3D-artists need to understand lighting to create realistic environments in the digital world. It is easy to draw unreal lighting effects on the computer, as the software will let you do anything you like. Drawing something that recognizes our laws of physics requires some serious lighting knowledge. The images are from the first two days of the workshop, were spent working on scale models with actual light sources. Then, independent work in Blender to make use of the freshly acquired skills! (We’re still looking forward to see the renders, and hopefully shall witness some extraordinary lighting skills!)

Student works:

This is already the second year when Dare to Light is enlightening the 3D students of Tartu Art School. Thank you for having us back! We are discussing several other courses with this amazing little school – for example some advanced workshops with teachers of drawing/painting classes (this would be super exciting!)

Pictures from the workshop:

Drakademia is an independent institution that inspires and educates young scriptwriters and dramaturges. We spent a day together with their students, in search for the perfect words for light. We had some extremely interesting discussion about whether the stage directions about lighting should belong in a script at all, and how much responsibility the writer should bear about inspiring the visuals in the final product.

Through some practical exercises in lighting and writing, we ended up with a simple conclusion: light cannot be described alone, it is always a part of the whole. Light is not a matter or material, it is a strong force that changes the way we see things. This is probably why we tend to give it a character, rather than describe it as an object or a set piece.

The way of solving communication issues is vital in an artistic collective such as a theatre group. Especially during tense times like before the premiere, the creative people tend to seek conflicts that could be easily avoided.

The students of Viljandi Culture Academy  - lighting designers, directors and choreographers - sat down with us for an intense day of discussions and tasks to learn more about each others professions.

Here’s a couple of points discovered:

* It is easier to grasp lighting if one knows what’s generally going on in the scene. This applies to both creating and interpreting the lighting.

* Best results are achieved, if the director trusts the lighting designer with technical aspects, but communicates the general mood via emotional words and/or images.

* Personal relationships and personalities play a great part in the creative dialogue – if the communication is friendly and respectful, all parties are more motivated to achieve good results.

* Both directors and lighting designers usually wish for the other party to be the active one in the creative dialogue. This is something that always needs to be solved personally within the specific group.

Here are the results of an exercise where four directors had to communicate a given lighting concept to their lighting designer within an extremely limited time frame. The lighting designer was given a strong interest to change the design to provoke the conflict. We are most proud of the first group that abandoned the original concept completely.