Puzzle of dance lighting design

First, the study of dance lighting design

The first class I just entered the school, the professional teacher Mr. Bai Wenguo introduced us to the characteristics of the stage lighting design, and told us how to learn: First, improve the personal qualities of the individual, this is The foundation for future creation; the second is to watch the performances or performance videos through relevant professional books, master professional theories, and obtain relevant professional information; third, participate in professional practice, master professional skills and accumulate stage experience, and so on. Finally, Mr. Bai hopes that we will be the first students of the dance academy. When we graduate, we can use the dance lighting design as our specialty and have the ability to design dance lighting.

In the four years of the game, the first class of Bai’s teacher has been running through the author’s four years of study. However, when I think about the process of studying at school, the author has a big confusion. It is the discipline of stage lighting design. The materials available for study and reference are limited, especially the lighting design of the dance drama. It is even less pitiful. In the course of four years of study, the author tried to obtain reference materials for learning through various channels, but there are only a handful of books that can be found, but some image materials can be found, but unfortunately, there are few texts of these images. Explain that there are even fewer lighting design explanations. These reflect from one side, the construction of the stage lighting design discipline may need to be strengthened, and our practitioners have the characteristics of practice, light theory, and so on. This adds a lot of difficulty to our students in lighting design.

In addition, as we all know, the lighting design of the stage performance is different from the lighting design of the video type. The light ratio is often larger, and the technical indicators such as color temperature are often inconsistent. Some performance color temperatures will change back and forth. Therefore, there are some scene lighting design scenes. The camera can't be recorded, or it is distorted relative to the scene, so by watching the video to learn, the effect of the stage lighting design will often be greatly reduced, and sometimes it will not be the case at all. This is our learning belt. There are many difficulties. I have had such a dance lighting design experience. The drama is mixed with conventional lights and computer lights in the use of face light. Some scenes are low color temperature, some are high color temperature, some are mixed color temperature, and the effect on the scene is acceptable. However, some scenes in the video are more polarized, and even completely lost the feeling of the scene.

In addition to the visual factors such as the picture, the performance video has a lot of gaps with the performance scene in many aspects, so the performance definitely looks good on the scene. This is everyone's consensus. But this involves another problem, that is, the current high-priced performance fares in China are really unbearable for students (may not only be student days). In recent years, the performance fares have been slightly lowered, but the range is really limited. Whenever I heard that there were some good performances, I went up and down to find someone and find a ticket. I almost became a compulsory course. Sometimes I couldn’t find it and I just wanted to see it and I could only pay for it myself. The performance fare has become the pain of our students. As a student of lighting design, we can't improve the horizon, learn and improve by the practitioners of drama creation in the future. Then our future creations are really worrying.

It is really bad to give a ticket, but it has become a helpless thing in the student era. I sincerely hope that the seniors in the industry will pay attention to this issue and strive for an appropriate fare for students of drama-related majors, providing them with more opportunities. It turns out that through a lot of on-site observations, especially watching some good repertoires, it really improves the design ability. If we can improve the overall quality of practitioners in this way, and thus improve the artistic level of the entire industry, then the benign development of this industry will have a better foundation.

Second, the practice of dance lighting design

In the practice of specific dance lighting design, the author has encountered many problems and caused a lot of confusion.

1. The dance drama is a stage art with dance as the main means of expression. It also has elements such as characters, events, conflicts and other elements in the category of guitar drama. The dance drama has an obvious feature that the position of music in the dance drama is so important that there has been a debate in the dance industry about whether the dance drama is dance first or music first. This issue is not the topic of this article, but it can be seen that music is important in dance drama. The understanding and interpretation of the dance music largely determines the success or failure of a dance lighting design. As far as I know about the enrollment and learning status of the institutions that offer stage lighting design in China, our admissions examinations are basically based on art. In the professional teaching process, there is little research on music teaching. This has led to a disconnect between teaching and actual design practice. When I was doing dance lighting design, the understanding of music was often based on the intuitive feeling of music. Many times I didn't know much about the category, source, history and other content of music, which may affect my design. This problem may be just a lack of my personal music cultivation, but I think that our professional teaching can add some music content, I hope that the lighting design profession will pay enough attention to the teaching of music in the training of talents.

2, dance drama and other drama categories, lighting is often the last step to enter, on the scene to create. Compared with other drama categories, the design of dance lighting design often uses more lights, light position, light color, lighting changes, etc., especially in recent years, the wide application of smart lamps in dance dramas, in actual design work. There are more channels to adjust, but we often find in practice that the time we can create on the scene is often very limited. This is a big problem: the so-called "slow work, fine work", quality The design must have enough time as a guarantee, but the time is very tight, and not only the lighting department is working, any department, one link may take up some valuable on-site time, leaving the lighting design for The time of creation is very limited. There are many factors contributing to this problem, such as the time of the theater, the rent of the venue, the coordination of various departments, the quality of the employees, and so on. As a young designer, often unlike experienced seniors, it is possible to accurately judge the stage effect based on experience, and basically can be in place at one time, thus saving a lot of time. The author often encounters such a situation. Due to the lack of experience, many of the ideas on the desk can not be realized after the scene, or there are discrepancies with their own ideas. Only some other methods can be tried on the spot, so that the time is inevitable. . Sometimes, even in order to catch up with the progress, we can only guarantee that we will “finish” before the curtain is opened. As for the real thing, it can only be a luxury.

