Week Ten: Learning oh so Much

So this week was HUGE in the learning department! We had plotting lecture, discussion of The Dramatic Imagination, Yasmin's show, Naomi's show and Kyle's.
Plotting wracked my brain! It was so quick and covered a lot in a small amount of time. I was happy to find that all of it made sense, I just have to go back and slowly learn step by step (and hopefully work through it). I understand the point of plotting: where the lights will hang, from what distance and using what degree of a fixture in order to light the stage efficiently with the least amount of lights possible (in a perfect world). It is important to understand your space, the dimensions and set that will coordinate with where things can hang. I learned that you will need certain ground plans provided by your scenic designer for certain areas on the stage that will be lit. This has to do with distance and parameter. It seems like a huge task to handle when given an empty space with seemingly endless possibilities...but if you can calculate the efficient distances that work with the degree of fixtures in deciding how much area can be lit, than you are golden. It's just that initial learning of how to calculate that degree.
I really enjoyed our final discussion of the book, and feel as if we got a lot of cool perspectives on the table. Everyone had different opinions, good/bad/arrogance/guru...but we realized that everyone is correct and incorrect. The end result is that theatre must stay imaginative and with reasoning-if there is no reasoning behind it, then you are just creating to be creative, we must learn and push ourselves to our highest potential, until we can be released from our work. We have to stay true to what the playwright is trying to convey in the piece.
Yasmin's show was beautiful. I loved her composition, and it seemed like she really went beyond the rep plot to make it her own. The play didn't call for an abstract concept, and I was glad that she didn't add too much to make it crazily "artsy" when it wasn't needed. That's the beauty and limitations of lighting a realistic environment. I truly enjoyed her cyc choice and use of her practical when indicating the time of day. I felt as if there were some strange cue errors, but being invited dress there are bound to be some technical issues that still arise. I absolutely saw what she was attempting and felt that it was overall a crisp and clear design.
Naomi's design was also quite beautiful- she had amazing sources and definitive times, her specials were also quite breath taking. I did feel that she had abrupt fade times and obvious changes of lights that I could detect instantly, and I couldn't buy it as much. Sometimes the scene would go into shorter french scenes that she lit more dramatically and faded pretty soon which snapped us back into the scene at hand, but I felt that those moments were so brief that they were not always needed. Her composition was gorgeous, the warm/cool downs were beautifully chosen. Also, I noticed that some of her characters were not completely lit when they were speaking and I don't know if that was a conceptual thing but it didn't work as well for me. Even so, I am excited to work with her next quarter (she said that she is mentoring me? I thought it would be a grad...)
KYLE'S design-WOW!! He did so much with the practicals, I was so impressed and congratulated him immensely. The use of headgear and moving people that were used as face light was AWESOME. The shadows were gorgeous, the flashlights, leds, everything was so great. After the show, Erika  and I got to ask him questions about HOW he lit everything. His design reminded me of The Dramatic Imagination, all of his work had purpose and total use of imagination, and completely worked. It was so successful.
OVERALL!!! This quarter has taught me so incredibly much, I can never thank everyone enough for the amount of work and dedication that we all created throughout the quarter. I love this lighting world. I am so proud and feel honored to be surrounded by so many amazing individuals and artists and feel very lucky that we all support each other no matter what. Thank you Lonnie. Thank you so much for helping us become designers.

Week 10: So Many Shows

This week was filled with so much art, I was pretty dang blown away. There was a total of four shows that I was actually able to see this weekend- Pizza Man, IREV's St. Patty's Day Show, The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon-Marigolds, and 39 Steps. For this blog, I will not talk about IREV because it didn't really have any lighting- but it was still good!!!

I will begin in a chronological order. On thursday, I went to Yasmin's show Pizza Man for their invited dress. The picture below is what the audience walks into. I really love the gobo here, I'm a fan of window gobos (hehe). I also adore the color that Yasmin got on the CYC, it fit the mood and aesthetic of the show very well. The composition itself was very well done, and all the areas were lit very well; however there were some fades that happened on and off that I didn't completely understand. I imagine they were meant to follow the mood, but some of them didn't really read well for me. 

The next show I went to was Naomi's- The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon-Marigolds. Naomi did a wonderful job with this. I absolutely loved her choice in the gobos for her pipe ends. The color itself was really interesting and strong, but I found it fit the play very well. One of my favorite moments in the show was the night time scene with the storm. I LOVED the visibility and color achieved in this moment. There was also another night time scene where the mother spoke on the phone with someone ad the phone itself had a down light. This was very effective and worked beautifully with the moment. One thing about this moment that did strike me as being a little off was the fade time between night to day- the pipe end gobos were brought up very quickly, and as an audience, member it was a little jarring. Other than a few other fade times that were off for me, I really enjoyed this piece a lot. The compositions were very strong and her color choice was great.

The last show I saw this weekend was 39 Steps. I was SOOOO blown away with Kyle's work on this. His use of practicals and flashlights to provide face light was very clever- and I love that the mute clowns had forehead flashlights that provided face light, strobe, and red effects-SUPER CLEVER. I was impressed to find out that power strips provided the control for all of these lights- THATS INSANE. Especially since the timing was all so great with the cues. One of my favorite aspects of the show was the shadow play done behind those drapes. I was also impressed to find out that this was also a practical light, just one that had an LED light source, which explains the very white color and intensity of the light. This show was truly inspiring for me because it showed me that beautiful things can still be done without much means. 

TO ALL THESE WONDERFUL LIGHTING DESIGNERS- GREAT JOB! And I can't wait to see all your next works.

Now on to the classes this week. We had a plotting class. WOO.. YAY... that was fun. But actually, I was really happy to see this class, and while plotting does not seem like my cup of tea, after seeing how vector works makes it much more simple. The more important discovery I made in this class is that bigger spaces are not scary. The idea of having over 300 lights always scared me, its extremely daunting. But after realizing that with big spaces comes larger systems of light, it's not so scary. In fact, I am really excited to work in the Little now because of this--AND I AM NOT SCARED AT ALL. WOO. well maybe a little, but they its more like nerves. After the class, I really didn't see myself wanting to plot for a living, but in actuality, plotting may be something I want to explore further. It's not for sure, but the possibility of looking into it is not out of my mind anymore.

