How a lighting plot goes from first sketch to the rig
A look at how a lighting plot for a studio panel show or small stage is drawn, checked on site and adjusted, told from a sound engineer who shares the room with it.
Callum Reid · · 5 minutes to read
Why a sound engineer is writing about lamps
I spend most of my working days with microphones and monitors, but I share every studio and stage with the lighting rig, and I have watched Isla Campbell and her plots take shape on enough jobs to describe how it is done. Lighting and sound compete for the same ceiling, the same cable routes and the same minutes on the schedule, so the two plans are never really separate.
What follows is the ordinary version of the work, without the polish of a brochure. Lighting design for presenters, panels and stage performances begins as paper and a conversation, and it ends with a rig that someone on the crew can understand at a glance. The steps in between are less glamorous than people expect, and most of the craft sits there.
The first conversation and the walk round the room
Before anything is drawn, we ask what the room is used for. A two-person desk show, a four-seat panel and a band on a raised stage need different things, and the answer decides how many positions are needed and how much of the ceiling can carry weight. We also ask who sits where, how long recordings run and how often the set changes.
Then comes the walk round the room with a tape measure. Isla notes the ceiling height, the truss or grid points, the power available and where daylight comes in. A window behind the presenter can undo a careful plan by early afternoon. I usually come along on these visits so that microphone booms and speaker positions are marked on the same sheet, and nobody discovers a clash on the day of the fit-out.
- Ceiling height and rigging points
- Available power and how it is split across circuits
- Daylight, windows and reflective surfaces
- Where cameras and microphone booms will sit
Drawing the plot and choosing what goes where
The plot is a plan view of the room with every lamp marked by position, type, circuit and aim. It is drawn so that a stranger could rig from it. Isla builds each subject with a key light, a softer fill and a back light to separate people from the set, then adds light for the background so the picture has depth rather than a flat wall behind the speakers.
Choices are practical. Lamps run cool where heat would trouble a small room, and fixtures are picked for how quietly they run, which matters to me as much as to her, because a noisy fan will find its way into a presenter microphone. Where a stage performance is involved, a few moving or colour-changing fixtures are added to the fixed wash, never instead of it.
- Key, fill and back light for each presenter position
- Background light kept separate from subject light
- Fan noise and heat considered before fixtures are chosen
Rigging day and checking against the camera
On rigging day the plot is pinned up and followed in order: trusses or bars first, then lamps, then cables, labelled at both ends. We keep power and audio cables apart where we can, since mixing them is a common source of hum. Nothing is trusted until it has been checked through a camera rather than by eye, because a camera sees contrast and colour differently from a person standing in the room.
Someone sits in each presenter chair while the cameras are set up and the lights are brought up one group at a time. Faces are checked for shadows under the eyes and glare on glasses, and the white balance is set on the finished picture. This is also when I check that no lamp casts a boom shadow across a face, and that the mic placement still works.
Adjusting after the first real recording
The plot is rarely perfect after one pass. Once real guests sit in the real chairs, small things appear: someone tall catches a lamp at the edge of the frame, a glossy table reflects the key light, a guest in a dark jacket sinks into the background. These get fixed with a flag, a diffuser, a shifted aim or a lower level, and the changes are written onto the plot so the paper matches the room.
We leave the crew with a marked-up plan, a list of circuits and a short note on which fixtures can be moved safely and which should be left alone. If the same set will be struck and rebuilt, we photograph each stage of the rig so it can be repeated without us.
- Marked-up plot that matches what is actually rigged
- Circuit list and labelled cables
- Notes on what is safe to move
What a producer can do to make this easier
The most helpful thing a production manager can bring is a plain description of the shows: how many people, how they sit, how long recordings run. A few photographs of the room with the curtains open and closed save a surprising amount of guesswork. A rough idea of the schedule also helps, because rigging time and recording time rarely fit together neatly.
It also helps to tell us early if the room is shared with other users, since a fixed rig and a temporary one are planned differently. Those details cost nothing to gather, and they are what separate a plot that works the first time from one that needs three visits.
A lighting plot is a working document, not a picture of an ideal room. It is drawn from a visit, tested through the camera and corrected after the first real recording. Having stood beside it on many jobs, I can say the plans that last are the plain ones, labelled clearly and left with the crew in a form they can read without us in the room.
Callum Reid
Senior Sound EngineerCallum specialises in live sound for concerts and festivals and in studio monitoring setups.