Chapter 6:

Color, Texture and Movement

The color of light is possibly the most important element you will ever control. Happily, it is the easiest and cheapest thing to do. First, let us talk a little about what lighting color is.

When passed through a prism, white light breaks into the different wavelengths of light, like the rainbow. The arrangement of the colors is the color spectrum. If you look closely at the spectrum, you will see that it is actually broken up in very distinct lines of color.

Kelvin Scale - On the technical side of color, we judge it by the Kelvin scale. The higher the number, the bluer, and the lower the number, the redder. As an example, an incandescent table lamp is around 2700 deg. Kelvin while the sun ranges from 5600 deg. Kelvin to 6500 deg. Kelvin. To put this in non-technical language let us talk about the sun. So many people are stuck on the idea that sunlight is amber when, in fact, it is very blue. I believe people think it is amber simply because when they look at the fireball it is amber and so, therefore, must produce amber rays of light when nothing could be further from the truth. Go outside on a beautiful sunny day with a piece of white paper. Have the sun light the paper. The paper will turn a little bluer long before it turns amber.

Primary and Secondary Colors - Some other technical things to consider, and be aware of, are the primary and secondary colors of light. While there are many artistic similarities to paint and light, there is one major technical difference. That is the color wheel. In paint, the primary colors are Red, Yellow and Blue. The primary colors in light are Red, Blue and Green. The secondary colors in light are Magenta (Red & Blue mixed), Amber (Red & Green mixed), and Cyan (Blue & Green mixed). Many people will choose the three primary colors on a surface to get all of the color combinations possible. While this sounds like a great idea in theory, I have never been impressed with the actual outcome. Lighting gels are not perfect primaries and the light coming from the lighting unit does not have 100% of the entire spectrum coming from it. On top of that, as you dim lights up and down, their color temperature changes. As the light is dimmed down, the color becomes warmer, so therefore changing the color. In my experience with using the three primaries, you get a nice Red, Blue, Green, Magenta (Red & Blue), Cyan (Green &Blue), but a really murky Amber (Red & Green). The colors also have to be running pretty close to full to look good. If you have a particular color that is not a primary that you want as a background, choose that color and designate a circuit of light specifically to it.

Let us get on to some more vocabulary...

The brain strives to have light be white. In a room with no other light but a red one, the brain would desaturate it to the point that it would eventually be seen as white. A nifty trick is taking that red light and instantly turning into a white one. You will see blue-green. This is because the brain has compensated with the opposite part of the color wheel. The white will be seen as aqua. Very shortly thereafter, everything will come back to normal. To avoid desaturation, you must have another color to contrast it. Once the brain has a reference point, it can keep the colors straight.

How exactly do you change the color of light? Let us not complicate the matter: to change the color of light you put a color filter (gel) on it. If you want the scene to be dark blue, put a dark blue color filter on the lights you are using. With that simplistic view being said, there are other times when it is a little more technically complicated than just saying, "I want what I want, so simply make it that color."

If you have to mimic reality very closely, it is helpful to be aware of some of the facts of color.

Fact #1 - The sun is around 5600 deg. Kelvin (light blue).
Fact #2 - Incandescent (table lamp) is around 2700 deg. Kelvin (light amber).

This is a big difference between the two. You should also know that most theatrical lights are putting out about 3050 deg. Kelvin. Therefore, it is from there you are adjusting.

The next thing is to choose your color and put it in front of the light. There is a plastic sheet called "Gel" that comes in 100's of colors that you use for this. Gel comes from the lightest of tints to the heaviest of saturated color. Many manufacturers make them. The major ones are:

Rosco: www.rosco.com

GAM (Great American Market): www.gamonline.com

Lee: www.leefilters.com.

Gobos - Templates or Texture

Many people have the need to project images with stage lights. The need can vary from creating scenery to projecting a company's logo. The basic principle is that there is a piece of sheet metal or glass placed in the middle of the light that blocks some light and lets other light pass through. It is the light that passes through that then creates the image. If the image is white or only needs to be one color (colored by gel) then a metal one is the most cost effective. You can get off the shelf gobos for around $10.00 and custom (your logo for example) ones for under $60.00. If you need the gobo to have multiple colors, then you must go to glass and that can range from $200 - $500 depending upon the complexity.

You need an ellipsoidal (Leko is the slang term) light to project a gobo.