Lighting A Concert

I was scrolling through my friend’s photo album, and I dug up this old picture featuring Arctic Monkeys. As you can see, it looks as if there are a few Par cans casting light down on the musicians–particularly the drummer. The four lights create a really cool glow on the drummer’s drum set, and I like to imagine that this may have been at a drum solo. I can’t quite tell if it is a blue curtain in back, or a cyc light. Either way, the blue gives the musicians kind of a water or rather serene vibe. Overall, it looks like there may have not been too much front light because the musicians are not lit too much from the front perspective. Rather, the blue cyc, and the pools of bright light from above are primarily lighting the set. I didn’t even know who this band was, but I guessed their music was more alternative by the calming colors. After I listened to their songs, it is obvious that they are in fact alternative. Thus, this is a perfect example of lighting used for mood. Had the lights been a harsh red instead of blue, then we may have thought a death metal band was playing.

Next to Normal Lights

Recently, I started becoming interesting in the broadway musical Next to Normal. One of the coolest aspects of the show is the set. The show is based on a family whose mother is suffering from mental issues and the set is like a house cut in the front. They're three levels to the house, but each level has compact fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. The back area of the lighting is filled with these bulbs and it creates a really cool affect in the house. I watched a video on the backstage of the Booth Theatre, where it was on Broadway, and it said that they used different types of colors, primarily green, blue, and red. It blends together with the back wall. One of the actors was talking about how they use the LED strip lights to blend together yellow and green to make the back wall blue.

Oh Beautiful Night

When I still lived in my previous town of Turlock, Ca, there was a house that always caught my eye at night. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but alas, I haven’t been home for quite a while. However, it is strongly imprinted in my brain. The house has a modern architectural look. It is a white house with sharp angles; the type of design fit for a Stanley Kubrick film. The lighting on this house is superb. What the homeowner decided to do was put a bunch of little lights around the base of the house. These lights shoot upward and produce a cool color that wash up on the white of the house. This creates an almost solitary point of view because it feels like it replicates the moonlight. Rather than an amber glow of warmth, it is a cool light of solitude. The shadows produced by the trees give it an even more supernatural/romantic feel. The fact that I have never seen who lives in this house, and that I often stroll by it on my nightly walks when everyone is asleep, make me feel as if a very suavely dressed man smoking a pipe is sitting in the house with the set design of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nonetheless, I find the lighting highly supportive of both the house’s sophistication and eroticism.

Beyond the Horizon

This is an interesting picture because of the Our Town projects, and my recent trip to South and North Dakota. Both Our Town and the Dakotas give me that sense of simple farm life, and I feel this picture can easily be set in those locations. The amber glow of the sky is presenting the idea that the sun is either setting or rising. For the sake of this blog, I would like to say it is rising. I feel that the par can is able to produce a look similar to this sky. A few back diagonals could help the effect too by touching the back of the objects shoulders. Of course, there would have to be a few warm fills in the front. I think that lighting in this warm amber gives a mood of nostalgia or life to me. Also that cool light on the mountains–probably produced principally by the absence of light–give it a very naturalistic touch. Many Eugene O’Neil plays comes to my mind especially Beyond the Horizon. I would like to have lighting that emulates this picture in that play. It is of course a play about going to the unseen. The main character Robert wants to go “Beyond the Horizon” and see locations on the ocean. This lighting gives that same adventurist mood to me. What is beyond those hills? And where else is this beautiful sunlight also rising around the world? It speaks hope, and adventure to me.

P.S.-For some reason, I could not post the photo on the blog. Here is the url. Just copy and paste.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A2KJkK6lJNxOt1UAX_aJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dalfalfa%2Bfield%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D48&w=467&h=720&imgurl=www.visualphotos.com%2Fphoto%2F2x2659977%2Firrigation_sprinklers_spray_alfalfa_fields_in_cb011042.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.visualphotos.com%2Fimage%2F2x2659977%2Firrigation_sprinklers_spray_alfalfa_fields_in&size=45.1+KB&name=&p=alfalfa+field&oid=1d02457dbadb5ccc0fb89c75b1c48a36&fr2=&fr=yfp-t-701&tt=&b=31&ni=60&no=48&tab=organic&ts=&sigr=12p0ls4gk&sigb=134rs7fvk&sigi=12v3ol42b&.crumb=U88hyp6p.32

Model Stages

I was going through some old things/works and throwing them out when I came across two models that I made for Scenic Design. I threw them out but not before taking pictures so I can save them in my portfolio. I realized I needed good lighting in order for these pictures to come out well and not too dark or yellow so I chose natural lighting: the sun.

The light was actually coming through the window and through some blinds so it had some interesting effects on the models. However, if these were real sets, the lighting wouldn't be "realistic" since the shapes the lighting makes on the floors do not match the doorways and windows of the models. In other words, it does not emulate how lighting would or should work if the models were life-size. Also, the natural light does not convey any sort of mood except maybe "happy, outdoors, bright, natural, etc." The appropriate lighting for the first model should be "creepy and desolate" and the second model should be "surreal and abstract." This is where colors would probably come in handy to work with and enhance the moods that the scenes and sets are trying to convey.   

In the Red and Brown Water, an E-Run's perspective

I'm doing e-run for Red & Brown Water here at UCI, which opens this weekend in the Claire (shameless plug). This is my first time working more hands on with the lighting process from load-in to the actual show, and eventually to strike. It has been very interesting and even intimidating. I cannot quite wrap my head around the thought process that goes into a show with a larger scale of lighting than I am used to. The Claire Trevor is the biggest theatre I have ever worked in, and the amount of lights up in the air and on booms is a headache inducer. I have no idea how Stacy does it, but I hope that further instruction (perhaps Fall 2012? -hint hint-) will help it all make sense in my head. I think I just need a chance to be more hands on, and so far I have gotten that from e-run. I've seen the frustration that can come from an idea that fell short or having to align hand-made gobos made of mesh that refuses to line up on the floor read. This is also my first time seeing so many changes being done daily to the lighting. It has been interesting to see how it has changed and develops. Gels have changed and focus has been adjusted several times. All together, this experience with Red & Brown and 50C has been helping me understand lighting so much more and I'm very glad I've involved myself in them both.

Jess - the aBad one

Lighting Snobs, with Jessica A. and Kristine R.

It seems that I have picked up a new "character" to parody when I have ridiculous conversations with Kristine R. We often joke about the deep meaning behind every sort of light we can find. I'll slap on a snobbish accent and act like I know what I am talking about when I go into the details of the mood of the lighting and meaning behind it. The ridiculous part comes in when we're critiquing the lighting of a bathroom, a statue sitting out in the sun, complete darkness, or a street light. We'll come up with some obnoxious analysis like saying a plastic bag being hit by light from a nearby street light is "a metaphor for global warming". It's a sort of "you have to be there" situation. I'm half tempted to go to our last class acting like a ridiculous snob. Kristine and I have fun with it. Maybe I'll throw it into an improv show. Kristine and I are also tempted to make it into a webseries on youtube.