One of the greatest things about templates is their ability to define location. The dappled light coming through the leaves and branches of trees is a wonderfully beautiful natural phenomenon. In the introduction to this series I mentioned that one of the key issues surrounding the use of templates is focus. Finding the proper degree of sharpness and softness in a pattern is a key determinate to making the composition work best for the specific production. But there is a lot more to it than focus.
Naturalistic patterns like leaves have a few specific concerns that we must be aware of. While you might find yourself designing a more cartoonish style production where you want a cookie cutout look for your leaf patterns, I will be assuming for the purposes of this essay that you want to recreate a naturalistic effect. To do so requires a few very careful considerations; shape of gobo, density of breakup, degree of softness, and color. Each of these must be considered in careful detail to determine the best solution to your particular design problem.
The first concern is the shape of the gobo. Sadly, this is something that is too often overlooked when considering a template for use in a production. When I say shape of template I do not mean the exact shape of the leaves themselves, but the overall shape of the pattern. As you can see from the example of R77732 the pattern has a round shape overall. No matter how you point the light, no matter how much softness, this template will always look round. While this might not be a concern in certain styles of production, or when you have a full stage wash on, it does become a concern for more naturalistic compositions. If you want to vary the intensity of the individual lights to pull focus to a certain area of the stage you will end up with little circles of leaves of varying intensity. Worse still, if you just want to turn on a single light, you end up with a circle of leaves which looks hokey at best.
When using a template like R77774 there is no concern that the template will look round. In fact it is impossible to focus the light in such a way that a single instance of the template appears round. The potential pitfall with these style templates is that you often need more physical instruments creating a tighter beam overlap in order to get a clean full stage look. The benefits of not having a round dot of leaves, however, far outweighs the need for greater precision in drafting, hang, and focus. There are plenty of examples of non-round templates but they are definitely the minority when it comes to leaf patterns.
Once the shape consideration has been resolved you need to consider density. Our example above of R77774 is great for more open sun filled compositions. The template lets a lot of light through while still maintaining the character of light through trees. But perhaps you want your templates to be more of an accent. Perhaps all that light, and the varied size of the spaces between steel, is not the right look. A template like R77733 gives a more uniform, dense, feel the the light. Similar in density to the R77732 noted above, this template shares with R77774 the characteristic of not being round. What density of template is wanted will be determined by the dramatic needs of the scene in question.
Once the template has been selected we move on to focus. Focused sharp, the templates look like cartoon drawings rather than beautiful light. To get a realistic feel for the light we need to soften the edge of the template. Obviously going too far will just make a big mushy mess, but if we leave the pattern too hard edged we end up with a cartoon style. Beginning with the pattern sharp, with a nice blue edge, we have two options to soften each with their own benefits. Pushing the barrel in past sharp begins to create chromatic aberrations along the pattern edges. This can be a particularly nice way to get a feeling of color into a “white light” palette. The chromatic aberration can work very harmoniously with saturated color palettes as well. Pushing the barrel out past sharp gives a very soft and feathered edge to the template which not only makes the image softer, but also can lend a more dreamlike quality to the light. The edges become less defined and the overall effect is lighter.
The last concern with templates is color. Remember, what is interesting is light through trees not projections of green leaves on a stage. Sunlight in the natural world is around 5600 degrees Kelvin or in colloquial terms, pale blue. On stage we obviously shift this depending on the exact style we are looking for. However, the basic range of natural light should be considered a starting point. Lighting a rock concert or a dance club we might have sharp edged patterns in a bright magenta and yellow. When lighting an exterior scene in an opera we will be far more successful with clear incandescent light or a CTB like L202. The style of production will always drive the color choices, just as it will effect the focus and pattern choice.
Putting all these elements together will give you a dynamic system for evaluating templates and their use for your compositions. Finding a template of the proper shape and density is a good first start. Completing that line of thought with a proper focus and color selection can truly transform your compositions into works of beauty. Adapting your choices to the needs of the production will keep your work fresh and unique.
What did you think of this post? Please share your thoughts in comments.
This is very informative to me, as someone who almost always has to think within the club paradigm, it’s fascinating to see in detail how the other half lives, as it were. Thank you, and please continue.
–steen (pvck on lj)
Glad to hear you found it informative. I do plan to continue. I hope your enjoyment does as well.
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