Week 8: We've All Done It

We've all done the flash light behind the flesh, ET phone home, trick at some point or another behind our fingers. And of course, where there is less mass of flesh and bones, your skin is far more transparent and allows more light to pass through. The three pictures above are my hand with a flashlight behind it, as the flashlight moves deeper into my hand. What is fascinating to me about it is not the fact that light passes through as the colour red, though that is cool that human flesh can compare to a gel with its pigment, but the fact that human flesh is thin enough, transparent enough, to allow light to pass through, even at the center of your palm where your hand is almost at its thickest. Sure, skin allows liquids to pass through (outwards), but prevents the inward acceptance of liquids. Why is it the complete opposite with light that it can be accepted by human flesh, but not emanate or create it otherwise?
And certain objects that do accept liquids and retain water as given, such as wooden blocks or duvetine, do not allow light to pass through its solidity at all. Baffling.

Week 8: Depth

This week’s theme was difficult for me to find images for. However, I found inspiration on the drive home this weekend. It was really stormy. The light broke through the clouds. For me, the clouds captured depth through the variance of light, which resulted in changes of the intensity of color. I feel that the storm clouds acted as a natural cyc for my drive. It establishes distance between me and what would be the back wall. This sparks ideas as what to do with the cyc. It also gets the mind into thinking about various ways to uses gobos and shadows to establish distance and depth for the piece, especially if the characters are traveling in the play or if the distance serves a symbolic purpose.

Week 7: Red

This evening I was working at the Mesa parking booth with my friend Cat for a Brown Bag event. When I turned around I noticed how the red of the light outside of the booth was hitting her face. It was so unexpected how beautiful that light was- it came out of nowhere! Sometimes you don't really notice a light until someone's standing right underneath it.

It is such a strong statement that I actually gasped when I turned around and caught her standing right in it. Her hair also has hints of red and pink in it as well, so the light reflected quite nicely.

I never really thought about red as an exterior light in this context, but it pops out from the background really well and the high angle creates a lovely layer of atmosphere.

An unexpected find in an everyday location. Lighting is everywhere!!

Week 7: Lighting Happening!

So, a lot of interesting things have been going on lighting-wise in the world this week and I want to share a few moments.

On Friday, I had a class at 1:00 PM with an almost five hour break following until rehearsals started at 6:30. Because of the excessive amount of work to accomplish over this weekend, and still wanting to spend quality time together, my special someone decided that a few hours away from work on Friday would work best for the both of us, so he drove to Irvine to keep me company during my break. We originally wanted to play baseball in Aldrich park, but he got self conscious about his throwing ability and lack of coordination, so we dropped that idea and decided to explore the aloe forest in the center of Aldrich park instead. Amidst our search amongst the aloe, we came upon an opening, a beacon if you will, of light breaking through. And no, it wasn't the end of the forest, just a weird part where the plants did not meet to create a tunnel. And although I call it beacon-like, I think it looks particularly scary due to the lack of colour in the surrounding area, the whiteness of the branches, and the overall lack of warmth to the photo. The immediate attraction my eye goes to is the shirt of the explorer, because its vibrant blue stands out from the sameness of the background environment. Also, the white light is eating his head! Foreshadowing for a terrible ending if he steps into the light... That's almost like a metaphor or something. Oh no!

And the VERY NEXT DAY, we were playing with clip lights and shadows in rehearsals for Travis' DCP going up week 10 (Come see it). Though the light was scattering everywhere off the sheet, as well as on it, I thought it looked really interesting as an audience member to watch the movement taking place as a silhouette of the characters. Of course, being closer to the light meant being more mushy and blurry on the sheet, whereas the closer you were to the sheet, the more crisp the silhouette. I just thought it was beautiful. That's all.

And finally, after brunch with Dan's mother, grandmother, and Dan, our roommate and I came home to nap. Whilst laying on the couch watching Scrubs, I turn to my right side and notice this OBSCENELY NEAT texture on my wall and ceiling. We have blinds covering our window, but even so, you expect light to behave somewhat normally when entering a home. One slit between the blinds means one slit of light hitting the wall, NOPE. That's what makes light so fascinating. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING? Amazingness. That's what. None of these slits of light are even, not all of them are going at the same angle, and not all of them are hitting the same surface and the ones that are aren't even restricted to the same general area. The texture just keeps going. This is just brain overload. I'm imploding. That's all. K bye.

