Drama 16 Stage Lighting

16th of February, 10:00pm , Enterprise 13th floor lounge.

Objective description: the dim lights from the night outside dimly cast across the walls through large windows.

Subjective description: Imposing black shadows stretch across the walls of the room, crating a cell around me, trapping me in the dimly lit room. The only light in my shadowy cell is faint and tinged with red, giving no comfort to cling to in my haunting cage.

1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: 3/10/12 – 7:38 – In a booth at the Grand Lux Cafe

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was sitting in the Grand Lux Cafe in Roosevelt Mall with my parents when they were here to visit last weekend. The wall has small cut outs into the wall next to every booth. Inside the cut outs are four small lights that shine straight up and illuminate each box. Each box is covered with circular wooden cut outs. The light inside the box was shining up and the light from our table was shining down and made for two very different looks reflecting on the same surface of the circular grating covering the box.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION:  My parents were in town last weekend to visit for my birthday and to see Much Ado. On saturday night  the three of us went to the Grand Lux Cafe for a nice dinner together. We were seated in a booth all the way in the back of the restaurant. The inside of the restaurant is absolutely gorgeous and has high ceilings with grand lighting all over the room. Next to each booth there is a six inch deep cut out into the wall that creates a box recessed into the wall that is about three feet by two feet. The opening is covered with a series of circle cut outs that are touch at the edges that is mostly open and acts like a grate to cover each recessed box. The inside of each box is painted with a reflective gold paint. At the bottom of the boxes there were small lights that were pointed straight up. These lights illuminated reflected off of all surfaces on the inside of the box and made the box appear to glow.

The wood that made up each circle was a dark mahogany type wood that did not absorb much light. The contrast between the dark circles on and the bright glow of the boxes was very intense and made the room look very fancy and very luxurious with all of the glowing gold contrasting with the dark wood. All of the light that was coming out of the box was a very rich amber color and gave a very warm and welcoming feel to the booth and to the room. The light that was hung over our table was shining down wards in a soft white, the color generated by a standard incandescent light bulb. The ambient light from this lamp  reflected straight off of the sheen of the wood stain on the tops of each circle covering the recessed boxes next to our booth. The illusion that was created was very interesting and gave an amazing contrasting appeal. I thought that the illusion was very cool to see this extremely dark wood grating appearing to contain an intense and very saturated ball of lighting that was accented on the top with the harsh white light coming from the lamp above our table.

A photo I took at the abandoned LA Zoo in Griffith Park, Los Angeles< CA

THEME: Shadows

Visiting this abandoned zoo was the creepiest, most surreal experiences I’ve had a chance to document and photograph.  The original zoo was opened in 1918, and most of the buildings we visited were build as WPA projects in the 30s.  Closed in the 1960s and rebuilt at another site, the original site was eventually converted into a picnic area with cages and buildings left to crawl around in.

While we were never sure quite what lived in the cages, the standard setup was a public “viewing” pen below, and a staircase leading up to cages and beds behind.  I came to the top of the stairs and turned the corner to be hit by this sight.  All traces of life there were gone, only steel bars and Guillotine doors, concrete and brick—all covered in graffiti.  Light poured through the cage door and the stairs at the other end of the hall.  The bars on the “kennel” broke the sunlight across the floor.  Most places the cage doors on the outer walls were bolted shut, but with this one open, natural light illuminated up the cold and forgotten home that was once a reality for the zoo’s residents day in and day out.  There is no warmth in this place, even the sunlight that makes it in is dull and greyed.