“There’s always something else you can learn.”
Sometimes, all it takes is one small shift to create something bright, even a star for a musical backdrop.
For over a decade, Ben Bratton has worked behind the scenes of shows in the realms of scenery, fly rails, and lighting. From a normal incandescent light bulb to a LED fixture with moving capabilities, Ben brightens his life in college working as a lighting designer.
Bratton is a junior technical theater major with a focus in lighting design at Florida Southern College. Bratton also is an employee with the Busch Gardens theme park, where he works the performance venues. For instance, he covers the Moroccan Palace Theater, “which houses the ice skating show,” as well as the Stanleyville Theater that features a “Cirque X-Scream” show.
At Busch Gardens, he says that he “gets the ability to play around.” Between shows, he will play around with some lights in the lighting plot to make “funny looks,” even playing the “Cotton Eyed Joe” and having the lights match the music. He will begin his shift at 5 p.m. starting up the venue, making sure the lights are working. From there, he will check the rigging, the sound, and overall safety of the venue. He misses the “Turn It Up Remix” show because of the mirror ball used, called the “butter ball,” because it was the same one used in the “Butter” music video by the K-pop group BTS.
In his time so far at Florida Southern, he learns what types of lighting to use for different shows, and plays around with shadows too. While at Florida Southern, lighting design students design and program all of the productions. Bratton recalls “Addams Family” performed by the FSC theater department, was his favorite show to work on. He loved installing the star backdrop because the lighting designer said “Hey, can you do that?” and he said “Sure,” but could not figure out one star at first until it was a matter of bringing down the intensity. He likes the learning process that comes with every show.
As a full time student at FSC, Bratton says his biggest challenge is keeping up with homework. He says there are some nights where he will be working at Busch Gardens from 6 p.m. and not ending until three or four in the morning, then heading straight to his 8 a.m. or 9:25 a.m. class at Florida Southern. “It’s a little bit of a challenge,” he said, “but you know, just keep pushing through it.” He shared that he keeps a planner to track his work, and stays up late to get his work done.
Most surprising to Bratton was the difference between designing a dance concert versus a musical or play. For a dance concert he had to consider “what the choreographer feels in this piece” and had to work alongside the choreographer to capture their intention and vision through the lighting design. He has experienced having colors already decided for pieces, and other pieces with lighting changes in the middle of the rehearsal process.
Jeff Boe, technical director at Branscomb during Bratton’s freshman year, is his mentor. Boe told Bratton he was a lot like Mike Wood, a professional lighting designer. Bratton credits his start in theater to his original director, too, who recently congratulated him on where he is now.
Bratton has “no clue what [he] wants to do,” but he has goals. He would like to work for Disney, in touring shows like Disney on Ice that “would be fun, but a lot of hard work to do.” He wants to do cruise line work and shows for Broadway too, if the opportunity ever arises.