Week 3: Lighting tech, what they do and how to become one. Unit 3

For this task I am going to investigate what it takes to have a job in lighting and the skills and the knowledge you would need to achieve this.

 

Jobs associated with lighting are Theatre, Film/TV, Corporate/Concerts/Special events. Lighting is one of the rare skills which is involved in all three things and is used the same. You can be a lighting technician on a film set then later in the week you could work in theatre.

What they do:

There are three stages of the lighting career which are the following lighting assistant, lighting technician and lighting designer.

Lighting Assistant:

Lighting assistant are people who help the lighting technician do their job, they will do similar tasks as the lighting technician but will follow the lighting technician around and do what they tell them. for example they would sometimes prepare the equipment so it is ready for the lighting technician to put into place before shooting. Lighting assistants learn about how all the equipment and how other roles work on the job and the majority of the time they are attending a college course at the same time as working.

Lighting Technician:

The lighting technician is the person that the lighting assistant helps, they set up the lights depending on the way the lighting designer has designed the lighting on set. They have to look after all the equipment they are responsible for and also to keep them clean. Some lighting technicians set up the lights before the shoot and others reposition the lights during the shoot. They help with power supplies as well as they need a lot of it for the lights.

Lighting Designer:

The lighting designer is the one who before shooting starts sits down with the director and designs the kind of lighting they are going to have in their production and try to mimic the directors vision. They also work with the cinematographers, set designer and costume designer. They talk with these roles for different but similar reasons, the cinematographers is so that they can get an idea of the shot types they are using in the film so they can angle the lights perfect with cameras position in mind. The set designer for the same reason that they can work together to get the lighting perfect with the surroundings and where and when the subject will be, finally costume designers is so that the lighting shows the important parts of the characters outfit if there is any and if the costumes will conflict with the lighting.

http://creativeskillset.org/search?q=light

How to become one:

The way you can start to become a light assistant which is the beginning of the chain you will need to apply for an apprenticeship with a lighting company because you would most likely need to attend a college course in the days off, you will work for roughly three years until the course is over and then you can begin to work on location for small production then with experience you can move onto feature films and adverts. Once you become a lighting assistant you will gradually make your way up the chain.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/technical-theatre-apprenticeships On this site you can apply for an apprenticeship for technical theatre which is the same skills used in the film industry just without the live audience.

 

This lesson with Jenni was interesting and I learned a lot about jobs related to lighting, what the jobs consist off and how to get into the industry.