Aerial Lighting for Beginners

3 comments

  1. Kofi Isaacs - Reply

    Hey Mark!

    Have been absolutely loving your tutorials. This one is great as always!

    I’m an aerial artist as well as designer and programmer mostly for circus/physical theatre, still very much in the emerging part of my career.

    I think for me an absolute must as well as the booms has always been three top lights (for a single point apparatus, four for double point) arranged as a equilateral triangle with one behind and the other two on the front spaced about a meter (depending on heights) from the point.

    I find it really great for getting some additional definition out of the body and also just another useful place to build on colour combinations. Its also obviously most usefull for acts where the majority of the action is directly under the point and becomes less and less useful the more time is spent in spinning or swinging sequences!

    Oh and my other top circus tips – any manipulation will NEED ground light otherwise when they throw the juggling clubs they wont be able to see the bottom of them, which makes catching very difficult. If they dont know what they need then you’ll spend lots of time adding top light or booms from many angles when one ground light at a very low intensity could’ve fixed the issue and preserved the state.

    Also a spotting light pointing directly up into the grid can be very useful for teeterboard artists to get a sense of space to orient themselves – another way to save alot of time in a safety call.

    • admin - Reply

      Kofi,

      Thanks for commenting. I LOVE to have the top and back lights you are talking about, but most of the spaces I’ve worked in won’t allow it either because of height or because the apparatus would get caught on the light.

      Thanks for the advice on jugglers (always a challenge for me) and I’ve never worked with a teeterboard artist, so thank you for that!

      • Kofi Isaacs - Reply

        Aghh ofcourse! It is always a struggle to get them exactly as needed.

        I’ve found if I befriend the show rigger early enough in the pre-rig they’ll often let me put them directly rigged to the truss that the point is on, on the top cord. It means they’re a bit closer than I prefer but often the most reliable way of getting them included and up and out of the way of the rigging.

        It definitely gets tricky in venues where the point is rigged from existing roof beams instead of an installed truss!

        Cheers 🙂

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