At a high level, the lighting designer has 3 major roles, the 3rd of which often falls under the title “Master Electrician” when the show is big enough or we have enough people interested in the role.
- Design the plot. Typically using Vectorworks, though any software or paper system is of course acceptable, decide what lights will be hung, where they will be physically, where they will be focused, any gels (color) or gobos (shapes/patterns) that are needed, etc. This typically also includes making cable plots to figure out how we will get power to all these locations, and what addresses will be assigned to these fixtures. This step happens on your own time, but will need to be finished in the next month or so. Previous experience working with lights and plots is definitely useful.
- Generate cues + program the show. This involves going through the entire script and marking every time that we need the lights to change, assigning cue numbers (which the SMs will then call out during the run), and programming the light board to actually run all of these cues. The first half (listing cues and coordinating with the SMs) happens any time before load in, though generally we will aim to be done with this at least a week in advance. The second half happens in between load in and rehearsals, so in the evening of the load in and morning before the first tech night. There also tend to be notes given by the director on things they want changed before the next nights rehearsal, and sometimes this continues up until the first performance.
- Hang+focus the plot. Basically just hang all the lights that are specified in (1), connect them to power and data, then focus them. This happens pretty much all day for load-in, starting at 7AM and going until its finished (hopefully by 6PM, sometimes quicker if the plot is simple and small, slower if it’s really complicated). While the Master Electrician is technically in charge of this, the LD is almost always around to answer questions about how they want lights focused and such, and generally begins working on programming cues as soon as the lights are hung.