Lighting Design

DESG-GT 1150-1151   Lecture   4 Credits

Instructor(s): Geiger

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This semester we will concentrate primarily on the craft of lighting design: what is involved from initial impulse to stage reality. These skills include conceptualizing and drafting a light plot, paperwork, worksheets, and cueing. The emphasis this semester is on understanding the mechanics of how to begin, looking at light on a stage and in life, and analyzing plays in terms of light. We will use the analytical skills learned in Intro to Lighting and translate them into practical terms.

DESG-GT 1056-1057   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Wierzel

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

This class will deal with the initial process of lighting design, how to give light significance in context. Questions of meaning, structure, process and intent will be investigated. The class will also explore the qualities and functions of light, what light can and cannot communicate. The student will begin to develop a visual and conceptual vocabulary, a ‘first step’ in the practice of creating ideas with light. Individual creativity will be nurtured within an environment of shared experience. Much emphasis will be placed on process, both intellectual and practical.

DESG-GT 1004-1005   Lecture   3 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The entertainment industry, and the world at large, is a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Learning to learn, (rapidly) is the new frontier in being an active artist and a prepared collaborator. Now is not the time to take a backseat to the onslaught of advancements, but to plunge headfirst into the unknown. In this course we will cover the foundations of drawing for designers. Drawing is a way to communicate ideas: both emotionally expressive, and technically precise. Drawing is the translation of 3D space into flat 2D representations, and 2D representations into digital and physical 3D space. We will use traditional drafting practices to represent and communicate spaces, enhanced with Vectoworks as a hybrid 2d/3d drawing suite. We will also explore new ways to capture 3D, such as Lidar, Photogrammetry, camera projection, and AR scanning. We will introduce the foundational 3D toolsets of material creation and UV mapping, so that these skills can be applied to future instances of 3D lighting, modeling, previz, digital art, and beyond.

DESG-GT 2000   Lecture   2 Credits

Instructor(s): Townsend, Helfrich

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Through creation of devised work students will examine the structure of performance and the relationship with design. Additional focus will be on critique styles and ways to engage new works.

DESG-GT.1034  Lecture  2 Credits

Instructor(s): Hughes, Geiger, Wierzel

Only open to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Each year, we in the lighting department read and discuss plays together every week. The plays are used in the curriculum of the Year 1 lighting classes, but we all benefit from practice discussing plays with others in a more public setting. In addition, we will have brief 5-10 minute biographies of signifigant lighting designers. It is very important to us as faculty that you know all of us well, and you know the other lighting designers who are not in your year. By the time you leave us in 3 years, you will have read and discussed 72 plays with 5 classes of students.

DESG-GT 1022-1023   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Muller

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

A weekly 3-hour class taking curated deep dives into aspects of world culture, especially in the intersections of influence, change, and design. The course will mix lectures, analysis of images, research projects, discussion, field trips, guest speakers, and student presentations. Attention will be paid to how we know what we know and how knowledge is discovered, hidden, lost, reused, misused, and reinterpreted.

DESG-GT 1013   Studio   1 Credits

Instructor(s): Geiger

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

There are several particular skills that lighting designers in this program must have that are taught within this class. The primary goal of this course is to supply students with a thorough introductory understanding of the materials, methods, and equipment used in Graduate Theatrical Production in our collaborations with the Graduate Acting Department and with Dance. Each first-year student works on two hang and focus calls for Year 3 shows to get to know our production spaces and our staff. They also program a Year 3 show to become familiar with the light boards in our theatres. Each student assists a second-year student on a Year 2 show to learn how that production process functions. Each student also designs in the dance department. They participate in 2 different weekly showings, design a piece with a faculty or master’s degree choreographer in the Master’s performance Workshop concert, and participates in the Composers, Choreographers and Designers collaboration class in the spring semester.

DESG-GT 1006   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Wong

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This course aims to hone students’ familiarity using the Vectorworks Spotlight and Lightwright software platforms to generate professional-quality lighting plots and paperwork packages that meet current entertainment lighting industry standards. Other related topics such as drafting for repertory plots, documentation, and assisting will be discussed as time allows.

DESG-GT 1071    Lecture   2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This class will deal with the initial process of lighting design, how to give light significance in context. Questions of meaning, structure, process and intent will be investigated. The class will also explore the qualities and functions of light, what light can and cannot communicate. The student will begin to develop a visual and conceptual vocabulary, a ‘first step’ in the practice of creating ideas with light. Individual creativity will be nurtured within an environment of shared experience. Much emphasis will be placed on process, both intellectual and practical.

DESG-GT 1424-1425   Lecture   4 Credits

Instructor(s): Hughes

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This semester we will concentrate primarily on the craft of lighting design: what is involved from initial impulse to stage reality. These skills include conceptualizing and drafting a light plot, paperwork, worksheets, and cueing. The emphasis this semester is on understanding the mechanics of how to begin, looking at light on a stage and in life, and analyzing plays in terms of light. We will use the analytical skills learned in Intro to Lighting and translate them into practical terms.The course should provide students with a core understanding of how ideas, paperwork, and the process in the theater relate to one another and the theatrical event. We will take advantage of the light lab to see the ideas realized through "practicals.” Each student will light a presentation using actors or fellow students directed by the student in a scene from the theater piece. This presentation will be discussed from the point of view of the written statement.

DESG-GT 1440-1441  Lecture  3 Credits

Instructor(s): McCarthy

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

An exploration of lighting design for non-theatrical venues. Exercises in design for television, industrial, corporate presentations, museums, and other architectural forms. Visits to professional television studios to watch tapings of daytime talk shows, as well as visits to major area museums to tour the lighting design and discuss it with the museum designers.

