Archive for the ‘design’ Category

« Older Entries

It’s the art stupid

Monday, February 28th, 2011

My work ranges a long vertical spectrum from the basements of art galleries to 1st National Broadway tours. It also has a wide aesthetic spectrum from the deeply esoteric dramatizations of post-Heideggerian texts to popular farce. I light for dance, opera, theater, live music, art installations, and more. No matter what medium I am working in, in whatever aesthetic vein, for however much money, the common thread is that we are all striving to make the best work possible.

It is an amazing thing to behold really. Because when it comes right down to it, if you are not in this for the love of the art you better get out fast. The hours are terrible, the money is worse, projects are inconveniently timed, and career advancement takes a long time as you slowly watch your mentors and idols die off. And did I mention the money was bad and the hours are worse?

There’s an old joke that runs something like this:
Q: How do you make a small fortune in the theater?
A: Start out with a large fortune.

Because of these realities of time and money and love of the product, we all make sacrifices. Some of us work shitty jobs to fund our underfunded art. Others take a de facto vow of poverty. Some are blessed with independent wealth which allows them maintain some degree of creature comfort. And should you be cursed with success every relationship outside of the work is negatively impacted.

The only other group I can think of who willingly suffers in this way is the National Masochist Association. So why do we do it?

I had a mentor of mine once say “If you can think of ANYthing else to do with your life that would make you happy, do that.” Being as I couldn’t, I didn’t. And why not?

Because the magic of creation is unlike anything else I have ever done in my life. Creating a work of art, a true work of art, one that engenders more questions in me than answers, one that leaves an audience breathless, wondering, joyful, and full of tears, is an experience unlike any other. Taking a dark room, a black box, and filling it with another world that moves and changes and transforms, is the most wonderful thing I can think to do.

The only other activity I have engaged in that gave me a similar sense of satisfaction was back when I did black and white photography. Shooting the film was fun. Waiting for it to develop was nice. But watching an image, my image, appear as if by magic, through the rippling tray of chemicals, on a formerly blank white piece of paper was amazing. Tweaking the various filters and exposure times to get the image just the right balance of light and dark was awesome.

So it is with light. Watching the curtain open to reveal a new world is an astonishing thing to be a part of.


Et by Andrew Skeels

Art is not easy and it does not come cheaply. It is no wonder then that throughout human history artists have been supported by nation states, corporations, or wealthy individuals. These people, like the artist herself, do it because of their love for the work. It does not make fiscal sense to pay for a piece of canvass encrusted with pigment infused oils, or to build a theater and attempt to recreate Greek Drama through the use of sung, rather than spoken, words.

No. These people, be they the Vatican, the de Medicis, or the Guggenheims play such a significant role in the creation of art because they love it. Perhaps they love it for reasons other than the creators. Perhaps that love runs less than altruistic. But love it they do. There are far more expedient means to social and political influence than artistic patronage. Without a love of the work there is no reasonable excuse for such otherwise absurd behavior.

Even contemporary examples are, I am confident, borne out of love for the art. While the current Spider-Man musical engenders no end of schadenfreude I firmly believe its creators are there for the sole purpose of making the best work they know how to do. I know some of them personally and can not imagine them doing anything else.

It is easy to sit at some distance from a trainwreck and point fingers and claim those involved are not “true” artists. It is hard to truly accept the fact that these people have the highest artistic standards for themselves and are pushing themselves as far as they can go. I’ve been involved in some trainwrecks myself. They are very unpleasant.

Art is not easy. Art is a delicate balance. A very delicate balance. When one item is off, by even a very slight amount, it affects every other aspect of the work. Sometimes balance is regained. Sometimes not. But if you never find yourself off balance during the creation of a work of art I have a hunch you are not trying hard enough.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in art, dance, design, opera, theatre | No Comments »

The Real Value of a Good Electrician

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Last week I wrote about trouble with a show in terms of being incorrectly informed about inventory and house plot units. A bit of a cliffhanger that was, so I wanted to give you the resolution instead of leaving you with nothing but doom and gloom.

