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!