Lighting Operator

A lighting operator is responsible for overview and progression of the stage lighting in the auditorium during weekend services. This article will go through in detail the equipment being used, how to use it, and the responsibilities of this volunteer position on our Media & Live Production team.

For those that are visual learners, take a moment to watch this video giving a full overview of the Lighting Operator role.

Equipment

For our weekend lighting role you will work solely with a Road Hog 4 system. The system runs on HogOS which may be references later by us or used if searching for help online.

Road Hog 4

All lighting functions are done through the Road Hog via faders and a cuelist. A cuelist for the weekend is assigned to a fader on the board. These are lists of ‘cues’ or saved lighting looks for that particular portion of the service order.

We design cues for our weekend services prior to the weekend. As an operator you are not responsible for the way lights will look such as color, positions, ect.

Cues are labeled in a way that is easily understandable for you the operator. There is also a comments section where you can add notes that help you with the timing of these cues.

Example of a cuelist and naming of cues.

Operation

The Hog is very easy to operate for the weekend. Note that all the lighting equipment will be powered on before you arrive for the weekend service that you’re volunteering for.

To progress through the lighting scenes there is a “Play” button that is your primary button to be used during the service. Pressing the Play button will move the board forward one cue. The display with the cuelist will highlight the current cue to help you locate where you are in the flow of the service.

Responsibilities

We will go over some of the responsibilities of a lighting operator and what you’ll be doing on a weekend.

Lighting operators have a call time of 2:00pm on Saturdays and 7:15am on Sundays. We ask that you be at the church and at the lighting console at these times.

Rehearsals

Prior to services we will run through the service as a full media team. During this time we will be looking at needed changes to the lighting as well as a time to make you comfortable with the lighting cues. During this time you can make notes of what lighting cues aren’t matching up with the service flow or any noticeable problems with the lighting.

Service

During the service you will follow the cues to match the service order. You’ll have the director talking to you over the comms about transitions and calling other cues. Those calls are few and far between, you’ll be responsible for knowing all your cues and how they affect the room.

Terms

This is a list of all the terms we went over in this article as well as terms you’ll heard commonly used by the rest of the media team while volunteering for this role.

The Hog

This references the console / device that is used to run and program the lights. This will become a very familiar term while volunteering on the lighting.

Haze / Hazer

This is the smokey substance that fills the air during our services. The hazers are equipped with a water-based fluid that is evaporated and blown into the room. The core function of haze is to produce a visible layer in the air for lighting to shine through. Examples of lighting with and without haze:

Truss

These are section of tubing that are hung from the ceiling and used to hang lights. Used most commonly to reference specific lights.

DMX

This is the language that the lighting system uses to talk to the lights. Common references will be to DMX channels and DMX cables which is mostly infrastructure discussions and not something you need to know unless interested. You can read more online here.

Fixtures

These are the actual lights themselves. It can reference a large light to even the smallest pixel within our lighting system.

Spotlight Fixture

These fixtures are defined as smart lights or movers and generally have a more defined beam. They can be used to create very specific beam patterns via different internal hardware.

Wash Fixture

These fixtures are also defined as smart movers but generally shed light on large areas rather than very defined beams. They have a range of beam size but is usually wider that most spotlights.

Front Wash Fixtures

These fixtures are used primary as the lighting for the front of the stage. Any light that hits people on stage to light up their body for the room to view.

Gobos

Devices used within Spotlight Fixtures that shape the lights via lenses. This creates patterns within the spotlight beam to add texture or variety.

LED Wall

Not to be confused with LED video wall, this is a wall we built out of LED modules to fill our wall with a pixel based system. Useful for designing basic designs as well as capable of placing images or video at a 40×20 resolution.

Cue

A cue is a saved lighting scene. During programming all the lights are set to positions, colors, intensities, ect. Once the look is set it’s saved as a cue to be called back.

Cue List

This is a list of saved cues, in an order of the service flow. These lists are assigned to faders/masters on the board.

Faders

The hog board uses faders to control the intensity of the lights. Generally set at 100% during normal use.

Interested in joining our team?

Our volunteering team is what makes the weekends happen each week. If you want to serve with our team, fill out the form below and we will be in contact soon!