The problems I faced were three fold. First was an incorrect count of the inventory. In practical terms it meant working with mostly old 360Qs rather than newer Source-4 lekos. I could have done the whole show, or at least the vast majority of it, with Source-4 lekos but did not know that until well after the plot was submitted. The second problem had to do with a whole lighting position moving from an onstage boom to a makeshift box boom. The third problem was a larger than anticipated house rep plot which could not be moved, causing fixtures to not be hung as drafted due to space concerns. Combine problem 2 and 3 and you can see where this is going. Yikes!

This could be a total recipe for disaster. As it was the whole process turned out about as well as it could given the circumstances.

The 360Qs were as much a headache as I anticipated. The units are old, poorly tuned, and dim. While I typically begin my compositions with sidelight, the nature of this show, French Farce, demanded a Frontlight approach. Sidelight being secondary I used the 360Qs for my Sidelight systems. The units were in quite bad shape and there was no way to get decent overlap. I was spread a little thin as it was, having based my plot on a smaller than ideal inventory, and the extreme hotspot issues made the crosslight a bit of a disaster.

I worked with the electricians over the few days of tech to get the worst of the culprits tuned better, but even at their best they were very inconsistent. The inconsistency was amplified by having to move one of the sidelight positions downstage. It made the crosslight angles rather uneven, shifting from true sidelight to slightly frontal and back to real sidelight. We did our best, but there was only so far these would go.

Problem two, the moveable boom. The solution for this one should get full credit to my Master Electrician. He found the best placement for the moved position and made it work with minimal impact on the rest of the already compromised systems.

Never underestimate the value of a good electrician.

Sure, I redrew the position to get the right lights in the right(ish) place, but he devised the structure and, albeit somewhat awkward hanging position, the placement of fixtures.

Finally we come to our larger than anticipated house rep plot. The rules in the venue are refocus, but don’t move the c-clamp. Well, when most of my light is coming from the box booms and the rep box booms are bigger than anticipated this could be a problem. Except it was about the best possible outcome we could have. The rep color wash, a system of four Source-4′s with Seachangers per side, was doubled. Instead of an 8 unit color wash suitable for toning the stage, I had a 16 unit wash which was a nearly complete full stage system from both sides.

Well color me impressed.

The box boom positions are fairly good in this theater so I got a lot of mileage out of these units. We did have to do a fair bit of light wrangling to get some of my other lights in a useful position, but it was not too bad all things considered. Including moves and a slow genie focus I was able to get the plot focused with an average of 120 seconds a light. Well above my average of 90 seconds, but under the circumstances quite a good pace.

All of this was ultimately made possible through a talented electrics staff. A good ME, who is thorough and thinks ahead of problems, is a rare thing, certainly out here in California. Working with someone who really knows their craft and can make a plot happen on time under these circumstances is valuable indeed.

When life hands you lemons make lemonade. Though with the Seachangers it was more like also being handed a nice Cognac and making myself a Sidecar.

Tags: , ,
Posted in design | No Comments »

Moving Problems

Monday, January 24th, 2011

I just had a phone call from my ME for an upcoming show. Good News and Bad News. Good News: The theater has a larger inventory than we initially thought. So we can return most of the rental. Bad News: He spent a huge amount of time shopping the rental around to various houses to make it under budget. More Bad News: a lighting position needs to be moved because the venue will not allow it to be where we had previously got clearance to place it.

The two biggest constraints when designing are what lights do you have access to and where can you put them. In fact that is design, placing lights in useful positions, pointing them in useful directions, and turning them on at useful moments. Without the proper information it becomes near to impossible for us to do our job. If a designer can not do their job effectively it means more work for everyone and no one ends up happy.

On the question of inventory, being off by one or two lights is no big deal. In fact, I know of plenty of venues which hold back 2% or so of their inventory such that when the designer inevitably uses every light available to them and then needs to add a special, they can do so easily. But 60% practically is your inventory. Two dozen lights is another full stage system of crosslight, or backlight, or two systems of frontlight. It is the difference between “oh, well this will work well enough” and “Fantastic, this will work perfectly.”

We are always overcoming handicaps. There is never enough money or time or crew. It is always a tight squeeze to make it to opening. There is no reason at all to make it more difficult by not updating paperwork.

