Story telling is ancient part of human culture and education. At first it was just words told to another. Then there was a specific place where these stories were told. As always human tried to ramp up the scale of the story telling into an experience that fully encompassed the audience. That is when controlling the lighting first came into being.
In the first theatres stories were acted out during the day in the sunlight, ancient performing spaces and amphitheaters were designed to allow for the best natural lighting. Later people discovered the pleasure of hearing their stories regardless of the weather and the first theaters were invented. To account with that theater would use lots and lots of candles and reflectors.
Later, lighting evolved to the usage of a network of gas lines leading to locations over the theater. In retrospect this was a bad idea because fires in crowed theaters became a common thing. Now due to the gaslight age of theater there are strict fire codes for theaters across the world.
The electric light changed EVERYTHING not only did building design change but so did design and the technologies. There was a split between technologies, the set up and managing of the systems, and design, the specific look for every scene in a play. To change the color of the light different colored films.
Now, the lighting technology is slowly evolving to LED's. They do not quite possess the color control we demand but they are getting better every month. The evolution of lighting has gone quite far from just building orientation to today, a multi-million dollar industry driven by a need of perfection.
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