Having lunch after a rehearsal and looking up to see Sam Shepard chatting away at the bar a few feet away. I still think my favorite was having dinner two tables away from Jim Jarmusch.
We focused the lights last night for Fate’s Imagination. Things went OK. We had a few minor setbacks due to the rental shop sending us the wrong fixtures and pushing the whole lighting load-in back several hours. We have some notes to take care of this morning and should be back on track by the time we have actors on stage at noon.
I got the best Horoscope EVER for a first day of tech:
Your life will be like an action movie today — minus the explosive car chases, of course! But hour after hour will present you with situations that require quick, decisive responses. Today is not a day to mull things over — you have to act, and act fast! Luckily, there is very little danger that you will make any bad decisions today, so don’t be afraid to lead with your intuition (like a true action hero).
Let’s see how that pans out!
A series of rotating buildings based on Dynamic Architecture will be built around the world, starting in Dubai, U.A.E. The Dynamic Architecture concept was introduced by Florentine architect David Fisher.The rotating buildings get their electrical power from wind turbines that are placed between floors and which rotate freely with the wind. Additional power is provided from solar cells on the tops of the individual floors.
Each individual floor is able to rotate slowly, based on commands issued by the owners of condos or apartments on that floor. I assume that the building owners can also take control, for coordinated movements of the floors. Note that the rotation of the floors is slow and uses power – the rotation of the floors does not produce power.
The building is constructed around a central core; each floor is composed of individual pie-like sections that are pre-built and hoisted up the central core (see illustration). The builder claims that rotating buildings can be constructed by just ninety people on the construction site; compare this to the typical skyscraper construction site, which may have up to 2,000 workers at a time.
“Languages can package knowledge in radically different ways, thus facilitating different ways of conceptualizing, naming, and discussing the world.” Elsewhere he calls languages “packaged information.” In systems of kinship terms, for instance, which vary dramatically among different cultures, each one is “the result is a highly compact, highly efficient system of knowledge that packs multiple bits of information into small spaces.”In other words, languages are design objects. And I thought: no one loves extinct or endangered design objects more than designers do.
We have the Load-In for Fate’s Imagination today. The electricians are, I presume, hard at work installing the lighting units for the show. I am finishing up a few of my focus documents and double checking a couple of the things on the lightplot against what I have seen during rehearsal. Most of the changes are simple reassignments of the purpose and functions of lights rather than moving them around.
The space has a VERY low ceiling. The result of a low ceiling is that the space demands a LOT of lighting equipment. It is the irony of these small spaces. Having worked in quite a number of these kinds of spaces I have tried numerous approaches to addressing this issue. This time around I am using many worklights crafted to be functional to the dramatic needs of the play.
The great thing about worklights is because they are designed to flood a room with light, they work very well in these low ceiling situations and allow fewer lights to be used than if conventional theatrical lighting were to be employed. Another aspect of that is how it changes the aesthetic approach to the play. Because these lights move so differently through the volume of the room, one must re-conceive all the lighting for the play to remain stylistically consistent.
The play is structured such that it has three rather different acts thus affording a style change with each act. Further, the acts are largely grounded in location making these style changes easier still. This, combined with the somewhat new approach to lighting the play that I am taking, is looking to be rather exciting. There is an element of risk to some the aesthetic choices I have made that I will find out in a two days if it was the right way to go. I am fairly confident, but there is still the element of the unknown that I look forward to.
Overall the design encompasses a nice hybrid of conventional and non-conventional lighting strategies for the play. In addition to trying out some new structural elements in the design, I am also exploring a few new colors that should be exciting. Color is one of the easiest things to experiment with, as it is one of the cheapest aspects to lighting.
Interestingly color is also one of the easiest elements to fall into rote use with. I have heard designers say so many times “Well I always use . . . whenever I design a lightplot.” I do not understand this approach. A graphic designer would never “always use” a particular font or color palette yet somehow this is accepted in lighting. Certainly there are very useful colors that can and should get reused, but to “always” employ the same ones seems silly.
At the same time I can easily see the color palette in Fate’s Imagination evolving into something a lot more conventional as we progress through tech. There is a solution to one of the main design challenges that would use most to all of the lights with no color media. Most of the effect needed for this play is independent of color, relying on the shape, intensity and quality of light itself. In fact I could easily see a version of this play where no color was used at all. While it is possible we might get there by the end of the week, I do doubt it, but one never can tell.
The director and design team are a great group and we have had a lot of fun in our design meetings so I think this week should be quite enjoyable.
Across the moonless dark of Lancaster County, where horse-drawn buggies clatter along dusty country roads and many families shun electricity, a strange blue light cuts harshly through the night.Over the cornfields it beckons, like some otherworldly force, beaming from the bedroom window of a 100-year-old Mennonite farmhouse.
Downstairs, flaxen-haired girls with braids read to younger children … a mother in a traditional long print dress and white organdy cap rocks a slumbering child … a father returning from the fields pulls up a chair to the coal-fired stove.
The scene is bathed in the glow of a single gas lamp.
Upstairs, a baby sleeps in another kind of light, in a very different world.
High-intensity blue electric rays burn down upon his crib, creating an iridescent haze that envelops the room. The lights are suspended from a heavy stainless steel canopy just inches above the child.
The baby wears only a diaper and has no blankets, just starched white sheets. Mirrors are built into one side of the crib. Fans hum loudly to keep him cool.
With his chubby cheeks and bleached blonde hair, 15-month old Bryan Martin looks like an angel in his luminous cocoon.
But Bryan is a very sick child.
The whites of his eyes are yellow and his skin is an unnatural gold.
The blue lights are saving his life.
