Drama 16 Stage Lighting

3/16/2017  4 AM Hague House, my room

White light pouring in through the window, light coming from the top half of the computer coming out in slots, bottom half unobstructed light. Covers walls in light.

The darkness of the night is a myth.  When the supposed darkest hours of the day are in full swing, endless light pours forth into my room and shines across each wall.  The glow of the light shifts slowly over time but persists in breaking through no matter what hour it is.  The only wall spared of the chunks of brightness graces my roommate while I face the wrath of the night’s sunny gleam.

1. 3/8/17, 11:45 pm, behind Hofstra Hall
2. In front of Calkins, the footlight coming from below the flagpole was creating a shadow against the flags. This illumination also created a shadow on the grass from the nearby statue.
3. I was walking behind Hofstra Hall late at night. I turned to check if the Calkins cat was sitting in her normal spot, but the flagpoles in front of Calkins quickly caught my attention. Aside from the consistent light the moon provided, I had realized the area was particularly well lit. The light flooded around the nearby objects, creating various shadows in many forms. These shadows wrapped the surrounding ground and buildings, giving a very eerie feeling to the scene. The footlight below the flag poles pointed up towards the flags themselves. As the wind moved the flags, the shadows they had casted moved as well. The statue that stood in front of Calkins was lit as well, casting a tall shadow which loomed over the entire quad.

2. https://www.travelpeg.com/Hong%20Kong/sight/Festivals/Chinese-New-Year-Festival/

3. Happy!

4. The lighting in this photo gives me so much happiness. When I think about happy in terms of lighting, I think bright colors. The lighting in this photo mostly consists of the color red, but there are a variety of other colors sprinkled throughout. This is a photo of a crowded street in Hong Kong on Chinese New Year. The lights illuminate the people that walk below them, creating contrast with the darkness of the sky. The lighting gives a sense of happiness because the glowing lanterns and bright colors make it obvious that a celebration is occurring.

2/15/2017 8:00 PM Outside the Netherlands

It was dark out and the lamps outside the Netherlands cast light on the ground in strips, rather than fully coloring the ground.  Underneath each light, there were strips of dark and light surrounding the pole of the light.

Though it was night, there were several suns painted on the floor along with my walk home.  Their rays lit the walkway and the path was transformed from the dreary cold night to my own personal suns.  Torn between suns and yellow daisies the image of the night became rather cheerful regardless of the black sky.

2. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/new-york-after-midnight.html       This photo came from a NY magazine.

Photographer: William P. Gottlieb

3. Theme: Night Life

4. Description: In this photo there are only a few lamp posts lighting the street. Most of the light is coming from the neon signs hanging from the buildings. The neon light is reflecting off of the water on the road, and shining on the cars. This light consists of many bright colors, bringing life to the street at night. This photo fits this theme because neon lights demonstrate that even at night, the city is still alive and bustling.

1. Tuesday, January 31 at 7:45pm outside Spiegel Theatre, looking at the path leading towards the weird statue.
2. By this point in the night, it was almost completely dark, so pretty much the only light was coming from the lampposts and reflecting off of the snow that covered the ground.
3. This moment felt very calm; the darkness was heavy but the soft balls of light provided a sense of hope by illuminating the natural beauty of a fresh coat of snow over the trees and the grass. The light also reflected the slick wet pavement of the pathway through these trees—this told me that though the storm was over, it wouldn’t be forgotten any time soon.

1. Time/Location: February 1, 2017, 5:20 pm at the Hofstra Fitness Center
2. Objective: As the sun was almost down and becoming a black violet, a streak of Indian red could be seen brushing across the sky.
3. Subjective: To me, this particular sunset represents the ending of a life. When I was looking at this sunset, I was thinking about my senior film I would be shooting involves themes of mortality and regret. The streak in the sky almost attempts to break through the night, wanting to continue living on. However, it is clear that night will come and blot out the leak that has appeared. In this sunset, this crack in the night represented the resistance to the end of February 1, 2017.

Photo Credit: http://t.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3813330

Theme: Gentle

Description: The only light in the room comes from a stuffed animal turtle projector, which shines softly on the boy as he sleeps. The light makes the boy look very peaceful. The fact that the light comes from a stuffed animal rather than a nightlight plugged into the wall makes the light much more gentle, as stuffed animals generally have connotations of being comforting. The projected stars add to the effect, as they are less harsh than a beam from a typical nightlight. In addition, the light coming from the turtle is shades of blue, which is a calming and relaxing color. All of these elements make this the perfect gentle lighting for going to sleep.

Time: 11:45 pm Thursday, my room

Objective Description: My room was lit only by the string lights on my bed posts and the dim lights from the lamps outside.

Subjective Description: I had turned off the overhead light in my room, and slowly my eyes adjusted to the darkness, only to find it wasn’t darkness at all. I left the blinds open, so a small amount of light from the lampposts and the occasional car driving by outside lit my room up just enough. The light shining through my window lit up the back wall with blurry spots of gentle, yellow light. That paired with the tiny fairy string lights on my bed posts made the room look very cozy and almost magical. It was nice to end the night on a positive note, sitting quietly in the peace of the semidarkness.

7 March 2016-6:40pm-A church on the streets of NYC (not far from Penn. Station)

The front of this church was lit up with several large film lights to make it look like day on the outside perhaps while a film crew shot an interior to exterior shot.

This feeling of falseness pervaded the scene since the light was like this big illuminated patch of sunshine in a dark in comparison world. It was like someone trying to create the white and pure idea of heaven on Earth. It was like the night was bleached out by this harsh, piercing light. The light was the awkward bleach stain on your clothes. It was the thing that seemed like it was trying too much to be the thing to be the actual thing. The main point that made this light seem so wrong and unmistakable from the sun is that this light was hot, white in color. It was warm as opposed to the cool bluish daylight. This warmth marked it as fake. The various angles of the light made the shadows small and few. The brightness and seeming power of the light claimed that it would disintegrate any great patches of darkness that might try to eek out their existence in this space. The light felt like a bully trying to make its victims shout that it was day despite this being a lie. The light was an illusion of day like if someone were to use fog from a fog machine to make a water dragon’s breath. Like all illusions, the light was artificial and not the natural. The light was an actor but not perhaps the best one from the perspective of a bystander. The camera’s footage might tell a different story.