Posts Tagged ‘stanley mccandless’

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.

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Color Theory Basics – Hue

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Our discussion of color theory begins with a look at Hue. Hue is the most basic element of a color and what most people think of when they think “color.” Hue refers to the specific wavelengths of light which hit your retina and cause you to experience sensations like “red” or “yellow” or “green.” Because this is such a foundational element of color theory this post will be a bit long and involved. But it’s worth it!

While the colors of pigments and the colors of light are all the same, their relationships differ between mediums. Primary and Secondary Colors differ when discussing pigment or light. The relationship of these colors, as well as what you can mix to make which colors, vary depending on what medium you are using. The first rule of color: Everything is Relative.

We have all been introduced to a color wheel at some point in our lives. The color wheel is a visual representation of colors and their various relationships to one another. To make a color wheel we draw a circle and then divide it into six even sized wedges. We fill every other wedge with the three Primary Colors; Red, Yellow, and Blue. With the remaining three alternate wedges we put in our Secondary Colors; Orange, Purple, and Green.

Primary colors are those which can not be mixed together through the use of other colors. Secondary Colors are a combination of equal parts of two Primary Colors. Thus Red+Yellow=Orange, Yellow+Blue=Green, and Blue+Red=Purple. The formula of combining colors follows to create Tertiary Colors and so on. The mixing of all these colors will affect both the Hue and the Chroma. Chroma is where the hue lands in a range of Gray to pure Hue.

Special Note: Modern printing techniques using Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (and Black) seem to indicate that this traditional view of color pigment relationships is incorrect. Cyan and Yellow ink, for example, combine to make Green.

With all that said, here is the traditional color wheel we all learned in elementary school art class:

When we mix all three primary colors together in equal parts we get Black. In theory. In reality you tend to get a dark brown and can actually create some wonderful variations in brown by slightly altering the proportions of the different colors used.

The behavior of light is very different. The primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue. While the secondary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Amber (Yellow). With light Red+Green=Amber, Green+Blue=Cyan, and Blue+Red=Magenta. Not only that but an even mixture of all three primary colors produces White light. In theory. In reality one tends to create shades of Gray.

The lighting Color Wheel looks like this:

It is interesting to note that if we replace the traditional pigment color wheel with the revised one based on CMYK printing we discover that the Primary and Secondary Colors of light and pigment are not just different, but are totally inverted. We can use this to our advantage by turning brightly colored surfaces black with differently colored light as I will discuss below.

The effect of Hue variation on the color of Costumes and Scenery can be tremendous. By knowing the relationship between the Primary and Secondary colors you can create striking effects. What I call “Sympathetic Hues” are colors in light which contain elements of, but are distinct from, the Hue of a Costume or Scenic piece.

Let’s take the classic Woman-in-a-Red-Dress. When she enters at the top of the staircase we really want her to shine. As such we would use colors on the dress which are sympathetic to, or enhance, the dress color. In this case we could use a red like the dress. If we wanted two colors from opposite sides we could use a combination of colors like Magenta and Amber. Here we see the Hue of the light is making the intent of our collaborator (the Costume designer) stronger by reinforcing her bold color statement.

The drawbacks of this are that we could ruin the designer’s intent. This typically happens with heavily saturated light and delicate or intricate costumes or scenery. The color becomes so dominant that we lose the pattern, which may have been for a particular design purpose. One of our primary jobs is to make our collaborator’s work look the best it can (and how they intend it to look!). A deep understanding of color will allow us to do that.

Another drawback to such a broad statement would be the light on the performer. I don’t know many people in real life who have saturated red skin (or blue or green). So while the color might be the right idea for the dress, it might not be the right idea for the performer. The Woman-in-the-Yellow-Dress should not look jaundiced, for example.

A color whose position is opposite another color on the wheel in known as a “Complementary Color.” Complementary colors can create striking and dynamic effects when placed next to one another (or in lighting, when coming from opposing angles). This strength does a curious thing when a pigment is lit with its compliment. A Cyan floor, bathed in Red light, will appear Black to the human eye. We can use this to great effect by obscuring a scenic element until just the right moment of revelation. The risk, of course, is in destroying our collaborator’s intent by deadening the colors of their impeccably designed scenery.

