The Training Initiative will be based at White Light's soon-to-be-announced new premises in Wimbledon. The Workshops will continue as part of the programme (-though not necessarily on a Wednesday!), and they will be joined by Weekend Workshops and individual training schemes. Training will be led by the demands of colleges and others, who will be able to gain access to White Light's wealth of in-house knowledge and experience as well as to that of professionals from the industry who will be leading certain sessions. Sessions will be of a hands-on nature and will provide an ideal opportunity to learn about new equipment and the latest developments in the industry.
"It can be hard to keep up with the ever-increasing complexity of lighting technology" comments Bryan Raven, White Light's General Manager. "We hope that The Training Initiative will help introduce the latest equipment and techniques to people who haven't used them before, to show that they can as useful and accessible to smaller scale productions as they are to the largest shows."
To support The Training Initiative, White Light will be launching The Resource Pack. Aimed at students, amateurs and teachers - or, indeed, anyone starting out in theatre production - the pack will contain stencils, scale rulers, colour swatches, fact sheets and a wealth of other useful tools and information. The Resource Pack will be available in September. Other incentives to be launched as part of the scheme will include a bookshop and competitions.
At the same time as launching The Training Initiative, White Light announced its continuing support for another area of lighting education, launching the second year of its Lighting Bursary for students of the Lighting Design BA Course at Rose Bruford College. As before, the application procedure for the Bursary requires students to both create a fictional lighting design proposal, the deadline for this being the end of the summer holiday. Successful applicants then have to expand their entry to a full proposal which they have to present to a panel of industry professionals. The three most successful students will each receive a bursary of £1000, to be presented just before Christmas. Last year's winners were Petter Skramstad and Chris Clarke; Petter was the lighting designer for Rose Bruford's award-winning stand at this year's ABTT Trade Show.
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