The issue of position placement in this case was not a paperwork concern. It was a venue guidelines concern. At one point a scenic wall was located such that I had access to place one boom. And that was fine. After a few discussions we decided that opening up the wall to allow a mirrored boom on the other side would be advantageous to the look of the show. And so we did.

The operators of the venue decided that, because the scenery was no longer obstructing the main curtain, they would rent out the space to corporate clients on dark days and tell them they had access to the main. Which they wanted. This, of course, was discovered after the drawings were submitted and the design complete.

A few days later I am told the booms need to move. In the rush to figure out a solution they end up placed in an inelegant location. On top of that, the larger inventory includes a larger house rep plot which impacts several other lighting ideas I had placed in other locations. So the quick fix move of a boom to a box boom, doubly impacts some other lights which can’t be hung as drawn due to rep plot concerns.

For me, the impact, until focus this afternoon when I actually survey the carnage, is a few quick drawing revisions and a couple of phone calls. For the ME it is hours of work and labor, along with the other electricians who also have to move these lights twice.

Further, because several lights are essentially moving to where there is room rather than where they want to be, there is a fine chance they will need to move again at focus or during notes sessions. This is unfortunate.

Had all of these factors been known clearly in advance the design would have been quite different. Had the use of sidelight truly been impossible, as it is proving, I would have used diagonals. Had I known about the additional rep units, I would have made different choices with regards to systems versus specials in the plot. With different angles, my color choices would have been different.

In short, I would have submitted a different design.

While the result we end up with will, I am sure, be perfectly serviceable for the show, it is a less than optimal situation. Making theater is hard work. There is no need to make it harder through unclear communication and out of date paperwork.

Tags: , ,
Posted in business, design | 2 Comments »

A Colorful Exchange

Monday, January 17th, 2011

I remember an exercise in my World History class freshmen year of High School. We were studying the Industrial Revolution and did a sort of game to understand the rapid rise in urban population which occurred in tandem with industrialization. Each student was given a piece of paper with a xeroxed hand drawn map of “London” on graph paper with a grid. Houses were one square, tenements 3×3, factories 5×5 and so on. The teacher would then say “Draw three houses” and we would outline three squares. Pretty soon the pace and scale of the requests got to be at the limit of our ability to draw. Needless to say everyone’s paper lost whatever semblance of order it had when they started. The lesson was that the rate of growth outpaced the ability to do any orderly urban planning.

This same problem, it seems, has plagued the manufacturers of lighting color media for the last several decades. The demand for new and increasingly precise color media has caused the companies to produce new and varied Gels at an alarming rate. Lee Filters, one of my favorites, solved their jumbled industrial revolution by switching from the Numeric Edition swatch book to the Designers Edition almost a decade ago.

The reasoning, which I fully understand, runs something like this: the colors in numeric order are such a jumble of red to blue to bastard amber to yellow to red to blue that it can be difficult to make sense of by browsing. Putting the items in numeric order places “Special Lavender” next to “Pale Green.” In an attempt to make the process more user friendly they devised the Designers Edition.

The Designers Edition solves the jumble problem by placing the colors along a chromatic scale. The reds gently flow into the ambers then to yellow then green, blue and finally into lavender and purple. It places L106 right next to L182 allowing for good comparisons.

Unfortunately this system is less than ideal for two reasons. The first is that I remember colors by number and not name. And my memory is imperfect. If I am under a tight schedule for a plot, sifting through the Designers Edition to confirm that it is L137 and not L138 that I want in my Box Booms takes too much time. The second reason, related to the first, is dealing with House Plots. When I get a hookup from a venue I just want to quickly find the numbers and see what the color is. I don’t want to cross reference a numeric listing to find the page the gel is on, sift through the book, and then double check that my conversion is right. I just want to look up the number.

The other week I was working on a plot. I was using my old and very beat up Numeric Edition swatch book which has many colors cut out for samples and tests or old scroller magic sheets and while it was in numeric order, it was more rundown than a derelict 19th century factory town. Being saddened by my inability to procure an up to date Numeric Edition swatch book for the better part of a decade I bemoaned my fate on Twitter and was quickly responded to by LeeFilters.