Here we can see the relationship between compliments:

In addition to Primary, Secondary, or Complementary Colors we can also group Hue into one of three categories; Warm, Cool, and Neutral. Warm Hues include Red and Orange. Cool Hues include Blue and Cyan. Neutral Hues include Green and Magenta.

Warm, Cool, and Neutral are not absolute, but relative. In our example above, the red dress is treated as Neutral while a Cool Red (Red with a little blue, but not so much as to be Magenta) light might come from one side and a Warm Red (Red veering towards Amber, but still clearly Red) from the other. In this way we have the effect of complimentary colors (Blue and Yellow) creating a striking effect, while using only Hues which are sympathetic to the color choice of our collaborator.

One final word on Complementary colors and light is worth noting at this point. If you have a single source of light, say the sun at midday, which casts a shadow, the color of the shadow is the complementary color of the light. While this can be hard to see with something so subtle as sunlight, try it some time under a Sodium Vapor (Orange) street light. The shadow should have a faint tinge of Blue or Cyan.

This color effect can be used to the designer’s advantage in myriad ways. One could simply exaggerate the shadow color on stage through a hard directional light in one’s chosen Hue and a soft diffuse light in the shadow color. Alternately this idea could be employed by choosing opposing colors of Head Hi booms.

One of the most famous uses of this color effect is in the lighting method outlined by Stanley McCandless in his A Method of Lighting the Stage in which he suggests using Diagonal Frontlight in complementary colors from opposite directions. His “warm” and “cool” area lights could easily be made more specific using this knowledge of the shadow color of a light.

Hue is a foundational element to our understanding of color but it is by no means all there is. In later posts I will be exploring Saturation and Chroma, Missing Color Syndrome, Dominant and Recessive Colors, Color Correction, Gray, The Effect of Lamp Type, and Additive vs. Subtractive Color Mixing.

Stay Tuned!

I hope you found this post useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. There is a lot more to cover on Hue alone and I may do so in later supplements to this series.

Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.

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From the Archives: Is Stanley McCandless German? OR The Rediscovery of Shadow in Contemporary Culture

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Note: This post originally appeared in July of 2006. It has been slightly edited to account for grammatical errors.

Theoretically the whole acting area might be lighted with one powerful instrument directing its beams to the stage from a distance, at an angle which would light up the face of the actor somewhat as the rays from the sun make objects visible on a sunny day.
–Stanley McCandless, A method for Lighting the Stage

During his time a single light that could cover an entire stage was nothing but theory yet now such technology is commonplace. The film industry has found a need to brightly illuminate large areas in a color identical to daylight such that the camera does not pick up the difference between the sun and the artificial lighting in the photography. Because of that need the HMI Fresnel was born. HMI is a kind of lamp that operates much like a fluorescent or neon in that there is a glass container with chemicals in it that gets flooded with electricity and lets off (very bright) light. Although originally designed for film these lights have found their way into theaters initially through European opera houses.

The difference between an HMI and a traditional incandescent lamp is like comparing watercolor to oil paint. One can achieve the same range of colors, perhaps, but the actual quality of the medium is quite different. By using these large lighting instruments one can achieve effects that are quite simply impossible with ‘area lighting.’ One of the biggest issues is shadows. Often in American theater productions one sees a stage floor covered with lots and lots of tiny shadows. These are the result of lots and lots of tiny little lights focused into lots and lots of little areas. This is common in so called ‘naturalism’ and yet it is about as unnatural as one can get. When we walk out into the sun at 4:30 in the afternoon we see a single shadow cast from a single source of light. Perhaps two shadows if we are near a building with a reflective glass wall. But nowhere, unless we are in an artificial environment, do we have twenty-three or more shadows one sees on a typical American stage floor.

I am not arguing for an aesthetic that knows only deep shadow. If everything were like that, it would get as boring as unchanging shadowless light. A deeper appreciation for shadow could greatly enhance the beauty and dynamism of the American stage. In some ways this is a political stance. I never watch TV unless I am on an airplane, but when I have the chance one of my favorite things to watch is Fox News. Their lighting designer must be one of the most brilliant propagandists alive. Watch one of their cable news shows some time it is fascinating. All the anchors are lit so evenly that there is not a single shadow to be found. They represent the ‘truth.’ They are ‘fair and balanced.’ Then they have their Conservative guests on camera who have slight shadows. Nothing big, but just enough to differentiate them from the hosts. Finally you have anyone other than a conservative wingnut. They always, ALWAYS, have a shadow underneath their chin. Minor issue right? Who cares? Indeed. No one cared in 1962 when Nixon and Kennedy debated on television. Appearance in front of a camera means nothing. Nothing at all.