Week 7: Beacon

We've all undoubtedly noticed these things scattered around the campus. They cast out a bright blue
light that is pretty unique among the types of sources we're used to seeing around campus (which I imagine is the point). It's interesting to me because we usually don't see much saturate light from artificial sources outside of a theater like this. Mostly we we get around campus is warm amber and the occasional industrial light blue or greenish.

I also found it interesting how the intensity of this blue changed the colors of the materials around it. The two lines of yellow brick became an orange-brown color and the white-ish-gray bricks adopted the blue light as their own.

I also found it interesting to look at the color of the near by floodlights and how they compared to the blue of this one. The two nearby sources each cast a familiar warm light that we expect from artificial sources. However, other nearby sources were casting a very greenish light.

Week 7: A Weekend in Vegas

 On Thursday I left from school with Brady for Las Vegas for the weekend of Live Design International 2014. I got to stay at the Luxor that night because I had a complimentary room which was a great opportunity since I had never stayed there or even been in there before. After getting checked into my room I went out to wander the floor and also grab a bite to eat. While walking around, I was admiring the architecture of the pyramid itself and all of it's glory. It was astounding the size and detail that was put into the building of the structure. Then came the lighting, with which I was not at all impressed. The majority of the lighting inside the Luxor is done with fluorescent tubes which flattens out the detail and hardworking that has been put into the work. I felt like it was a cheap and quick way of designing that didn't work. The lighting could have enhanced the architecture so much more with either using a warmer light such as an incandescent or by adding more character fixtures to hide the accent fixtures.

Also here are some cool pictures from LDI just for a look really. Nothing too special this year mostly just everyone integrating LEDs in their products. Although Clay Paky had a line up that was pretty awesome with two new moving lights and an LED strobe with RGB capabilities. ETC was a little lacking with an exception to the Series 2 Lustr, of which they added a new color into the mixing palette: lime, which allowed colors to have the same saturation without losing intensity by using lime instead of white. 

The pictures are of American DJ and ROBE and are only for viewing purposes because they didn't have anything worth mentioning.

Week 7: Many Opportunities

So for this week, I wanted to talk about lighting design that is not seen on the stage, but seen in our everyday lives. The aspect of lighting design that really attracted me towards it was its versatility. With most majors you have a very specific job that goes with it. However as a drama major, we have various disciplines we can choose from, which leads to even more options. The first picture is a merging area that connects the 241-N and the 91-E. Despite the fact that it is a freeway, I think that this design can make a plain freeway look more attractive. It also has an illusion. 

 By using parallel lines, it adds to the depth of the tunnel. The other picture is the ground at UTC in front of Chipotle. Even though I don’t know what the purpose of the lights are, I think it is really pretty and different from what people are used to. 

The last picture is from a celebration I went to this past weekend. They had a haze machine and an instrument that performs various lighting displays. When they were separate it did not seem to add to the atmosphere of the event. When it was just the lights, it seemed like simple lighting on walls. When they haze was on by itself, I thought I was in a haunted house. But, once they were together it was fantastic and greatly contributed to the atmosphere. It added another plain of lighting because you could see the light beams through the haze. Overall, I am excited to see the various opportunities that appear from the world of lighting.

Week 7: Shadows

 This morning, I noticed some shadows on my living room walls, cast by the window blinds.  I thought it interesting that the shadows weren't forming a crisp edge on the wall, and thought I would look into it further.  It reminded me of the way I see things when I look at something with both eyes, and then switch back and forth between one eye or the other being open: a slightly different point of view, that meets in the middle to produce one image when I have both eyes open.  I don't think this is actually what's happening here (there certainly aren't two suns casting light through the window), but it seemed somehow similar.

When I got up close to the wall, and cast a shadow with my hand very close to the same surface, the shadow was much crisper, much more what I expected it to be.  It was visually interesting to me to have the crisp shadow side by side with the fuzzy one.

