Stage Lighting Glossary

This is a collection list of stage lighting glossary for whom is related to lighting business, you can treat it as a dictionary. I try to explain every term in a plain description and sort them alphabetically. I will update this page constantly if I find something new, and if you find any mistake or confusion, feel free to inform me, I will amend quickly.

Aperture - An opening hole on the lens for controlling depth of field and diaphragm size, the larger aperture is, the more lights pass through.

ARM Processor - ARM is short for Acorn RISC Machine, an ARM processor is based on ARM architecture.

Battery - Some of outdoor stage lighting instruments have builtin function of battery charging in case of blackout.

Clamp - An iron or aluminum hardware fixes lighting fixtures onto truss.

Control Booth - It is a control room for all lighting and sound devices.

Dimmer - Dimmer is an electronic device for dimming the brightness of lights.

DMX512 - It is a unidirectional standard protocol for stage lighting. DMX is short of digital multiplex. DMX512 network is consist of controller, slave devices and terminator in a daisy chain.

Female Connector - Also known as receptacle, hold the male connector pins.

Flight Case - Suppliers of lighting equipment will prepare for you their own flight case for assembling if you are a international buyer.

Floodlights - It is a type of lights, broad beam, used to lighten up large outdoor space such as playfield and square .

Fresnel - Augustin Jean Fresnel is a famous physicist who invented the Fresnel lens which was named after him.

Ghost Lights - Ghost light is exist because of theater's superstition, it's a single light bulb, maybe LED lamp, that lit at night in the center stage of theater.

Gobo - It is a patterned template which will shape the beams from light sources into particular lights and shadows, could be made by plastic, steel and glass.

Halogen Lamps - It's a type of incandescent lamps with adding a little halogen gases in the light bulbs, that will keep halogen lamp's tungsten filament more long-lived.

IP - International protection rate of waterproofness, dust-proof and human contact, for example, IP65 stands for high level of water and dust protected.

LED - Short for light emitting diode, LED lighting bulb is the best and cheap light source so far.

Light Fixture - A lighting product like LED bulb or lantern to provide indoor lights.

Lumen - Lumen is an optics derived unit, its symbol is lm, a measurement for total amount of visible lights from a light source.

Male Connector - Also known as plug, be hold by female connector.

PAR - Short for parabolic aluminized reflector, also called as PAR can.

PAR 64 - Indicates the diameter of par can is 200mm.

Profile - Profile light is a kind of moving head lights with patterns.

RGBW - Short for red, green, blue and white.

Slave Devices - In DMX network, it adopts master and slave model. So slave devices is opposite to master devices.

Spotlight - Also named as followspot, is a lighting instrument used for follow actors or singers on the stage, operated by a lighting employee.

Truss - A structure used for hanging lighting instruments and stage scene setting, made by iron, needed to be installed firmly to avoid collapse accidents.

Umbrella - Made by reflective umbrella propped up by a tripod, used for soften harsh lights. When use it, shoot lights to the interior side of umbrellas.

Wall Washer - An about 1 meter long lighting device to create an area of wash lights on the surface of walls and architectures.

Wireless - Some of stage lighting instruments can be controlled via wireless.

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Reference
More about us : led stage lighting , wall washer
Wikipedia pages
Lighting glossary: http://www.thomaslighting.com/lighting-tips/lighting-glossary/
Theatrical lighting glossary: https://alss1.wordpress.com/theatrical-lighting-glossary/