Basics of How Moving Lights work in Theater

Eric Womack Grades 10-12 High School

Common Core Standards:

II 3PR Apply technical knowledge and skills to collaborate and safely create functional scenery, properties, lighting, sound costumes

and make-up.
III 2PR Identify and safely apply the appropriate technology to a selected area of technical emphasis.

IV 2PR Collaborate with others to develop a unified design for a production.

IV 5PR Integrate the essential skills from other academic disciplines to support and execute a dramatic or theatrical production.

Lesson Summary: Have the Students in Theater Production 4 divide into groups of 4 and recreate a scene from either a music concert or a theatrical event. Each group will use a minimum of 4 instruments and a maximum of 8 lights 2 must be moving lights. Technology used will be the ETC Gio light board as well as the research of the scene they wish to recreate and the lighting fixtures and the moving lights. The purpose of this assignment is as a final to demonstrate proficiency and understanding of basic lighting and Gio programing. Estimated Duration: This lesson will take approximately 8 40 min class periods to complete. This will be broken into 2 4 day periods. One group will work on their presentation onstage and in the booth and the other group will assist as lighting technicians to assist in the hang and focus for the opposite group Commentary: The idea with this lesson is to have a project based final exam. Theater, at this age, is about doing and learning instead of a bunch of theory. I believe that these students will truly love recreating a scene of their choosing. The skills demonstrated here will show that the students have a good foundation in lighting.

Instructional Procedures: (This will be one of the most detailed sections of this assignment). Describe the instructional steps that will be taken to implement the lesson. For each section of the lesson, document how much time it will take and what students are expected to do. Make sure to cite your uses of technology as often as possible. Please take the time to provide a clear narrative as to how the lesson will unfold. Day 1: 40 min. The group will pick the instrumentation and the moving lights that they choose to use. They will get the other group to hang those instruments in the locations of the theater they are choosing. They will send one student to the Gio and turn the circuits on and test the fixtures, and make any repairs necessary. Counter weight the line sets correctly check weight and set trim heights. I will be assisting with instrument choices and safety of the fly system and the hanging of lights. May use ipads or smart phones for clarification of instrument choices. Day 2: 40 min. The same group as yesterday will go to the lighting gel inventory and will make color selection for the static fixtures. The gel will be cut to the appropriate sizes and then framed and placed in instruments. The group should now start to program the dimmers and levels as well as the hazer and the moving lights to duplicate the look they are after. I will assist with color choices and the hazer use. I will be in the booth observing the programing steps that the group is using. I will make suggestions in programming. Day 3: 40 min. The group will continue programing the look they are recreating. Group 2 will be doing a written critique of the other groups organization when it came to hanging and focusing the lights for the look. Day 4: The group that has been programing will show the scene on the screen with the music. The next step is that this group will show the look they have created. The presenting group will now be asked to discuss the shortcomings and the success they felt they had during the cuing process. The grades will be assigned by observation and using the rubric for this project.

Pre-Assessment: This is a cumulative final project. Pre assessment will occur through structured observation as well as review. This will culminate in a un scored assessment of basic theater terms, loading procedures and trouble shooting skills created online on classmarker.com. The purpose of this assessment is not for score but for me to see that there is a basic understanding of the skills required for this assignment. Students not scoring well will receive more intensive review to develop the skills required. Scoring Guidelines: The quiz will contain 50 questions students receiving less that 40correct answers will need to have remedial instruction in the basic skills. The scores on this quiz though not for an official score will show me where I need to concentrate or modify my lesson delivery over the semester so the students will not require more training in the skills required for this project. Post-Assessment: The post assessment for this project will be based on observation of the final outcome as well as the observations in the booth of the ability to use basic commands to program the Gio light board. I aslo will observe instrument choice and the correctness of color choices. The accuracy of the recreation will also be abserved. Scoring Guidelines: Score instruments use of the Correctness movers All Correct 100 to 4 Scene 90 Missed one instrument 80 Missed 2 instrument 70 Missed 2 instruments 60 missed 3 instruments 50 missed 3 i instruments 2 Number of instruments 8 Steps in the Program 8

2 0

4 4

4 3

Differentiated Instructional Support Students scoring well on the pre assessment will be asked to aid the students that need help in learning the focus skills and trouble shooting skills so that these lower scoring students can achieve at a better level. Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the material: I believe that I can model this activity and set up trouble spots so that I can walk students through the trouble shooting and basic hanging skills for the lighting instruments.

Extension http://www.mts.net/~william5/sld.htm Students can get a tutorials and extra understanding of the basic lighting skills that would be required to participate in the group and successfully recreate this scene http://www.lightingtrainer.com/misc.htm Tis site contains many tricks and secrets on how to achieve the programming of moving lights

Homework Options and Home Connections Research the scene the group would like to recreate

Interdisciplinary Connections The cross is to physical science. One of the major things we need to get correct is how light waves interact with haze and how the color media in the lights is a subtractive media as opposed to paint which is a additive color mixing. When all colors are present in light that is how you get white light. Materials and Resources:

For teachers

Materials are all in the theater space. I need to make sure that students know where to find them. And how to correctly use them. Examples of scenes that have been recreated so students have a visual idea of what the target goal is

For students

I would suggest that they bring smart phones for the pre assessment and then down

load and save the scene they choose to recreate

Key Vocabulary Leko Ellipsoidel reflector spot able to use shutters to change the shape of the beam of light Par not able to change the beam of light can vary by changing lenses to change spread of light on stage Martin Aura moving fixture LED with color mixing and zoom able High end Studio Spots gobos in them and a zoom able beam of light. Additional Notes This is a lesson that is coming up so please provide any and all constructive criticism on the rubric and the over all organization for this lesson plan