Feature -- by Mark Sproxton

Hanging 10 metres above the stage to adjust some lights, it's easy to see why lighting has been described as the most dangerous part of theatre. And then there's the required time standing in the lighting area high above the theatre's seats focusing each light and adding coloured filters to their front.

Brian Pincott stands in the lighting bank high above the seats.

But to lighting designer Brian Pincott the danger of his job lies in the complexity of demonstrating to others how hundreds of lights will appear during a performance. "If you're a set designer you can draft a wall and it'll look like that," he explains. "If you're a costume designer you do a sketch. As a lighting designer, it's in my head. I know what 200 lights will look like, but I can't convey to you what it'll look like unless you take the chance to spend the money and put them all out there."

His knowledge and understanding of lights comes from 15 years of hands-on experience designing light setups for everything from small university theatre shows, to huge arena rock 'n roll shows, to lighting the inside and outside of buildings (architectural lighting). But his turn to becoming one of the few lighting designers in Canada able to make it a full-time job came after a complete about-face while in university.

"I was in pre-med(icine), in fourth year and was applying to med schools," he said. "Around Christmas some friends were working on an amateur musical and asked if I'd help build a set." Pincott was asked because of previous construction experience. "I said sure and within three weeks I switched to the arts."

His university had no technical theatre program, so Pincott simply volunteered to arrange the lighting for every show he possibly could. "The only theatre thing you could do by yourself was lighting and I just had a knack for it." While learning hands-on was the case in the mid-1980s, Pincott said there has been a move recently to try and have everyone in theatre have a post-secondary degree or diploma.

Regardless of training, making it as a lighting designer is a tough go, like all jobs in the arts. Lighting designers are typically hired to do a specific play, work like mad for two or three weeks until after opening night and then hopefully have another contract lined up.

"The lighting designer comes in right at the beginning of rehearsals, is around as the set is being built and is very much a part of the process," Pincott said. "You're working 16 hours a day." Days would consist of meeting with other designers -- set and costume -- incorporating their ideas into the lighting and then spending the day at a drafting table planning the light design. Changes will be made once rehearsals begin. "Opening night is it. The work is done and it's out of your hands."

And where you live doesn't matter. "One of the things about being a lighting designer in Canada is you work the country. You don't live in Calgary and just do Calgary. You don't make a living doing that." The never ending travel schedule and long hours caught up with Pincott about a year ago. His official job title is now production manager with Alberta Theatre Projects which allows him to delve into other aspects of jobs backstage. "It can be glamorous at first," he said of light designing. "And tiresome later."

But he hasn't washed his hands of lighting design as he continues to design for some of ATP's productions. If he ever decides to return to lighting full-time, Pincott will have one of the ingredients key to success: lots of contacts. "It's a business of who you know. It's hard to break in if people don't know you or your work."

His advice for others considering this career: "Do anything and everything that has to do with lighting. You need to have strong visual skills, know how angles and colours all work together and you have to have strong observational skills of the world around you. Say no to nothing."