Week 3: Reflected Light

I was house-sitting this past week and one day I pulled into the parking lot and came across these patterns of light on the ground. They were only visible in the shadow of the building, so I think the sources of the reflections are the windows.

I'm confused as to how the shapes were configured and the directionality of the light, but that's what caught my attention in the first place- how sunlight can be bounced off of and refracted through so many surfaces until it creates this shape. When designing for an exterior setting we have to take into consideration the reflective surfaces of the surrounding environment.

Week 2: Seeing the Sunset

A friend and I went on a small hike near Turtle Ridge as the sun was setting one evening. I never pay close attention to sunsets (as I prefer sunrises), but what caught my attention was how the colors os the sunset shift based on perspective.

From underneath the rays you can still see the landscape clearly below, and only a strong spot of amber in the distance.

 Then once you stand up and look directly into the source, you can see the layers of light spreading across the horizon.

I find it interesting how perspective can drastically change how we see light. While this sunset was quite lovely, I feel it connects to the theme by saying that love can be all around us but you have to know where to look. You might find love unexpectedly by just shifting your outlook on life.

Week 3: RED!

The other day I was loading in the week 4 DCPs with the help of the amazing Gabri. While focusing one of my pipe ends we were all struck by how stunning it looked with all the other lights off.

The color was a deep and vibrant red, R26. I had always intended to use this color in my show, but after seeing it by itself, I ended up having a cue where there was only one other light on besides my red pipe ends. I also added an opposing red pipe end after seeing how cool just one was.

This is the kind of angle and color that I would usually expect to use only as a tonal in most shows. However, since I've been shooting for a more slapstick, melodramatic feeling in this show, using this a a source for short periods of intense action proved very effective for me.

PS: If y'all have nothing better to do on Halloween night at 8pm (or more reasonably the day after at 2pm or 8pm) then come see the week 4 DCPs in the Nixon theater! Lighting designed by yours truly, stage managed by the fabulous Holly and fantastic Gabri, and directed by Shin Shin Tsai and Kym Butler.

The plays are "Here we Are" and "The Way of All Fish."

Week 3: Aquarium of the Pacific

Pretty recently, I went to Long Beach on a date with a cute boy. We spent the majority of the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific, where we pet ALL THE JELLYFISH... minus the stinging kind. However, it was awesome; the water was freezing and the jellyfish felt incredibly slimy and disgusting. In addition, the ones we got to caress (sensually) had just been fed and were glowing in the dark! Apparently their system for digestion illuminates their stomach and intestines, and being that most of their body is semi-translucent, it was really fascinating and kind of disgusting to see their food being digested.
However! I doubt the aquarium used any specific kind of lighting to accentuate their creatures, but the contrasting color of the jellyfish in opposition to the water and background in their tank was absolutely beautiful. There was light coming from the bottom of their tank, so as they swam up it got significantly darker, but their natural color that light reflects is absolutely stunning. Normally down light creates an effect to make something look frightening, but this had the exact opposite effect because of how soft the light hitting them was.

They also had a new penguin-o exhibit! And it was l'fantastic. That's fantastic in French, except not. There was a little cave type area to the exhibit, probably for small children, that the cute boy and I decided to climb into and watch the penguins swim over us and around us. It was around 4:00 PM and the sun hitting the water was coming through at the most beautiful angle. Here's my glamour shot of the penguin enjoying the sunlight. Isn't he beautiful? I loved all the blue and green in the tank and the natural gobo the light through the water is making. And those streaks of white light shining through those blues and greens is just stunning.
Lighting like this in a show would be extremely interesting and beautiful, if done right. I think you would need a mover so that you can get the movement of the water in the gobo. Also, semi-saturates and saturates would work well to create the atmosphere for water. I would have the mover be a light lavender, ideally.