Less than a week later a small package arrived in the mail. Lee Filters has begun producing their Numeric Edition once again. Oh the joy! The rapture! The sheer ecstasy of this momentous event will cause the heavens to tremble.

The return of the Numeric Edition swatch book from Lee FIlters is a thing of beauty akin to the complete restoration of a beautiful old 19th Century Iron and Brick factory building. Now, as I write this, with swatch book laying beside me in the sunlight I feel a calm wash across me. The universe has come back into alignment. The imperfect beauty of the Lee swatch book has been returned to its Original form. Allowed to stand proud knowing that the colors contained therein are so strong and powerful they do not need the precise ordering of a chromatic scale.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in design | No Comments »

Fundamentals

Monday, January 10th, 2011

In learning new skills one, by necessity, focuses on fundamentals. You have to learn the rules before you can break them. Or you learn the rules so you know never to break them. In Zen mind, Beginner’s mind Shunryu Suzuki makes the observation that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.” Suzuki encourages the student to cultivate a Beginner’s Mind such that they might continue to see unlimited possibility as they progress through deeper levels of awareness and understanding.

This cultivation of a Beginner’s Mind is no less important to art as it is to the study of Zen Buddhism. As one progresses in their artistic life it is seductive to see one’s accomplishments as proof that they have mastered a subject or a technique. I have come to that line of thinking myself from time to time. When I find myself there, I try and force myself back to a beginner’s state. I refocus my efforts on the fundamentals. My essays on color theory were written more as my own personal exercise in fundamentals than they were an attempt to demonstrate mastery. The same was true when writing about templates or most any other subject that appears in this blog.

Reminding myself of fundamentals can be a truly difficult task at times. This can be especially true when working in a space I know well. “Oh yeah, the sidelight spaces out like such and such.” But every set is different. Every show is different. This show might need a steeper angle than that last one. The comedy a lower angle than the drama.

It can be a hard discipline to actually sit yourself down and do all the worksheets. I’ll admit I cut corners from time to time. But in the end it is a far more enjoyable experience to finish focus early and go out for drinks than it is to stay late and move a whole sidelight system. It happens both ways. For every designer who doesn’t check each zone of sidelight there is an electrician who eyeballs the distance between the lights. And when those two meet, oh boy will it be a long and painful focus session.

We are dynamic creatures. We are either growing or we are dying. We are moving forwards or we are moving backwards. Never are we actually still. In order to keep moving ourselves forward, to keep evolving as individuals and as artists, we must keep a focus on improving ourselves. Be that through emotional awareness or artistic craft, if we are not working to improve then we are allowing our skills to atrophy.

Fundamentals.

Some friends of mine recently published a book on Cocktails. The myriad recipes for divine ambrosia can be intimidating to look at. Someone coming at them, unfamiliar with contemporary cocktailing, might balk at the use of mango and jalapeno in a drink. Or worse, think that a cocktail is nothing more than a bunch of random food items mixed together with some obscure booze.

But the reason these recipes are so effective is that they are born out of an understanding of cocktail fundamentals. The oldest definition of a cocktail is from 1806 and defines it as “a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.” Rather simple. The Old Fashioned is the clearest example of this, but any classic cocktail, more or less, fits the bill. Many of these fancy newfangled cocktails are really just an elaboration on these original oldfangled cocktails.

Whether one is making a Filibuster or a Sazerac a knowledge of the fundamentals of cocktailing are necessary to make a first rate drink. Be they recipes from Jerry Thomas’ How to Mix drinks or the formulas laid down in David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, a master mixologist must know her fundamentals to make new concoctions worth drinking. Before inventing your own recipe, you need to master the Old Fashioned.

Design works the same way. Lighting is, first and foremost, about putting light where you want it and taking it away from where your don’t want it. Rather simple. This same principle applies whether we are talking about a one man monologue, or Spider-Man, or a tradeshow floor. The details might change. The technology might change. Yet the fundamental underlying principal remains the same.

