Drama 16 Stage Lighting

I got this photo from a blog about Epcot called Epcot Explorer: https://epcotexplorer.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/illuminations-reflecting-on-15-years/ .

The theme is surreal.

The lighting is unreal in its color, its angle, its vibrancy. The sky is lit up by lasers like the end of the world or like a mystical portal is opening. The colorful lights are reflected in the water making it resemble a magical river that one might dream up as a child. All of the lighting is fantastical even the bright projected white on the Earth. The water shows the hidden mysteries of lights that are far off and also the pink and green of the globe. The various angles are unusual as the light from the water fountains illustrates since it goes straight up with the water. There are neons, bright magentas, oranges, blues, greens, and white in the color palette of the lights. There are hints of red, yellow, and purple as well. It is like a rainbow but brighter; the lights have a similar feeling of joy in their colors as fireworks and glow sticks. They are spectacular and delightful like a magician show. Clearly, the lights are magical not realistic. Even the sky with the green and blue fading into one another repeatedly in a pattern is mostly intense and vibrant in color and brightness. This brightness is like the pages of children’s picture books and children’s toys in general. Consequently, the lighting is surreal and creates an atmosphere that is playful, reflexive, and dream-like.

This photo was taken by me.

The theme is spooky and it fits this theme because it looks like it could be taken out of a spooky scene from a horror or Halloween film.

The lighting is white and bright like a space alien’s ship coming to abduct someone or that horridly spotless idea of the future that many films attempt to portray. The bright lighting depicted in the animated film Wall-E for inside the space ship where the lazy humans are is similar to this bright moonlight. The light is expansive causing a soft halo to surround it in the night sky. The brightness at night also is spooky because night is meant to be dark in the minds of many. This bright moonlight might peer into a window and wake people up like how the people were wakened up during the Light Riots. The light backlights the tree making it a shadowy silhouette. Moonlight has a history of spookiness with witches flying across it, cows jumping over it, and werewolf’s howling to it; this moonlit picture harkens back to this tradition with the light’s boldness and the silhouetted tree’s bareness. The white light and lingering halo of grey contrast with the night-time blackness like a mysterious power; this starkness and utter lack of an array of colors and stark would be enough to spook a child into hiding under the covers. For all a little child knows, this could be the eye of a huge monster coming to destroy it; and the power (high value) and abundance of this light makes it imposing. The dead, dark world that some might think exists in blackness comes back to life with the bright glow of the moon. However, it is not as alive as day; it is like a half-life or perhaps undead life. After all, in the total dark, one cannot see that the world does not look as alive as the day, but in partial light one can. Thus, the lighting in this picture is spooky as it is a sign that scary things might be out and since it makes things that look bright and alive during the day appear dead, creepy, and unnerving through the limited, bright, far-reaching, and contrasting with the dark surroundings white moonlight.