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How much money do Lighting Designer’s make?
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I receive a single design fee for a job, split into two or three payments over the course of the project and weekly a royalty on theatrical shows where the run continues for some time. How do you make money/or how are you compensated? Difficult pop stars and directors can sometimes create unnecessary stress during the rehearsal period, but that’s all part of the job and I’ve had to learn the skill of diplomacy as much as I have about the technicalities of lighting! Being away from home can be frustrating and lonely at times, but for my family it has always been like that and we are used to it. And of course, being part of a team of creative and collaborative people can be incredibly rewarding in itself as you work together to bring an idea to life and turn it into a theatrical experience for the audience. The traveling is also fascinating and has provided me with all sorts of opportunities and adventures over the years. Making an installation for an architectural project has a different set of rules and vernacular than those of a ballet. The world of opera is very different from that of a rock concert. Most of all I like immersing myself in a different world every time I take on a project. I happened to be at the right place at the right time and was given the job right away, going on to design the lighting for many well known rock bands and performers over the next 40 years. I started at the bottom of the ladder and got my big break when Rod Stewart fired his lighting designer a week before his tour began. Now it’s a very sophisticated and grown up business with hugely specialized fields within it. Lighting rental companies would send out some gear in a van with a couple of guys and one of them would “do the lights” during the show. I started when I was 18 years old when the industry that is in place today just didn’t exist. This is one of the great attractions of the job and what makes it so unusually rewarding. I spend a lot of time traveling, working on different productions all over the world – perhaps twenty projects each year – so I could literally be having breakfast at my kitchen table at home in England, eating lunch in a diner on the East Coast of America, or having a drink in a bar in Singapore. It very much depends on whether I am in rehearsal for a show, involved in its planning stages, or am out on the road actually putting the show on. There is no typical week because the projects I do are are so varied. What I actually do very much depends on what sort of project it is, but in the case of a rock concert or a theatrical production the job involves meeting the client or director and coming up with a lighting concept or approach planning how the lighting will be integrated into the stage set or scenery specifying the lights to be rented for the duration of a theatrical run or a rock and roll tour choosing a crew of technicians and programmers working through rehearsals with the company and director during which time we create the lighting plot watching the first couple of performances and on a long run, returning to check on the production from time to time. The job involves working with a creative team that has been put together just for that project, and to conceive a lighting scheme or treatment for that show. I also create architectural schemes where the lighting is deliberately theatrical – a son et lumiere for a Las Vegas hotel or nightclub, or a lighting design for a public space where the drama of the lighting enhances the experience at night. I also light more esoteric odd things like fashion shows, special parties – the Vanity Fair Oscar party for example – and currently the Olympic Games in London. These include live concerts by everyone from rock and-roll bands to classical artists, television broadcasts, classical and contemporary operas, ballet and various forms of dance, musical theater and arena spectacles and various special events. I create the lighting for a variety of different events, but mostly ones involving actors or performers. Lighting is an important tool in shaping a performance and the role of the lighting designer is key to the success of a live event. With the technology that exists nowadays lighting is often used as a piece of scenery in its own right, particularly in large scale events such as stadium rock shows, for example, where the lighting is a show in itself – a light show if you like. But we are not simply reinforcing an existing aesthetic. Broadly speaking the job involves creating lighting scenes and painting light pictures that provide mood and dynamics to work with a performance of some kind. Read as Patrick Woodroffe talks about his career as a Lighting Designer.