Overhead lights are one of the elements of lighting that can provide the strongest effects and the most intensity. Lights overhead should be aimed at a 45-degree angle above the stage.
Fill lighting comes from the front or from floodlights at the foot of the stage. Fill light helps illuminate the face of a performer and also helps make objects on a set look flat if necessary.
Sidelights help give shape to a person's body on a stage. These are sometimes set up on lighting ladders for higher side lighting. Lower sidelights, called shinbusters, are placed along the stage floor.
Backlights can be placed above an actor or directly behind him. They can be used to create shadow or silhouette effects.
When learning the very basics of lighting, it helps to first understand the visibility factor of lighting. Visibility is what you think of to determine what will be receiving the most lighting on a stage and what won't. In a play, you have to consider what the director wants the lighting to focus on.
Then consider your motivation for the lighting or making a particular scene look natural. It may require a lot of experimenting, especially for night scenes, to make it look believable to the audience. As an example, an indoor night scene has to give the illusion of light coming from real lamps on the stage and not from the stage lighting.
Consider the composition of a scene and how lighting will work in conjunction with the performer and the set design. The set designer will usually work with you to create lighting effects that enhance the set to make it look bigger or more realistic. At the same time, the performer on stage should stand out so that the set doesn't overshadow the performer.
Once visibility, motivation and composition are considered, you can focus on the mood your lighting effects create. Study the lighting from the audience to determine whether it creates joy, wonder, sadness or something ominous as the scene in a play or a concert requires.
Think about the distribution of your lighting around the stage and what directions you want the light to come from. Be creative and experiment with placing lights at odd angles to create unusual effects if the play calls for it.
Focus next on the intensity level of your lighting and whether a particular scene should have dim lighting or bright lighting. Dimmers can be applied here to gradually reduce or enhance lighting for a particular scene.
Colors used in your lighting should also be considered. Using mixtures of colors in lighting can get very complicated, but can help immensely in creating mood.
Finally, consider movement on the stage and how your lighting will track an actor while he moves around. This can be done utilizing a spotlight, by turning on other lights distributed around the stage or both.