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."

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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.

Imaginary Invalid viii.

I just had my first post-opening review meeting with Penny, my adviser, and I...well, it was a great meeting. We have so much to talk about that it is hard to contain the conversation or rather not contain, but retain the conversation in a way that is memorable and tangible. The bulk of my learning has to take place during the technical run, so that the learning is physical. Talking about theatre is great, but often becomes futile when it regards needing to bring these things to fruition. Anyway, one thing that I am interested in really make happen in these next few months is to jump on Penny's suggestion to be designing a show every month. I need to design design design. I can't be sitting on an empty tank for the next 9 months. I need to practice, to learn, to make mistakes, it is the only way that I will be able to integrate these lessons into my daily and routine practice. Anybody know of shows that need a lighting designer or assistant lighting designer in and around the Massachusetts area??? Please let me know!!!

Imaginary Invalid vii.

Dora Arreola (Graduate Candidate for Directing MFA) staging the prologue...

Day four is now complete...We had a fantastic run through of act 1. I have a number of cues to adjust. I think they need some attention to focus on the stage, dark spots for actors moving through the space, and highlights on the set, a lot of attention to the upstage drop and the drops outside the windows, but other than that I have a nice shape to Act 1.

I will be developing the final cues for Act 2 and into the Prologue during a cue over this up-coming Monday. I will be able to make minor adjustments to the general lighting cues that I have created. I hope to get a clear sense of the direction I am going in for the Epilogue after this rehearsal.

Then moving into Tuesday next week, we will be wrapping up the final tech of the Epilogue, and then it is a matter of finessing the blocking to the lighting and the lighting to the blocking, in order to ensure that the actors are always visible, especially the eyes.

Imaginary Invalid vi.

2nd cue in Act I...(not a very good camera...sorry)...

Day three has been tacked up on the complete board for the Invalid tech. My advisor, Penny Remsen, met with me at couple of different time yesterday to discuss the process, the systems of lighting that she has taught me how to create, and the process of layering them in through the production. I am used to creating cues virtually seperate from each other...each cue almost being its own entity seperate from the cue before. The only thing that is usually the same is the instruments I am using. So, the same brushes, just different paint, to use an artist example of how to paint a set with light.

Here are just a few things that I learned from this process...

1. Never stress
2. Don't apologize
3. Start with the first cue and layer in the light progressively from cue to cue. (This is an indoor set (living room), period play (Moliere), essentially afternoon to twilight, and one room). So, I don't have a lot of need for drastically different lighting. I can create essentially two pallettes (afternoon and evening) and have exactly what I need to cue the show. Good thing for me, that is exactly what I did on paper, and now it is working on the actual set.
4. Do not draw the audience attention away from the actors unless the actors are directing the audience attention to a specific object or location in the set.
5. Color is very important and does not always work the same on paper as it does on the real set...always be ready with back-up gels and ideas, in case color choices need to be adjusted. It may be the right color, but the wrong saturation.
6. Technical rehearsals never work the same from show to show, director to director, and crew to crew. I am learning so many things with this process. Yesterday, I was on information overload, and especially the day before. I am now beginning to process all the information. I hope I can retain all of or most of it for the next round of designs.

Imaginary Invalid v.

Actor warm-up...

We finished day two of tech last night, however, I walked away from that day frustrated with myself for not understanding how the light is working on the set. I am beginning to see it more, but the paper choices I made are not all working. It may be a matter of color, but I am not sure if it is...? I also came away from yesterday disappointed in the design team as a whole. We did not communicate to each other as well as I have been hoping we would or could. As Rob said yesterday, "We are trying to blend design ideas together rather than finding a single direction to work as a whole." I agree that we have done this, but I am not sure at this point if that can be corrected. We never had any design meetings longer than 1 hour, and we never met as a whole group after the pre-liminary scenic and costume design were made. We never had any design or production notes taken or plans about what we were going to address in these meetings. It has always been a kind of check in and never a growing of ideas and exploring.

I have never worked through a tech where I received so little information from other designers and especially from the director. I assumed that what was being seen was understood as the cue for the show, but apparently all the cues that I have written except for the prologue and into Act I scene 1 are not being conisdered as the final cue. I don't know when we are going to write the final cue if it was not this weekend. I know we have two more tech/design runs tonight, but they are essentially runs and not stop and go as we definitely need. Anyway, I should have been talking more with Dora, and asked her to come sit behind me so that we could collaborate...checked in with her that what we had written was good (as well as if it was good with the other designers)...and then moved on to the next cue. I wonder what the next step is...do we step through now and get the approval...do we step through and assume that the cues are good unless someone stops me. (That is what I was doing the last two days, but apparently that is not a good method)...any suggestions...???

Imaginary Invalid iv.

Starting the day...Thad editing a cue list...

Yesterday we started our official tech day. What a long and enriching and exhausting experience! I have worked long days, but rarely ones that require so much focus on what light is doing in so many different places, yet really only within a small frame. Comparatively the world we live in has so many different aspects of lighting, but mostly out of our control. This however, in the theatre, I have complete control, yet the control in this particular production is coming from a much larger number of sources than I am used to working with. Harnessing all that light into a cohesive whole has been challenging. I need to remember to start with my key light, then filter in my fill light. One last challenging thing with this process is the difference between my definition of comic and others definition of comic...or rather our definition of how lighting enhances or detracts from the comedy of a show. How does your light in your world make your life more comic or more tragic?

Imaginary Invalid iii.

Blocking the light...

The lighting focus went well yesterday. I finally got a sense that the design was being respected and developed through the process of focus. It took me some time to find my momentum and my voice. In the end, we looked at the lights to see if they were blended well, and if they looked like they were doing what I had hoped they would do on paper. I think the gobos I am using in the are light and in the washes is creating too much of a break up...as if they are walking through shadows of trees. I am going to use the hazer to create the effect I was hoping to create with the gobos. A sense of warmth, staleness, and the yuck...of the play.


Low wash...


Thad posing grumpy


Penny going ugh to Michael