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Let’s start with task lighting. You may ask, what in the world do you need task lighting in a home theater for, isn’t a movie theater dark? That’s true but not when you have to clean it or if you are doing other things in the room. In our experience, the best type of fixture for theater task lighting is usually a recessed ceiling can. Most brands of recessed cans have a dark trim ring that will be perfect for the dark ceiling in your home theater. For the most light when cleaning, a typical theater will need 3 to 4 rows of cans, with the cans spaced about 3-4 feet apart. If recessed cans are the only form of lighting you plan for your theater due to budget constraints, we highly recommend you put your recessed cans on at least 2 different circuits so you can dim or turn off the front ones so they don’t spill too much light on the screen while the back ones provide more light.
Let’s move on to safety lighting. If your home theater has risers, it is very important to make sure the steps are visible to protect you or your guests from stumbling in the dark. There are many decorative types of step lights available on the market. We highly recommend you choose a type that casts an indirect light. Most people will choose to leave their step lights turned on at a dim level during the movie. You would not want to have any kind of light that shines directly on the screen. Our Audio Advice team has come behind some theater installations where a bright step light was positioned on the vertical riser, shining right at the screen which you really want to avoid. If you can, position the step lights off to the side and make sure they have louvers or some sort of element to direct the light source downward.
Creative accent lighting can take a mundane looking room and give it a look that draws oohs and ahhs. We have a phrase at Audio Advice that will help you out when planning your accent lighting: “Go for the Glow”. Indirect accent lighting will give your theater that cool look and keep any of it from shining directly on your screen. One thing I should point out here is that you should definitely plan to put all of your lights on dimmers--ideally controlled from a remote control. No matter how well you plan, I assure you that you will want to play with different levels of dimming for watching a movie vs a superbowl party. This of course means you need to make sure your lighting is dimmable.
Many theaters utilize sconces as well. These can be placed on your wall or columns. It’s best to have sconces that shine up or up and down without any outward glow. In other words, you should not be able to see the light bulbs. There are some very cool looking decorative sconces that use candelabra type lamps that are completely visible but most of the time these are too distracting for theaters. Indirect column lights can also be a very cool lighting feature. They require some planning but imagine a column that has a soft glow coming from both of its vertical sides. This kind of accent can even run up a side wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. The new types of LED strip lights have made it possible to do all kinds of neat things with indirect lighting. The easiest way to do this is to have a column that is spaced off the wall and install strip lights on the backside a couple of inches in from the edge. Cove lights are another great way to add some wow to your home theater. Cove lighting can be done with either rope lighting or LED strips and is a great way to give your ceiling a soft glow. Cove lights are also one of the most effective ways to add some light into a room when you do not want it fully dark without having any light spill onto the screen.