Drama 16 Stage Lighting

1) March 21, 2012, NAB, around 9:00 pm

2) The shadow of the door on the Cat set cast across the column behind it.

3) The practical that was lighting the door, caused the open door to cast a shadow across the scrim and column that was situated behind it. The shadow that was cast was long and thin, and the textured column that was behind it, caused the shadow to be cast in dimension, like it was a building in a backdrop of an old film. Going back to my lighting observation from last week, but it reminded me a lot of the lighting and sets that were done in the expressionist movement, like in the film “Metropolis.”

There, in this incredibly beautiful and realistic set, was something so unreal and in forced perspective. I just found the juxtaposition to be rather interesting.

1) 

2) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhbrown/5643971496/>

3) THEME: Spring

4) Before I came to Hofstra, I never quite grasped what the big deal was about springtime.  During winter in California, spring meant a bit of rain, less cloud cover, and eventually sunlight.  But our trees remained green all year, there was usually some sort of flowers in the garden, and when the thermometer never drops below 50, spring just doesn’t have the same impact.  Last year, Hofstra introduced me to what winter really means, as well as what moving into spring DOES mean.  Spring means new life after three months of dead gray.  Bare trees spring to life seemingly overnight, showers of pink and white above.  Spring IS the light ater the storm.  I saw scenes like the photo above when I was in Edinburgh this summer, the dull gray rain giving way to light in the afternoon, giving way to life again, even if just for a little bit.  No, there are no pretty flowers, green things and ladybugs in the picture.  But there is Spring in those beams of light, breaking through the storm that is January and February, returning to the city below after too long.

<http://data.whicdn.com/images/25107552/tumblr_m0rcu0sYxP1rqqnhno1_500_large.jpg>

THEME: Spring!

One of the biggest signs of spring for me is the smells. Washington is covered with floral life, flowers and trees and greenery, oh my! So when spring rolls around there is an abundance of fragrances from the various flowers in the area. Spring also brings with it Seattle’s ever-present precipitation, but this time it’s floral-scented. This picture really captures spring for me, with flowering trees and last night’s rain visible on the street and all of the bright, warm, saturated colors. Everything is overexposed and radiant, from the sky to the sunlight reflected in the damp of the concrete, as well as what caught the orange bug the night before. Everything is gleaming and brilliant and renewed – just like spring.

21 March, 2012
North Campus, en route to Constitution Hall
Around 1:00 am

The fog is thick, starting at the trees and working its way up to the sky. Lights from the towers checkerboard the fog in places, and the rest of the fog and campus is bathed in the orange glow of the streetlamps. As I walk, one of the streetlamps comes into view just behind one of the trees, pervading the branches and haloing out between them with orange-glowing fog.

Overall, it’s just kind of creepy. The fog goes up so high that the tops of the towers disappear into the sky, making the lights from people’s rooms look like they’re coming from no where. The orange beams of foggy light visible between the scraggly branches of the still-leafless trees give the whole seen a ghostly look. All of that coupled with everything bathed in orange makes this part of campus look like it’s part of the horror movie, and something terrifying is about to happen. Perhaps walking home alone at one in the morning isn’t such a good idea.

1. 2012-03-22, about 12:30 AM

2. Lights from the top floors of Estabrook tower glowing through the fog.

3. I’m used to the late night fog at Hofstra.  I love the way the amber lamps (no, not Amber Lamps) in the parking lots glow in the fog.  The halogen lights in the Liberty quad mean it’s almost daylight out there when the fog really moves in.  Last night’s fog, meanwhile, was thicker than usual and when it shrouded the towers, their tops completely disappeared.  Above the amber of the parking lots, the towers were pretty much dark (most everybody was either asleep or had blinds shut) until you got up to the 12th an 13th floors.  Here, clean white light poured through the large windows, a beacon through the fog.  With any definition of the building lost in the fog, the white lights just floated there.  The white stood clean in the middle: Deep, cold  blackness above and warm halogen below.

Now only a matter of time before the top floor lifts off into space.
3.  2.  1.  Blast Off.