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.