Reddit Reddit reviews A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, Second Edition

We found 2 Reddit comments about A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, Second Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, Second Edition
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2 Reddit comments about A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, Second Edition:

u/loansindi · 3 pointsr/lightingdesign

Introduction to what, exactly? Stage lighting in general?

In my lighting design class in college, we used Lighting and the Design Idea by Linda Essig.

Steve Shelley is also well regarded.

u/tknelms · 2 pointsr/lightingdesign

FrostD makes a good point.

There are some standard textbooks that you might look into (with the accompanying knowledge that they will carry textbook-like price tags). I've found them more useful than websites, mostly because I had a lot of trouble finding any websites that did a broad overview of stage lighting.

Shelley's A Practical Guide to Lighting the Stage is a pretty well known one.

Personally, I learned a lot from Gillette's Designing with Light. But I also encountered it after I'd had some experience with the actual lighting instruments. So I remember it as a great introduction to "how do I design," but I can't remember if it covers any of the "this is a fresnel, this is a par" things.

If you want to learn how to program cues, I'd look into tutorials (or at least manuals) relating to whichever board you are likely to work with. If you don't know which board you're most likely to work with, there's a decent chance you'll end up behind an ETC Express [citation needed].

While I'm recommending texts, if you want to figure out how to draft a light plot (likely a further-down-the-line thing in your education), Hillmar's Light Plot Deconstructed is a pretty good way of learning how to make a plot in Vectorworks.

But really, the best way to learn is to do, or at least to be around people who do. If you're going to school, check out if the theatre program (if it exists) would like an extra set of hands on the next load-in/strike. Or if they need a board op (which was one of my favorite ways to pick up on lighting design without needing a lot of prior knowledge or experience).

If you're not going to school atm, see if there are theatres nearby who might want help. Often, even small places (high schools, churches, restaurants that host live acts) will have their normal "lighting guy/gal" they could put you in touch with. Most should be willing to at least point you in the right direction, even if they don't end up wanting/needing a hand with things.

This isn't by any stretch a complete guide, but hopefully it's enough to get you started in some direction or other.