In order to solve this contradiction, we learned "offline programming" when we were studying at school. However, in the actual practice process, we will find that in the early stage, we spent a lot of time doing offline programming. First of all, on the technical level, there are often discrepancies with the on-site effects. Secondly, after the scene, various temporary, Uncontrollable changes in lighting design, the significance of offline programming is greatly reduced. The "time" problem of creation has plagued me until now.

Conditional restrictions. A very important feature of stage art is conditionality. The lighting design of the dance drama that I have done is basically done in the theater. However, I often encounter some theaters. It is very big at first glance. However, after deep understanding, I found that various designs are unreasonable, such as unreasonable boom spacing, too little weight on the boom, and illuminating the illuminating position. Some theaters have a ring-shaped screen for taking up a movie, and so on, lighting design can only be carried out under such conditions. I have always had such a confusion. Can the design of these theaters consider the opinions of users? Is there an industry standard for the construction and hardware design of the theater?

In addition, many types of smart lights, such as computer lights and LED lights, are often used in dance dramas because of their greater controllable space, so they are widely used in today's dance lighting design. But nowadays, these smart stage lighting fixtures that we use often encounter various problems in use. For example, some computer lights often have problems such as structure and materials, and maintenance. When using CMY color mixing, they often encounter red edges, blue edges, etc. at the edge of the spot, or uneven color mixing; or different brightness and gap. Too big. LED luminaires often encounter problems such as the dimming curve is not linear enough, and the gradation of the luminaire color is not enough. The material support of the lighting design at the time of design often affects the final design presentation to a large extent.

In addition to material restrictions, people often encounter disappointments. Regarding the training of the dance staff, many colleges and universities do not pay much attention to it, especially many local colleges, often without lighting staff, or a handful of staff, the lighting staff are basically temporary, and the lighting design is very troublesome. .

Third, the restoration of dance lighting design

In the actual lighting design work, there is a big problem, that is, the recovery of the drama and the tour. Our design is often based on the situation at the time of the premiere. After the premiere, our work will be handed over to the group. In the future performances, the lighting design will require the staff of the group to go. achieve. However, we often find that the performance is good at the first performance, but the quality is often discounted when going out. The design of dance lighting is generally more in the use of lamps, especially the wide application of smart lamps, this problem is often more prominent.

This problem is not only personally encountered by me, but I also often see such problems in the tour of some famous domestic predecessors. The author once saw a repertoire that won many awards in China when he was in school. The designer is a very well-known predecessor in China. In a performance, when he went to watch it, he found many problems in lighting design, and even felt that there were some "In fact, it is difficult." After the performance, the author introduced the staff of the group through other people's introductions, and consulted the staff on these questions. The answer they gave was that the computer light used this time was inconsistent with the model of the premiere, and according to the objective conditions such as the theater situation and time schedule, the lamps were properly cut and modified during the installation, and the lights were synthesized. The design has been adjusted so it may be somewhat different from the effect of the lights at the first performance. At that time, I understood it at once, and in the later dramas, I also had a lot of understanding for the work of the lighting designer.

Many repertoires tend to be the best in the first performance for a number of reasons, but the audience that can be enjoyed is limited. It is often the repertoire that after a certain reputation, the audience knows it and only comes to watch it. But this is a problem, that is, how the repertoire guarantees the quality of the lighting design after the premiere, under various conditions, and often in the absence of lighting design. The audience and various professionals can't see, or understand, the objective factors behind them when they watch the performance. What they see is only the final presentation on this place and on the stage, and to measure one. A repertoire, or a designer. But sometimes for a variety of reasons, the quality of the performance does differ from the designer's design, but the designer is unable to argue. For the designer, it may cause some "harm", which may be especially true for young designers. . I have consulted many teachers and seniors about this issue, but I have not received a satisfactory answer so far.

In addition to the above conditions and personnel restrictions, there are often some leaders who do not respect the law of artistic creation, impose their will on the designer, interfere with the designer's work; encounter the organization, technical support and other irregularities of the group The behavior, and so on, outside of the design work itself, makes the designer passive at work.

In summary, we hope that our practitioners will pay more attention to theoretical construction, and our predecessors will be able to gain more learning opportunities for our learners. We hope that our equipment manufacturers can provide us with more high-quality performance equipment and let us design. The work is even more powerful; I hope that the entire industry can give lighting designers a relaxed creative environment, giving designers enough understanding and support; the team can properly pay attention to and cultivate the staff, and lay a solid personnel foundation for the performance. .