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. 

Week 4: South Coast Plaza, Culture, and Focus

Last Thursday, we took a trip to South Coast Plaza; sadly, not to shop. BUT we looked at this place in a totally new way; instead of window shopping, we gazed at all the lights that filled this space. The first section we started looking at light in was the richie area. Lights here were very clean and modern, and some were satanic too. What was the most interesting to me was the difference between this "rich side" of the mall and the one pictured above- which was where more affordable stores were located. The biggest difference was the contrast between modern and the dated--the rich side clearly had updates made to it as time passed, where as this side had older forms of light. For example, in the ceiling in part of this section above, we could see some scalloping because they were using older lights. What was interesting to me is that I felt way more at home in this part of the mall- the lights were warmer and more inviting, even in the stores. In the section of the mall where the high end stores were located, some of the stores were not very inviting. Probably the one that stuck with me the most was that rolex store. The lights in that store were extremely intimidating, and weirdly enough, mostly down light. The lighting in Tiffany's, however, was not intimidating. They definitely were more high end, but they kept it classy and still inviting. Except for the ugly chandeliers in the first room we went into. 

The trip to the mall made me realize that a lot more thought goes into planning a space than one really ever thinks about. AND that lighting a mall can be very hard because none of the stores really go together- the light in the mall has to be simple enough that the lights in the stores don't look out of place. In many instances, this was successful, but at times, there were definitely stores that didn't seem to fit in. 

That night we also went to Culture Clash! First off, what an amazing show filled with so much talent!! I am very happy I got to see it. Despite some small hiccups on cuing (still GREAT for first real run through!), I thought the show was very well put together. I was really excited to see so many colors up, and to see how they would be used. For such a different production with interesting staging, it was nice to see that the lights also complimented that individuality. Some of the light cues that stood out to me were the beginning ones for the first monologue and then also the lighting in the reverend section. The colors were very spot on for me- especially the reverend's lighting. I also loved the lighting in the section where the woman was crossing the border and the huge fresnel (?) came across the audience. Overall, I thought the sections fit the theme very well- there were moments that were a little hard for me to see the actors faces, but I imagine it was either due to staging or some other factor. 

Lastly- Focus. Actually, by the time I got to focus on sunday, they were pretty much done unfortunately. So Karen gave me some pointers and showed me hotspots and how to find them. She also went over how to see if the stage is evenly lit. So a lot of it was recap and going over what they hung and focused already, but it was still very informative. :)

GOOD NIGHT.

Shameless plug to come see my show this weekend :)

-Erika

Week four: South Coast and Tech

This week we went to South Coast to take a look at architectural lighting and store fronts. It's amazing how time you can tell if any timing went into the planning of the store's design. For example, Rolex's high angle lighting made it intimidating to go into, very powerful and statement worthy. Whereas Sony was bright and flashy, advertising its sleek tech and colorful innovation with lots of bright screens flashing their product. For some stores, dim lighting made them look more mainline, where others were bright to look more professional. Both sides of the intensity scale looked good, if it was for the right sort of store. As a commercial lighting designer, it's essential to know what products are being sold in the store you're going to light, and the stores reputation. You aren't going to want to light Tiffany's in hot or colorful lighting. Tiffany's had a really nice touch of dividing into two rooms, a "Diamond Collection" room, and a regular jewelry selection room. The diamond room had cooler tones and had top lights on the display cases to accentuate the crisp beauty of the jewels. The other room was warmer, and comfortable.

I'm in tech right now, and it's been crazy. I stayed really light last night to hang, focus, and rough cue. I got a lot done and it was truly a learning experience. Not realizing, I soft patched into a previous show, causing my cuing to look really interesting. I was so confused as to why it didn't look how I wanted it to. Thank goodness I noticed pretty quickly. I'm glad I have lots of sheets written to help me stay organized between the different instruments I need, where they're located on my plot, and what channel they're on. I'm not sure what they're called here, but in high school we called them "schedules". I wasn't required to do them by this class, but I whipped up some quick ones because I remembered how helpful they were in the past. Being new at this I needed all the help I could get. I used a lot of what I learned from watching Stacie, using my hands to check for height and an even wash, and learning how to effectively direct people (Jamie the SM is familiar with the light board so I was really happy that she was the one helping me). It was a long night but we got a whole bunch done, and Martha seemed to approve when she came in today! I thought that the cycs needed 6 of the 24 dimmers, but today learning that wasn't the case was one of the best gifts I could recieve because I separated by down light systems by hot and cold so now I have more versatility when directors ask for things, and also I can see more of my vision come true. It's all coming together, so we'll see how it goes from here!

Week Four: Noticing the Effects of Lighting

This week, I tried to take a step back and notice lighting in places and situations that I would normally take for granted. We took a trip to South Coast Plaza and discussed what worked/didn't  in each store, for it's targeted audience and consumers. I found that it is important to feel the atmosphere and take note of how you feel, have the lights effected you in any way? Does it make you want to take an action?

We also had the chance to experience Culture Clash, and it was AMAZING. I was in awe the whole entire time, the lights had me glued to my seat and ready for the next scenario. This show evoked so many emotions and passionate ideas into my head, I truly was inspired by the design. It made me excited to grow and keep learning to think beyond the box and manifest concepts taken from my brain: they are doable! Thank you for allowing us to experience this show!! I made Erika take a cool shot right when the show opened, feel free to save it!

Friday night, I saw The Glass Menagerie at my old community college. It was VERY interesting to see someone's interpretation of the show, since we spent so much time on it during 157. She went with the "memory piece" concept and it was very dimly lit throughout the entire show. Her colors were very saturate, she kept about 3 groups of source fours (blue, amber, violet) as the main interior light, and added greens/reds during moments of higher intensity. I was very excited about the overall design, but definitely had my critiquing moments, which let me revel in the fact that I do have a valid opinion when it comes to other designs. Some scenes were beautifully lit, and others just didn't work. However, the overall product was successful to their chosen concept.

Now, the SUPER BOWL half time show was the mother of all themed lighting. Holy cow, I really would like to meet the mastermind behind that! I was enamored, and felt proud to be apart of the secret world, I was marveling over the lights while my friends were excited about the performer. I didn't even pay attention Bruno Mars...hello, I am obsessed with lights. :)

My design for Oleanna is coming along, I have been so blessed to be working with so many creative people! Our thoughts are emerging and becoming amazing. This is going to be so much fun.

I will end my post with a beautiful picture I took during half time, adios sol!