Lastly, the final class. The book we read was interesting and had a lot of beautiful poetic language, I will say that. But, as I mentioned in class, I began reading it with a much more technical mindset, and because of this I do not think I really got all I should've gotten out of it. I plan to read it again over break with a much more free mind. I want to read it again before my next show that I am lighting. :)

I am so happy with this quarter, and I am grateful to have had the support and education that was all wrapped into one. Thanks Lonnie! I am excited for next quarter. 

Week 10: The Shows, and the last Class

So first, my show. Realism was a challenge. But I think it was fitting that the first time I tackled it was after taking the plotting and composition classes last quarter. I couldn’t make huge, bold gestures of light. Instead, I had to take what I learned and apply it in a much more subtle way. Understanding sculpting and composition allowed me to have (according to Lonnie and Jaymi) good composition without (my own conjecture) relying on bold colors and varying angles. Everything stayed within a tight pallet.

Speaking of angles, like I said in my last post (I think?) I really enjoyed using the high sides. I think it really allowed me to use them as an emotional tool without compromising my source.

I unfortunately could only see two other shows on campus. The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon-Marigols, designed but Naomi, was so beautiful. There were a couple of moments I didn’t totally understand, but I loved it when light would come through the windows. There was one moment in particular that was really stunning. During a scene transitions the only light on shone through the DSR window that was boarded up with newspaper. The way it fell upon the set was amazing.

I also saw Bare Bone’s Tea for Two or Three. It made me really excited to get back to designing for dance. I had a really great experience with Pizza Man. I love theatre people, trying to fit everything together (sound, scenic, direction, ect) and getting to know more people in my major. However, seeing the Bare Bone’s showcase made me really, really excited to get back to dance lighting. It’s really where my lighting designer heart lays. To me dance is pure expression. It’s one of the reasons why as a performing artists I have gravitated towards dance. And of course it’s fun getting to know people from a similar, but different discipline.

One awkward thing was that one of the pieces I will be designing next quarter was in the showcase. It was a little weird to see another designer’s vision on something I will be designing.

It is a little sad that I have designed what will most likely be my last play at UCI. I’m designing so much next quarter, but none of them are plays. I also hope that these last shows next quarter aren’t the last things I ever light. I’m not really sure how to crack into the lighting field (especially for dance lighting), but I’ve started making connections here at school so I’ll just have to wait and see where it goes. And hopefully I’ll be better at plotting!

The Dramatic Imagination is, in an unfortunate way, still extremely relevant. It’s unfortunate because we’ve only shifted minor-ly into the world Mr. Jones imagined. Realism does have touches of heightened truth within it now, but realism dominates theatre. I’m probably going to end up coming back to school to watch shows. Realism theatre is great, I don’t hate it. But I think the university setting is the best place to see more experimental theatre because it’s safe to do that here.

I hope I can take this class and eventually use it outside of school, and try to apply it possibly to film.

Week 10: Pizza Man, and our last classes

Well I guess I'm going to start with first things first, our programming class! It was really interesting, and if that was just a light overview, I can't even imagine how dense and tricky the class is going to be in the fall. I'm looking forward to finding out though! I now have a pretty good understanding on how to choose what instrument you want to use for different areas of light. Using the 50 degree as a starting point on 1x1 is really helpful. Also very easy to remember when I'm stressing during plotting class! More things to consider than just the size is what color you want to use and what angle you're going to shoot the light from, and how far away you're shooting from! It's a lot to consider. That's why this is where you decide if it's really for you or not! On top of all that, you have to plot it on the computer- you can use 3d models which seem pretty effective, but I can already tell that as a designer it's going to be a lot of long nights.

Onto the last class,  I loved the dramatic imagination. I think I liked it best out of everyone in the class. I was extremely impressed with the poetic writing and how the book was abundant with examples. A lot of them were from plays I was familiar with. Even if I wasn't I could see it all in my head because of the way he described it all so well. There are many quotes I've saved for later inspiration. 

Pizza man was a really interesting show! I've decided I'm not going to research any play before I go, because then I get surprised with everything that happens. The plot of this story was interesting, and hearing Yazmin talk about how she read this play as much more serious made a lot of sense to me. It was an interesting spin and it could go either way. I think that the lighting shifts would be difficult to work with because it all takes place in the same space and it was a realistic show. I think that she was effective in her color choice for the apartment, there was a lot of variety while still being pretty tightly bound together. I didn't notice the changes happening until they were already over! Great job on the timing of those Yazmin! Something that I thought was less effective was the window gobo. I really liked what was done with it, for example how in the scene where they turn the lights off the only illumination comes from the window. What my issue was with it was that there was already a window on stage, and in an apartment I couldn't really figure out what that source would come from. I was trying to imagine it at the top floor with some sort of window from the ceiling, but even then how would these totally broke girls be able to afford that? Most apartments have really low ceilings and I couldn't really see that window being there. That's super nit picky, but just something I thought of as an audience member. I really liked this show, and I was totally intrigued the whole way through. Great work and a really great show!

Week 9: The Show and The Load In

Yesterday I loaded in my the show I’m designing (hence why I am now posting this). It was a tiring process, but it went smoother than my last load in (though the cyc flickered, making the dimmer rack surge, royally freaking me out).

I’m really happy I decided to my the pipe ends high sides. I think it really helped a lot to make more of an interior feeling. When I would change the intensity of my cool or warm high side, there wasn’t a chance of the feeling of source. In the past I’ve has to deal with loosing the sense of source for an emotional moment, or have a system that is there just for source.

The tonals have turned more into color mixing I think, which has actually been pretty useful. I’ve been able to create a motif for my show, without hopefully ruining the realism. We’ll see when we run through it tonight if the shifts aren’t too dramatic.

One problem I’ve been running to is that my lights will all be at full and I’ll have no where to go.

I really enjoyed Alyssa’s show. I think there were a lot of good shifts, of the colors really made it feel like a the inside of an office. It wasn’t very academic. I think she also did a really good job not hitting the scenery. The red fresnels during the transitions were really beautiful.

My one critique is during the final sequence (or scene, after the last transition). The cyc was a really beautiful “gray” (I know the color doesn’t exist). It looked like a cloudy, overcast day. But then, it kept changing color. To me, the cyc during the other scenes was sky, not emotion (except for the transitions). Then it kept changing color. I wasn’t sure if it was for an emotional statement or the passing of time, of clouds changing. It was confusing.

Otherwise I really enjoyed it. Especially the composition of the office once the gobo was removed. I liked the gobo, but it was a beautiful composition without it.

Week Nine: Oleanna!

