Drama 16 Stage Lighting

2/8/16 – 6:00pm Student Center Hofstra Shuttle Stop

The light is a ground light in a little island with a tree in the middle of the walkway that is nearby the shuttle stop. When this moment happened, the light was buried in the snow but still on. It glowed through the snow.

The little ball of yellowish wonder that was the light shown through the snow like a porous sea sponge. The light poked happily through the pores and holes of the snow. The little fire encased by the snow was warm and comforting; its warmth and blaze was like that of a hearth at home. Although shrouded in the snow, the light was not mysterious, hidden, or imposing but rather it was inviting, charming, and marvelous in nature when compared against the other street lights and its immediate surrounding. Put up next to the darker hues or shades of the not as well-lit snow around it, the golden light only seemed more gentle and kind. Simply put, the light in this moment had a warm, homey feeling in its small gentle but not dim glow that issued from beneath the snow.

Date: 1/30/16; Time: 1:38 PM; Location: Monroe Hall Room 216

Objective Description: I was seated on the piano bench and the overhead classroom lights had just turned off. The main lights are set on a timer to turn off if there is no overt movement. However, once the main lights turned off(as I was playing), I was left with the singular spotlight that remains on unless manually turned off. It was positioned directly over the piano. the mood immediately shifted and the light created something even more poetic.

Subjective Description: The room was filled with artificiality in light, structure, and form. The man-made desks and left over trash that had been left was ablaze in such a way that it was almost distracting. My fingers moving swiftly across the piano keys suddenly noticed a sudden serenity. As the bright manufactured glow dissolved immediately like that of the theatre beckoning the start of show, the soft and dimly-lit beacon directly above me showcased the piano in an entirely new way. The man-made materials and abandoned trash were now dark, no longer alive and taunting. The piano, however, had new life, and it danced as my hands progressed down the keys. The shiny black veneer of the piano showed, for the first time, my true reflection. No longer did the room feel counterfeit and fabricated, but it felt organic and raw.  There was a feeling of peace as even the music felt more organic and the anguish of the song and my aura was ever-present. It was just me and the piano. Everything in that moment felt more personal. Although the main overheard lights remained off, the spotlight beamed on and music lit a fire that burned steadily.

There is a wireless router on the ceiling in my room. It’s a tiny blue light that casts a glow on my face when I go to bed at night. It’s like an annoying night light. I had a night light when I was little, but it had a comforting warm orange glow. This glow just makes the room feel cold.

1) 2/24/14, 7 pm-ish

2) Lights in the top floor windows of Enterprise

3) I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but the towers on the residential side of campus all have faces. At the top of each tower, the way the windows are positioned on the uppermost floor and the floor just beneath it make the buildings look like they have two eyes and a mouth. I don’t really know how to describe this. Picture two narrow rectangles for eyes and a wider rectangle (one bigger window beneath the other two) as the mouth.

Every time I’m walking back from the gym and those lights are on, the residential buildings turn into a colony of giants with stoic faces. Normally it’s Enterprise that catches my attention. The geometric features of its face (rectangle mouth with clenched window pane teeth) don’t lend themselves to a smile or a frown. The giant just looks like its face hurts, as if it accidentally injected itself with too much botox and is stuck. Or it’s just sick of bracing against the cold winter wind. If it could speak it would probably say “HNNNNN!”

When the lights are off, the botox-infused, winter hating giant is sleeping, I’d guess. I think these giants are nocturnal, because next to sunlight, it’s hard to tell whether those lights are on or off, and it looks like they’re asleep. Against the black night, the eyes and mouth of the stone guardians stand out because they’re so full of light. That is when they’re awake. I feel camaraderie with these buildings. They’re night owls, like me.

1) Feb  26, ~2:00 AM; my room

2) My roommate’s and my pink Christmas lights.

3) I woke in a daze when my roommate returned to our room in the middle of the night. I was very confused and don’t remember why I got out of bed, but I do remember seeing the room entirely in pink light. My roommate and I both have pink Christmas lights strung across our room so that one can sleep while the other can see. I remember that everything was pink–my roommate’s face and clothes were both pink. In addition, we have a lot of pink objects in our room that popped and were enhanced from the entirely pink light. We have two large rugs on our floor that are deep pink. It was disorienting; in my sleepy daze I wasn’t sure which way was up. The lack of differentiation between the floor, walls, and ceiling did not help.

Theme: Happy

Source: http://weheartit.com/entry/165284599

I don’t typically think of the ocean as a happy place. The beach? Sure. But the ocean itself is a habitat of mystery and fear. It’s not somewhere human beings belong. If it weren’t for the way the light accents the image, I think this would evoke a darker emotion. But it makes me happy.The thought of gliding along the sea floor and looking up at the surface brings bliss. The main burst of sunlight and all the little pockets of light in the sand and sun ripples create a sense of wonder and make me feel at home under the water, almost as if I could enter this environment and still breathe.  It reminds me of films set underwater, where we can live through a mermaid or a clown fish or a blue tang without giving thought to the fact that if we were actually there, we’d drown. The light welcomes me in.

1) 1:16 AM, Spiegel Theatre, 5/2/14

2) The cyc lights on the stage.

3) As I struggled to breathe through the paint fumes and intense heat, I decided to look up at the lights hanging from the Spiegel’s truss. The harsh white light blinded me, and I could see phosphenes on my vision. The light was like the rays of the sun, burning into my skin, and making sweat beads appear on my head. The night trudged on as we raced to finish the set.

1. 4/22/14 at around 11:30 at my friend Anthony’s house.

2. Christmas lights hung around his pitch black room. One strand is colored. The other sides of his room are completely dark.

3. Recently my friend moved into a new place that has quite a few problems. One of them being that most of the light blubs were burnt out. Because of this, his room gets shrouded in darkness at night. To eliminate some of the darkness, he uses two long strands of Christmas lights. Two sides of the room is illuminated with a row of colored lights that leave small traces of color on the wall. They leave the wall lit with faint reds, bright yellows, rich greens, brilliant blues, and soft pinks. They occasionally flicker leaving a small portion of the wall in darkness. However, these dimmed lights strikingly light up half of his room very well.  These shining lights are a beauty to look at, with their faint twinkle that brighten the black of the night. We almost don’t want regular lights in his room.

1) 4/24/2014, 11:06 am, OSLA

2) The harsh fluorescent lighting reflecting off the wall.

3) For the first time since I’ve worked in the office, I noticed the lighting. I had never taken a second to actually look at the ceiling, and see how much the lighting affected the room. As I turned on the lights, I noticed how the long fluorescent bulbs flickered on, casting grotesque white light on the walls. The light shone in the room, taking the powder blue color of the walls and making them appear almost white in the room. One light, always pesky, is darker than the others, leaving a corner of the room in shadow. It gives the office the feeling of an office, giving the room personality and character.

1. 4/7/14 at around 7:00 at Take-One Theatres.

2. A big spectacle of colored spotlights on a stage moving to a beat.

3. In the musical “West Side Story” the big show stopper is the song and dance number “Mambo”. It should always be done big. In my production, almost every dancer gets their own large, shining spotlight each with a color coordinating with their pose and costume. The first spotlight hits a dancer with a saturated red, emphasizing her intense movements. A light, pale blue spotlight shines on an other couple as they dance slowly and seductively. Behind them is a dancer using big and open dance moves as a sharp, green light shines down on him. It is these precise lights that make the dance number look amazing.