Drama 16 Stage Lighting

Date: 4/26/23

Time: 6:46pm

Location: Hofstra Game Room

Objective: Grid array of overhead fluorescent lights interspliced into parts of the tiled drop ceiling. Each is covered by a semi translucent plastic square. Neutral-to-slightly-warm light. Top heavy, but the white floor helps to fill the space.

Subjective: Incredibly even soft lighting – but pretty soul-less. If not for the interior decorations it is would be incredibly banal. The minimalist lighting style calls no attention to itself. It feels quiet and muted.

Date: 03/05/2023

Time: 4:48 pm

Location: The living room of a house in East Hampton

Objective: Soft evening sun coming in from the high windows on the wall in front of me, harsh rays coming from behind over the half wall in the center of the room. A little too cool, except for the yellow hotspots on the walls. They are parallelograms, broken up with the shifting patterns of tree branches in the wind. An orange glow is creeping in from the next room over, the chandelier chock full of hot incandescent bulbs. The coated wooden floorboards are reflective, creating a mirror-like effect with subtle highlights seeming to continue into the ground from my perspective.

Subjective: It is a cool evening, right before sunset. The space feels very homey, soft, natural. The distinct color contrast between the cool glow of the darkening sky against the yellow beams of sunset light and orange glow of the chandelier makes the space feel lived in, not exactly in line with nature but not clashing too harshly. If void of people, it could surely be populated by ghosts. But no vengeful spirits, just the souls of some past resident settling down for their afternoon tea, or getting ready for dinner. Neutral, even a bit welcoming.

From: https://randallwarehouse.com/3-ways-to-protect-inventory-on-loading-docks-this-winter/

Theme: Cold

I wanted to find something evocative of coldness that could easily appear warm with only a simple lighting change. Searching for basements and warehouses eventually lead me to this image. What drew me to it most was how simple it was. It is just a pretty typical industrial warehouse loading dock, seen from inside. There are only two sources of light, both of which are visible. The first is the sunlight that is blowing out the highlights on the windows, which is a stark white point in the image. The next is the overhead fluorescent tubes that you can spot in the upper left corner, but which more than likely cover the entire ceiling of this room. These lights are both tuned toward a very cool temperature, but only slightly. It might be a trick of the camera, but regardless it has a serious effect. What should be white light has an almost silvery/blue twist to it. The lack of color also helps sell the effect — with most of the image being made up of various grays. Although not directly related to lighting, the surface materials and texture add to the effect. The semi-reflective concrete feels like a garage or a basement, something you would not want to walk on without some good shoes and a warm pair of socks. Aside from that feeling, it also feels cold in the sense that is seems pretty lifeless. There are no human subjects, and no interesting objects. Everything you see in the image was created to serve a solely practical purpose, a byproduct of some industry that demanded things like garage doors and pallet jacks and tightly wrapped bundles of boxes shoved into the backs of trailers. Not exactly a place you would want to hang out or spend time with friends.

From: My camera roll, taken November 22nd 2022. Sunset from my bedroom window in Hempstead, NY.

Theme: Sunrise/Sunset

This was a photo from the end of last semester. I had just wrapped on a film project I had been working on, and this was my last night in New York before heading home for Thanksgiving break. I have a West facing window in my bedroom, and often have a chance to view the sunset over the trees and buildings. This particular sunset struck, it had already crossed the horizon (at least as far as I could tell from my perspective) and the deep twilight blue was taking over the sky — broken by a strip of glowing orange as the last streams of sunlight bent around the far curve of the Earth. The glow from the light silhouetted the neighborhood, which turned into a mass of shape and form. It looked pretty cool, so I took a few photos. I was in the sunset of the semester, and that Thanksgiving was the first real break I had from working on any big projects in months. It was a great moment of catharsis knowing I could relax for a while.