I went to go see Oleanna this weekend, and wow. I walked in not knowing what to expect and I really left with content to mull over and critically think about. I was amazed how much I got from it. Alyssa's lighting was very supportive of the show! I noticed that she worked on tracking the actors, something that I had a really hard time doing. She did a pretty good job at it, but they move around the set quite a lot so I'm sure it must have been hard.

Her color choice was bold and interesting. I guess I just get really scared when I try to decide color, because everyone else has chosen really extraordinary gel. I really liked her use of the bold red, and the color change of the cyc for the second scene. She has a deep blue, and it seemed like a green in her down light system. I was trying to figure out what color it was, because it was really nice on skin tone.I'm going to have to take leaves out of Erica and Alyssa's books and be at least a little more adventurous when it comes to creating my palette. I'm excited to use Yerma as my guinea pig ( I apologize to you in advance Lonnie haaha). Something that I saw in her show that I know I have to work on too is transition time. Sometimes I didn't even notice they were happening until they were over, and other times I felt them as they were happening. During my show I went through cues over and over again trying to figure out the right time, but I have no idea how to figure out the perfect time. I guess it comes with dedication and practice though!

I was so engrossed in the show, and the lighting was good at supporting and not taking me out of the moment. Even when the red lighting came in on the last scene, I felt as though it was subtly introduced it was totally justifiable.

It was a great show, and I'm so happy that I was able to see it. I had to miss the talk back because I had work, which totally bummed me out. Amazing show, and amazing work.

Week nine: Tech and Opening for Oleanna

This week was incredibly informative and extremely exhausting. I was in tech for my show and spent many hours slaving over the design and finessing the whole of what I already had. I learned that my most difficult executions were actor tracking, fade times, and chosen intensity. I also learn that after a certain number of hours being awake, my brain completely turns off and I start resenting things. That is the moment when I have to push extra hard for an extra hour, and then walk away so I can come back the next day with a fresh set of eyes.
Overall, I have many people to thank for contributing at times and giving me beautiful suggestions to improve my design. Erika helped me focus and patch (I can never thank her enough, she really knows how to bring positively calming energy into a space)!! Travis was very helpful at times with challenging what I was trying to say to the audience with each cue (and I do emphasize each cue :) )...Lonnie knew right away what each of my next steps would be in order to bring my design to the next level!!! And Kristin: my savior. I seriously worship her after this experience. She knew exactly how to communicate with me and teach/give advice on things that needed to be refreshed. She should teach. She also was extremely patient with my confusion and exhaustion, always kept me motivated with positive reinforcement. I owe so much to her! I couldn't have possibly asked for a better fit as a mentor!!!
Actor tracking: holy stress. It takes some time to finesse, and if I had more time I would have been able to find the exact moments for my SM to call the cues under the perfect fade time- that is what made me slightly cringe almost every time while watching a run. But I won't be too hard on myself-it was my first attempt. It cracks me up to think how I would be SO ELATED when a cue was called with the perfect fade time- it was like opening a Christmas gift that you have been waiting for all year.
Oleanna was such an amazing experience. I received so much positive feedback from my peers and fellow designers...I know it wasn't perfect, and definitely have things I would change, and maybe in 5 years I will look back and feel totally appalled by my first design, but I am proud to have finished it. Thanks for the opportunity Lonnie!!!

Week 8: Oleana Under Lights

So me, being the spastic Erika that I am, did not get any pictures of Alyssa's lighting. So my subpar descriptions will just have to do. 

Walking into the nixon theatre, I immediately saw some pretty cool strokes of light. I was really into the gobo that Alyssa chose coming from her AW rights. And as the show began, I thought the texture added great dynamic to the rest of the light design. My one concern with it was the color chosen. For me, the color was a bit too saturate at times, and because of this I couldn't figure out whether the source of light was from indoor or outdoors (perhaps a window?). Other times I was just confused on source a bit because of intensities seeming very similar. Despite the confusion on source, I thought the rest of the color choice was pretty spot on. I especially loved the choices for the down systems. I definitely appreciate that there were two systems and I can see how much a difference they make in popping the actors out. 

Some of my favorite moments were later on in the play when things got bad for the teacher (name escaping me- but Josh's character). Alyssa took out the warm AW R's which resulted in a very stark, cold atmosphere--it read incredibly well for the situation going on in each of the scenes. 

Another aspect I really liked about the show was the detail Alyssa took for her transitions. I absolutely LOVED them. The exposed-actor choice was interesting and did take a second for me to really adapt to it, but honestly, the light really helped tie the set and sound design in these moments. The second transition in particular (I think it was second) had a really cool CYC color. I was super into it. And the choice to bring up the fresnels as a foreshadowing light was smart. 

My last statement will be more of a small criticism. Like my shows, there were moments where actor face visibility was kind of low, mostly when the actors made abrupt movements to opposite sides of the stage. This wasn't so striking that I couldn't see their faces at all, but it was just something I noticed. Other than that, I thought the composition was well executed. OH ALSO, the fade times were very appropriate- and as an audience member that is educated in light, I was happy to see that I didn't even notice many of the cues. 

Overall, VERY COOL ALYSSA. I'm proud. 

Week EIGHT: Nature walk and Load in/Tech

Holy cow am I exhausted. This week was very challenging, I barely slept and consumed a lot of caffeine and fast food. BUT, it is paying off.

Our nature walk was AWESOME! It was a beautiful evening and great way to take a break from all of the chaos that happens indoors. It was really interesting to stop and think "how would you light this", the feelings and look of the beautiful worldly creations. It is now engraved into my brain to take a break and think "how would I light this moment". Beautiful. We learned about how we would accommodate our vision through fixtures and strokes, what colors are really pulling through the clouds and sky...basically how to execute this...I learned that there are many ways, not always one. Everyone has a different opinion on how the weather makes them feel!

This weekend I also had my load in for Oleanna. Man oh man was that a learning experience. Everyone is on edge, and it is easy to blame other people in terms of "wasting time", unfortunately I got the butt end of this collaboration. Even so, my second day (today) was very successful. I had my mentor by my side through programming and learned a LOT. I learned that things change rapidly, everyone has an opinion and its nice to try to make your director happy but ultimately it is my design. When you came in to give your quick suggestion on face lighting I immediately took your advice and it changed so much in a positive way. I thank you for being a Lighting Whisperer. I hope you get to come in again this week to help critique and possibly put more stress on my plate! I'm game. As of this moment, at least. I am very thankful to be surrounded by so many talented and collaborative people...and I have learned it takes work to be on the same page as your director. Now I sleep.

