Color Theory in Theatrical Lighting

Color Theory and Lighting

• The light wheel is used for theatrical lighting and projection, and is the basis for video and computer graphics.
• Color Temperature: Cool hues (blue-green) recede and suggest sky, water, distance, foliage, shadows; warm hues (red-orange) advance and suggest aggression, sunlight, heat, blood, arousal, and stimulation.

Color Properties

• Value: Lightness and darkness of a color.
• Tint: A color with the presence of white; a lighter shade of a color (e.g., pink is a tint of red).
• Shade: A color with the presence of black; a darker shade of a color (e.g., navy is a shade of blue).
• Saturation: Intensity, brightness, or dullness of a color; tone is the addition of gray to pure hue.
• Dilution: Changing a pure hue by lightening, darkening, or muting using additives such as white, black, gray, or its complement.
• Transparence: The impression of transparency can be achieved when two sets of colors are joined by a third that is perfectly balanced between them.
• Gradient: A series of progressive intervals that are so close that individual steps cannot be distinguished; a seamless transition between color differences.
• Threshold: The point at which an individual can no longer detect a difference between two close samples.
• Visual Acuity: The ability to detect differences between wavelengths (colors) of light.

Color Harmony

• Color Harmony: The visual agreement of all parts of a work; also called Color Chords.
• Types of Color Harmony: Monochromatic, Analogous, Direct Complementary, Near-Complementary, Split Complementary, Double Complementary, Triadic, Tetradic, Achromatic, and Neutral.

Color Systems

• Partitive Color: Based on the viewer's reaction to colors when they are placed next to each other.
• Subtractive Color: The process of mixing pigments together, such as in paintings; used in RGB or Light Wheel.
• Additive Color: Used in color displays, such as computer monitors.
• Pantone Color Matching System: A standardized color reproduction system.

Color and Lighting

• Transmission: The mostly unimpeded passage of light through a transparent object.
• Reflection: The process by which light arriving at a smooth-surfaced material changes direction on impact and is returned.
• Absorption: The absorption of light occurs when a ray of light strikes a surface, transferring energy to the surface material.
• Scattering: Refers to the change of direction suffered by radiation on impact with a rough-surfaced material or with fine particles.
• Refraction: The bending of a beam when it enters a medium where its speed is different.

Color Theory

• How We See Color: Color is a mental sensation that can only occur if there is an observer, an object, and sufficient light in the narrow band of wavelengths called the visible spectrum.
• Electromagnetic Spectrum: The entire electromagnetic spectrum is not perceivable to humans; what we see we call the "visible spectrum".
• Wavelengths of Light: Measured in nanometers; the colored light in the visible spectrum ranges from red to violet.
• Munsell Wheel: Arranges colors in a three-dimensional form with intervals of value, measuring lightness and darkness, on the vertical axis, and saturation or relative purity of each hue on the horizontal intervals.

Color Icons

• Johannes Itten: Developed the color sphere and "star" for his Bauhaus preliminary course; placed yellow at the top of the diagram because it was the brightest of the hues and closest visually to white light.
• Josef Albers: Used a triangle diagram with red, yellow, and blue at its points; orange, violet, and green at the midpoints, with red-gray, yellow-gray, and blue-gray in between.