Shadows indicate secrets. Subconsciously we know this somewhere. It is an accepted part of our culture. Shadow = untruth. Or at least half truth. We can not believe the shadowed figure as much as our fair and balanced hosts. They have nothing to hide, so we must trust them. I do not believe this was always the case. For shadow means something else entirely. It means Mystery. Sometimes a divine mystery one is rightly in awe of. One need only look at the paintings of Rembrandt or Caravaggio or El Greco to see a strong Western tradition that appreciates the beauty of the shadow.

It is time to reclaim the beauty of shadows. Like Tanizaki did for Japanese culture with In Praise of Shadows, we must relearn the beauty and truth of shadow. They need not be things to fear so long as we know how to approach them. Batman after all, one of the greatest dark heros of modern mythology, hides in the shadows. We are afraid, as a culture, to look inside ourselves and stare at the void. We are much more content to turn on the television and be told about our fair and balanced world. But it is time for our art to show us that void. If we can not go there unaided, then our art, our cultural subconscious, must be brought to the surface of our attention. We must learn to stare out at the dark expanse of human consciousness and see possibility and potential. We must learn to live in praise of shadows.

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Plotting Structure

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

I got my cue list for Artfuckers digitized last night. Although the show is over I like to keep an archive on everything I do in digital format. I have no interest in piles and piles of paper filling up my studio. At the same time it is important to keep records of everything as you never know what might go on someplace new. I know too many designers who save every piece of paper associated with a show. Given how cheap digital storage space is it seems silly to me to do this.

Even if you work by hand with cue lists, magic sheets and so forth a PDF converter is rather cheap. Then, when a show comes back to life after several years it is just a matter of entering in the relevant search terms rather poking through boxes filled with files and papers for hours and hours.

Entering all the information into a spreadsheet took a little bit of time. The programming on the show was rather complex. We dealt with transitions by using a strobe effect, and then there were a handful of color scrollers that had to be managed. In order to keep everything looking neat and clean this all had be constructed out of multi-part linked cue sequences and a whole slew of complicated macros that launched effects and cues and so on. All this just to make the show look simple and clean.

Sometimes the simplest of things can have very complex structures. Although a slightly different model, this is what I love about the work of Antoni Gaudi. His constructions look like these fantastical and whimsical things born from the dreams of a madman. Yet, the underlying geometry of his architecture is both elegant and precise.

This idea can be applied to many things. In lighting it is very important to understand the principals of symmetry. Nine times out of ten a light plot wants to be perfectly symmetrical. This does not mean that the compositions are symmetrical, after all one need not, and often does not want to, create purely symmetrical compositions. But while asymmetry can be achieved by the simple effect of turning one light on brighter than another, symmetry can never be achieved through an asymmetrical base.

There are of course exceptions to this. In fact, the entire system set out by Stanley McCandless is based on an asymmetrical approach to the construction of the lighting plot.

Regardless of what structure one uses to create the final compositions for a piece, the structure underlying it necessarily determines what the final product will be. Just as in the construction of a story, the plot is necessary to determine the possibilities of that story, different stories can arise from the same plot.

In fact there are more than just linguistic similarities between a story plot and a lighting plot. The plot is the structure, the architecture, the rhythmic mathematics that lays the foundation for a work. It is a central tool for the construction of the final story or composition. It is a necessary element towards the final work. When well designed, it does not force a particular course of action. Rather the plot occasions exploration.

A good plot opens up possibilities, just as a good playscript opens up production possibilities while a poor script limits production possibilities. Shakespeare, from a performative standpoint, is one of the best playwrights precisely because his texts are never closed. There is never a definitive production. There is always a question left open for later artists to explore. His texts, more than telling a story or professing a worldview, occasion exploration. They are the blueprint for possibility.

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Focusing on Last Words

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Halfway through focus today for The Last Word I realized that I have never lit a realistic interior. I have lit plenty of interiors, but they have been in musicals or somehow highly stylized spaces. I have lit quite a few realistic exteriors, with Becoming Adele being the most recent. But the realistic interior is something I have only done as a theoretical project in various classes.

