W hen I was six, my mum took me to a puppet show in the Sydney suburbs. We sat very close to the action — on the floor with the other kids. Moey remember feeling this incredible sense of wonder at the world created onstage, which sparked my interest in bow. Now, as a fully fledged mohey designer, the most rewarding part of the job is being integral to creating these dream worlds in the imagination of. But how do you get to that stage if all you have, as I did, is passion and inspiration? What can you do to secure that dream job as a lighting designer for live art, dance and theatre? I started working for a local theatre when I was I would follow spot spotlighting for the local ballet school concerts or help out with the stage on late night fit-ups. The technical manager took me under ,ight wing and I was thrown into situations where I had to work things out for. My learning curve was almost vertical, but those first few years were invaluable. The best experience you can get is on the job, so get involved in shows to see how they work from the inside and who does .
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While many lighting technicians are qualified electricians, anyone with pre-entry work experience, creative flair and technical knowledge can work in this profession. Lighting technicians work across all types of programmes and may cover productions inside studios or outside on location. The lighting team’s work is crucial, as lighting creates the right atmosphere to set a scene and evoke an audience’s response. You’ll usually work in a team, as technicians generally have to carry out heavy lifting and may need to work at heights to correctly position the lighting. While setting up lights, changing them over during production and running cables, you must always be conscious of health and safety requirements. The work demands high-level technical and creative skills to follow instructions that ensure the desired production lighting is achieved. Salaries vary greatly depending upon the type of production and your level of experience. Most lighting work is done on a freelance basis, so you must expect to negotiate rates according to your experience and the type of production you’ll be working on. Freelance work may be better paid than employment as a member of staff, but work is likely to be more irregular. Hours are invariably long and unsocial. A standard day for television work is ten hours, plus one hour for lunch. Your working day will typically start between 7am and 10am.
Lighting Tech, Electrical Lighting Technician
Elizabeth Harper designs the lighting for stage shows — she’s created the looks for plays at the Geffen Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, and theaters across the country. Theatrical lighting design isn’t just hanging some lights or turning them on and off. Harper comes up with a system to light the play, deciding where the lights go, what color they are, and how they’re controlled. Harper grew up in St. She figured out she wanted to be a lighting designer young — she said it was weird how young she was when she set her mind to do this very specific career. She thinks it was when she was still in high school. She was enough of a presence that, when the school was renting out the auditorium on the weekends, they asked her if she’d come in and set up equipment. She realized what she was doing was a job, and it seemed better than anything she saw at the job fair. So she stuck with it — with some detours along the way. Harper worked in lighting at a Six Flags in St. Louis, serving as a stage manager over a summer. It gave her a chance to build her experience coming up in the stage world, along with serving in some Just after moving to L. She was called in as a replacement on a major corporate gig at Universal Studios, with guests including the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , Seth MacFarlane , and a number of high-level stand-up comedians. They had one day to light the event — and on that day, she got hit with E. She threw up all day, Harper said, but they got it done and the event raised a ton of money. Early on, she worked at a local repertory theater in her hometown of St. She still remembers what it was like having a New York lighting designer come in to work on the show. Louis, and Cincinnatti, and Milwaukee, and all these places with resident theater companies. She saw the glamor in flying to midsize cities to help put on a play — and now she gets to do it, currently working on a show in Denver. Harper said that, for her, there was no «big break. There was a lot of trial and error on her journey — she started to doubt that being a professional lighting designer was an attainable goal. Harper said she tried finding a way out of that career path — she thought, maybe I could be an electrician? Detours included a stint as an Aerosmith roadie. After trying other approaches, she conceded that yes, she’d have to go to grad school to become a designer. She’d resisted, but started to imagine what it would be like if she actually went — and realized that being a lighting designer was a career path that was actually available to her. She went to school at NYU, but moved to L. She said that she loves being a lighting designer here. Being in L. She does lighting design for shows, teaches at USC, and also does corporate events.
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Our website uses cookies to improve your user experience. If you continue browsing, we assume that you consent to our use of cookies. More information can be found in our Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy. Tim Routledge: I work as a lighting designer across the entertainment and broadcast industries, so I look after the visual look and feel of a show once a set design has been delivered, using a brief from a creative or artistic director. This could be anything from a rock music show, to theatre, to television. TR: I started off by doing youth theatre as a kid and teenager, and helping backstage at amateur shows, then in , I went on to do an undergraduate degree in technical theatre at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. This covered the whole gamut of working backstage — show calling essentially being technical director , cueing actors or other team members, lighting, set design and prop-making. I always knew I wanted to do lighting, so I specialised in this in my second and third years. But all of the skills I learnt during my degree have helped me in my job — communicating with different people, cueing, set changes, lighting and sound effects and stage management. I was also interested in art and design from a young age — my dad would often take me to galleries. I had an eye for design as a kid, and I would create posters myself. I grew this interest into a mix of design and technical skills, which led to the work I do today. After university, I started dabbling as a lighting operator in TV then went to work for a rental company, which provided gear and sets for stage shows. TR: Up until the age of 14, I really wanted to be an actor. I worked as a technician on a project with him at a music festival, and then I really got the bug for it. University then encouraged me to experiment and do creative things with lighting, such as rig lights onto the roof of a building and into the theatre windows from outside. I start work on a project about six months before a tour starts. I sit down with the other designers and look at a brief, set by a creative director and sometimes the musician themselves. The set designer will sketch out a rough set and talk about feasibility, then an engineer will work out how it would be built. Then, work will begin in my studio, where I tend to work normal hours, 9am-5pm. Half of the day is spent designing in this way, importing the set design, placing the lights and working out the angles, then the other half is spent analysing the music for the show. I have many US clients, so I try to push conference calls back until 8pm or 9pm, so I can have family time first. On-site days take place once rehearsals begin. This is where I finesse the show that I initially programmed in my studio.
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Skip to content. Lighting Engineer jobs. A lighting engineer designs and implements the lighting arrangements for live and pre-recorded media events such as concerts, television shows, movies and public events. A lighting engineer is crucial to any production. Lighting is key to setting ambiance, mood and style to any staged event. At the outset, a lighting engineer will be directed in his work by the production director, who will explain what he wants from the lighting and it is the lighting engineer’s job to bring that vision to a reality. Working with stagehands, riggers and electricians, the lighting engineer sets up configurations of lights that are then remotely controlled via a control board. During the production, the lighting engineer may sit at this board and set different lighting effects in action at pre-determined cues. Often, series and sequences of effects are configured with computer programming. Salary Salary for lighting engineers is vastly dependent on experience. As many jobs are on a short contractual basis, it is common for freelancers to be paid a daily rate rather than a yearly salary. The type of production also influences pay greatly. Qualifications There are a variety of qualifications on offer for aspiring lighting engineers at University and College level. Experience is highly valued in the industry so don’t rely on qualifications alone to get a foot in the door. Skills As a lighting engineer the following attributes will stand you in good stead. Ability to work as part of a team Creative vision Ability to follow instructions closely Good at manual work Good mathematical ability Comfortable with heights Good level of personal fitness and endurance Great communication skills Ability to delegate. Working Conditions The working environment of a lighting engineer can vary hugely depending on the type of production being worked on. Work can take place in a television studio, outside at an open air concert or in a theatre setting. Hours conform to a production schedule and are often long, working through the night or day on 12 hour shifts. Heavy equipment and the physical nature of the job make it tiring.
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