The second day in the sessions, I went to the “It’s Not Just Lighting the Stage Anymore — Cross-over and Lighting Designers Then and Now” which is about different types of lighting career other than theatre such as architecture, theme park and concert lighting.
It is very interesting to know about these different types of lighting design especially even they apply in a diverse industry and location they require the basic understanding of story telling and evoking the mood. The speakers showed images of their design and talked about how they become who they are now. Also the knowledge that needed to be an architecture lighting designer. They have to be very careful about all the rules, safety, energy code and energy budget if not they might get into trouble because of the existing laws. For example, there is rule about the maximan Watt per squad foot is allow in the building that pushes designer to think about different light sources and energy saving light source. What is more, foot candle or lights is required at staircases. In the world of theme park, it is about “selling the invisible” to change the theme park area into a certain place in the world.
These site specific projects for hotels, restaurants, bars, building, outdoor art works and theme parks take a long period to design and move things forward because there are layers of people in these industries and there are politics and personality that more than just designing.Usually, an architecture project take at least 2 to 3 years and theme park took much longer time than that like 4 to 5 years.
However, all the speakers agree that no matter in which fields of lighting design it is very important to work with the group and the basic of design of light is all the same.