With the prevalence of stage performances, the stage lighting and lighting industry has emerged, becoming an important component of stage performances. Stage lighting emphasizes the four key elements of visual atmosphere, realism, aesthetics, and performance. After years of evolution, it has gradually developed into a relatively complete and advanced stage lighting system today. The first prosperous period of drama appeared over two thousand years ago in ancient Greece, where theaters were either open-air or semi open-air. The lighting of the stage relies on the immense "lamp" and sun in the sky, so it can only be performed during the day. However, the objective drawbacks such as the need for rest and entertainment at night, the vulnerability of outdoor performances to weather, and the development of drama have made Stage lighting a problem that people must solve.
The success of the performance lighting design is marked by the proper handling of Stage lighting. Stage lighting should not only illuminate the actors and let the audience see the facial expressions, expressions and movements clearly, but also make full use of lighting technology, mobilize lighting operations and other means to enhance the artistic effect and make the audience feel immersive. Stage lighting is mainly the effect produced by the combination of computer lights and other lamps. It is a comprehensive performance through different modeling scenes, different color changes, different angles of view, horizontal and vertical light angles, and changes in speed, stroboscopic speed, aperture size changes, focal length changes, etc. Then, you must master these basic knowledge before you understand the Stage lighting technology;
1. Visible light
Light is Radiant energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. The wavelength range of electromagnetic wave radiation is very wide, and only the radiation with a wavelength between 380-760nm can cause optical vision, known as visible light. Light with wavelengths shorter than 380nm is ultraviolet, X-rays, and Y-rays; Light longer than 760nm is infrared, radio waves, etc. They cannot produce light vision to the human eye and are invisible. Therefore, light is an objective energy that exists and is closely related to human subjective feelings.
2. Classification of Colors
Colors can be divided into two categories: non colored and colored. Non colored refers to the white, light gray, gray to dark gray, and even black series, which is called the white black series. Pure white is an ideal object with complete light reflection, with a reflectivity of 1; Pure black is an ideal non reflective object with a reflectivity of 0. So, the non colored white black series represents the change in the reflectivity of an object to light. The reflectivity of light is directly proportional to brightness, and indoor white walls and ceilings can achieve higher brightness. Color refers to various colors beyond the white and black series. Color has three characteristics: hue, brightness, and saturation, which are called the three elements of color.
Hue represents the color presented. It refers to the names of various colors, such as red, green, blue, etc. It is related to the wavelength of light. Brightness (brightness) refers to the brightness of a color. The brightness of different tones varies, even if the same color tone is affected by the properties of the object surface and the intensity of light, it will produce differences in brightness and depth. If it is also yellow, it can be light yellow, medium yellow, deep yellow, etc.
Saturation (chromaticity) represents the depth (intensity) of a color, and can also be said to be the purity and brightness of the color. The higher the saturation, the darker (thicker) the color appears. The Monochromatic radiation light in visible light is the most saturated color. The more white light is added to the spectral color, the less saturated it becomes. For example, red light has a higher saturation than pink light because white light is incorporated into the pink light. Generally speaking, in the same color tone, when the brightness changes, the saturation also changes. However, an increase or decrease in brightness leads to a decrease in saturation. Only when the brightness is moderate, the saturation (purity) is maximum. However, in the impression, people always feel that colors with higher brightness look brighter.
3. Three primary colors and color matching methods
Red, green, and blue are referred to as the three primary colors. These three colors can be mixed in different proportions to produce various colors. There are two basic methods of color mixing: Additive color mixing and Subtractive color mixing.
The so-called Additive color mixing is a method that when different colors of light are mixed, they add their respective parts in the spectrum together to produce a new mixed color. The chromaticity relationship of light and color mixing is shown. When the three primary colors of red, green, and blue are mixed in equal amounts, it can be obtained:
Red light+green light=yellow light+green light+blue light=blue light
Green light+red light=magenta light Red light+green light+blue light=white light
If different amounts of three primary colors are mixed, various intermediate colors can be obtained, such as: more red light+less green light=orange light
More red light+less blue light=pink light
Subtractive color mixing is a method that when different colors are mixed, they selectively absorb their corresponding parts in the spectrum from the incident light to produce a composite color effect. If any two colored lights can produce white light after being added together, these two colored lights are called complementary light (Complementary colors). Yellow and blue complement each other, green and red complement each other, and magenta and green complement each other. So, yellow, cyan, and magenta are respectively referred to as subtracted blue, subtracted red, and subtracted green, which means that all three complementary colors are formed by subtracting a corresponding primary color from white light. Therefore, yellow, cyan and magenta can be called Subtractive color primary colors.
When the three Subtractive color primary colors of yellow, magenta and cyan overlap, black will be produced. In the process of Subtractive color, the density change of the three subtractive primary colors controls the absorption ratio of red, green and blue respectively, so as to obtain various mixed colors, which can achieve the same effect as that of Additive color.
4、 Color and Vision
Color can give people a sense of warmth, distance, size, and lightness, and often evoke associations, forming different psychological effects. These are long-term visual habits that people have formed.
Colors can usually be divided into three categories: cold colors, warm colors, and neutral colors (intermediate colors). The cold and warm colors are divided based on the visual reactions and psychological associations caused by various colors. Red evokes the warmth of fire, creating a sense of warmth, known as warm color. Blue reminds people of cold water and gives them a cold feeling, hence it is called a cool color. Purple and green are neutral colors that are neither cold nor warm. Different colors can affect the size of an object‘s appearance. If objects of different colors and the same size are placed together, a light white object will appear visually larger. Dark black objects are small. Generally speaking, white objects appear the largest, black objects appear the smallest, yellow objects are larger, followed by green, red, and blue.
People‘s visual habits towards color can also create a sense of distance and proximity. Objects of different colors give different visual sensations at the same distance. Warm colors give a feeling of moving forward, while cool colors give a feeling of moving back and away. Moreover, the sense of distance given by colors is also influenced by the background tone. For example, when white is the background, blue appears closer; When set against a black background, red appears closest, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Using this feature can help us create a illusion effect of color stereoscopic sense and distance sense.
The light and heavy sense of color is also a long-term visual habit formed by people. It is generally believed that white is the lightest and black is the heaviest. Among the three primary colors, green is the lightest, blue is the heaviest, and red is the center. There are two primary colors formed by equal mixing of light, with light colors appearing lighter and heavy colors appearing heavier. The sense of weight of colors is not only expressed through brightness and purity, but also influenced by the size of the area occupied by colors in the picture. Colors with larger areas appear heavier and attract more attention than colors with smaller areas.