Without knowing the technical terms for these different types of shadows, it made me wonder if this is similar to what happens when we are focusing lights, and we adjust the focus.  The actual source of light (lamp) is being moved closer or further away from the surface of the lens


(or vice versa), producing a harder or softer edge.  It also reminded me of using any sort of shadow projection on a screen onstage - the less space between the projection screen and the object, the clearer / crisper the shadow is.

It would also have been fun to experiment and try to add some color to the light - would the fuzzier edges of the shadow had any color in them?  Where would the color stop, if the shadow itself isn't given a hard edge?  And apart from moving the window closer to the wall, or my whole apartment closer to the sun, would there have been any ways to get the fuzzy shadows to sharpen up their focus?

Week 6: An Obsession with Time

Of all the things that people obsess over, perhaps most obsessed over is time. The other night, I snapped a picture of the clock next to my bed. I think this is a very good representation of time as an obsession. When I think of the color of obsession, I think of something strong and bold, like red. The red of the clock is perfect both literally and metaphorically.

If I wanted to create some similar lighting on a stage, I would probably use an R26 gel. I think it would also be interesting to try to create a clock effect with a gobo, but I'm not sure exactly how to achieve something that looked like a real clock (with movement). Looking at this picture it even looks like a stage, with the actual clock being the cyc. I think this would look really interesting in a dance show, where we wanted to see the the dancers in silhouette.

Week 6: Art

My grandparents, the incredible couple I posted about during the week of "love", have a large collection of art. In fact, they own a sculpture park called Wolfstein Sculpture Park and donate art regularly to different venues. In addition to donating, they also purchase quite a bit of their own. They have two houses that hold a striking resemblance to museums, and some of the pieces are even marked to be donated to museums after their passing. It's incredible. They're obsessed with art. They've spent 60-some odd years collecting and they truly love every piece and have a story for every piece that they've purchased. AND THEY REMEMBER ALL THE STORIES. My grandmother is an elephant. Never forgets a thing.

This past Friday, I decided I needed 24 hours to deconstruct and destress from school happenings before losing my nights to rehearsals for my next show. In doing so, I went down to San Diego to go visit my grandparents and have a card night in with a beautiful view, which you have seen once in a previous post (again, about "love"). But when I arrived at their house around 1:00 PM, they were winding down from their morning adventures with a new piece of art, by Jeffery Laudenslager and Arline Fisch. Arline has been playing with a form of glass which separates specific colours from the light spectrum. The first photo is of the piece in natural, ambient light. The second picture was taken at night, with a small spot placed on the piece. I want them next to each other so that you can really see the difference between the separation of color on the metal. Jeffery is also a fabulous metal bender, sculptor, and artist.

I thought it was fascinating that each piece of glass separated a different colour. The colours didn't alter or change as time went on, though perhaps angle might make the lighting appear different, but the spot was stationary. It was really a beautiful piece. I always enjoy going to my grandparents museums.. Haha.

Week 6: Obsession

When I got home around 5pm today, the sinking daylight hitting the hallway door in my apartment really caught my attention. The contrast between the incandescent interior light coming from a single fixture in my bedroom, and the cool evening light washed over the door got me thinking about the layering of sources and how those sources can work together in a composition.

I then decided to turn off the interior light inside the room in order to see how the natural light hitting the door would shift, or if it would shift at all. And it did! These photos were taken within seconds of each other, yet with the interior light on the natural source appears cool. Then with the interior light off, the natural source loses saturation and the intensity looks like it increased. How cool!

In the past weeks I have been focusing on exterior inspirations for these blogs, so catching this interesting alteration of light inside my own apartment made me think about a theatrical set and how a natural source can be such an integral part of a composition.

I know this doesn't exactly relate to this week's topic, but I'm obsessed with this discovery! So that counts, right?

