Lighting designer Anna Brevetti explains that, because light is intangible and ever-shifting, it can be hard to find words to describe it. Keeping a light journal allows students of all ages to notice, describe, and appreciate the way light appears in their world each day. 

A light journal can be introduced and kept in many ways:

• Each day for a week or longer, students write one or more entries per day about light they notice/noticed that day, such as light coming through a window, a sunset, glare on the whiteboard, or a shadowy corner of their closet. Entries can take any style of writing from analytical to poetic.
• Each day for a week or longer, students describe the light in the same spot, either at the same time of day or different times of day.
• Younger students can create a light journal by drawing what they observe, either in the same spot on different days or in different spots. Then, students can compile their drawings, each labeled with a date, time, and location, into a book.

An important part of a lighting designer’s process is gathering research images. Research images are pictures in which the way the subject or location is lit conveys the mood or feeling the designer hopes to create onstage. As lighting designer Anna Brevetti explains, their lighting design will not look exactly like the research images; rather, the images will inspire the emotions and environments their lighting design hopes to evoke.

Take a look at these examples of Anna Brevetti’s research images for three different moments in Make Way For Ducklings:

Pose the following questions to your class:

• What stands out to you or interests you about these sets of images?
• What questions would you like to ask Anna about their research images?
• Look at each set of images and describe the words, emotions, or mood you believe Anna wanted to evoke. Do the words you are using match what you remember from that scene in the musical? What words does Anna use to describe each set of images? 

Now, it is your students’ turn to gather research images for a production of Make Way For Ducklings! Either assign students a particular moment from the book/scene in the musical, or provide options for them to choose from. 

Students work individually to curate 3-7 images in which light captures the mood they would hope to evoke through their lighting design in that particular moment or scene. To find images, students can search the internet or use books or magazines you provide. In addition to their images, students should write a collection of words or, for older students, a short paragraph describing the ways these images capture the mood and inspire their design ideas.

If students in your class had a choice of moments/scenes for their research images, consider grouping students who selected the same moment/scene to share their individual ideas with each other. Ask students to think about the similarities and differences across their interpretations of the same moment. Challenge students to use specific, evocative language to describe their and their peers’ ideas.

This activity asks students to apply their understanding of research images from Form It ACTIVITY 2 to their knowledge of a story’s arc by conceptualizing lighting design for a song of their choice.

First, ask each student to pick a song (appropriate for school) that they feel tells a story or contains an emotional arc. Students should print out the lyrics of the song.

Next, students annotate their song by splitting it into 3-5 distinct emotional moments or pieces of a story. Next to each of those moments/pieces of the song, students should describe the mood, feeling, environment, or shifts taking place in that part of the song.

Then, students compile a set of research images for each piece of the song that they have identified. In this way, they are using images and ideas about light to tell the story that they have interpreted the song to be about.

Challenge students to think both about the individual moments they have identified and about the story as a whole. How will their distinct sets of research images create one cohesive story?

To extend and reflect on this exercise…

• Ask students to write a ‘designer’s note’ describing their choices and the overall story they hope to tell through the lighting design of this song
• Have each student play their song while sharing a slideshow of their research images, changing slides at the appropriate moments in the song
• As each student shares, have the listening students write down a ! and a ? for the sharing student. A ! is a thoughtful comment about an effective, creative, or intriguing choice the sharing student made in their lighting design. A ? is a question they would like to ask the sharing student or a way they might try to push the sharing student’s thinking even further.