While I was doing my research for my SDA, I came across this article. Although it's basic, it covers two important issues to me.
I suggest reading the article before reading the rest of this journal.
https://www.americantheatre.org/2018/06/19/what-shines-through/ 1. Lighting is still underrated. What do lighting designers and lighting crew get at the end of a performance? The cast pointing their hands towards us, and the audience most likely does not even know who they are pointing to!! This also makes it difficult because although lighting design may be a growing occupation, there is no real set "Language" on how to describe your lighting technique. There is so much to learn from every lighting designer because most of what they know, they learned on their own. 2. The transition from incandescent to LED. At the middle school, we are currently transitioning and it makes it easier on me having experience in both LED/Incandescent. At the high school, we use no LED's so it is a whole new system to learn on how to capture emotion without flashy new technology. Not only is the transition hard, but every single theatre is different. No two stages are the same and if you look up, no two lighting systems on stage will be the same . Now, on broadway, you will most likely design and place every single light and have as much room to do so as you want, which must be very stressful but that is a whole other story. At the middle school though, I did have the option of placing some of our LED's where I wanted to, which made for a great experience trying to capture different angles.
Lighting Design is forever changing, and there's a lot more to it than just changing the color.