This is why I like to look back at old lighting texts. Stanley McCandless or Jean Rosenthal deal in fundamentals. Back before we had automated everything, with hundreds of dimmers and almost limitless capacity, they were finding solutions to make a limited situation as flexible, durable, and dynamic as it could be. Returning to these basic texts can help us step back from the cutting edge of technology and actually look at what we are doing.

Finding access to that Beginner’s mind, focusing on the fundamentals, can keep us moving forward and perfecting our craft. With the Beginner’s Mind we keep working on the fundamentals, we keep growing. As we deepen our awareness we deepen the mastery of our craft.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in art, design, theory | 4 Comments »

Of The Earth – Pictures

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Below are images from the Shotgun Players 2010 production of Salt Plays Pt. 2 – Of The Earth

Written and Directed by: Jon Tracy
Scenery by: Nina Ball
Costumes by: Christina Yeaton
Video by: Lloyd Vance
Sound by: Brendan West


All photographs courtesy Pak Han

Tags: , ,
Posted in design, pictures, theatre | No Comments »

Of The Earth – Opens Tonight

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

Tonight is the opening of Of The Earth written and directed by Jon Tracy. This is a beautiful poetic piece with a very physical theatricality to the staging. If you saw Part 1 this past summer in the park you know what kind of awesome you are getting into.

I am very proud of my work on this piece. Along with my fellow collaborators we have created a dynamic visual and aural landscape that really should not be missed. Lest you think I am exaggerating, the production photos are quite stunning and capture the visual world of the play exquisitely.

Posted in design, theatre | No Comments »

Frontlight as a sculptural element

Monday, November 29th, 2010

I hear a lot of lighting designers say things like “frontlight is boring” and the more I think about it the less I find myself agreeing with this statement. Sure the typical, straight in front light at a 45 or even 30 degree angle is not the most dynamic. It does provide the useful function of clearly, cleanly, and evenly lighting faces.

A lot of the boredom comes, I think, from a certain resignation. Because “frontlight is boring” no effort is made to find an approach to frontlight that is sculptural. Frontlight can be quite interesting when the time and care is taken to treat it as a sculptural aesthetic element rather than a grudging necessity one hangs and focuses for bows.

This problem is largely an American problem. I say this because the American school of design, which traces itself in one way or another back to Stanley McCandless, treats a 45 degree angle as the base for all lighting. Sidelights, backlights (when possible), and frontlights all start from an assumption of 45 degrees up from the stage. While the “McCandless Method” has gone out of fashion along with its multi-colored diagonal frontlights, there are some ideas contained therein which might prove useful when applied within a contemporary aesthetic environment.

McCandless’ “Method” was born in an era of limited power, control, and instrumentation. These are not concerns we have as much today, but it forced him into a rigorous line of thinking which may be useful to return to. He developed his method as a means of providing the maximum variety and sculptural qualities to performers under extremely limited situations.

The somewhat blunt color approach to his use of diagonal frontlight may not hold up under contemporary aesthetic analysis, but the underlying intent is worth looking at. That intent being a well sculptured figure on stage. His specific solution may not apply, but we can all resonate with wanting to create a sculptural figure on stage. Using diagonal frontlight, though with consistent color, thus creating texture and variation through differing intensity levels, would be a more contemporary approach.

This is a sort of archeology of lighting aesthetics. It returns us to a foundational moment from which we may then build back up into the present to address our current aesthetic concerns. Simply modifying McCandless only goes so far. If our goal is creating a sculptural figure, we must base our decisions and analysis of lighting angles upon that premise.

Diagonal frontlight is far from the only means of creating a sculptural figure. In many circumstance it is also far from the ideal visual aesthetic. At a practical level, it doubles the required instrumentation needed. This can eat up valuable gear in limited situations and, of course, doubles the focus time for FOH positions. Then there is the matter of it lighting up a much more broad stage area than frontlight which comes straight in. Diagonals illuminate almost twice as much stage area as straight in frontlight, yet still only light about the same area at face level.

Footlights are a popular, though slowly going out of fashion, approach to finding a sculptural solution to frontlight. More so than diagonals, footlights light up a very broad area and are thus not right when maintianing a contained space is another requirement of the design. While beautiful under the right circumstances, the look is so emotionally specific that it can rarely be employed for general use.