So after the aquarium, we got a taste for seafood, so we went to Bubba Gump and ate an arm and a leg's worth of shrimp. Then, we were on our way home, but we got lost. We ended up near my sister's house, which is in San Pedro and very central to some great parks and hiking spots. We ended up going to visit the Korean Friendship Bell and park around sunset. We hiked around and found a bunker down the hill, which seemed interesting at first glance, but ended up being small and filthy. On our way back to the car, I stopped to take this photo. I thought it was something special that both the moon and sun are visible in one panoramic photograph. And that sunset was pretty romantic. I like the movement this photograph has to offer, with the white balance being greater on the left hand side opposite of where the sun is, and darker directly in front of the sun to contrast. But that moon over the Korean Friendship Bell with the rainbow cyc-like light mother nature is creating over the horizon just exemplifies the beauty of the moment, both internally and externally. I was there on a date with one of my best friends, which made it all the more special.

Normally, when I picture a source, like a moon or sun, I immediately jump to the idea of a par being a large source. But in this picture, while the sun could be either an Source 4 or par, the moon would definitely be a Source 4. Even so, I feel like I would also use a Source 4 for the sun and just flood it out. And a spectre-cyc would totally be great for this!
There's just so much that mother nature can do that I want to imitate. Mother nature is the ultimate.

Week 3: Urban Sunset

I was out driving this evening, and spotted the sun heading down, and thought it might make for a good blog entry.  The sun was behind buildings at the time, so all I saw was the glow above the buildings - which reminded me of backlighting, where one can get that strong glow around the model.  The quality of light reminded me of our par brushstroke - strong and harsh.  What I didn't expect was that the rest of the sky looks sort of like a sunrise - cooler blues, as opposed to the warm colors I associate with sunset.

But then looking at the shops being lit by that light, the colors on the buildings seemed a bit more what I expected - warm, golden, amber-y.

Which seems like an interesting dilemma - if you're lighting for the stage, do you go with stereotypical choices that audiences will instantly recognize, or can you use reality even if it's a little unusual?  Perhaps context is a big deciding factor here, and would be a big part of the discussion with the director and other designers.  

Week 3: Shadows

Since Halloween is coming up this Friday, I thought that I would talk about shadow play for this blog. I found a good example in my roommate’s room. Her room faces the parking lot. As a result, the light from the streetlights comes directly through her window. I thought the light has a more eerie and off-putting vibe to it. I took a sequence of pictures of the shadow of my hand moving across the wall. It reminded me of a scary movie where a killer is reaching to kill his prey as he holds a knife in his hand. I am really interested in exploring various ways to use shadows in different projects, especially for our Halloween music project and for the DCP I am working on. Shadows can work on a symbolic level, for example casting shadows on evil characters or they can work to help accomplish certain tasks like showing a fight happening behind a curtain with backlight or giving the illusion that many people are present for a party by having five people continuously walk back and forth behind a curtain with backlight in different styles or costumes. You can also use it as a way to create various scenic pieces, such as animals or trees, by using the performer’s body.

Week 2: The Soft Glow of a Late Night Movie

At least half the nights this week have involved me and a girl I'm dating snuggled up on my bed watching a movie. It seems to me that the lighting in a room that is lit only by a TV screen can look a lot like candle light sometimes. I think of that TV light as a modern sort of candle light. It's romance for the digital age. The dynamic nature of television even give you that flickering quality of candles.

To me love is very much associated with low intensity and warm colors. Warm feelings beget warm colors and, well I'm not sure about how the dimness of light tracks onto the emotional spectrum, but that's what feels right, so there you go. If I was going to light a couple romantically watching a movie (and visibility wasn't too big a concern), I'd probably use a fresnel at like 30% with a reddish orange gel, maybe R318. 

Week 2: Paragliding Over Sunset

Last Sunday, my grandparents invited me out to their house in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA, on the outskirts of Encinitas. My grandparents are an amazing duo whom, as of August, have been married 68 years. They're best friends. Every time I stay at their house, I can hear them down the hall laughing until they fall asleep. In fact, it's an ongoing debate within our family which one of them could live longer if the other one past away.



I took these pictures from their patio while enjoying their company and old, married bickering before going out to an opera bar after sunset. Being with them and seeing the view, there really is no other description for the evening except the word perfect. And the site fits them so well. "Long walks on the beach" are widely regarded with a romantic sentiment. An escape to somewhere tropical where relaxation takes over and you let love and light into your life, as cliche as that sounds. But sitting on the patio of two people whom are my relationship role models, enjoying such a cliched romantic sunset with a paraglider slowly moving through the sky, make romance seem hopeful.