Week 6: Obsession

In thinking about obsession, I tried to come up with different interpretations of that word, and different ideas for pictures.  In taking a close, direct picture of a light bulb, I hoped to capture the idea of overwhelming intensity.  However, the picture didn't really do justice to the brightness of the bulb in real life - in real life, it was pretty difficult to maintain a direct gaze from just inches away.
Several ideas in this picture represented obsession to me:
The afore-mentioned intensity, being both really intense and slightly uncomfortable.
The heat felt by being that close to the source.
The fact that everything not close to the source falls into darkness.
The light bulb itself looks a bit fuzzy - hard to get a clear, accurate observation of it, due to the overwhelming brightness.

I think we experience some of these same effects using some instruments in class.  Any time we use the Pars, any time we use lights that come closer to hitting the audience directly (backlight), we start to get into a world that can feel similar to the photo (especially if we've got a black curtain backdrop - similar to the non-lit areas in the photo).

Week 6: Obsession

For this week’s blog, our theme is obsession. I truly struggled trying to find lighting that captured my opinion of the word. For me, obsession is something negative. It is something that people try to block out, but it slowly creeps into one’s life. So, this image captured that for me. The light symbolizes the person’s obsession. The darkness and the door symbolizes their attempt to block it out, which is not possible. The inability to completely block out the obsession is shown by the light that creeps through the bottom of the door. The light spreads providing visibility to the room, symbolizing the person's ability to see their problems that they constantly choose to ignore and try to deny. I know my mind tends to think in different ways, but I hope I explained it in a way that you can understand too.

Week 5

Having just realized I completely forgot to post a blog for this past week, I frantically rushed around my apartment, trying to find something to snap a picture of, something that would be a good example of interesting lighting.  Worried that I wouldn't be able to find anything that great, I walked into my bedroom and stopped in my tracks - I had never noticed the early morning light on the bedroom blinds before, but now that I was paying attention, they seemed blog-worthy.

I was struck by the variation at first - why isn't the shift from dark to light evenly spread across the set of blinds?  I realized that it was because a few of them had gotten flipped backwards, which resulted in them being shadowed (the one right in the middle).  Peering outside the window, I learned that the reason the blinds on the left were so dark was that there was a tree outside the window, blocking light on that half of the window.

The other thing I noticed that was really appealing was the fact that the set of blinds as a whole seemed to be almost glowing, with the sunlight edging the window and a bit of light peeking through.  This served to give a halo-like effect to the whole window, which was complimented by the glow between some of the blinds themselves.

This all reinforced a few of the ideas we've been talking about / noticing in class this quarter:
     Pay attention to what your source is doing, and what might be obstructing it.
     Backlight can be a great creator of silhouette, and a halo-like effect.
     Changing the direction of the model (or the blind) can change the amount of
     conceal/reveal displayed.
     Interesting lighting is all around - we just need to pay attention.

Week 5: Boats and Shows

Wow what a week it's been. Major projects due, tech for The Last Lifeboat, and several days without sufficient sleep. Since I was here at the xMPL theatre space all week and all weekend as his assistant lighting designer, I feel like it's only fitting that I comment on some of Wesley Chew's lighting. 

I know one class mate already commented on TLL, but there's no harm in getting a second opinion. 

Since I'm actually working with Wes, I was able to hear and understand his design concept. He split it up where each act has its own big idea. 

The first act is the Pre-World of the leading up to and building of the Titanic and the choices J. Bruce Ismay had to make during that process. The main difference is the first act is warmer at least until the crash of the Titanic. There is a texture that he uses that mimics both the look of a ship and the ripping or shredding of metal. In using this texture he foreshadows the inevitable iceberg crash.

What I find interesting is he only uses the texture in the first act. I see it as both a way to differentiate the place between the many, many scenes, and it is a great conceptual choice to give a harsher feel to the play. There are so many scenes and I could write for a long time about every one. So I'm going to choose only one picture per act. 

I felt like this was an appropriate picture. I figured it has the most elements of the first act. The brighter more saturate and warmer colors on the cyc tell the time of day, and this is a more romantic point in the story so the colors could get more on the love side of sunsets. The icy cools cutting in from the high angle wash give a frigidity from the time and place. It also has sweeping warm sunset light coming from the heads stage right. 

