Obviously, if you work in lighting, you have read this book.
Steve Shelley wrote a great text a while ago that has had three excellent revisions, called A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting. If you’ve studied Theatrical Lighting in a collegiate (and hopefully high school) program, you’ve either taken a class from that book, or read that book as an assignment for another class, or maybe you just wanted to be best at what we do, so you went ahead and read as many things as you could get in between flying, gigging, classes, USITT, that show you have a plot due for, you know — all that.
AND I KNOWWWWW you’ve met Steve Shelley. He is not the Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, but I know for a fact that he rocks as hard as the other said Shelley. Funny guy, big bright green freaking jacket that reflects the light from the planet formerly known as Pluto, like my skull. Come on, does everyone in the world not have a Field Template?! What do you do when your macbook decides that it has to update something when you need to be drafting or you previz your video card right out of your laptop?!
The point — have you read Steve’s A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting? It’s the Third Edition; you need the book. Get the book. It’s really not even a difficult choice, it’s as important a book to read in our industry as Richard Cadena’s Electricity for the Entertainment Electrician and Technician. Which, also you need to read. Like, you know how you needed to read the rules on drivers’ ed when you took that? Steve and Richard write content of that importance.
aaaaaaaand, consequently, because you need to read this:
PS: Nobody paid me to write this, I believe this sh*t down to my very bones. Be better, be safer, learn the most that you can.
