Lighting Instruments

Fresnel: Uses a wavy lens to focus the light. The focus is NOT crisp. These are primarily used for fills and back lighting. The orchestra shell lights and stage wash lights are Fresnels.

PAR: Self-contained reflecting light like the ones you can buy at Home Depot. These are available in multiple colors, intensities (wattage), and beam angles (flood or spot). They are less controllable, but generally much cheaper than other lights. The strip lights use halogen par bulbs.

Ellipsoidal (ERS): Ellipsoidal Reflecting Spotlight. Known by the brand names ETC-Source Four and Leko. ERSs have controllable focus and shutters and accept gels and gobos. These are the most common type of Spot Light in most theaters.

LED Light: Lighting instrument where LEDs are used to produce light. LED lights generate equivalent light output using 8-10 times less power than traditional tungsten bulbs . Colored LED's project colors directly, eliminating the need to filter white light providing further power savings. Examples in our theater are the house lights and cyc lights. These have plastic fresnel lenses to control beam spreading.

Projector: Used to project an image on a screen or cyclorama. Very powerful projector lamps are required to compete with stage lighting. Spotlights must be shuttered so as to not wash out the projection area. Front projection risks shadows from actors and scenery. Rear projection takes more room behind the set than most stages have.

Strip Lights: A bank of lights in a single cabinet used as footlights or for cycloramas. Traditional strip lights use alternating gel colors on adjacent positions to provide mixing of colors.

Scoop: Large open light frame used for washes and fills. Mostly replaced by Fresnels. We used them as a wash on the cyclorama before we got the LED Cyc lights.