A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, 2nd Edition

Background Preparations and Preliminary Design Paperwork

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case, the separation is represented by small ovals,

drawn and re-drawn, inside that system’s miniature

groundplan.

Along with all of the other systems, it’s then pos-

sible to see the amount of separation required for

each color system in the proposed light plot in a sin-

gle glance. Each of the drawn squares potentially rep-

resents a different color system. Next to the “warm”

square is a “cool” square, and an “NC Bk,” for “No

Color Back.” Likewise, the current thoughts about

the cyc lighting are drawn in the upper right-hand

corner; the top systems in the cyc currently list NC

(for the day look at the top of Act 1, scene 1) and

green (for Tee-boo). The bottom striped rectangle

indicates “rainbow LED.” This will refer to the LED

striplights currently envisioned for the bottom of the

translucency.

Core Design Document Review

As the lighting designer becomes more familiar with

each act, scene, and moment in the show, he or she

is able to write the lighting “score” in the cue mas-

ter. The colors, directions, and specials used within a

scene are then transferred to the systems and specials

sheet. Each system or color indicated on that doc-

ument is then transferred to the preliminary magic

sheet, and a detailing of what needs to be turned on

Figure 3.7 Hokey Preliminary Magic Sheet, Version 1