Actually Week 8: Focus and Nature

The nature walk, I think, was actually more interesting due to the cloud coverage. Indeed, it would have been nice to talk about the sunset, but we always see sunsets. We know how they can change rapidly to bold, crazy colors, and how they can range in transformation. The cloud coverage created a unique place for us to discuss the differences of stage and life. How, for example, life can be fairly sourceless, but would create poor composition on stage. Learning to observed, feel, and create the atmosphere of these sourceless moments was extremely helpful. I don’t think I can -right now- talk about the quality of the lighting outside very articulately, and well enough to place in a script treatment.

The traveling colors of the sun through the clouds also created extremely interesting colors and patterns (though it is not captured well in the pictures above).

I really love clouds. Like LOVE them. So I have a bunch of pictures of the setting sun in clouds, and though it might be good to post them here as sort of a taste of what we would have seen if the cloud coverage wasn’t so intense. The various stages of these different sunsets have very, very different color pallets. The clouds also create very different moods, which is interesting. The first picture has a more epic, heavenly feel.  The second picture has a more relaxed midwest sort of feeling. The 3nd picture down has a very beachy, relaxing feel. and the last one has sort of a mystical, almost doomsday, fantastical feel to it, that is very hard for me to describe because of the beautiful nature around it.

The above picture is a picture of the first system I focus at Trial. It was a much easier process than I would have thought, and I actually ended up focusing a lot by myself. The wall scrapes were really hard. It’s another puzzle in lighting design.

Week 8: Staring at the Sun, Listening to Frogs!

Class field trips are the best. Look how much fun we are having above. While I've always noticed how beautiful sunsets are and how much they change as the sun makes it's way out of our horizon, I never truly looked at the quality of the light. I always stare in awe at the sun, not those around me. The only time I ever looked at those around me were in those twilight moments- for, if you recall, my dreams used to take place in that time of day. So thats my favorite time to look around at the world. But this field trip totally changed my perspective on other moments of light for me. Even in average, every day things make me look at the people and surroundings now. Like this morning, I looked at how light was pouring in through my window, except this time I also looked at my skin and saw how it affected the color. 

Anyways-back to the field trip. Aside from the quality of light, I also liked talking about

source. In the picture to the right, you can see our LOVELY ALYSSA standing with the sun and clouds behind her. The source of light is behind her and therefore, we see more of a silhouette, with some golden haloing happening. The sky itself also has the golden, amber-like quality.  And as the evening continued, we saw the light change from golden to rosey, and then to that lovely blueish color I love so much.The photo to the left shows this transition a little bit, but mostly it's just a beautiful picture!!



Another interesting and somewhat saddening thing is that some natural light can't realistically be replicated on stage because it wouldn't look good. I totally understand why, but I find so much beauty in every moment of our natural light that it's sad I wouldn't be able to do it without it looking uninteresting. But perhaps that's what makes theatre so fantastical, and our world real. But still magical. :)

Last thing I want to mention is how crazy it was to me that when the sun is setting, it makes the sky on the opposite side of the sun change colors! On our hike, it was this crazy, rusty color. It was very cool. But that is something I never really noticed, since when I watch the sun go down, I'm usually watching the sun and not what's behind me. So I'm gonna do that more often. :)

I loved this field trip! I love nature and what it has to offer, and looking at it for inspiration is a never ending process. OH. And the frogs. I loved the frogs. Also, having Durango tag along was AWESOME. :)

Week 8: Nature Field Trip~

This week we went on our nature trip! I really liked going and being out in the open. Walking around as the sun was setting it was interesting to see the change in the sky versus the change on our faces. As people who don’t get the logistics of light, a cloudy day and sun set are envisioned much differently than it should actually appear on the stage. It isn’t effective to have a cloudy no source composition, because it’ll be boring and uncomfortable. So as Lonnie said, we should stay away from the literal and stick with the emotion. You can also pull a lot of different colors out of the sun set than you would expect. So as a designer you have a really wide range of colors you can use to support your sun rise or sun set. What I didn’t realize before is that sun rises are a lot more pastel and sets are a lot more saturate. Which makes sense when you think about it but it just never really occurred to me before.  Another cool observation that I’ve always made on sunsets is the different levels of depth they have. All the different clouds layer on top of each other, which is pretty helpful for us lighting designers so we can add a bunch of colors. I loved this field trip, and when I went walking the next day I was observing everything! It’s interesting how more aware I am of my surroundings!

Week 7: Erika's One Act

I went to Mexico this weekend, so I saw Erika's show on the final dress Thursday. That being said I'm sure things changed because I changed things up to the very last moment. But from what I saw I was impressed! I thought there were a lot of bold choices that I wouldn't have been comfortable with using, such as highly saturate tones and different brush strokes.

In the first play, red saturate down light was the major player. I thought that it was a perfect choice for the tango scene, but due to the fact that she couldn't fit an additional down system this didn't serve her very well. If she had made the cyc extremely red and had them in a deep blue I think this would have conveyed the same feeling and worked better with the space. This way the down system could have worked harder for her. Due to the fact that the back curtain was closed for this one she would have had to talk to the director about altering a bit, but I think it would have been something to consider. In the park scene she really played with the cyc, using it to convey sky and to convey emotion, which I thought was a bold choice. Each time a character guessed what was in the box the cyc would change from a sky color to a nasty color- different depending on each choice. I thought this was interesting, but I would have played with the starting point of the cue and the fade time to completion because I felt like as soon as I realized it was happening it was already over, and it took me out of the scene because I was trying to figure out what happened.

What I really commend Erika for is her different use of brush strokes. She had shin lighting, and front fresnels. I hadn't even considered front fresnels at all in my design, and i thought that was really neat! She also used fresnels pointed into the audience for the moments when one of the characters was talking to the audience and breaking the fourth wall. I thought that this was brilliant, I would have just thought to turn on the house lights which would have been a real logistic problem for the stage manager.

Overall I thought that Erika's one acts were successful, and I really learned a lot from watching them. I can't wait to see the next ones!

P.S. My boyfriend loved it too, he loves going to see shows now!