An approach that is quite common in Europe, but surprisingly rare in the US, is steep angled frontlight. Pushing the lights up, past the 45 degree mark, to 70, or even 80 degrees, can turn this once boring lighting angle into a dramatically powerful storytelling device. What you lose from using so steep an angle is illumination of eye sockets and underneath any hats with brims. But what you gain is a tremendously powerful and evocative look.

Steep frontlight like this can easily be used on its own without being boring. It is very sculptural. It can also be readily used in conjunction with sidelight to get under hats and into eye sockets, or as fill to eliminate the harsh dark line caused by the exclusive use of sidelighting. Another wonderful benefit of steep frontlight like this is the very limited stage real estate taken up by the light. It is possible to isolate a performer distinctly and discretely while leaving as much stage space as possible unlit.

There are plenty of times where a flat angle is desired in one’s frontlight. Musical comedy and farce often want the bright faces and crisp eyes made possible by a flatter angle of frontlight. Perhaps the show is exploring themes of boredom and what is desired is blank, plain, lighting. In such cases a very flat frontlight may be just the right choice.

The larger question we are exploring is, “are you making a choice?” Is your lighting palette based upon an exploration of the dramatic needs of the piece in question or is it a formula? Thinking through these questions and really exploring the frontlight needs of the specific show will help to make the finished product not just good, but great.

Tags: , ,
Posted in design, theory | No Comments »

Dancers are people too

Monday, November 15th, 2010

There is an assumption that a lot of people make with dance lighting that somehow, because it is dance, we can ignore standards of beauty for lighting people. The range of colors which look good on human skin are actually quite narrow. Pale lavender, pale amber, clear incandescent light, and daylight. Anything much more saturated than this and skin tones start to look, well, inhuman.

I have seen more than one person, when seeing a color like L126, say something like “ooh there’s a dance color,” as though the medium itself somehow justifies making humans look like glowing neon space aliens.

These colors can be quite striking and bold. They can be beautiful and the right choice in the right moment. But to assume they are somehow “dance colors” is to unnecessarily limit one’s thinking when approaching dance.

Strong color can be a powerful tool in dance. Especially in modern dance, where there is little to no scenery, color becomes a primary element in the visual storytelling of the piece. Yet when we are lighting the human form, such colors are, more often than not, ugly.

The skin of a dancer is no different than the skin of an actor, or an opera singer, or a CEO. It looks alive and vibrant in the same range of colors and looks sick and dead in similar ways. Magenta, green, yellow, and even dark blue, all have their place, but are in no way inherent to dance.

I remember reading a letter to the arts editor of the San Francisco Chronicle years ago criticizing an SF Ballet piece. The critique said something to the effect of “with all these new lights available like LEDs I am at a loss as to why Ms. Tipton lit the entire piece in white light.” The implication being that because one could use color, one should use color. There was no thought that perhaps one of the greatest living lighting designers in the world had something else in mind.

Dance is not about color. Dance is about the emotional expression of the human experience through movement. It is movement that defines dance. Perhaps it is the, often, non-literal nature of dance which leads people to assume that wild colors are the best and only solution. But that line of thinking does a disservice to the dance itself. It takes one’s inability, or more likely unwillingness, to engage with the work on its own terms and uses that as justification for a bold lighting scheme.

A green dancer, unless they are supposed to be an alien, or perhaps the embodiment of jealousy (and even then I would be wary and probably let the costume tell that story), is not beautiful. It might look neat but it does not do the dancer justice. We must approach our use of color in dance from the point of view of making the most beautiful work possible. If we just want beautiful and colorful light we can go do installations. In a collaborative art form we are responsible for making all our collaborators work, and this includes the performers, look as beautiful as possible.

Angle, far more than color, brings a dance to light. Sculpting the form in space, engaging with the kinesthetic being on stage, is what truly makes a dance. Sidelights are typically used, not because they are “dance lighting,” but because they treat the human figure with a sculptural focus that is unparalleled by other lighting angles.