Going to Cardiff is a great way for me to de-stress and relax. I get to spend time with two of the most amazing people in this world, whom are so in love with each other that they've been able to make it work for almost 70 years, which they will totally make it to. And I've asked them several times, "What's your favorite place you've traveled in this world?" They've traveled the world together and both have agreed, "Cardiff. Out of everywhere we've been in the world, there's no place we enjoy or find more beautiful in its every day presence as our home." Also, just throwing this out there, but a duo-paraglider date over a sunset would be the most amazing thing ever.

So, let's get to the lighting; the first photo was taken at approximately 4:53 PM on Sunday evening. I thought the white light hitting the water, reflecting as white light, was really beautiful. It was difficult to capture because I took it as a panorama and each frame kept trying to auto-white balance the photograph and so the sides of the panorama kept turning out black or extremely off balance with the center. This photo to me though says hope and beauty. It's mostly symmetrical, minus the silhouette of the palm trees and though the photo mostly consists of cool colours, the angle creates a hopeful, memory feel to it with the fading brightness into the sky.

The second photo was taken on the same day about an hour and a half later. The sun, now due to angle and physical atmosphere, appears that romantic yellow, amber in what most people would regard as a beautiful sunset. The reflections of amber in the blue water illuminate the Earth with vibrance and allow all things land based, including a human flying in the air whom I consider land based since he is from land, are silhouetted and masked. Aside from general shapes to conclude what objects are, there really is no light in the photograph to distinguish what non-reflective surfaces actually are. It's interesting that the mystery which the sunset creates with silhouettes and majestic colours can be considered romantic. But every romance has at least a little mystery, right?

Week 2: Love in the Magic Kingdom

Ok to start this off my camera on my phone did not even do the justice of what it really felt like yesterday at Disneyland. I took my girlfriend there for her birthday and gave her what she called the best birthday. To set it up I surprised her where we were going until we got off the freeway. Once there that smile didn't leave her face all day. 

Now for the picture, it was taken underneath the rock formation bridge in Cars Land. The photo blends the colors too much but they were a layering of reds, ambers, and yellows. The combined contrast of the dark blue star scattered sky in the background gave a comfortable feeling to me. It wasn't the most romantic look, but for the place it was fun. When you're with someone you care about any place can become romantic. This gives me ideas of making non-romantic settings romantic, and I would enjoy exploring how that might work. 

Week 2: Indoor Marigolds

Trying to come up with some thoughts on how to represent "love" using light, I found myself drawn to the idea of flowers.   I also found myself thinking that indoor lighting seemed to fit more with my ideas of warm, cozy, romantic light.  So I brought in a pot of marigolds from outside, and put them on my bedside table.




What I saw gave me a good reminder on how unpredictable color can be.  I thought that I would be getting a nice warm glow, coupled with the oranges and yellows of the flowers.  But what I had in my mind didn't match what I saw in front of my eyes.  The warmth I had predicted wasn't as strong as I hoped, which at first didn't make sense to me.   But then it hit me - the blue of the wall was having a big effect on my eyes, neutralizing some of the hoped for warmth.



I tried to snap a few shots, to see what things looked like from different angles.  Looking from above, the light takes on a more traditional front-light feel.  But when I got close up, looking straight on, the light behaved as I imagine one of the back-angle Pars would in class.



Although I wasn't able to create what I had imagined in my head, I think I really like the end result.  It feels a little less cliche than what I had imagined.  Which is a nice reminder about love as well - the cliches don't always hold up, but the reality can be really great.    

Week 2: Sisterly Love

I went home this weekend. When I came home on Saturday night, I found my nieces in my room with my christmas lights on, watching TV. I thought that this perfectly described sisterly love. So, I made them turn off Dora and then pose in this position to fully encapsulate the love that is in the air. 

I made up the bed so we could feel the atmosphere without my lovely models. 

I chose this as love because is it very warm and cozy. I can picture a couple laying in the bed on their wedding night. The bride in her white, lacy wedding dress and her husband in his dress pants, a white buttoned-up collared shirt, and his bow tie, talking about their future, goals, hopes, and dreams. Or it can be two friends reminiscing on their friendship or one supporting the other during a hardship. Overall, this loving atmosphere is very versatile. It is something that, I believe, everyone can relate to. I, also, find it to be very relaxing, like there is a sense of peace in this love. This love is a pure, unique, and everlasting.

