LUX intern now designing in his own light

Tuesday 9 May 2017

Night blindness never stopped Tony Black from pursuing lighting as a full-time profession. Now the lighting designer is enjoying this year's LUX Light Festival as a contributor.

LUX intern now designing in his own light - image1

Installations like Potion Forest from the 2014 LUX Light Festival, where lighting designer Tony Black (below) first worked as an intern. This year's even bigger and brighter version of the event opens on Friday and continues till May 21.

Last updated: Thursday 2 June 2022

Night blindness never stopped Tony Black from pursuing lighting as a full-time profession. Now the lighting designer is enjoying this year’s LUX Light Festival as a contributor.

After interning in 2014 with occasional Massey University guest lecturer and LUX exhibitor Marcus McShane, an accomplished lighting designer, Mr Black can now lay claim to a share of the theatre lighting scene himself having turned his interest into a career.

Massey University is a founding partner of LUX, which opens on Friday.

What started out just spending time around exhibiting artists at LUX has seen Mr Black thrust under the spotlight to undertake all kinds of lighting challenges himself.

His night blindness that means he has difficulty seeing well at night or in poor light, and the irony of working in a profession that frequently demands darkness for maximum lighting effect is not lost on him.

“Being able to design lighting helps me see the world in ways that I cannot on my own, and to affect how I see the world and show that to others.”

One of his first jobs as an intern was to help build a lightbox for Mr McShane. Another was to help him record a monologue in which 30 hanging lightbulbs flick on and off to the sound of the speaker’s voice.

Since then, the self-employed lighting designer and casual technician has been involved in most facets of theatre production around Wellington venues such as BATS Theatre and Circa Theatre. He has also acted as an extra in Wellington theatre troupe The Bacchanals’ staging of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

“I also liaise with the cast of each production and make sure their needs are met from a technical point of view.

“What I do depends on the day. Sometimes I’m a full-time technician for the show and sometimes I just do what is required.”

This can include overseeing the logistics for opening night and pack out once the curtain falls on a production.

His years working with lighting designers has also helped him gain insight into the best colour palettes to use for particular shows, observing a stand-up comic sometimes only needs one light, but dramatic productions demand a kaleidoscope of colour to convey multiple moods and emotions

LUX intern now designing in his own light - image2

Tony Black.

“I think my favourite things that come out of lighting are when a single light source can illuminate everything we need to know in a moment. A show I’m working on at the moment uses two torchlights as eyes on a screen to create a menacing character shrouded in darkness. Another used a single torch to tell mythological tales of the human body.”

Recent weeks have seen him light the high-energy Beat Girls’ 21st party production at Circa Theatre. An earlier commitment to light one of Circa’s latest productions the musical Olive Copperbottom, prevents him from devoting his energy solely to LUX- though doesn’t stop him from contributing.

“LUX I have found - for me at least, was a way to engage with lights in unexpected and interesting ways, but also allowed me to find out about other artists, and to work with them,” he says.

“One of the artworks I worked on with Marcus became a permanent installation in the city, which feels like LUX holds a place as a festival that can create and hold space within the city itself beyond itself.”