Week 9: Cityscape Over Water

A few nights ago I took my girlfriend to the aquarium in Long Beach and we ended up walking around the harbor later that evening. Looking out at the water, I just had to snap some pictures. The way the color on the water rippled got me thinking about how I could create something like this on a stage. For our class plot we've only ever had one pair of cyc lights on each side, but I wondering if a larger cyc with more individual units could produce an effect like this. Then again, it would probably be easier to do something like this with a dedicated system of lekos, although that then presents the problem of using up a ton a lekos, which wouldn't work unless it was a space with plenty of instruments and dimmers to spare.

Lately I've been working as light board operator for Darrin and Ebony on New Slate and I've gotten to see some of what moving lights can do. I'd love to see how close to a look like this I could get with some movers. I also wonder how a more abstracts interpretation of this would look on a cyc. Perhaps just a regular cyc wash with a just one or two textures thrown on top of it (maybe a twinspin for the rippling). For still another option, I might try creating a ripple animation video and projecting it over a cyc wash to add some moving texture.