Live performance lighting and lighting for film are essentially treated as two entirely separate crafts.
In film, each shot is composed with the light in a specific place, and the process of production includes shooting, stopping, moving the lights, shooting, stopping, etc.
In live performance, a lighting system is set up which is composed of a bunch of lights on stands with
xlr ( mic ) cables connecting them to a lighting controller which give you the ability to dynamically change the color, brightness, and other qualities of the lights. This affords dynamic lighting; lighting which swells and fades and changes color corresponding to the music and performance.
In 2011, OA teamed up with the production company Gravity Sleeps to experiment with implementation of live performance lighting in several music videos to visualize the music as well as speed up the production process. This required us to play along with the music using the lights as the instrument. Not only was it super fun to do, but it looked really cool.
Check out the second video FX lighting project we did for the song “Skinnybone” by Sea of Bees.
watch on npr.com