Week 8: Dep

I found inspiration for this week's topic when flying home for Thanksgiving. As I passed over Orange County at night, I realized how the light emitting from the cities below further emphasized how far away I was from the ground below.

The light also seemed to be warmer the further away it was from the plane. The closer I was to the ground, the lights appeared cooler with an almost greenish tint to them. Very urban, kind of industrial. It got me thinking about depth on stage, say for a cityscape, and how smaller lights such as Christmas lights on a backdrop or the scenery can create perspective for city lights that are farther away from the audience.


I going to be honest and say that this actually made me think of the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. On the ride you fly over the city of London, and the blinking lights below were designed to create this sense of great depth between the people up above and the city below.

I wonder how this effect could be replicated onstage...

Week 8: Depth

As I was walking to tech this morning, the light in Aldrich Park was really stunning.  I snapped a few pictures, and enjoyed the way the visible beams of light helped define the depth of the space - it always seemed as if the light where you could see a physical beam was in the mid-ground of the picture.



As I got closer, the visible beams kept changing - I never got to where I was walking right next to them. They remained in the not-so-far-distance, peaking through different trees as I walked.  I found this interesting, even though I don't have an explanation for that.

 Regardless, I think this would be pretty striking to recreate on stage, using some sort of fog or haze to catch the beams of light.

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.