• Intensity - The actual amount of light coming out of the unit. In simpler terms, how bright and dim can you get it?
• Color - From heavy saturation to delicate tints. The difference really matters. Color is the strongest visual element to the light. John Gleason once said, "If I can't bring the light to full, I have chosen the wrong color." There are almost one thousand different colors of lighting gel that you can choose from. The right color is just waiting for you to pick it.
• Direction - Where the light comes from (sometimes even more important is where the shadow goes). In our sunset, the light had to come from a particulardirection. If a light is coming from the table lamp, then the highlight should be on the side of the face nearest the table lamp.
• Shape - What shape is the light - circle, square, broken line. Sometimes the shape helps keep light off things that you do not want lit. Some lights, like Ellipsoidals, give you great flexibility in controlling the size. While they generally begin at a specific size circle to the light, they can change diameter of thecircle with an iris, even become a square with shutters.
• Sharpness - Whether the light is in a sharp focus or a soft focus. More importantly, is the shadow crisp or is it fuzzy?

• The Hanging Location Where you locate the light. This establishes what direction the beam is coming from.
• The Lighting Unit The actual instrument that produces light. Here you can change the color, shape and sharpness. Most fixtures accommodate colorfilters to change the color. The reflector creates the shape of the light that can then be adjusted via shutters, irises and barn doors. The sharpness can bechanged with different relationships between lenses and reflectors.
• Power Distribution The light needs power. This is how the electricity gets from the dimmer to the light. It can be as simple as a lighting cable (heavy-dutyextension chord) from the dimmer to the light, or as complicated as a patch bay that assigns circuits to chosen dimmers. A power distribution system mayalso include raceways, which permanently place circuitry through out the theatre.
• Dimmers The dimmers are controlled by the control board (light board) and are the physical units that either let all of the electricity get to the light causing itto go to full, or restrict the electricity to the light causing it to dim.
• Control The control is the brains of the system. The light board, wither manual or memory is controlled by the human. Once the control board knows whatshould happen it sends a signal through control wires, and now sometimes wireless signals to the dimmers and other controlled devices.
• Let us recap: you use the tools of a lighting system to manipulate the lighting in order to accomplish your artistic ideas.

Now let us make sure we understand the flow of a lighting system.

• The Lighting Designer decides that he/she wants the stage to be blue (or any other artistic idea).
• He/She tells the light board operator to bring up the blue lights on the controller.
• The controller then sends a signal through the control wire (or in some fancy places a wireless receiver/transmitter) to the dimmers.
• The dimmers that are being told to turn on then provide electricity to the electrical circuit that is connected to the lights with blue gels in them.
• The electricity travels through the electrical circuits to the blue lights.