What practical and safety considerations does a lighting designer need to to consider?

Question

What practical and safety considerations does a lighting designer need to to consider when designing lighting for a theater performance?

Answer 1

- Power restrictions - don't overload dimmers

- Weight loading on bars - don't overload! I've seen it done, we couldn't get enough weight in the counterweight cradle to balance the load on the bar, so ended up having to put half the lanterns on the next bar up...

- Are there enough dimmers for what you want to achieve, or will you have to pair lanterns?  Or hire extra dimmers - which comes back to the power and money issues!

- Costing - do you want equipment that will need to be hired in at extra cost, or does the theatre have a sufficient stock?

- Are any lanterns going to be used on the floor?  Is that going to cause problems with the cast? (eg, using booms for a kids' dance school show is probably a very bad idea, as at least a fifth of the kids will run into them during any one show!)

- Strobe lights should be used very carefully, there are guidelines regarding flash rate and length of time a strobe can be used as they can trigger epileptic fits

- Do the actors have enough light to see what they're doing?

I'd argue that the points above regarding lanterns being properly attached to the bars (and with safety bonds) and gel frames properly clipped in is more the responsibility of the chief electrician/master electrician/head technician than the lighting designer, but sometimes those roles do overlap.

Answer 2

Like the above poster said, you need safety line on each light connected to the rigging. You need to make sure the gel frames are clipped in so those also dont fall out of place.

You need a crescent wrench to attach the c clamp to the pipe. You need a piece of tie line attached to your crescent wrench to your pants/belt so you dont drop the wrench on someones head by mistake. Make sure the cable and the plugs are a correct match.

good luck

Answer 3

that all the lights are secure so that they wont fall down and injure an actor.

I've seen it happen; not pretty.