more of a silhouette than spot lit from behind. Although this would have made the performance more atmospheric, I still feel like the lighting and sound designs that I provided for the show did the job in allowing the audience to feel the mood of the performance.
Works cited
Palmer, S. (2000). Essential Guide to Stage Management: Lighting & Sound. Oxon: Bookpoint Ltd., p.98.
Aact. (2016). Lighting Designer. [online] Available at: http://www.aact.org/lighting-designer [Accessed 25 May 2016].
Aact.org. (2016). Sound Designer. [online] Available at: http://www.aact.org/sound-designer [Accessed 25 May 2016].
Stagelightingstore.com. (2016). Gobo (Patterns). [online] Available at: http://www.stagelightingstore.com/Stage-Lighting-Store/Gobo-Patterns [Accessed 25 May 2016].
Hstech.org. (2016). Fire on Stage. [online] Available at: http://www.hstech.org/how-to-s/how-to-tech/special-effects/93-fire-on-stage [Accessed 23 May 2016].
Shaw, A. (1987). The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920’s. New York: Oxford University Press, p.5.
Ordinary Acts of Bravery. (2016). Love First, Live Incidentally: Play Review & A little bit of Zizzi’s. [online] Available at: https://ordinaryactsofbravery.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/love-first-live-incidentally-play-review-a-little-bit-of-zizzis/ [Accessed 25 May 2016].
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