Week 7: The One Acts and Tech Prep

Hello! Sorry I am late, I have had no source of internet besides my phone....I hate doing homework on my phone. Anyways, this week was extremely stressful in the lighting world but I am bouncing back! I had a meeting with my production team for Oleanna, and they presented me with the ground plan: and it is off-centered with the stage. I was initially terrified, but took a look and realized that it will work, and I will make it work. I chose all new colors and sources with the help of my mentor. \

Erika's show was beautiful! I knew that she had a panicked moment, and it turned out just fine. Her first composition was fluid and crisp and full of passion, I especially loved the tango scene (though it could have used a little more visibility but that only added to the passion of the scene). The second composition was awesome, the play was very wacky and her lights were realistic with added touches of wackiness (like the tree gobo). I am very proud of her, and can only imagine how great it feels to accomplish such a triumph!! Go Erika!

This week for my design is moving into load-in on Saturday. I still have to fix my cues, and will be doing this on Wednesday after I see the rehearsal on Tuesday. I am so excited and a tiny bit nervous, but I feel that nerves are a necessity at this point. Who wouldn't feel nervous about laying their ideas so vulnerably out on stage? It's different than acting on stage because these are my own concepts. Here we go, wish me luck!!

Week 7: A Week of Passion and Paranoia (literally)

After all the preparation and stress that built up to this weekend, I must say, I am happy, yet sad it's all over. My One Acts went up this weekend, titled as "A Night of Passion and Paranoia." I couldn't think of a better name to call this blog than that. 

First off, let me say that this whole process was very eye opening. I have a new found understanding for what it means to be a designer. The amount of prep work and organization is incredibly daunting, yet amazing. And the process we are given to develop our concepts really helped me through this whole process. As I began my script treatments and slowly moved up to system magic sheets, it was really surreal to see my ideas go from just that to something completely tangible. When I finally finished my final plot and had only one night between me and load in, I was freaking out a bit. But I have to say load in went quite smoothly ( I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WOULD'VE DONE WITHOUT BRADY). It went so well I actually got to have a cue to cue for each show. And this, my friends, is where the stress started to bubble a little. 

As the week progressed, I found myself struggling with color choices I made, this lavender too warm or this amber too amber. I switched out my AW R fresnels at least 2 times and Pipe end R's at least 3 times. The whole process seemed like I could go on forever changing colors here and there. Probably the thing I noticed I was missing most was back light. I knew my actors were not punching out as much as they could be. Sure, their faces were lit and I could see them, but at times they were falling flat. I blame the amount of dimmers in the Nixon... :P But no, I really do understand that I could've switched my down light. But as Lonnie, Brady, Travis, and the Prospective student (hope I didn't scare him away!) all know, I was really stuck on this down red system. I needed to have those gestures. They made me happy when I saw them on stage. 

After my MAJOR meltdown and our invited dress, I made my last few adjustments and went into the next day ready to see my show without a laptop staring at me with a million notes. I must say, I was happy with my finished product. There were many things I still wanted to fix here and there, but I know thats just my highly critical nature. I can't ever be too happy about my work. Not sure why. But that's how I am. In the image to the left, you can see the warmer cue for when people entered the space. I really liked my room cues. My window was especially awesome. I also love and stand by my tango cue. And love cues- that back PAR was amazing. It just made me super happy. I can't really explain why. I like big gestures, I guess, and since I was given the opportunity to in these shows, I was VERY excited.

Speaking of big gestures, the whole second play in my night of one acts was filled with huge gestures. The play was absurd, and therefore MY kind of show. I got to use intense, weird, and non realistic colors throughout, and still got to practice my outdoor lighting. I was very happy with many of the choices I made. I stand by my moments where each character developed their own theory as to what was in the box. They were crazy and silly theories, and therefore needed to be highlighted. The hard part was bringing the audience in with me. I knew the first cue was a little hard to pull off, and, unfortunately, after the show was up and running, I had an idea that I think would have brought the audience in to my concept sooner. But thats okay. That just means my brain kept working on a finished product, which I like. Some of my favorite cues were the anthrax cue and the attention everyone cue. This were fun. From the moment I read the script, I knew I wanted to bring up lights in the house at that part. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but when I finally decided on Source 4 PAR's, I was SO happy with the outcome. And I was happy to see that the director was totally up for the whole idea of it.

Ah. Okay. Working with new directors being a new designer myself... what a challenge. I do think that part of my meltdown on thursday was also related to some of the people I had to work with. I WIL NOT name people, but I did get some attitude from various members of the project, and that was hard to deal with. Especially when I am such a "YES" person and all I want is for people to be happy with what I am doing. After my meltdown, though, everyone was much nicer to me. It just sucks that my stress eruption is what it took for people to realize that I wasn't pressing for more tech time because I was a B****, but only because I cared and wanted them all to look good.  

Now as I sit here and reflect on all this, I can honestly say that I am very proud of my work. Yes there are many things I would have liked to fix or make better, some within my control, others out of my control, but regardless, I was still happy with the outcome. This experience was very necessary for me. And the gallons of tears and the really bad headache I got on Thursday was all worth it to see my brainchild on stage working with the actors.  

Week 8: The One Acts, Color Correction for Realism in Real Life, & Kelvin Temp and Color

This afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing the one acts that Erika designed. It was a really interesting mix of shows because The Boor (which I’m assuming is by Chekov) and A Little Box of Oblivion, were two different, yet similar plays. They were in different time periods, and very different places (a park versus inside an old house), and had very different approaches to comedy.

The Boor

I absolutely loved the (lavender? Color corrected?) house right fresnel (parnels?) angle wash. I think it added a softness, that was delicate and refined for the more somber moments, while creating a real feeling of light in the space. It really looked like light in a room, and the color was a great choice. The softness of the fernels also played well into the comedy.

The color of the other fernsels was a little confusing. At first I thought I knew where the source was coming from (the blue across the curtain and the window special), but the fersnel angle wash house left had a less tinty color than their house right counter parts.

I like the build from realism to abstract, though I think it was too fast of a transition. Allowing us to enter into the space of the play and the character’s world without over powering us with abstraction was very smart. I feel like the abstraction didn’t have enough of a build. I know the tango is obviously a huge disruption to the play (though I really liked it and thought it worked well), but the lighting rubber band broke for me.

I know Erika was worried about the down reds. I thought it worked really well. I think it added a lot of that passion they were experiencing without doing anything crazy with the composition. It also connected well into the tango.

I absolutely loved the window special. It was a really subtle gesture, but the halo around her was a really nice touch in addition to adding a sense of place. The color was also depressing, in an almost melodramatic way. Of course she’s mourning in the light of a grey dreary day through a huge window. It’s fantastic.

A Little Black Box of Oblivion

The top of the show was really nice. I really got the sense it was a nice day out in the park. It was simple, and created time, place, and season.

