"I usually just think of light as light - how do I get started with understanding and using color to light a play?"
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We see all shapes defined by highlight, shadow and color. The more colors we use, the more sculptural objects, including performers, appear. However, we want to balance the sculpting effect with the number of colors the audience is aware of when lighting realistic or naturalistic pieces.
Ok, I want to use color and I have all these gel swatch books - now what do I do?!?
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Take a deep breath. Selecting color for lighting can be a daunting task. If you feel overwhelmed, call us (1-800-243-4950) and we'll talk you through the process in relation to your production.
A few general rules of thumb are:
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There are several major manufacturers of color filters for lighting. Some products are made of glass and used internally and others are filters placed in front of the lens. Sold in sheets, to be cut to your fixture size, these thin plastic materials, are the economical, easiest to use and most popular. The most popular, widely used brands of color filters are Rosco, Lee and GAM (Great American Market).*
Rosco has added many new colors through the years. Many of the new colors are 3 digits beginning with 3. To keep colors that are similar together, the books have the 300's interspersed with related colors. For example, the color sequence is #09, #10, #310, and #11. "The graph on each page shows the transmission curve of the color plotted against the visible spectrum. The T% indicates the total transmission through the filter."
Maybe the spectral graph is more information than you need, but the T% can be very handy. For example, if GAM 655 Rich Green has a T% of only 11%, how much light am I left with once I put it in front of my 500 watt fresnel?
Visible White Light is actually a combination of various colored wavelengths
 Image reproduced from Michael Gillette's book Designing With Light. |
Color media (gel) filters the white light. It allows certain color wavelengths to pass through the media. It absorbs others and releases the energy as heat.
 Image reproduced from Michael Gillette's book Designing With Light. |
Remember, color filtering is a subtractive process - you are removing colors from the visible spectrum, allowing the desired colors to pass through. The more saturated (purer) the color you are filtering for, the less light is transmitted.
A frequent mistake is trying to determine how a color will work by holding a swatch up to the light and looking through it like sunglasses. This tells you exactly nothing.
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To test colors, put them in front of a light source and look at the result on skin tones or fabric.
"In my swatch books, I see samples that aren't really any color -what are they for?"
Most gel books also include filters that are used to "diffuse" light and others that are used to simply reduce transmission, in effect dimming a light source without significantly changing the color.
Diffusion spreads light in special ways depending on the specific version of the product. For example Rosco 160 is a Tough Silk with striations that diffuse the light "directionally." In this case, the light spreads perpendicular to the stripes - you determine, by the way you orient the filter, whether the light is diffused left and right or up and down. Rosco 119, Light Hamburg Frost, is a popular omni-directional diffusion that spreads light in all directions without losing too much intensity. However, keep in mind that spreading the beam will always decrease intensity, so this is not the way to deal with an instrument shortage by covering more real estate.
Neutral Density Filters decrease the intensity without impacting the color because they filter out wavelengths across the entire visible spectrum. Rosco 99 looks grey in the swatch book, but it does not really turn the light grey. It is a simple neutral density filter. Some people find it helpful to compare neutral density filters to closing down the F-Stop on the camera.
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