Drama 16 Stage Lighting

1) Feb. 2nd, 2012 – 5 a.m. – Dorm room, Alliance Hall.

2)Outside my window is a never-ending sea of speckled lights, every night they are on, and stay on. These lights range from soft oranges, greens, and blues, to strong and bright yellows, whites, and reds. The nearest building to me is the student center, and it also stays lit; its giant windows usually show us a gallery of empty rooms with fluorescent lights. But on this morning a smooth blanket of fog covered the city, and those surrounding it. The top of the fog cloud started right under my window, since I am on the ninth floor. Since it was night time, the fog was not itself visible, but the effects it had created when it covered thousands of lights was magnificent.

3) The light show, created by the city’s lights and the fog was beautiful. The fog sort of diffused each specked light and instead of looking like sprinkles, it looked more like glowing balloons floating in the air. These “balloons” were so randomly spread around the landscape, that it almost seemed like a pattern; as if it was important to have no two lights colliding with each other, and instead the evenly spread out as if they were placed one by one.The best part, in my opinion, was Hofstra’s stadium. The stadium has the biggest lights on display, and they give the richest orange color. These bigger “balloon” lights caught my attention the most, since they are gathered closely, and brightly. The lights surround the stadium in an oval shape, and  these almost gold/orange lights create a crown. This moment was very serene. It’s almost as if the city, for just one night, had disappeared, and in its place  it left a motionless body of diffused lights.

1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: Thursday night about 11:30, 10th floor of Vander Poel Hall (my dorm)

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: With West-facing windows, my dorm room looks out over the last bit of Hofstra’s residential side and beyond to Roosevelt Field Mall. Streetlights can be seen miles away toward the north shore, towers slowly blink their red lights, headlights and taillights pass in and out from behind buildings and trees. The lights in the distance appear to flicker, the glow from the streetlights reflect off of the large windows of some of the taller buildings, and at the nearby intersections, I can see the traffic lights change.  The whole time that I’m gazing out the window, I can see the reflection of myself; my grey sweatshirt, the light from my computer reflecting off of my glasses, the mirror hung on my wardrobe, the lamp lighting the room are all clearly visible in the window.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: Really, this lighting “moment” is nothing new. In fact, it’s something that I can see every night, and it’s one of my favorite sights in the world. Maybe it seems mundane to others, but it’s a sight that is still new and fascinating to me. I can see all of the commotion; people moving, living their lives at any moment of the day. I find peace in seeing others living their lives before me; the world is there, people are running errands, seeing friends, going to work, riding the bus home from the night shift. Knowing that the world would go on just like this even if I’m gone is strangely comforting to me. But mostly, it makes me feel like I’m finally living life, that I’m finally a part of the world.  For eighteen years, looking out my window would reveal the moon, a few stars, maybe a faint outline of the barns or the trees, and then darkness. No neighbor’s lights, no streetlights or traffic lights, almost never the headlights of a passing car. Of course, this is also peaceful, but I’ve wanted to leave the dark and the 30 miles to a Wal-mart or a chain restaurant for most of my life. Before, I would see myself clearer in the window, but now, I can see myself and the signs of a fuller life that I’ve wanted for so long.