Hi,
Sorry Karyn and McQ. Hope this is not too far off for you and helps see a perspective.
craigb
FWIW - They have so-called full spectrum flourescent bulbs and most lights are not full-spectrum (be they incandescent, halogen, flourescent or LED).
For a stage situation, you can see how the same gel, would be different on all of these kinds of lamps, and that makes it really difficult to use the more advanced and newer lighting materials these days. Most theaters still stick to the leckos and the fresnels, and in many ways they are easier. I already knew that I could set this leko up at 1/2 on the slider and I had a circle on a specific area that was 6 feet wide, if I knew the distances to the main poles, for example. That made it easier to know and learn to visualize the lighting for a production. Same for a fresnel, more or less, though the area would be slightly bigger. Let's say that the lekos were used more for "detail" and actor moments than the general "area lighting that is sat by fresnels mostly.
Here is also a problem with video, where the lighting, generally, is all white, and color does not do well, because it gets washed out by the rest of the lighting. Film uses a lot of gels and colors to assimilate a lot of things, but mainly to help create an ambience. TV still lacks ambience and then some, mostly because too much of it is done indoors on a closed set, and the quality suffers.
In the shows I designed for the stage, I had to be the prima donna, and my sets always had 12 areas, instead of 9 and this gave me more options in color and moments, and this was what I was known for as a director ... lights and sound! Because of it, since I didn't like doing living room theater, I ended up doing all the far out and off kilter stuff, which is my favorite. I can always work with "abstract" a lot better than when I'm told what it supposedly is! For this reason, I found difficult to light Edward Albee, or Tennessee Williams, but I had no issues with Peter Handke or Michel de Ghelderode (I did "Escuriel" by him), and Escuriel's set was a platform with a chair on it, and the mood and atmosphere was terrific and even my directing professor said that I bested the original he had seen of this play in Paris by a mile, in simple, pure design and flow. I was not afraid to use light and color, and knew how to adjust and change at the right moments.
For the two films I did, it was all ambient lighting, because I wanted to see how well I could use it, and the result was excellent, and even the professor (was from USC) said it was phenomenally designed and I never showed a single moment where the lighting did not fit, or appeared to be incorrect, which he felt was a sign that I knew what I was doing within a conceptual level. I will say OK, but there was more instinct in that than otherwise, and while I could say that it might have been accidental I got the "right shots", in the end, I shot what I wanted and needed except two parts ... I drove over a bump and I had the camera on and filming and it went all around and I continued doing that for 30 more seconds or so, and used it during an "accident" in the film, and the other was later during a "murmur" kind of thing, where I had images of my mom's house library and other things, that created a stream of consciousness that was quite strong, and the professor felt that it was like ... you are seeing the last images as you ... during an accident or otherwise.
Lighting for me, with a camera, is about the FEELING, because I can adjust the shot to the voice and the face, to make sure that i can grab the correct feel for the words or the movement. This is nto something that is easily taught for stage in directing, as it is so intuitive a matter, but it was always important for me, and is the major clue in all my film reviews, and how directors do this differently.
Too bad I never found a rock band. I would have made Pink Floyd look like crap. I wanted to use film way before "The Wall" and had already tried it with one piece, as a tribute to the vampire play (Carmilla) by the "ETC La Mamma" group. Next to these, only the National Theater of the Deaf was magnificently directed and designed with lights and places in the stage with minimal sets. But too many bands were not interested in lighting, and Nektar's Light Theater, while nice, was half a waste that had nothing to do with their work and lyrics, which I found sad. It, instead, burned out the band.
In general, the rest of conventional theater I tend to not enjoy, and some of those musicals, have the greatest array of lights mis-used and I saw a big name play that came through here and it was the worst stage design I have ever seen in my life! Cheap, and then some! Even Las Vegas does it better, though some of the folks that do it, are, by far, some of the best in the business!