I liked the idea of giving each one of the characters a motif for when they went into their theories about what was in the box, but I think it was just a little too much for me. I think it was mainly because the cyc was initially there to set up time, place, and season, and then became an emotional tool as well.

Their facial clarity was really, really good. I feel like Erika was able to get what she wanted out of each composition without sacrificing face visibility. I’ve seen a lot of designers loose that in The Nixon (myself included), but for both shows people were really crisp and clear. Really well done.

We have this glass and wooden cabinet that has lights on the inside. For parties I like to color to these lights to a little ambiance. For my birthday party, I changed the green Christmas gels with lavender and blues ones. Unfortunately, my camera didn’t do a good job picking up the actual color. The first picture without the color correction is actually more similar to what it looks like. Without the gel, it was more yellow-y. I wasn’t sure exactly how the gel would look, but when I put it on I immediately thought of how it was more so just a color correction that could totally work for pizza man.

It’s interesting how color changes for the camera. I remember being told that the camera doesn’t have as many color receptors as our eyes (or something along those lines), which makes lighting for film a little different. My producing partner and I want to invest in lighting equipment for film. It’ll be interesting to start shopping around for a kit, and to see what gels it comes with.

Again for my part, I replaced the green gel with a lavender gel. While this mixture is actually really pretty, I didn’t expect it to be so girly. I expected it to be a little more lush. But then I realized two things: 1. I didn’t use a blue gel like I was going to for some reason and 2. the bulbs are LED lights, which have a more bluey/white light compared to the the more yellow-y lights around my house. I think the color of the light played a bigger part in the color than I thought it would have.

What’s also interesting is that now our foyer and stairs are a lot “dimmer” (for lack of a better word). The color mixing of the blue and red making yellow, added a lot more light to the area. It’s basically like our color theory class in action, which I thought was really cool.

Week 7: The Colorful World of Cats, Color Mixing Discovery, & Ice Clubbing

In one of my earlier blogs I took a picture of this lighting fixture in my house. I was confused that it wasn’t color mixing, and thought maybe it had to do with the angle of the glass that the light being refracted through. On my post, Lonnie said to take another look with all of the lights off. I did that and I realized that there is color mixing going on. The yellow light in between the green and red are mixing to make a very natural looking yellow light (natural as in it comes from a house lamp). My mind was blown. It didn’t accrue to me at all that this subtle color was mixing. It shows that color mixing doesn’t have to be dramatic. It’ll be cool to see what happens when I finally trade out the green gel for the blue one.

Inspired by the Olympics, my brother and I decided to go ice skating. Apparently there is a time when the lights go crazy and it becomes like a club. I thought the lighting was terrible. It was awkward, and splotchy and the color choices really didn’t work well together. Of course it was for spectacle, trying to make ice skating more hip like cosmic bowling, but it was just badly done. The light positions didn’t make sense at all, and it was just bad. 

During Christmas break I put some lavender gels on the little LED light bulbs in our chandelier. Someone who is close to me has some mental instability. They were drawn to the room because of it’s calming, icy lavender feel. 

For awhile we kept trying to find a lavender source of light for this person. Gels melted to lights, and we couldn’t find blue or purple bulbs. I finally decided to just wrap some gel around this LED desk lamp. It created the clam, soothing feeling that this person. It also attracted cats. 

Almost all of our cats had to come check out this blue/lavender light. The person I made this for even said that cats were sleeping under it at night. Cats can see some colors, so it was really interesting to see how they were also interested in this differently colored light. 

Week 6: Cyan is a Real Color

Friends. Cyan is a color. But before I get to that, lets talk about this last class we had. Color theory has always been one of my favorite subjects in lighting. I mean, who doesn't love color. Whoever that is can go sit in the dark.

Honestly, this class was very informative. And it came at a time when nerves were already high for me, so while it was beautiful and informative, it also freaked me out a bit. There are certain things that I constantly worry about while designing-like how this color will look like with the costumes they are wearing, or will my actors look green? This class helped ease those worries a little. The whole color correction section was really interesting--seeing how lights can be adjusted to look like other lights was cool. 

Also, I tend to forget about additive color mixing (what's happening to the left!). I tend to pick colors just because I like them and feel that they convey what I want, but after this class, I got really worried that they would not mix well once on stage. I already had some issues with a color in my design, but its just really an ugly color. It does not work for what I want. So I am swapping that out. Also, looking at how transmission affects my design is another thing that I tend to look at last. I usually pick the color, but then have to adjust based on what kind of statement I want. After this class, I changed a couple of colors because of their transmission- both were actually to make a larger statement with a lower transmission color. I never really think about subtractive color mixing because up to this point in my design career, I've never really added two gels together unless one of them was a frost. Oh and along those lines, I would love to one day work with dichroic colors-even if they are fragile. I am dying to see how those colors look versus a normal gel. 

Other things I enjoy when discussing color theory are things like how black light works, and how remotes work. 

I really enjoyed the recap and the new subjects we touched on. :)

-ERIKA 

oh yeah, and I still argue that Cyan is a real color- it is in my eyes!!

Week Six: Color My Theory

THANK GOD we had our color theory lecture this week. I have been struggling with color in my design, and the lecture definitely cleared things up for me. I received many pointers on face lighting, the ashy blues vs. lavenders, and how dimming them will look on a person. I have been so stressed about my design that I completely forgot about the effects of lower intensity. I also had not thought about costumes and blending issues. I relearned many things that will now hopefully stick into my memory (third time should be a charm, right?). I had forgotten how our eyes receive green at first, and it makes us uncomfortable.
I was also thankful for our lecture because it engrained terms into my brain: hue, (a)chromatic, chromaticity, saturation, brightness/value, subtractive, additive, Kv temp, transmission, exposure...
Now I feel smart.
I took all of this information and met with my mentor. I had to change most of my colors, I had the idea of how I wanted it to look, it was just difficult for me to execute colors and angles. Thankfully my mentor was on the same page as my brain and she helped clear things up! Now I am super excited to do this!
Here we have Lonnie looking like a rock star:

Week six: color theory

This week's lesson is always my favorite, color theory. I love figuring out the facts around the magic we create. It helps as designers because it aids in making better decisions to create our vision. For example maybe something with a 10% transmission isn't so good for a front wash. It helps us to use our tools more effectively. We have the charts behind each gel, but if we don't know what those numbers are telling us, how is it going to improve our projects? The part that I hadn't heard about that I really enjoyed was the dominance of color. I knew this information somewhat instinctively, but it was really helpful to break that down. I also didn't know about the color correction or red shift previously, and that totally blew my mind. Especially the trick of the barely blue gel to create a seemingly higher Kelvin fixture. I LOVED that! It showed me for the millionth time how interesting and magical lighting is, and it makes me feel kinda cool that I'm pursuing it as a job path. Each time we delve deeper I'm learning even more to make me know that this is what I really want to do. :)

I'm actually glad we didn't have this lecture before my show, because I took a lot of things off of instinct initially. As I had to improve them, it gave me hands on experience which really nailed it into my head. Then to further sink it in, this lecture gave me the language behind the instinct, so I can continue to use that knowledge.

