Drama 16 Stage Lighting

1) 2/19/12 – 3:03 – southern tip of Manhattan, near Battery Park facing east towards Statue of Liberty

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was at battery park standing on the bike path facing east looking toward the Statue of Liberty. The sun was bright and reflecting off the water, onto the building behind us and creating a shadow in front of my friends and I.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was taking my two friends to see some of the sights in Manhattan this weekend on saturday. We head into the city mid afternoon and went down to Battery Park so that I could show them the view of the Statue of Liberty from the southern tip of Manhattan. We walked across the bike path and stood at the waters edge as they were in awe seeing the lady for the first time. The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky just to the left of the statue.

None of us had our sunglasses on and it was extremely difficult to look at the statue for very long as the sun was reflecting very intensely off of the water between us and the statue. We had to duck behind the large wooden posts that were sticking out of the water acting as tie downs for incoming boats. We used these giant posts to block the light out and catch glimpses of the statue through the cracks in the posts.

I was explaining to them what different things around us were and pointing out important  and significant landmarks all around us. At one point I pointed up and noticed that on the post in front of us there was a clear shadow of my gesturing hand and my body on the post we were hiding behind. What caught me off guard was how vivid our shadow was yet we were staring straight into the sun. What was happening is that the sun was reflecting off of the water and bouncing back up onto the skyscraper behind us and illuminating my friends and I from behind. It was a cool effect to be looking straight into the burning sun yet also looking at a clear shadow of myself right in front of me. As cool as this effect was I realized just how aware I need to be in lighting designs of where reflective surfaces are so that I dont create these odd phenomenons. This moment made me realize just how hard it really is to put light where you want it as well as keep it away from the places you don’t want it all at the same time.

2. Shoot The Freak- photograph by Nicole Wiseman

3. Nightlife

4. This is a photograph of my friend Mia’s band, Shoot the Freak. Her band is a glam-punk band that tends to play gritty New York City bars, which I think captures the term “nightlife” all own its own. However, the colored lights coming from behind her, casting her in pinks, purples and blues, barely reflecting off the drumset just give the feeling you’re at one of their shows even though you’re just looking at a picture. Also, the light is shining through a thick haze, almost reminiscent of the haze of alcohol that you’ll feel by the end of the night. All the colors are clashing together, bouncing off the instruments, the sheen of her hair, the haze making you just feel the feeling of being at a rock show in NYC.

1) February 23 2012, 12:30 pm, outside Breslin

2) The angle of the sun was shining behind my friend, casting a glow.

3) I was standing outside Breslin with my friend, talking before her class started. The sun was angled above her, shining down and hitting the top of her head. Her hair was shiny and sun reflected off her head casting a glow. I am certainly not a religious person, but seeing the light surrounding her, which in turn made the area around us hard to see, was reminiscent of an angel.

Although I was temporarily blinded from the sun, it was still rather calming and actually beautiful. It was all rather sudden, since I only noticed it when the conversation was dwindling, but I feel that’s how most “heavenly” encounters tend to be; so quick that it almost didn’t seem real.

1) 2012-02-22 10:00 PM – The hallways of Emily Lowe

2) The glow of a pair of lightsabers (blue and red, of course) weaving in deadly combat.

3) The lights are extinguished. Gone is the harsh wash of the fluorescents above.  A single blue beam extends from Katie Hesketh Skywalker’s closed hands at the end of the hall.  The red sword comes to life in my hands.  She advances.  She remains mostly in shadow while the soft blue glow of her weapon illuminates a manic flicker in her eye.  She swings, a blur of blue.  My sword meets hers with a flash, a blow, they recoil.  A step back.  Swing, stab, parry, step.  The blur of colorful blades fills my field of vision.  every time they clash, the swords flicker, their life drained from what is probably improper use.  A flash I wasn’t expecting, the blue slices through the air and takes my arm with it.  I fall.  The sword clatters to the ground, flickers, and goes out.  All that remains is the blue hovering above my head, my fate inevitable at the hands of my enemy.  Darkness falls.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peanutpics/2068470223/

2. Burn Night Blur – By Flickr user Peanut

3. Nightlife

4. This photograph was taken at burn night of the Burning Man Festival in 2006. It is a yearly, week long arts and community festival in the Nevada Desert. The event is colorful, crazy, inclusive, and most of all bright. During the day, the light is all too-bright hot hot sun, washing everything out with its heat. Though colorful during the day, the participants really come alive with neon excellence after dark. On this night the participants are front lit by a bright orange fire, giving them all an warm tangerine glow. They all have manic smiles and bright neon glow necklaces laced around their bodies. They are bright against a black night sky, throwing their arms into the air with exuberance, and moving too fast for cameras to catch them. Their purple and orange blurs can exist only in in the night, coming to life as the sun sets. Their nightlife is characterized by far too many clashingly bright shades of teal, blue, violet and gold. Bright, rich shades that live for the night. Bright, rich people that live for the night.

