Ice Skating High

I went ice-skating at the Irvine Spectrum a few days ago. I've never skated to lights and thumping music, and now it's a new pastime. The cyc lights were changing the floor's color. While skating I would always be watching the floor, and so my mood changed depending on the color. Cool blue colors were mostly used; I felt incredibly relaxed, too relaxed for ice-skating really. Getting dizzy, and forgetting all my worries at the time. Round and round I went, going hockey-player fast, and everything becoming blurry around me. It was a trip. This is what lighting can do.

Because of it's subtle and subliminal effects, I find lighting much more important than the set on stage or even costumes. I will always keep my eyes open light.

Moving Away from The Fire

We spoke at the beginning of the course, briefly, on how switching from incandescent light bulbs to LED lights or other more energy efficient lighting will be the first time in history where the human population is moving away from fire as our main source of light and energy. Traditionally speaking, this does not seem like a very good thing to some people but I wanted to provide some possible benefits of switching to more efficient lights!

Although the hue of the incandescent light is more familiar, homey and comforting to many people because that is what we are used to, there are ways to make LED lights less "harsh" on our eyes or basically make them more familiar or similar to incandescent lamps. (as I have shown with my previous post where I used tape and a sharpie to make a "gel" =])

According to the Energy Star website, if every American home replaced one incandescent bulb with an energy star approved bulb we would be saving enough energy to house 3 million homes for one whole year! We would also prevent 9 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions!

Switching bulbs also saves money! Every bulb saves about $4o in its lifetime!

This is all information that is probably already obvious and available for everyone but I wanted to relate all of this back to saving energy and money in theatre. I also wanted to introduce the notion that it might also potentially get rid of the amber shift and could make cues that would otherwise look "muddy" because of this amber shift more clear while at the same time being dim. Just a thought! =]

Lights at Work

I work in the parking kiosks on campus (yes, I'm one of those guys) and was working late last night in one when I saw some interesting lights. As you may know, the kiosks all have glass on every side, and there is a rearview-esque mirror so I can see cars behind me. When it gets dark out the only way I can see anything outside the kiosk is from the car lights. What's interesting is the lights from the car make an optical illusion from my perspective. As I look straight ahead I see lights seemingly headed toward me, but in fact they are from cars behind me. What is happening is the lights from behind shine through the glass behind me and reflect on the front glass, so it looks like the lights are headed straight at me. While I appreciate how cool this is from a lighting perspective, it is inconvenient as I stand up everytime I think a car is coming through and I end up standing way more times than I need to...and I get tired...

I'm at work again right now so I will be able to see this illusion again tonight!

Jane Eyre

Last spring, Annie Louie produced her take on the story of Jane Eyre through a mixture of movement and acting with actual text. The production in the spring contained sound, minimal sets and very minimal costumes and it did not contain any lighting design as it was produced in the Grotowski Barn.
Having never read nor seen the story of Jane Eyre, I went in to the production with a vague understanding that it was some sort of a love story (with conflicts) and not much else. When I stayed for the talk back that time, we discussed parts of the story that were missed and unclear to those who didn't know the story and even to some of those who were familiar with it. One of the scenes that was very unclear then was the fire scene. Many people found that they did not understand what was going on during that scene and because of that, they missed a vital point in the plot.
Annie Louie did a continuation of that story this quarter in the XMPL??? Theater in the new Contemporary Arts Center on campus. In this production, lighting design was available! (Not just lighting design, but phenomenal lighting design!) This time around, all the scenes that included fire were not only clear but extremely obvious and captivating! The lighting really enhanced the movement and other elements and the movement really correlated with the lighting. During this talk back, the clarity of this scene was no longer an issue. This is a great example as to how lighting in any show is not only beneficial but necessary for the audience to understand the story you are trying to tell or to at least make their own assumptions.

Dyana

Airports

Flouting Jaymie's suggestion we not do all of our posts at once, I have another post.

I live in NorCal, and I love to hate flying out of San Jose Mineta. It's covered with overpasses and concrete and construction. However, flying out at night, the airport had used lights to colour the undersides of all the overpasses. It made all the concrete much less depressing, and especially the cool blues highlighting the bridges with amber street lights above them, there was a really clean contrast. I thought it was a really neat example of commercial/industrial lighting, being used to make the airport look cosmopolitan and functional. This especially when it's under construction, and a hassle to get around in, was interesting.

In any case, it was really neat to look at all the lines the light created, and how the lights worked with each other and with the lights of the airport beyond them. Especially how it worked to, at least for me, transform a place I've always understood to be grey and complicated and grungy into something that looked appealing and happening.

Alabama

This is a view of the Mississippi River from the St James Hotel in Selma, Alabama. It's been my computer background alternately for several years, since I took the picture. It was a little after 7 am, it was February, but looking outside you'd never know it. The way the sun just hit the brick building across the alley was beautiful, and ever since my childhood princess pink room, I've always been calmed by a warm sunlight hitting a pink wall.

Anyway, I think this picture really shows how light hitting a surface can just act as an automatic comfort.

Celebration after the quarter!

I love dancing, and I love going out to clubs to dance when my favorite DJs are playing. Yesterday I went out for the first time since August, and I asked myself, what would a club be without the awesome LED lights, and the strobe lights? My favorite LED light colors are the purple/magenta colors because I'm convinced that they make you feel relaxed and make you let go so you can dance and enjoy your night. Also, the strobes are very appropriate for a certain type of music you can dance to, which is electro/house music. Without those strobes, the atmosphere would not be as exciting and full of energy. This picture was taken in August at Sutra of the twin DJs The EC Twins.