Shedding Illumination on Lighting
By Stephen EllisonThe column that attempts to answer your pressing and probing Lighting questions, any questions that relate to lighting equipment, design or installation are up for grabs. This month's question comes from the far reaches of my mind, since this is a new feature I had to come up with something to start with. So put on your thinking caps were going back to math class. The subject is addition and subtraction.
Question
I have a director that has come to me with a request. An actress will enter the stage and he wants her to appear drab for the beginning of the scene, when she enters with a group he wants the audience not to take notice. Then as if by magic she is to radiate and stand out from the crowd.
The first thing that might come to mind is, can she leave and come back in a different costume. The answer is no, not a chance, the one costume will have to appear drab and then beautiful, what can you do to make this happen?
First run, do not walk to the costume designer, the two of you will have to collaborate on this together to really make it a "Wow" effect. The type of fabric and the color will play a big part. By working with the costumer you can help influence the choices made for this costume. But you say, "What do I ask for"? Good question. Fabrics come in a variety of textures. You are looking for a fabric with a raised texture and possibly a definite direction- direction can be a big help. When the light is from one direction, the fabric creates no reflection in the audience's direction. Bring light from another angle, and the fabric will glow. You will also want to influence which way the fabric is oriented in the costume.
Now for the math; the color of the fabric and how much absorption it has will need to be calculated into what colors to choose. The answer to the director's question is in how you will light and cue the scene. The drab look for the opening of the scene will require you to light the costume in what some would call wrong, or as I taught my lighting class, the way to really get the costumer mad at you. Again you ask, "What about the math"? Well what I'm talking about is color mixing, Additive or Subtractive.
Let's begin with a few definitions; (See Figure 1)
Hue - The quality or attribute that differentiates one color from another
Saturation - also known as chroma; refers to the amount of a particular hue in a color mixture
Value - refers to the relative light or dark quality of the color
Primary - these are colors that cannot be derived from a blend of other hues; they are the base colors. One note: in paint they are Red, Blue and Yellow which when mixed in equal parts create Black. In Light they are Red, Blue and Green which when mixed in equal parts create White.
Secondary - these are the colors created when mixing equal parts of two primary colors, they are Yellow Magenta, and Cyan.
Complementary - these are the colors that when mixed together create white. If you look at the color diagram (figure 1) they are on opposite sides, with white in the middle.
So to make our dress drab we need to find a color that is not complementary, by adding a color with a high saturation that creates a new color in the brown range. Let's say the dress is a blue, the complement is yellow, so we pick the secondary between Blue and Red, Magenta. If lit in a dark magenta with a more red than blue saturation we will make the blue look magenta. If we then cross-fade to a light blue with a touch of green we can change the observed color to a brilliant blue.
In this example we changed the Saturation of the two colors, in drab to change the observed color, and in the beautiful to accent the color. I also changed the Value, in drab to a dark color, and in beautiful to a high value to help the character stand out.
The use of the colors reflecting on the costume is an example of additive color mixing. The color filters used to light the costume is an example of subtractive mixing. Any time we place a filter in front of a fixture we are removing some components of white, or subtracting them. If you cannot find the exact color you want in your collection of gels you can try using more than one piece of gel to create the color by subtraction. This was more important years ago when the selection of colors was not as extensive as it is today, but a useful bit of information when the store is closed and you need that particular color right now.
Another good use of additive mixing is in creating shadows of a different color. By using similar hues at two angles, the shadow on one side will tend to go towards one primary and the other side towards the other primary. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, especially if you are working in magenta and you create a sickly looking green which someone walks into.
I have presented here just a taste of what you can learn about color theory. If you are interested, you can go online and find more information at manufacturers' websites. I want to thank Joe Tawil of Great American for the use of the color diagram; this and more can be found at http://www.gamonline.com
So go off and make use of your math, if you find this hard to visualize then create for yourself a color wheel and it may begin to make more sense. This column is here to help answer your questions, so please send them in and I will endeavor to answer all of them, the best will make it into future issues. I can be reached by mail, thru the magazine or at sellison@barbizon.com. Till next time, go forth and make good lighting!
