Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Producing Quality Art
I finished my first lighting design for graduate school at UMASS in the beginning of December, but I was terribly disappointed with the final product. Granted, I was attempting to design light in a way I had never experienced before; I learned an insane amount of information through the process, and the show was successfully staged. I don't necessarily think that it was an amazing piece of art, nor that it was necessarily art, but more that it was a great piece of educational work toward creating future theatrical works of art. I have been trying to take a step forward after this defeating experience, and until now, I didn't know why I had been struggling to move forward and let the experience be what it was. Here is a section I just read from Steve Shelley's introduction to his book: A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, that allowed me to see, understand, let go, and move forward...
"When I was a younger student of lighting design, I wasted a lot of stage time. I had gone to classes and read books, but no one said anything about effectively using time. The classroom didn't address the need to streamline the lighting design construction process. Without a system or enough experience, I would unknowingly allow myself to be led by others through a production schedule that would frequently result in an unfinished product. Afterward, I would attempt to analyze my disappointment resulting from unsatisfactory designs that remained unfulfilled because I had run out of time. Eventually I realized I had it backwards. I needed to analyze the situation first, construct a strategy, and create the tools prior to the load-in that would allow on-site decisions to be made. Rather than walking in the door and backpedaling through whatever situation was dictated to me, I began searching for ways to dictate the situation. My goal broadened to not only creating a design, but also to establishing the environment that would allow the design to be completed within the presented parameters."
more...
What a great statement! This is exactly the kind of proactive choices and action that I need to be making as I move forward in my studies hear at UMASS and elsewhere in the work world. I can't wait to get started with this next semester so that I can start putting this idea of "dictating the situation" into practice.
Labels:
Art,
Grad School,
Imaginary Invalid,
Lighting,
Theatre,
Theory
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