Drama 16 Stage Lighting

1. Tuesday, March 7th, 5:48pm; NAB Black Box.
2. The ghost light in the pitch black theatre casting shadows over the Dram 005 chair scheme.
3. I had been looking for a lighting moment all week; everywhere I turned I would turn look at the sky, or watch the shadows dance across the building, and while there were some good candidates, none of the lighting I observed struck a chord.  I was certain however that sitting for 3 1/2 hours backstage during Hamlet every night, some type of cool light beam would peak out from under a doorway, or a can would cast a laid back and notable image, but alas, none were to be found.  It was while walking into the Black Box to retrieve my scarf I had left there the other day when it smacked me in the face: the perfect lighting moment.  Ironically, it was the type of lighting moment I had been hoping to elicit from the Playhouse.  The ghost light emitted a warm yellowish/orange glow that cast a gorgeous shadow over the plush blue seats in the theater.  The shadows from the chairs created a gobo effect on the floor, looking like jail cell bars.  It caught me so off guard by its perfection – the same way, I’m sure, a bride feels when finding that perfect white dress. I snapped a quick photo and smiled to myself, thinking about how the perfect lighting moment I had been searching for came when I wasn’t searching at all.  Deep.

March 1st, 10pm on the train heading out of the city.

Objective: There are three main layers of lighting here. There is the warm light inside the train, the dark night lit up by tall buildings, and the reflection in the window.

Subjective: The moment was quiet. We had run half way down town to make our show, and then taken a few wrong turns getting back to Penn. It was the moment right after we burst through the tunnel out of Penn. The city slowly receding, building are lit up so brightly, even more so it seems after being in the tunnels under Penn. He is asleep on my shoulder. This quiet moment is suspended in air, projected on to the city through the window.

1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: Feb 25th, 11pm, Hotel in Jersey

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: Everyone else is asleep, I’m trying to get to sleep and the only light in the room is coming from underneath the door until someone else’s phone lights up.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: One strip of light. One. Everything around is peaceful, quiet, as if the world is telling me to go to sleep. Just one light cast upon me, watching over, protecting. I begin to fall into a slumber when suddenly my eyes snap open. The balance in the room has been shaken. A bright glow comes from the floor, it seems to fill the whole room. One little electronic can light up an entire room. How odd. It doesn’t go away immediately, it remains lit, creating harsh shadows all around until finally it dies. And with that I allow sleep to overtake me.

1. Adams playhouse, Tuesday February 28th, Stage left wing
2. Objective: I was sitting backstage helping Sara with a quick change when i noticed that there was one single beam of light coming from on stage and it hit Sara perfectly. The light was only big enough to light up her face and it was all i could see against the darkness of the wings.
3. Subjective: All i could see was black. I could hear the muffled voices of actors and stage when a flash of light caught my eye. I followed the beam of light and the only thing i could see was the faint glow of Sara’s face. It was kind of beautiful to see this thin beam of light and the faint visibility of the outline of sara backstage

1. 2/2/17, 2:20 pm, Axinn Library
2. Objective: I was in the quiet section of the Axinn library in the afternoon. I was sitting in a cubicle close to the large glass windows facing Davinson Hall. The sun was shining into the library and onto the nearby cubicles. The shadows that the trees cast came through and onto the cubicles as well.
3. Subjective: The dullness of the quiet room in Axinn was cut by the glow of the sunlight coming through the wall of glass windows. The shadows of tree branches that fell onto my cubicle provided some relief from the strong rays of the sun. This transformed the dreary feeling of the room and gave it some animation.

1. Thursday, March 2, 6:08 am, My bed
2. Bright light coming from the window.
3. I was lying in bed, still asleep as I had about two hours before I had to get up, when all of the sudden the heavy wind outside blew the cloud away that was blocking the sun from my window. It felt like the light of a thousand suns burning past my eyelids and into my eyes, waking me up despite the blinds being closed. I didn’t know what was happening at first, I was being forced awake far earlier than my brain could comprehend. I felt disoriented, but as my brain began to catch up with my eyes, I felt angry. I was angry at the wind that was now loud enough to keep me awake, angry at the sun for being too bright, and I felt angry at Hofstra for giving us low-quality blinds without allowing us to cover the windows with anything else.

1. Wednesday, March 1st; 9:35am; Lighting Class, Emily Lowe Hall.
2. Morning sunlight through the window and coming through my red water bottle to create a beam on my paper.
3. As I was sitting in class, I looked down at my notes I noticed a red tint on my paper.  At first I was confused as to where it was coming from, but then seeing my red water bottle next to me, I realized it was the sunlight outside coming through the water bottle to create the red light.  I found it really fitting the timing of this observation in particular, especially since we’ve been talking about gels and additive and subtractive color mixing.  The water bottle provided as a gel in a sense, and it made me wonder what other colors were used to create the water bottle: was the light I was seeing on my paper created through an additive or subtractive process?  What colors wasn’t I seeing?  All these questions I thought to be very serendipitous to topics we were discussing currently in class.

1. February 21, Suffolk Dorm ParkingLot
2. All of the lamps in the parking lot were out, except for one lone Lamp at the far end of the parking lot. It cast a very dim, eery shadow across the small, narrow parking lot. The light bounced of some of the cars, creating strange shadows and reflections.
3. I was looking out of the window of my dorm late one night, and i had noticed that all of the light posts were out, except the one at the end. It cast a really white, dim light across the parking lot. The way it bounced off the cars and carved eery shadows along the cars and trees was so cool.

1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: Feb 21st, 12am, my room.

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: One of my roommates has her desk light on across the room.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: Darkness…almost. One sliver of bright to keep me awake. As I try to drift off I can sense the light from across the room. It bounces from wall to wall crawling up trying to bathe the entire room in light. I’d like to snuff out that light. It’s orange glow keeps me awake as I try my hardest to relax and sleep. Any other time this light would be welcome, would be relaxing but right now there’s only one word for it: annoying.

1. Location: February 23, 12:40 am at the soccer fields near Colonial Square West entrance.
2. Objective: Street lights are surrounding the soccer field, lighting shine down upon the layer of mist. The entire field is lit up, but is unable to penetrate into the grass.
3. Subjective: Since there is mist covering the grass, there is the question about what is underneath it. What is hidden under the fog of night? There is a eery feeling that something is hiding underneath, wanting to get out. The look of this field makes me believe that an undead underworld or limbo is leaking into the land of the living. All in all, this misty field is a haunting sight to see.