Act 2 is the following event that unfold after Ismay's decision to jump into a lifeboat instead of going down with the ship. Wes' idea for the next act is to take out most of the warm from the world. Ismay is haunted by the memory of what he has done, Wes expresses that story with high angles and isolations. The color palette is more stark and nightmarish especially within the first couple scenes.

This is the scene to begin act 2 on the lifeboat. The contrast between the Act 1 picture and this one is very high. It has a iciness to it that really sets the play in a different direction. There is an icy greenish blue coming from the heads that gives an eerie unsettling deathly feeling. The surrounding blue sets the lifeboat into the ocean.

Week 5: Irvine Spectrum

As a present to my best friend after getting married, my mother decided to take her, her new hubby, my date, and myself to Dave and Buster's at the Irvine Spectrum for a day of fun. Together, the four youngest people won approximately 3,150 tickets. My mother is a goddess and won close to 5,000 alone. But she does that every time she goes to an arcade because she's magic. My date and I resolved that we were going to save our half of the tickets for something neat, like a food processor for 6,000 tickets. Either that, a plasma globe, or a lava lamp for our room because we're retro like that. Huffah!

Before dinner, my mom decided to go shoe shopping (every girl's love) while my date and I took a romantic ride on the ferris wheel during sunset. And by romantic, I mean mildly awkward as I tried to take selfies he didn't want because he hates taking pictures. I did manage to get a few good ones, mostly funny, and turned my focus to the scenery. The sun reflecting against the glass panes of the building windows was absolutely stunning. The warmth, and with all of the cool down light to serve as a tonal. Of course, all the street lamps and building lights are practicals, but we all knew that. The best practicals, however, were those attached to the ferris wheel, all lit up at one time! It circulated and had designs, but overall was just a giant headache. It was great.

And while all of these aspects of the Irvine Spectrum were wonderful, my favourite would have to be, by far, this up lit scary tree. How frightening! I was telling my mother how a lot of the time, people use up light if they're trying to scare someone, like a flashlight on someone's face during a ghost story while camping. So, why up light this sad dying tree? Her answer was that it scares kids into thinking the tree will throw an apple at them if they climb on it. So much yes.

Week 5: Depth of Space

When walking across my apartment complex one night I noticed more closely how different sources of light on varying planes created a depth of space. Porch lights, street lights, and the illumination of the sky all created an interesting atmosphere in the courtyard.

As I moved closer to the streetlight, that source became prominent which shifted the intensity and the overall look and feeling of the space. The strong light coming from the lamp also intensifies the illumination on the skyline in the photograph.

Finally as I passed under the streetlight, the porch light on the building and the skyline illumination came into the foreground of focus. With another streetlight providing isolation and distance.

Overall, these three photographs tried to capture the feeling I got when walking along the sidewalk underneath the streetlights. I am trying to recognize sources of light in everyday situations, and how those sources are utilized in order to create atmosphere and, in this case, depth of space. I like to look at these photographs as a set- with cycs on a scrim for the skyline, and the front porch of a house on stage left with a street light stage right.

Also notice the difference between the LED streetlight and the incandescent porch lights! Is the skyline illuminated with light pollution, or what do you think? There is a definite glow, and the moon is in the opposite direction. Interesting.

Week 5: Projector + Spectra Cycs = ♥

Continuing the theme of posting pictures that I get during tech (because at this point I'm not actually sure there is life outside of tech) this week I've brought lighting from the set of The Last Lifeboat. What's interesting about The Last Lifeboat is that we have three white drops that are used both as projection screens and a segmented cyc. 

What's really cool is that during certain cues the projections and cyc lights work together, so that the projections act as a texture, seen here creating a really beautiful sunset effect. 

Another noteworthy aspect of this setup is that the cyc lights are positioned behind the drops, facing the audience. Instead of having the drops reflect the cyc light back to the audience, as we've always done in class, the cycs are simply having their light spread out and diffused by the drops. The effect of this is very similar to what we're used to, but it's softer and a bit less garish than the back wall of the RCT. 

Another notable aspect of this setup is that the lamps themselves are very visible to the audience. While this is not exactly optimal, I think the trade-off is worth it for what what we gain in softness. I think this probably also prevents the spectras from completely obliterating the projections. 