Realistic plays enjoy their own degree of complexity and challenge in a way that more abstract works do not. This play is set in a rundown office space with an overhead fluorescent fixture and light through the windows. The light takes the lead from the fluorescent and is cold and soft.

Focus went well today. It was a little slower than I would have liked, but the space is deceptively tricky. So it took longer for the electricians to move around the room than would be ideal. But we got done. I think it will look nice. The trick of course is to maintain the realism of the piece and still have it be dramatically viable. Really this is all behind the scenes stuff. The conversations we had were about relating the scenery to the costumes to the lighting such that we could create the drama in something that through outward appearances looks like nothing special.

This is part of my job that I find fascinating. There used to be an idea about design that if you noticed it, something was wrong. In today’s world that is hardly a rule. In fact many shows work precisely because a costume or a lighting effect is particularly noticeable and calls attention to itself. This is not one of those shows. This is definitely a place where if you notice it, there may well be some thing wrong.

The lighting is also very old fashioned. Well, it is actually a hybrid of old and new. This is perfect for the play itself which deals with generational conflict as a central device through the piece. The color sense is highly modern, very contemporary. Yet the choice of angles could be pulled right out of Stanley McCandless 101.

My thinking about the lighting for this piece has been very strongly focused on the architectural reality of the play. After all, if we design the room right, then all we need do is make that room make visual sense. The set is fantastic. It is just the right balance of depressing and gloom yet still light enough to let this very comedic piece work on the several levels it needs to.

We begin rehearsals in the space tomorrow. So far things have been fairly relaxed, at least so far as I have seen. This promises to be a pleasant experience. Now go buy tickets!

Manhattan from Brooklyn

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Is Stanley McCandless German? OR The Rediscovery of Shadow in Contemporary Culture

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Theoretically the whole acting area might be lighted with one powerful instrument directing its beams to the stage from a distance, at an angle which would light up the face of the actor somewhat as the rays from the sun make objects visible on a sunny day.
–Stanley McCandless, A method for Lighting the Stage

During his time a single light that could cover an entire stage was nothing but theory, but now such technology is commonplace. The film industry has found a need to brightly illuminate large areas in a color identical to daylight, such that the camera does not pick up the difference between the sun and the artificial lighting in the photography. Because of that need, the HMI Fresnel was born. HMI is a kind of lamp that operates much like a fluorescent or neon in that there is a glass container with chemicals in it that gets flooded with electricity and lets off (very bright) light. Although originally designed for film, these lights have found their way into theaters, primarily through European opera houses and increasingly in the US as well.

The difference between an HMI and a traditional incandescent lamp is like comparing watercolor to oil paint. One can achieve the same range of colors, perhaps, but the actual quality of the medium is quite different. By using these large lighting instruments one can achieve effects that are quite simply impossible with ‘area lighting.’ One of the biggest issue is shadows. Often in American theatre productions one sees a stage floor covered in lots and lots of tiny shadows. These are the result of lots and lots of tiny little lights focused into lots of little areas. This is very common in so called ‘naturalism’ and yet it is about as unnatural as one can get. When we walk out into the sun at 4:30 in the afternoon, we see a single shadow cast from a single source of light. Perhaps two if we are near a building with a reflective glass wall. But nowhere, unless we are in an artificial environment, do we have the twenty-three shadows one sees on a typical American stage floor.

Now, I am not arguing for an aesthetic that knows only shadows. If everything were like that, it would get as boring as anything else. But, a deeper appreciation for shadow could greatly enhance the beauty and dynamism of the American stage. In some ways this is a political stance. I never watch TV unless I am on an airplane, but when I have the chance my favorite thing to watch is Fox News(or Faux News, in the patriotic dialect). Their lighting designer must be one of the most brilliant propagandists alive. Watch one of their cable news shows some time, it is fascinating. All the anchors are lit so evenly that there is not a single shadow to be found. After all they represent the ‘truth’ they are ‘fair and balanced.’ So then they have their Conservative guests on camera who have slight shadows. Nothing big, but just enough to differentiate them from the hosts. Finally you have anyone other than a conservative wingnut. They always, ALWAYS, have a shadow underneath their chin. Minor issue right? Who cares? Indeed. No one cared in 1962 when Nixon and Kennedy debated on television. Appearance in front of a camera means nothing. Nothing at all.

