Week 8: Oleana Under Lights

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

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

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

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

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

Overall, VERY COOL ALYSSA. I'm proud. 

Week EIGHT: Nature walk and Load in/Tech

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

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

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

Actually Week 8: Focus and Nature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Week 8: Nature Field Trip~

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

Week 7: Erika's One Act

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

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

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

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

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

Week 7: The One Acts and Tech Prep

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

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

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