Taking Control: Becoming a Confident Lighting Director

Confidence comes from knowledge, experience, and getting out of your comfort zone. Becoming a confident lighting director begins with obtaining the appropriate education and thoroughly understanding your craft. By the time most lighting directors make their career decision, they’ve already been playing and experimenting with lights and cameras for years.

Practice makes perfect and once you have the educational skills, work every job available to get the practical experience you’ll need. Education is essential, but it’s still difficult to get started in the business without some practical experience. No knowledge is ever wasted. Illumination of any event is an art and even though you won’t be the focus of the activities, your work will be center stage.

Innovation is also the mark of a confident lighting director. You’ll discover that you’ll often be asked to do much with little. Use what you’ve learned and pair it with your own ideas to illuminate venues and create special effects. Every gig is different and provides unique opportunities to expand your repertoire.

Be prepared for the unexpected, especially if you’re working with an event with which you’ve had minimal experience. Lighting directors are often required to make snap decisions and adapt to changes on the fly. Some ideas and requests may sound spectacular, but have no place in real-world applications. Always be honest with clients.

Practice, test and practice some more. Great lighting directors utilize their knowledge, talent and experience to constantly play with techniques, methods and equipment. What you conceive of today may be the solution to a specific illumination problem of the future.

Above all, get out of your comfort zone. If you typically work with high-end weddings, start by providing illumination for concerts or sporting events on a small scale. It provides you with perspective and valuable experience that you’ll take with you throughout your career.