DATE-TIME-LOCATION: February 3rd, around 7pm, an Avenue in New York City

OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: Walking down the street alone, I noticed a rapidly changing light source in front of me, and looked up to see a “ticker” (actually 2) that ran in a loop from high up on the side of a building down to the sidewalk and about halfway from the edge of the building to the street.  It was covered by a thick glass, and the words that ran around shone blue.

SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: My initial reaction was that it was ridiculous for someone to have bothered paying whatever large sum it had certainly cost to install this light board, that couldn’t even be easily read, into a New York City sidewalk.  I tried to figure out what it was saying, but the words closest to me were upside-down and my eyes couldn’t adjust to the moving lights quickly enough to see what was said. I was annoyed that this flashy display was in my way; if it wasn’t telling me something very important, it was just frivolous.  The ground lights of the loop were directly in my path, however, and so I ended up walking directly on top of the short end of the rectangular loop. As I walked over, I couldn’t help but look down, and the moving lights made me almost dizzy, but not quite.  It was a sensation that I had never experienced, and can’t quite describe. It was almost like entering a different reality, where the ground doesn’t behave in the way that ours does. I guess the most accurate description of the way that it made me feel was confused. I was somewhere between reality and this light world, and I couldn’t choose which I would rather be a part of.

Photo by Derrick Tyson – http://www.flickr.com/photos/derricksphotos/189815067/

Theme: Shadow

Description:  We all seem to shelter secrets. Whether we do it out of embarrassment or pride, secrets exist to hide or repress certain memories. Some secrets can even make us go insane, eating at our insides until nothing is left. There is a secret pain in this picture. The man hides in the shadows, scared to face his secrets but bits of it fall out of the shadow into sight. Shadow has a useful ability of hiding the things that we don’t want seen by others. Shadow however, can be manipulated by light, just as secrets can be manipulated by truth. The man seems to be in pain, afraid of his secrets, maybe his past, coming out. He pulls his face down and into the shadow for a reason. I can feel inner agony, leaking off his face. The light is cast from the ground and casts a shadow created from his nose and hands over most of his face. We can make out his eyes, mouth, hands, and a portion of his nose. Not too much skin is shown, keeping his face and identity a mystery. He is hiding something. But what is it? Well, that’s a secret!

1) February 16th, maybe 4 in the morning?, Uncle’s house in Miami, Florida

2) I was sleeping at my uncle’s house and I left the television on. The television woke me up and reflected into a sectional picture frame on the wall, perpendicular to the bed. It broke the television picture into symmetrical boxes in the picture frame.

3) I have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I toss and turn, inevitably starting a war with my bouncing mind and imagination. As the television woke me up, I stayed still and looked at the wall ( I lay on my right side). There was a huge picture frame made up of many family photos, like a collage. I tried to find a picture of me or my sisters and observed the frame. The home shopping network was on and Wendy Williams was trying to sell her new necklace collection. The television reflected off of the photos, making it impossible to see what the original photo was and creating a focus onto Wendy Williams. All I could think about was “I don’t remember watching the home shopping network before I fell asleep”. I tried to recollect the events that lead to me passing out on the bed. With my mind blocked, I stared at the reflection of Wendy Williams and her extremely gaudy necklaces for 5 easy payments of $28.99. I felt like it was a mind blowing experience to be watching a reflection of the television and how it broke up into symmetrical squares. It was a different way to look at something that I became so accustomed to. I fell back asleep and woke up in the morning with the television turned off and that feeling where you try to distinguish what was a dream. I was a little dazed, but it was not a dream. I need to stop drinking coffee right before I go to bed.

1. Friday Febuary 17, 2012, 3.00 AM, Leaving Lowe

2. Through a light rain, a yellow fixture on the side of one of the campus buildings shines through the branches of a tree behind the fog of Phil’s breath.

3. Around 3.00 AM, my dry contacts start to make the world around me go hazy. Walking out of Lowe my eyes were blinded by the temperature change, the light change and the sudden rain on my eyelashes. In front of me, phil took his first breath in the cool night air, exhaling a breath of fog that was illuminated by a yellow hued light from a building across the quad, when this fog cleared, I saw that the light was appearing from behind a tree, sparking with the raindrops on its surface. such an image was a perfect picture of that time between winter and spring, when the world can’t quite decide who to be. The cold of Phil’s breath was excellently Feburary, while the warm light through the rain was exactly April. Such a light is hope in the darkness, that life and spring will come again. That even when your breath is visible and your eyes are too tired to see, beauty can be found in the most unexpected of places