Drama 16 Stage Lighting

2 Feb. 2016 – 9:18am – Classroom 0028 in the Basement of Breslin Hall

The room was dark besides the florescent light I let in from the hallway as I cracked the door open and a soft bluish green glow from the computer screen way over on the other side of the room. This light from the screen illuminated a circle on the white wall to the left of it, and one of the technical difficulty emergency phones was located just off middle in the circle. It is the lighting on the wall that caught my eye, not the pools of florescent lights that wafted onto the floor a few feet in front of me.

The lighting was mysterious and eerie since it was surrounded by shadows and darkness and since it was such a peculiar color. This lighting would not have been out of place in a murder mystery play in which a character is scared of the phone because the ringing of the phone always signals something bad. Thanks to the hue, the lighting seemed sickly. In the murder mystery play example, this could represent the mindset and paranoia of the afraid character. It mirrors the feeling of quintessential fear that a person home alone at night who starts hearing spooky sounds must possess. Soft, circular, and contrasting with the surroundings like something out of another universe, it could have been the light that emitted from an alien spaceship’s beams of abduction. This lighting moment touched a chord and got under the viewer’s skin by being a reminder of mortality and that there is so much uncertainty out there. It presented the fear of the unseen and the fear of the unknown mysteries of life like when a person will die. Thus, the lighting resembled in color, distribution, and intensity whatever the torch or lamp of the Grim Reaper looks like and inspired fear and thoughts of the supernatural in its beholder.

1. 1/31/2016, 11:12pm, Hague House lounge
2. In short the lighting is disgustingly florescent . And a few of the lights are not working so the light that is given is spread very unevenly.
3. The feeling that I get from this kind of lighting is one of being trapped in a skeevy basement straight out of Breaking Bad. It gives enough light to see but not enough to make anyone look really good.  The feeling I get from it is one of a lack of productivity and something that solicits sketchy behavior.

1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: 3/24/12 – 2:34 A.M. – Academic side of campus just outside the Netherspann

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was walking back from CPK with my friends late one night and as we were talking I noticed a big shadow cast on the wall of the Netherspann as a public safety officer walked in front of a light. His shadow was twice the size of him.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was walking back from CPK late one night with a few people that live in my house. We were wandering back in the light fog that was rolling in and enjoying each other’s company. I was listening to the conversation and enjoying the beauty of the fog and how mystical it was. I loved looking at how the light made it glow and how everything seemed so calm and peaceful. As we continued to walk toward the Netherspann something caught my eye.

What I saw was a dark and very tall shadow on the wall of the staircase. It jumped up so quickly and seemed to be so incongruent with the peacefulness of the mood that was in the air. I jumped and stopped the conversation to show everyone that there was a figure that was by the door and it was large and moving slowly. We all froze where we were and tried to analyze the situation to see what was going to happen. Slowly a large and lumbering public safety officer emerged from behind the bush and walked on toward the turnpike. It was really cool how something that should be a sign of safety and a symbol of protection had evoked so much fear upon us simply due to the fog and the way the light was casting such a tall shadow of the officer on to the wall. His shadow had to have been about 18 feet tall and the man was only about 5’10” tall. With the added element of the glowing fog that was enhancing all of the light beams around us, the shadow seemed to pop and all of the light, and lack there of, was very clearly defined wherever I looked.

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. 2/13/2012, design room, 9:42

2. Abby had a blanket on top of her head and the light box was on creating very deep shadows on her face accentuating her features.

3. I was sitting over by the middle window in the design room on my computer. Abby was behind me with a blanket over her head tracing costumes on the light box. I turned to ask her a question and she lifted her head and I freaked out a little. With the dark blanket over her head and the light box highlighting her features so sharply she looked like the grim reaper. The large shadows on her face made her seem dead. I laughed about it after but it was pretty creepy for that split second.

1.) Thursday Apr. 14th 2011, 11:30 P.M. Somewhere in Levittown.

2.) The creepy lights of “Lazer Bounce.”

3.) Next door to the Denny’s in Levittown is a sketchy arcade called “Lazer Bounce,” which is open until midnight, though it is obviously meant for children, judging by the room-sized moonbounce/laser tag room visible from outside (which is creepy in itself.) My friends and I looked inside, and the lighting was a combination of bright, sickly overhead fluorescents and a dizzying assortment of tiny, Christmas light-sized bulbs of all colors covering everything. It made me uncomfortable and I felt creepy just by being outside. It reminded me of a horror house, like something you’d see on an old TV show meant to scare elementary school children. Maybe it was because it was late, and all the brightness and color contrasted with the darkness outside, but it felt like a place I’d never take a kid.