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!