Glossary
Lighting Technician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential lighting technician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key lighting technician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in lighting technician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Color temperature
- Warmth or coolness of light.
- Cue
- A programmed lighting change.
- Dimmer
- A device controlling brightness.
- DMX
- A control protocol for lighting.
- Fixture
- A lighting instrument.
- Focus
- Aiming and shaping a light.
- Gaffer
- Head electrician on a film set.
- Gel
- A colored filter.
- Gobo
- A pattern projected by a light.
- Hot spot
- An overly bright area.
- Load-in
- Bringing equipment into a venue.
- Moving light
- A fixture that moves and changes.
- Patch
- Assigning fixtures to console channels.
- Safety cable
- A backup cable on hung fixtures.
- Truss
- A structure for hanging lights.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Lighting Technician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Lighting Technician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.