Week 6: Color Theory and Adaption to Realism

Color theory is really complicated. I feel like a lot of it doesn’t make sense either. Not in the sense that I don’t get it, but in the sense that there is a lot of mystery when it comes to understanding light.

I think one of the things that was really interesting about color is how there is a lot of intuitive, but at the same time there is a lot of knowledge that goes into picking color.

For example, instinct says that the is sun warm. Knowledge says that it not. Instinct says to put a lot of warm on stage, but then physically our eyes will not appreciate it. Knowledge says natural light is mostly cool. Instinct does not pick up on that.

It’s also interesting because we pick a color based off emotion (in theatre after the time and place tells us where to look, but the color is still picked based off the emotion). That is, the emotional reaction we want to conjure from color is from an audience is really what guides our decision on picking color. However, a lot of people who are untrained can’t even pick up on certain aspects of color. Or people in general just pick up different tones within color. I remember in our composition class last quarter, a designer used a blue that went a little green. Some people in class did not pick up on this.

It seems like so many of us designers spend so much time worrying about picking color but how much will be unappreciated or missed because we’re not designing for other lighting designers? At the same time that could be a good thing.

One thing that was trippy when we were looking the too pools of light I couldn’t make my eyes stare at the blue. There was just something so mesmerizing about the red.

Designing for realism has been interesting. We spend so much time on concept, that when it came time to write my script treatment I was really worried because I wasn’t able to come up with much. I mean, I did come up with some good stuff when I thought the show was a drama. However, there was so little I felt like I could do. It’s a two act play, that basically is two scenes. There’s no change of time or place, and whenever there is an emotional shift, I can’t justify a lighting shift to echo them. It’s been challenging to let go of wanting the lighting to be more of a character.

I think that’s something I’ve struggled with because I’ve lit mostly dance. But it’s been a good challenge for me because if I light outside of school it will be mostly realism (much to the chagrin of Robert Edmond Jones). It’s also good timing I think because I can play around with the plot. It is an interior play, and the rep plot is more set up for exterior.

Week 5: Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics was amazing. I kept thinking about how the technical brilliance of the theatrics could be used in theatre. Especially the use of the projections of the floor. They were extremely realistic, to the point that I felt like I was watching a movie.

The Olympic ceremony looked at the history of Russia. One period of their history that was extremely interesting part of their history was the Soviet Era, both historically and theatrically.

It was extremely avant guard, both in the sets and the dance. The lighting was red and intense, reflecting the kentic energy of the dancers with their interactive sets. The red also worked well with the driving Soviet march. As one can see in the picture, they balanced the red with cools.

There was a lot of dance through out the performance. In the pictures of above, the floor is an example of the projections. They cross walk the dancers are on in the bottom picture is a projection. Anyways, the dancers were lit really well for not being able to put shins in a theatre in the round sort of space. It was extremely artistic, and reflected various themes.

Here is another example of the projection on the group. As each country entered the map would changed to their country. The whole stadium is nicely lit, with a combinations of warms, and cools.

One interesting part of the ceremony was that when they danced to Swan Lake with these LED things. They sort of looked looked like wings, but at the same time you couldn’t really see the bodies of the dancers. Russia showcased ballet several times, as it is a very important part of their culter. Swan Lake, one of the most iconic ballets in the world, could have used a little more visibility. Granted, it could have been affected by the cameras angles. Perhaps in the stadium one could see their bodies better.

Week 5: Under the Lights

I spent the majority of this past week under lights. As a cast member of Ferris Wheel in the week 5 one acts, I got a chance to experience stage lighting from the other side of design. From what I hear from so many people, the lighting in our show was awesome--So GREAT job Keli!! On my end, I couldn't necessarily see the whole picture, but I felt it, which was cool. 

One thing I found interesting was noticing how light affected me in my scene. In the tech process, there were times when I noticed that perhaps my face and Robert's face was missing some light. Of course Keli adjusted that. Another thing was that I definitely felt the hot spot, and when new lights would come up. So that was cool! As my scene ended and the next began, I was able to look on to see the lights in the following scenes. In Great To See You, I was glad to see how the emotional shifts of the scene were accompanied by shifts in light-especially since it all took place in one location. I didn't have much ability to see all the lighting in A Second of Pleasure, but I did see that last key stroke that Keli used--the isolated window gobo when Jacob was left alone on stage. This was extremely successful in highlighting both the emotional aspect of the moment, as well as putting a good button on the whole show all together. 

Now the picture to the left is a different designer-Stacie Marie O'Hara. She designed Angels in America, and did an amazing job. There are a few things that definitely resonated with me that I can still see very clearly. The first statement she made that really stuck with me was her Antarctica scene. The lighting in this scene was so cool (as in temp) and dreamlike-very fitting for the scene taking place. Her use of down blue was extremely captivating, especially when the scene ended and the two characters were behind the pillars in a pool of down blue. Another lighting stroke I liked was when the mormon character (sorry forgot his name) was making a drunken phone call to his mom. He was cast in down light as well, and it created so many interesting shadows on his figure. I understood the emotion and darkness behind this choice. I was also really impressed that even though all the lights were exposed, they didn't draw attention.  I mean I noticed them, but they flowed so well that they did not take attention away from the scenes. One last thing- the way this was staged was incredibly strange, and Stacie handled the split scenes very well despite that. Oh and also, her "fluorescent" lighting that wasn't really fluorescent worked really well too!! I was convinced I didn't even realize that it wasn't fluorescent light. 

That's it for my late post! Until this SUNDAY.