DESG-GT.1460   Lecture   2 Credits

Instructor(s): Hughes

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The class is a forum for Year 2 students in production from all three disciplines. The class slot allows for weekly production meeting times, budgeting process meetings and to observe and discuss each other's work during the process of designing, building and technical rehearsals.

DESG-GT.1035  Lecture  2 Credits

Instructor(s): Hughes, Geiger, Wierzel

Only open to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Each year we in the lighting department read and discuss plays together every week. The plays are used in the curriculum of the Year 1 lighting classes, but we all benefit from practice discussing plays with others in a more public setting. In addition, we will have breif 5-10 minute biographies of signifigant lighting designers.

It is very important to us as faculty that you know all of us well, and you know the other lighting designers who are not in your year. By the time you leave us in 3 years, you will have read and discussed 72 plays with 5 classes of students.

DESG-GT 1140  Lecture  2 Credits

Instructor(s): Townsend

Only open to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

In conjunction with the Graduate Directing program at Columbia University, led by Anne Bogart, set, costume and lighting students work in teams led by a Columbia directing student. Emphasis is placed on conceptual work conceived through discussion that gives equal weight to all members of the collaboration.

DESG-GT 1222  Lecture  2 Credits

Instructor(s): Segal

Only open to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The goal of this class is to establish a distinction between film form and film structure. In addition, students will work on structural analysis of feature length films. Students will learn how film demonstrates coherence in: style, persistence of tone, and structural unity.

DESG-GT 1038   Lecture   2 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

An introduction to the unique qualities of opera as a performing art and as a viable medium in which to practice theater design. This class requires students to listen and react to carefully chosen works, to attend and discuss an opera performance, to begin to think about opera performance in relationship to design, and to participate in a multitude of classroom discussions covering a wide range of topics related to the art, craft, and business of opera, as well as some historical, dramaturgical and contemporary cultural context.

DESG-GT 1014 3 credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Digital Visualization will offer an introduction to some tools and techniques for thinking and working in digital 3D, including topics such as: 3D modeling and navigation in Vectorworks; transitioning from Vectorworks to Cinema4D; Cinema 4D topics like modeling, navigation, cameras, textures, UV's, materials, and lighting; an introduction to rendering, etc, as well as an intro to AfterEffects (both for animation and for general visualization and storyboarding). We will also touch on some projection design topics, including planning/worksheeting projection shots, and connections between 3D workflows and projection mapping.

DESG-GT 1015  3 credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Instructor: Steinberg

This class is meant to highlight and reinforce the symbiotic relationship between set, lighting and costume design. Students will do primary research, which is meant to be the foundation of their set designs. Emphasis will be placed on the cultural and historical meaning of everything in the material world and how theater design is meant to mine this information to communicate ideas about a text. The goal of the class is to understand the process of creating spaces for Theater using 3D scale models, research and drafting to communicate Design/Dramaturgical ideas. The aim is to understand these as process skills and not exclusively as presentation tools.

DESG-GT 1450-1451   Lecture   5 Credits

Instructor(s): Geiger

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. 

This class will deal with the complete process of lighting design, how to continue to give light significance in context. Projects and class trajectory will be tailored to each student’s needs and goals. Individual creativity will be encouraged within an environment of shared experience. Questions of
meaning, structure, process and intent will be investigated. What light can and cannot communicate will be examined in detail. Much importance will be placed on process and product, both intellectual and practical. Major emphasis will be placed on genuine life procedures and practice; in a real-world context. Each student’s individual voice will be nurtured and considered. Individual expression will be our goal.

DESG-GT 1462-1463   Lecture   2 Credits

Instructor(s): Geiger

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

This semester we will use this time to discuss issues related to production currently happening at NYU. We will look over all drawings and models, each other’s light plots and paperwork and discuss tech process, meetings, etc. Each student should be prepared to discuss projects every week. Things will be in a different state each time, but this gives us a chance to check in throughout the process.

DESG-GT.1034  Lecture  2 Credits

Instructor(s): Hughes, Geiger, Wierzel

Only open to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Each year we in the lighting department read and discuss plays together every week. The plays are used in the curriculum of the Year 1 lighting classes, but we all benefit from practice discussing plays with others in a more public setting. In addition, we will have breif 5-10 minute biographies of signifigant lighting designers.

It is very important to us as faculty that you know all of us well, and you know the other lighting designers who are not in your year. By the time you leave us in 3 years, you will have read and discussed 72 plays with 5 classes of students.

DESG-GT 2002-2003   Lecture   3 Credits

Instructor(s): Cokorinos

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

The topics covered in this course are planned to assist you as a third year student to ease your transition from graduate school into the professional working community. We will provide you with a wide spectrum of information, much of which you have not explored in other Design Department courses. Guest speakers include recent alumni, a tax specialist, union representatives and an agent.

DESG-GT 1024   Lecture   3 Credits

Open only to students in the Department of Design for Stage and Film.

Students will build the Broadway production of Amelie in 3d in Vectorworks, including the scenery and lighting. Then the students will learn how to transfer that information into ETC Eos Augmented and Twinmotion, and explore the Broadway show file in 3D.

DESG-GT 1060/DESG-GT 1061

1-2 credits

With the permission of the chair, students may participate in an individualized project or internship to gain professional experience related to their specific design concentration or to investigate an area or field of study not normally covered in the department’s regularly scheduled course offerings.  The schedule for the project must not interfere with courses that are required components of the curriculum and the scope of work is contingent upon approval by the chair.

The project should provide hands-on experience; students may work with a faculty advisor. Students must submit a written proposal of their project to the chair for review. The proposal should outline project concepts, expectations and goals as well as desired credits and plans for meeting with an advisor. Students will be registered by the department administrator upon acceptance of the proposal.