Week 1: Light Refraction

We've all seen light reflect and bounce off of objects, including clouds. But when the clouds start to act as a natural refracting agent, it is arguably one of the most beautiful sights to take in. My first photo was taken from a bus in Yellowstone in June. I woke up from a nap to see white light separated into beautiful cotton candy colours drizzled over the cotton candy clouds. Of course, no photograph could ever capture the real beauty that mother nature creates. Sky porn.

This second photo was taken at Corona del Mar State Beach in August. I was at the beach with my sister to celebrate her break up and have a girl's day. Being female and not wanting to wet our hair before going out to get drinks, we decided to lay out on our towels instead of playing in the water. As we looked up, we both turned and asked each other, "Do you see that rainbow?" "Yes, I see it." in unison. I pulled out my phone and decided to try and see if the rainbow would come out in a photograph, or if it would be drowned out by the sun. After two attempts to snap a photo, I gave up. I couldn't see the screen on my phone and it seemed that what I saw couldn't capture the entire circle of the rainbow surrounding the sun.

When I got home approximately 7 hours later and slightly intoxicated, which is totally cool because I'm 21 and have been since January, I found this picture on my phone and immediately posted it on social media and sent it to my sister. The lighting that day can never been recreated, even by a photograph, but this is the closest thing I have. And to think it didn't exist and find out hours later that it did was exciting that I could at least keep a live image in my archive. And being intoxicated might have helped my excitement.

Week 1: Early Morning Mountains

This morning, I was out driving and happened upon some lovely dramatic lighting.  From where I sat in my car, the early morning sun was just starting to peek over the mountains, enhanced by the moisture in the air.  It was all rather grand, and I hurriedly snapped a few shots before I continued down the road.

I was struck by a few things.  

First, the quality of the light was strong and clean, with a very pale yellow color.  Thinking about our class discussion on brushstrokes/types of instruments, I thought it could most closely be approximated using a par - a harsh, strong beam, with color added, and lots of spill.

I also thought about our idea of Conceal / Reveal, and thought that this was a good example of a balance between the two.  The side of the mountain facing me was covered in shadow, as well as the side of the clouds that were facing me.  But the sun illuminated the sky behind the mountain, and caused the edges of the mountain and cloud to have a bit of a halo effect.

I tried to think about recreating this moment onstage, and thought that in addition to whatever instrument was chosen to recreate the sun (probably a par, probably at a back-ish angle?), there could also be a use of the cyc, allowing the audience to get a view of the background sky seen in the photo.  It might be tough to get the right intensity on the par, so that an audience isn't blinded, but so the effect still comes through.

Ah, nature!

Week 1: Long Exposure

When people think of lights, they tend to think of it as something simple, something that cannot be an art. However, they are wrong. 

Light is very versatile

 It is used more than just in theatre. It can be used with photography to create various designs. The picture shown here was taken one night when my friends and I decided to take pictures at the top of the Arc’s parking structure. By using long exposure on a Nikon camera, we were able to make light designs by using streetlights, houselights, lights on flying airplanes, and car head lights. 

We have used flashlights to spell out words in the dark. This can be seen as another art form. Photography in the dark, powered only by the strength of light. In the photos, you can see the varying colors or intensities of a typical streetlight, which reminds me of how when lighting a show you have to think specifically of what type of light you want to help illustrate the play's message and atmosphere. People tend to think of light as being something boring, but ever-present. 

However, it can be something beautifully unique.

Week 1: Musings on Moonlight

On our first day of class we did an exercise to help us understand what lighting design is, and a scenario came up that had us wondering what light the moon is actually reflecting. This thought was in the back of my mind all through last week, until one night I finally took a second to look up. As I exited my car from a late night run to the grocery store, I was struck by how light it was outside. My eyes immediately recognized the moonlight as I looked up to find a full moon shining brightly overhead.

The intensity was so strong (even through the thin layer of clouds) that I had to document, and investigate. With my trustworthy Wikipedia tool at my fingertips I discovered that only 13.6% of sunlight is reflected off of the moon, and that the full moon is 500,000 times fainter than the Sun! My curiosity had officially been piqued, but I wanted to understand more mechanically how moonlight affects the way we see things as human beings, so I did a little more digging.