-Erika 

Week five: My One Act Experience

This weekend was my show, and wow it flew by way too fast. I went to each show, even though I was terrified of seeing my work on display. I think that it went pretty well, I learned a lot through out the process as a whole, and being able to strike/ help Jonathan set up his set was helpful to learn as well. I learned that as a person I really hate wasting time. I would rather stay late after the actors left each day just to get stuff done instead of waiting to program in the space. I wanted to have something for the directors to base off of instead of making it up there. It helped to get stuff done at a much faster rate during the time when the entire cast and crew where there. It kept me there late, but I preferred to work on my baby project without people watching and judging. As I grow confidence as I designer I’ll probably be more comfortable with letting people see me create. The more paperwork and work I put in before, the more prepared I felt.

I felt successful in my design because I created three distinct worlds for the actors to play in. I chose staple lights that were only used for the different shows to really differentiate them clearly. What I need to work on is tracking actors and making sure it isn’t too dim on the front light. In the Nixon the lamps aren’t even, so even if I have them all at full it looks as though one is at half intensity. It was a weird thing to work with, but definitely kept me on my toes!

Color was a real challenge too, I ended up changing three different tones from the ones I originally picked. That will probably just come with practice of seeing how the colors actually look on lights instead of in the swatch book or online.

 As my different mentors and colleagues came in to see tech and performances, I got another added layer of help with my work. I feel like I really benefit from another pair of eyes so I can bounce my ideas off of someone! It’s all a learning process and I think that I got a lot out of this experience, both technically and personally. I hope that I take all the knowledge I gained and I use it effectively for the next piece I work on.

Week Five: Observation

This week I had the privilege of observing many different types of designs and performances. I had my first rehearsal for my show, and presented my ideas to the cast. It was a very interesting experience, I didn't realize how nervous I would be when introducing my concepts. Even so, I remembered being on the other side as an actor, not really understanding the light design when presented to me. Overall, it is still coming along, and I have to change a lot of my colors (so I am looking forward to lecture this week) and angles. After seeing Kelli's design, I had a better visualization of how the lights hung over the performance space.
Speaking of Kelli's design, it was beautiful! I was very proud of my fellow colleague :) she kicked ass! I was super excited to see that she let her creative juices flow with her entire design, especially the ferris wheel colors! I asked her some questions afterwards regarding the spots on the stage that were lit outside of the acting space, and she clarified that she chose this option for spacial reasons. Great work for Kelli, and Erika was of course spectacular!
On Saturday I had my tech observation with Dance Visions- holy shit. I cannot comprehend lighting a  dance show in the CTT, I don't know how they do it! It would be incredibly overwhelming, but I guess with more knowledge under my belt (like the grads) I could take on that big of a task. Kristen had to constantly change the design to get the right feel for the piece, it seemed incredibly daunting especially when the choreographer kept insisting new ideas onto her. She kept her absolute cool- I was very proud to have her as my mentor. The work is going to turn out beautifully. The headset situation is chaotic, you have cues being called while trying to change the layout of the design and also have notes recorded for you...amazing. I was astonished. Cool week.

Alyssa

Week Four: South Cost Plaza

It’s interesting how lighting and architecture can create such a different kind of feel from one location to the next.

The picture to the left is one of the entrances for South Coast Plaza. It’s trendy, modern, and a break from the luxurious. It’s interesting that this is at an entrance. Perhaps they don’t want people with a sub-million dollar income to feel like they don’t belong. At first.

The outdoor-like newsstands, and the Starbucks play into this idea of “trendy” as well as the “average” person.








Interestingly, the part of he South Coast Plaza on the other side of the bridge has a more homey, everyday feel. The lighting isn’t overwhelmingly luxurious, and there are the cheesy winter projections on the wall.

The stores in here are stores that are more realistically with in the price range of the who aren’t not super rich.

I think same idea of welcoming a particular type of person through lighting is also apparent on the outside of South Coast Plaza. The blues in the picture above are trendy, yes, but they’re not particularly overwhelmingly neon.

The blue and white mix together, creating a sore of lushness that people approach. It is soft, and not very edgy.

The same can be said of the picture to the right. It is a romantic sort of setting, with a bit of edge in the back. The edginess, however, is again muted by the purple. It’s a very pretty site to see this blanket of stars with a lush purple behind them.

The picture to the left, however, is what people see who are coming from the less expensive part of South Coast. The neon isn’t muted at all. It’s very blue, and has more of a clubbing feeling than luxurious feeling.

It’s interesting that so much was done on the other side to mute the neon feeling, and to create a romantic feel, yet on this side the only things people see are neon and metal.













The bridge connecting the two sections of South Coast is kind of weird. It’s extremely trendy, and futuristic. Yet, it doesn’t totally feel like something that is far out of our future.

While the blue does give it a spaceship sort of feel, the bridge is sort of an interesting representation of “real life”.

This bridge, though it is suspended through air above a major road, looks like a pathway one would take in quiet suburbs, or in a less busy part of a major city. It looks like a pathway that would lead to a park, or the pathway that is next to ocean on the other side of the street from Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.

 It is a weird look into the future, and creates, again, a comforting feeling that isn’t luxurious, but is trendy. It is an odd merging of worlds.

The lights on the bridge were very interesting,subtle, and powerful. I didn’t even notice them at first, yet they’re doing so much. I thought that was really cool. The light the pathway, give light to the pedestrians, and add an accent for the structure. 

I think it would have benefited the structure if there were more purples than blues, or perhaps another color. The statement-ness of the blue creates a disconnection from where we were, where we are going, and how we are getting there. Though there is a different luxuriousness between the two places, and sometimes a sense of the trendy, there is never a moment in the buildings that makes me feel like I’m in Star Trek. The purple is less statement oriented, so perhaps more of the purple would make it more of a neutral space. Then again, it could make it even more confusing, and less further disconnect from the blue we were over exposed to at the escalators. 

Again, I feel like this is another moment of disconnect caused by trying to appeal to too many different kinds of people. I do really like the old vintage light bulbs. I think they’re awesome. And I do really like beachwear. I can be a California beach bum one day, and a hipster the next. However, those are two very different ideas. I would go to different stores to get those different kinds of feels. As someone who likes both styles, I’m a little put off by the mixture of it. Perhaps if they had vintage beach posters, and made the walls a little less clean, it could work. Unfortunately, they failed to make the bridging of target audiences. 

I don’t know if they’re waiting for a certain day to light the lanterns (which I believe have no lights in them), but I think it would added a really nice romantic, cultural, and soothing touch if the lanterns were lit. It was kind of awkward that they were just there. 

I really like it when people light trees. 

And Satan! The lighting fixture is actually pretty nice. The art deco-eqsue feel adds to the luxuriousness of the area.