Shins and Mids, typically with bottom cuts off the floor, allow us to light a dancer without lighting any of the surrounding environment, wings, cyc, or floor. Head-His, while grazing the floor still keep most of the light on the dancer and off the rest of the space. As we move vertically we get a stronger lighting hit on the floor, and consequently bounce on legs, cyc, borders, and other elements that are not dancers.

When using color, one would do well to consider these facts of how different lighting angles light different things. One could light the dancer in flattering colors for skin tones and still make strong, bold, color choices in the backlight or cyc lighting. This way one creates a whole world of color in which the dancer floats effortlessly. The colors on the dancer can then be very flattering to their particular skin tone without negatively impacting the designer’s impulse towards a strong and bold use of color.

Powerful and vibrant colors have their place in dance lighting. They can be an amazing way of communicating strong emotions to the audience. The use of color must come from within the dance. It must not be an arbitrary imposition from the outside. Discovering, and then revealing, the inner truth of the movement, is the job of the lighting designer in dance.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in dance, design | No Comments »

Artistic Inspiration

Monday, November 8th, 2010

One of the luxuries most artists have, which designers (and other artists for hire) do not have, is the ability to create on their own schedule. Someone who paints, or draws, or sculpts just for the fun of it can take as long as they would like to create something. If a canvas, or a comic book, or a screenplay takes them 25 years to finish, so be it. For a designer, specifically a theatrical designer, we have a hard deadline of opening night. No matter the circumstances in our lives, we have to get up and be creative. We go to work and we make art.

One of the most difficult issues that an artist grapples with is inspiration. Well, inspiration and money, but we’ll focus on the aesthetics for now. For the artist on their own schedule they have the leisure and good fortune to wait until inspiration descends upon them. For the designer or artist-for-hire we must grab inspiration when we need it. Sometimes it is like a hunt, trekking through dense jungles of the subconscious searching, in vain, for that elusive thing called inspiration.

While not every project will be inspired from the depths of one’s soul there are ways of creating inspiration. This may sound odd to those used to waiting for inspiration to strike them, but it can not only be done, but can be done quite effectively.

One of the most direct ways to find inspiration is other artists. Now, if you are designing scenery for Billy Budd perhaps other productions of the opera are not the best route to take as that will often lead to second rate derivative works. But one might look to 18th century paintings of naval vessels for a literal interpretation. Perhaps if you want to echo 20th century political themes, your research might take you to the constructivists.

Personally I find photography to be one of the most resonant mediums for me to find creative inspiration. The work of Richard Misrach is one of my standard go to texts. His formal study of light, using the same exact frame, to capture myriad skies, gives an almost limitless source of inspiration for thinking through a sky drop.

Paul Strand is a favorite for thinking through abstract spaces. His 1915 print Wall Street is a strikingly theatrical look at the real world. Almost operatic in scope, this simple morning scene is transformed through the artist’s rendering of light and shadow. His The White Fence takes another infinitely mundane scene and transforms it into an abstract canvass of great depth and drama. While any reproduction will never do justice to his original platinum print, the frame alone is a powerful thing of beauty.

For more abstracted pieces, I find the work of Man Ray to be singularly useful. His profound humanism, framed within a surrealist approach, brings to life a world of deep and primal emotions. Cindy Sherman provides a very similar frame, though firmly rooted in the world of color.

Several painters I find particularly useful when a color palette just won’t come to me. Marc Chagall’s color sense is almost unparalleled in his ability to convey deep and serious emotions while maintaining an air of play in his works.

Another great source for color is the natural world. While there are any number of computer programs that can pair colors for you that will look good, nothing beats looking at fruit and vegetables. An heirloom tomato, or a banana, or a cucumber, or a honey dew melon, have a perfect color palette ripe for the taking.

Sometimes listening to music can be a powerful inspiration. Other time I just need to get out of my studio and go for a walk through the park, or the cemetery.

When you are feeling uninspired by a project it can be almost painful to get out the drafting pencils and get to work. Spending some time with some great art is never a waste. And it might just be the springboard to a beautiful design.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in design | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Creative Commons License

All text on this site, unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All other rights reserved.