Theatrical Lighting Designer Chris Caputo

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1 Theatrical Lighting Designer Chris Caputo At The Rose Center Theater Kathy Cannarozzi Harris Theater Teacher Mission Viejo High School Saddleback Valley USD

2 The Rose Center Theater A 400 seat community theater in Westminster with a proscenium stage. It produces 4 musicals a year and hosts a variety of community events.

3 Lighting Designer s Responsibilities To meet with directors of each production to find out what their needs are for their event. To create lighting designs to enhance the production so that the performers can be seen, to set a mood and to focus the action on stage. The designer must have artistic abilities and technical skills.

4 Experience Chris Caputo has been a freelance lighting designer for 25 years in the Southern California Area. As a designer at The Rose, he often has new events coming into the theater every week which need his lighting expertise. These can be dance concerts, orchestras, award shows or a beauty pageant.

5 Experience The Rose Theater Curtain Call Dinner Theater West Covina Playhouse Camino Playhouse San Juan Hills High School Mission Viejo High School Industrial lighting design California State University, Fullerton Saddleback College

6 Curtain Call Dinner Theater Anything Goes design by Chris Caputo

7 How he got started.. He was an actor/singer at Mission Viejo High School in the 1980 s. In his junior year, they needed someone to design the set for A Midsummer Night s Dream and he volunteered. Began to design other sets in high school including Skin of our Teeth and Our Hearts were Young and Gay Hired by the school district as a student theater manager to work when outside groups would rent the theater. His job included running the lights and microphones.

8 First Designs. While in High School he designed the set and lights for The Caucasian Chalk Circle

9 Education Decided to major in college in set and lighting design at Cal State Fullerton 2 yrs and transferred to University of California at Irvine where he graduated with a degree in theater. While he was in college he was given the opportunity to design lighting for productions and also was hired by area high schools to design sets and lighting.

10 Skills Chris is also the technical director at The Rose Theater and designs and builds the sets for the 4 musicals produced each year. The ability to design a set and lighting are great skills to have together as they often compliment each other. In lighting, he must also have expertise in electrical engineering.

11 Skills needed to be a designer work as a team member collaborate ideas learn to compromise stay in budget communication skills problem solve be creative research skills ability to analyze a script knowledge of electricity art/drawing computer design and programming skills

12 Valuable Courses Valuable courses to take in high school theater, geometry, physics, drafting, architecture, drawing, 3-D art, art history, English, history, music. Valuable courses to take in college theatrical design, drawing, stagecraft, art history, dramatic literature classes, theater history, lighting design, directing, business, marketing.

13 A day in the life. A designer must be able to attend meetings with production staff and communicate design ideas, adjust and collaborate. A designer needs time to read and analyze a play and understand the mood of the piece and the intent of the director s concept.

14 A day in the life. A designer needs time to research the various periods, types of lighting and special effects for each scene.. After designing a light plot, the designer works with the light crew to hang the lights.

15 A day in the life. Lighting designers work irregular hours, particularly if they re working on an upcoming play or other performance that requires hours of rehearsal setting the lighting. They often work late at night. They are usually expected to be present at performances and openings, which typically happen at night.

16 Designing phase First, he reads the play and takes down notes about the places, time of day, mood, time of year and any special lighting effects required by the play. Next, he looks for some pictures that might help to see the look that is needed such as moonlight or fire.

17 Moonlight Picture of moonlight Moonlight in Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler design by Chris Caputo

18 Fire Picture of fire The Triangle Factory Fire Project design by Chris Caputo

19 Creating a light plot A light plot, is a document similar to a construction set) blueprint used to illustrate and communicate the lighting design to the director and other designers.

20 The light plot specifies how each lighting fixture should be hung, focused, colored, and connected. This can be given to the lighting crew to hang. Light Plot

21 The Lights Chris has to know all of the different types of lighting fixtures such as fresnels, ellipsoidals, scoops, spotlights and intelligent lighting (lights that move).

22 Color Knowing and Understanding color theory and light is very important to a lighting designer. He must choose the color gels for each light

23 Creating the lighting cues After watching rehearsals for the production to get some idea of where the actors are moving in a scene or dance number, Chris meets with the director to determine where the lights need to change during a dry technical rehearsal. At this rehearsal, the stage manager, assistant director and director are working together to create the cues on paper in the script. Then the lighting designer can begin to program the lightboard.

24 The Technical Rehearsal At the technical rehearsal, Chris works to program the board as the director sits next to him and they go cue by cue with the actors to light the show.

25 Performances Chris is usually present at performances running the board. This means that he is working with the stage manager during the show operating the lightboard. He often is supervising a community member or student who is working on the lighting crew.

26 Job Opportunities As a freelance designer, Chris works at various theaters but he has to be able to market himself and budget his time. In the Southern California area there are more opportunities to work than in other areas of the country so there are more jobs in lighting design available. However, it is a competitive field.

27 Designs by Chris Caputo Carousal

28 Designs by Chris Caputo Man of La Mancha

29 Designs by Chris Caputo Oklahoma

30 Designs by Chris Caputo The King and I

31 Designs by Chris Caputo Singin in the Rain

32 Designs by Chris Caputo Beauty and the Beast

33 Designs by Chris Caputo Crazy for You

34 Designs by Chris Caputo The Odyssey - underworld

35 Designs by Chris Caputo The Odyssey

36 Designs by Chris Caputo The Odyssey- the heavens

37 Salary The current labor statistics state the average yearly salary is $40,000. This varies from professional theater to community theater. But on the bright side Lighting designers can negotiate their own per show rate based on their experience.

38 Credits: Photography Chris Caputo, Kelley Moody, and DSM Photography