Especially when you’re drawing a Lightplot early in your career; I recommend creating a “rough plot” (previously covered) on a copy of a scale groundplan.

Then; use a sheet of vellum laid over your rough plot to use your rough as a guide for actually drafting your first (preliminary) plot. With the knowledge that this won’t be your final (submitted) Lightplot; you can draw more at ease knowing that your line weights and any mistakes won’t be seen by others.

After you’re done with this preliminary plot, and comparing it to your rough plot and notes to find and correct as many mistakes as possible: you can then trace that onto your final Lightplot.

When drafting a lightplot, it is allowable to draw all of the units facing one direction or rotating them somewhat to indicate their direction of focus. Although rotating the units takes longer to draw, it can help the designer spot potential problems early, and helps the electricians hang the plot more accurately; so rotating them is the recommended practice.

Lighting instruments should rarely be placed closer than 18” apart. When they are placed “tighter” than that; they often get in each other’s way when focusing. Extra room should be allotted for units with barndoors, or which will be focused as sidelight.

Using the throw chart above, I can deduce that 6x12’s would be the most ideal lighting instrument for all of the lights on a pipe 20’ above the stage; so I’m drawing a leko with a single slash to indicate the unit type, and writing the color and focus area notes to make it easy to copy when drawing my final plot. At this point I wouldn’t ordinarily number the instruments – I’m including them here for clarity.

1. Technically I want the (4) high side units at the end of the pipe.
2. Although it looks like it will work on paper, it won't in the theatre.
3. Units need to be at least 18” apart under normal circumstances.
4. Because most of these units will be hung parallel with the pipe, however, they should be hung at least 24” apart.

There are two accepted formats for drawing booms (pipes that are in vertical positions usually standing on a large round base). I’ll demonstrate both methods here; one for each side of the stage – although I usually wouldn’t mix the two formats on a single drafting.

The first method is to

• Draw a side view of the boom, indicating the height and attributes for each unit hung on that boom. This drawing can happen in place, or in another location on the page that has the space for it.
• Draw a shaded unit (with a boom base around it) where the boom should be located.

* Because all three of the booms on stage left are the same configuration, I only need to draw one. If the booms were different, I’d need to draw one for each style.

The second method is to draw the boom base in place, with the unit on top of it.

*This style is limited to booms with only one light on them; if there were more instruments, they would appear “stacked” on the drawing and it would become confusing.

Personally, I prefer the first method.