The Assistant Lighting Designer’s Handbook A reference for students and aspiring assistants By: Ben Pilat INTRODUCTION The assistant lighting designer plays an important role in the creation and maintenance of lighting designs. Assistants perform a variety of duties, but first and foremost, they are keepers-of-information. As a secretary for the lighting designer, an assistant manages the details of a design, allowing the lighting designer to perform his or her job as efficiently as possible. Successful assistants need to be highly organized, detail-oriented individuals with the ability to remain calm and think on their feet in extremely stressful situations. Many assistants find it helpful to approach their work with a designer’s eye. When an assistant understands the designer’s goals and methods, clear communication is a simple matter. This type of assistant lighting designer is also able to give an informed opinion, if asked. Theatre, opera, and dance are the most common live-performance events that employ the services of an assistant lighting designer, although other opportunities, such as corporate industrials and theme parks, are available. Exceptionally large undertakings such as Broadway musicals often employ multiple assistants, each with different responsibilities. Opera and ballet companies usually perform in repertory and add an extra level of difficulty to the job, such as daily refocusing and maintaining the integrity of multiple shows. Unless an assistant is a full-time employee of a design firm, he or she probably works on a freelance basis. Freelance assistants are hired by designers on a project by project basis and might work for multiple designers. Other assistants are hired by a specific organization as resident assistants, who work exclusively with in-house and guest designers for that company. Although many assistants are aspiring designers who view their work as a stepping-stone in their own career, some individuals base extremely successful and fulfilling careers solely on assisting. PRE-PRODUCTION WORK The assistant’s work begins long before setting foot in the theatre. One of the first things an assistant should do is become familiar with the show. This task is sometimes overlooked, but it can make all the difference in the world. He or she needs to know the plot, who the characters are, and in what order the scenes play. This is an investment of time, but it will pay off later in the production. If the 1 show has multiple sets, the assistant will have a better idea of how to organize focus. During tech, the designer will be able to give notes faster and easier if the assistant is familiar with the show. The next step is to acquire floorplan of the space so a light plot can be drafted. In most cases, a Vectorworks or AutoCAD drawing of the theatre will already exist. The designer can usually acquire this with a phone call to the theatre or a colleague, but in certain instances (especially if the show is in an unconventional space) this drawing will need to be generated from scratch. The assistant might then make a trip to the theatre to take measurements. Even if plans for the space already exist, a designer might want to verify measurements if a show is going to be especially large. The first piece of information that will come due during a production is the shop order. This list of all the equipment needed to realize the designer’s vision will need to be submitted to several shops as soon as possible so they can begin bidding on the show. The shop order needs to be extremely detailed and should specify all the dimmers, lights, effects equipment, accessories, hardware, and spare equipment that a show will need. Most shop orders simply state, “Cable as per Production Electrician,” because the amount needed is rarely known this early in the process. However, before a shop order can be completed, a light plot (or at least a rough version) needs to be drafted. This process will vary with every designer. Some designers need to do this themselves to be more familiar with their design when they arrive at tech. Some designers will draft their plot by hand because they need to be able to see the entire sheet of paper to visualize the design. They may then have an assistant draft their plot in a CAD program to make sharing the information and making changes easier. Other designers will make a rough plot themselves using tick marks or basic CAD symbols to represent lights and have an assistant clean up the drawing to make it presentation-ready. Regardless of how the assistant receives the plot, he or she should start to learn it. This doesn’t mean that memorization is required, but the assistant should understand what positions and colors the designer is using and how he has broken down his systems. This way, the assistant knows exactly what lights the designer is talking about when he refers to “downstage cool high sides”. These are the kinds of details that the assistant can free the designer from worrying about. 2 PAPERWORK Once the light plot is finished, paperwork needs to be generated. Lightwright is the industry standard and will import from Vectorworks fairly easily. In a repertory situation, a database program like Microsoft Access is better suited to handle the specific challenges of rotating shows. Whatever program is being used, the designer or assistant will submit an instrument schedule, channel hookup, and any other requested information to the Production Electrician. The assistant will also need to manage his own copies of this information. It is usually best to keep a single binder that contains the current copies of all paperwork. The assistant will usually make magic sheets, but this is an extremely personal document and every designer will want something slightly different. The designer will need to explain what he wants, or at least give the assistant a sample magic sheet from an old show. Sample magic sheets, both numeric and graphic, are included in Appendix A. A piece of nonstandard but highly valuable paperwork is a “changes” form. On one side of the page is a space to write notes, changes, or additions and series of checkboxes on the other side of the page. These checkboxes indicate pieces of paperwork that need to be updated with a given note. These columns can include: notes, instrument schedule, channel hookup, LD’s magic sheet, ALD’s magic sheet, plot, lightwright, and whether the change has been accomplished. I have found that this is a great way to record information when things are moving quickly. These updates can then filter down through all the pieces of paperwork when the pace becomes less frantic; it also frees the assistant’s already taxed memory and attention span from having too much to do in a short amount of time. A sample “changes” form is also included in Appendix B. The assistant’s life revolves around paperwork, so it is very important to skillfully manage all these documents. All paperwork, without exception, should be dated. The current “active copy” should be labeled “master” and old paperwork should be labeled as such with the date it was “retired”. Old copies should be kept in a separate well-labeled folder or envelope and nothing should be thrown away. When I cross out old information, I only use one pencil line; it will usually be important to know what the information was before the change. When I am formatting my paperwork, I make sure that every column has enough room to pencil in a change. This helps me stay neat and organized so I can easily process all the information the designer is giving me. 3 FOCUS Prior to focusing, the designer and assistant should organize a plan of attack, especially if there are multiple sets needed to focus. Once focus begins it is the assistant’s job to keep things moving quickly and efficiently. The designer will be focusing onstage and the assistant will have a plot and paperwork in the house so he can call out channel numbers to the board operator. As soon as a light comes up, the assistant will tell the designer the light’s purpose so he can begin focusing it. If multiple positions are being focused at one time, the assistant needs to know where all the electricians are and should be able to keep them all moving. If color or templates need to be dropped, the assistant should communicate that information to the electrician before that light is ready to be focused. No one should have to wait on the assistant at focus. The assistant should always stay a few steps ahead of the designer. Try to anticipate what the designer needs before he or she has to ask for it. It is often helpful to have a magic sheet at focus, because the designer might want to see other lights near the one being focused, and it is very time consuming to decipher this information from an instrument schedule. It is also important to develop a system to keep track of which lights have been focused. Lightwright will do this, but simple circles and check marks work just as well. Keep in mind, it is important to keep track of which light is currently being focused and any lights that are only partially focused. If a show will move to a new location or is being entered into a theatre’s repertory, the assistant is also responsible for creating focus charts. Using a grid system, the focus of the light is recorded along with shutter cuts and any other pertinent information.