Focus is the ability for the lighting designer to help the audience to know where to look. It is sometimes useful for a lighting designer to think a little like a camera operator on a film or television show. There are some shots which are very wide and show lots of elements- think of the helicopter shot flying over the hill to reveal thousands of orcs ready to destroy the good inhabitants of Middle Earth. There is a lot to look at, and there is not really a specific emphasis on one particular area. But if the camera then zooms in to focus on the leader who is about to storm the gate, the audience is able to focus on this character who is important to the telling of the story.
The lighting designer acts in much the same way. When there is less importance for the audience to focus on individual characters, or an individual area of the stage, the production is lit more evenly across the whole space. But when it is important to emphasize on one particular character or conversation or scenic element, we can adjust the elements of light in the areas of the stage that have less importance, and/or add emphasis to the important parts by adjusting the elements.
Intensity is one element of light that helps to provide focus. The eye is naturally drawn to whatever is the brightest element in the field of vision. One way to test that the intensity is properly set in order to provide the correct focus during cueing sessions is to look at the stage and squint your eyes. This will lessen your visual accuity and blur out a lot of the details, allowing your brain to focus specifically on the relative brightness of the elements on stage. If the brightest part of the stage is not what the audience is supposed to be looking at, you'd better adjust some levels!
However, focus is really a function of contrast. The eye is drawn naturally to the thing that is different. It is also very possible to provide focus through the use of color. If the whole stage is washed in red, a character lit in blue will also stand out, even though red is a much more dominant color to our eye.
It is also possible to completely counter the 'natural' idea that the brightest object provides focus. One of the most focus drawing strategies is to use a silhouette. Even though the character or object that is being silhouetted is not lit at all, the audience is easily drawn to that point of emphasis on the stage.
The lighting designer acts in much the same way. When there is less importance for the audience to focus on individual characters, or an individual area of the stage, the production is lit more evenly across the whole space. But when it is important to emphasize on one particular character or conversation or scenic element, we can adjust the elements of light in the areas of the stage that have less importance, and/or add emphasis to the important parts by adjusting the elements.
Intensity is one element of light that helps to provide focus. The eye is naturally drawn to whatever is the brightest element in the field of vision. One way to test that the intensity is properly set in order to provide the correct focus during cueing sessions is to look at the stage and squint your eyes. This will lessen your visual accuity and blur out a lot of the details, allowing your brain to focus specifically on the relative brightness of the elements on stage. If the brightest part of the stage is not what the audience is supposed to be looking at, you'd better adjust some levels!
However, focus is really a function of contrast. The eye is drawn naturally to the thing that is different. It is also very possible to provide focus through the use of color. If the whole stage is washed in red, a character lit in blue will also stand out, even though red is a much more dominant color to our eye.
It is also possible to completely counter the 'natural' idea that the brightest object provides focus. One of the most focus drawing strategies is to use a silhouette. Even though the character or object that is being silhouetted is not lit at all, the audience is easily drawn to that point of emphasis on the stage.
Focus is essentially the ability for the lighting to help the audience to know 'where to look'. We use contrast of the elements of light in order to provide this focus. In some cases, the contrast is in color (one object is in a lower saturation or a differing hue, therefore drawing the eye), but most often focus is provided with intensity. The eye is naturally drawn to the 'brightest' object in the field of vision. One way to see what the focus of a composition is is to squint at the stage and see what stands out.
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