By following a trail of blue words, I was led to a page of Wikipedia called the Purkinje Effect. As quoted, this effect is “the tendency for the peak luminance sensitivity of the human eye to shift toward the blue end of the color spectrum at low illumination levels.” This happens as the intensity dims and the light-sensitive rods in our eyes take over, but before the color disappears completely, it shifts to the rods’ top sensitivity à green-blue light. Now because of this, humans basically become colorblind under low levels of illumination, such as moonlight! So the moonlight itself does not have the bluish tint, but our eyes pick up a bluish tint all around us, leading us to believe the source has a blue tint. [Apologies to anyone reading this who has already consumed this piece of knowledge; it is new to me!] There are some other factors involved in how we see moonlight, but I just had to research for myself why we see natural light the way that we do.

I am currently working on a project that relies heavily on moonlight to set the tone, so with this new understanding of moonlight I can focus on recreating a kind of moonlight onstage that the audience can connect with. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight

Week 1: Road Ready Refraction

The other day I was heading back to my car in the underground parking structure at South Coast Plaza when some colorful lights caught my eye. Being underground in a structure dominated by grey concrete and dim, harsh lighting, bright reds and greens were really unexpected. So of course I rushed over and started snapping pictures of what turned out to be a shiny green Camaro parked next to a shiny red Mustang. Sunlight was filtering down into the garage in such a way that it reflected off of the two cars onto the wall and ceiling of the garage in some beautiful patterns. 

    This cool little phenomenon got me thinking about how lighting design intersects with scenic design. We certainly don't design in a vacuum and when we have to keep in mind not just what our lights look like on a bare stage, but how things will look after reflecting, refracting, and being diffused by various set pieces that a show may have. Besides something to always worry about when designing though, it also seems like a great opportunity to do some really interesting things by collaborating with set designers. 

   

    Of particular interest to me here is the way that, through reflection and refraction, we get a non-uniform shape without having to darken any part of the light, like a gobo would. In addition, the color itself is uneven, being more saturated in certain places and almost completely white in others. I suppose it might be possible, by using multiple lights to create this effect without bouncing the light off of anything, but it certainly wouldn't be easy to get it looking like above.
    I think that this type of lighting could look great both as pure art for artsines's sake or to create certain specific effects that would help to define a certain environment on the stage. This certainly lends itself to a surrealist design concept since it's just plain cool looking. As for practical use, certain movement effects like the reflection from a body of water, or the reflection of traffic passing by a wall could be well served by this type of lighting when combined with some moving or alternating fixtures. I'd love to explore the possibilities of this method in the future.

Actual Sunlight

We already know that light is all around us.  How often do we really notice it?  We walk to class expecting and knowing that our path is lit.  In theatrical design, we are striving to create an atmosphere that helps to tell the story on stage.  If you were told to put sunlight on stage, what color would you use?  My mind used to go straight to the color of yellow.  It is a warm color and it is a color that is painted on the sun in cartoons.  But as I started to look at direct sunlight, I saw white light.  The image to the left was taken on a walk from the Drama Department to the the Student Center showing that beautiful lighting is everywhere around us.  It needs to be noticed.  It is a perfect example of what direct sunlight really looks like.  Also notice the intricate texture that is cast onto the ground created by the shadows of the leaves and branches.  This is an amazing example of a natural gobo or template.

With these observations in mind, let's think about designing for theatre and helping to tell the story.  If I were to put the color of light on stage that is in the image above, it would probably seem stark and more like a piercing light.  It is not a warm color.  Now, referring to the image to the right where the camera is facing the sun we observe that the light is slightly warmer.  So it can be justified to use a warmer color of light on stage in order to resemble actual sunlight.  As long as we think through this process, we become stronger at create lighting atmospheres that are relatable the the elements around us.  We have this understanding that sunlight in nature is white light.  In theatre, if this white light were used it would be hard to relate to.  By warming up the color of light slightly we can acquire the desired effect.

Remember to always look at the light around you.  It is highly inspirational.  Think through how you can create the same effect on stage.