Seeing this has given me a lot to think about with regards to using cyc lights. I thought that my cyc light options were basically limited to cyc on cyc and cyc on closed curtains, but now I'm starting to think about the subtle nuances that can be produced by using alternative setups and alternative types of cyc materials. 

Week 5: Kickin' It Old School

So, this week I got to be super nerdy about lighting! My friend was at my apartment and he put his blue water bottle in front of a candle, which we had lit in our living room. One of my flatmates saw it and freaked out because she thought it was so cool! I too freaked out. Soon enough my 3 flatmates and my friend are taking pictures and sending snapchats to their friends about it. After the craziness settled, I went into supreme lighting designer mode! I proceeded to tell the story of how lighting for theatre was created and how all the lights get their shape! I talked about the barber's basin, which acts as a reflector, the candle, which acts as the light source, and the glass bottle with wine, which acts as the filter and lens. They all thought that was neat. I am pretty sure they just told me this to make me feel cool about my intelligence of lighting. But, I definitely got more excited about this than a normal person should. That justifies the fact that I am heading towards the correct career choice!

Week 4: Das Tee

Walking along the road near Mesa Court Housing this week with Dan, we happened upon a random free standing cup of tea from Cyber A. Before picking it up and throwing it out, like good civilians, I decided to take a picture of it before Dan could call dibs. We both thought the light passing through the liquid created a really interesting texture. And look at that colour too.
Dat texture and colour doh.

What I really liked about looking at it was the visual hourglass figure that the light was creating by passing through. It almost looks like the inside of a source four, if you could see the focal point inside of the light! And now that cup is in the trash and the beauty of the colour and texture is gone. Gone forever. Kbye.

Week 4: The CAC at Night

Last night, during projections load-in for The Last Lifeboat I found myself walking in and out of the xMPL booth quite a lot. After it got dark, I noticed that there is a light switch in the second floor hallway, so I turned off the lights, because I like pressing buttons, I guess. The lack of light in the hallway revealed a really cool texture though!

As light from in front of the CAC shined up into the hallway, it had to pass through the railing at the end of the hallway. This created something of a natural gobo, throwing an awesome looking pattern onto the, already texturally interesting, brick wall.

The bricks already had a grid pattern on them, which helped to accent the angle that the shadows were coming in at. The pattern gave me a sense of movement because of the way the lines of shadow splayed out along the wall.

I'm not sure I would want to use a gobo like this for light going onto a person because it would be odd looking and distracting. However, I would definitely like to use a texture like this on some background scenery, or to create texture on a cyc. While parallel lines aren't exactly the most exciting thing in the world by themselves, the angle that they are at here, along with the fact that they seem to splay out just a little bit adds a lot to them.

Week 4: Eureka! Texture!

Ok well this picture came out horrible so I will attempt to describe what is supposed to be seen here. 

This is at the new restaurant Eureka, I was walking by it tonight and just happened to look up and see a sort of shimmering on the top of the building. I looked over to see what it was. I was guessing some fancy moving lights or some other fixture making the effect. When I actually saw what it was I was blown away. It was just water, there were some small LED lights inside the fountain, but the effect was only water. We can come very close to making water effects on stage, but there is nothing like the real thing of a light behind rippling water. This also made me think of Metamorphosis, and how it can be done without using a real pool of water on stage. I'm very interested to see what Brady will do to accomplish setting us into that world. 

Week 3: Bright and Early, Ready to Ride

Last weekend I had the pleasure of taking a motorcycle riders course from Harley-Davidson and it was so much fun. The only thing is we started at 8am Saturday and Sunday so that was unfortunate as far as getting enough sleep. Anyways I showed up about 7:40 and the sun was just beginning to peak up over the horizon which allowed for this beautiful picture.

I really enjoyed the texture that came naturally from the sun light through the clouds. The colors produced were more on the lavender side with blues scattered throughout. I'm extremely interested in reproducing this look on a stage to see just how close I can get to making it look like the picture. I also like the little bit of hilation that is seen on the motorcycles as well as my instructor. The picture is a bit dim but it originally had a natural halo effect around him.