Shadows mean secrets. Subconsciously we know this somewhere. It is an accepted part of our culture. Shadow = untruth. Or at least half truth. We can not believe the shadowed figure as much as our fair and balanced hosts. They have nothing to hide, so we must trust them. I do not believe this was always the case. For shadow means something else entirely. It means Mystery. One need only look at the paintings of Rembrandt or Caravaggio or El Greco to see a strong Western tradition that appreciates the beauty of the shadow.

It is time to reclaim the beauty of shadows. Like Tanizaki did for Japanese culture with In Praise of Shadows, we must relearn the beauty and truth of shadows. They need not be things to fear, so long as we know how to approach them. Batman after all, one of the greatest dark hero’s of modern mythology, hides in the shadows. We are afraid, as a culture to look inside ourselves and stare at the void. We are much more content to turn on the television and be told about our fair and balanced world. But it is time for our art to show us that void. If we can not go there unaided, then our art, our cultural subconscious, must be brought to the surface of our attention. We must learn to stare out at the dark expanse of human consciousness and see possibility and potential. We must learn to live in praise of shadows.

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Posted in design, theatre, theory | 6 Comments »

Methodical Thinking

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

A method for Lighting the Stage by Stanley McCandless was first printed in 1932. My personal copy is a 1984 reprint of the 1963 correction to the Fourth Edition that was first printed in 1958. I mention this only because this book was, and by many people still is considered a primary text for lighting design. Rather than being “a” method during all those years, it was considered by many to be “the” method.

The specifics of the book are uninteresting to anyone but a specialist, so I will glaze over them for the moment. The basic idea is this. Light, in any setting is motivated by some source, i.e. a lamp, the sun, a fire, etc. Thus, any object that is hit by that source has essentially two sides, a light side and a shadow side. McCandless then divided up the stage space into a grid of acting ‘areas’ and into each area would focus two lights, each coming from the front on a 45 degree angle. One would be warm, perhaps a pale amber, and one would be cool, a blue. Which was which depended upon where the lamp or window or whatever was placed. This is a very efficient means of lighting a stage space. You cover the entire stage and you can control the relative brightness or dimness of different locations on stage. If you have six areas, you need twelve lights. Clean, simple, done.

Much of what was going on in McCandless’ thinking had to do with problem solving for a much less advanced technology than we now have available. Power and control were two of his main concerns. In those days there simply was not enough electricity to power more than a few dozen lights. And controlling them was an insane job taking several electricians operating large panels of levers. Then and now is like comparing a mid-century computer and the latest laptop. One is large, bulky and slow, the other small, fast and efficient. For his time it was an amazing and progressive way of dealing with a very real situation. And this is a situation many people still find themselves in in the ‘indie-theatre’ world, where power and control are the first concern and art the second. The Method is a great way to turn minimalism by circumstance into minimalism by design.

The real tragedy of McCandless’ legacy is that too often his writing is taken literally, that one must light a show from the box booms with amber from one side and blue from another. If you want an old fashioned look, then this is certainly the source to begin with, but I would hope that our aesthetic sensibilities have evolved past the 1930′s. What I find interesting about going back to texts like this is to try and extract the essence of the idea, the motivation behind the specifics and then attempt to apply it to a contemporary setting. This is what I was getting at yesterday,

Both McCandless and Carson’s work is concerned with a kind of economy of volume. That is how to fill a stage both efficiently and beautifully. While the final product could not be more different, in many ways they stem from the same origin.

While we were working on Norma at the San Francisco Opera, Heather turned to me and said with a wry smile, “See, that’s how you light an opera for less than $12,000.” Both of these designers are interested in an economy of volume. They want to fill the space elegantly and beautifully, minimizing waste and maximizing the dramatic story telling. Their motivation is the same, where they differ, truly, is a matter of aesthetics. McCandless is looking for some replication of reality, while Carson’s concern is the idea. Her work tends to be very intellectually engaging and cerebral. It is very abstract, but the light follows very clearly defined rules of movement and transformation.

The conventional American style of lighting a play is in many ways an evolution of the McCandless idea. However, rather than a reworking of the initial impulse, an economy of volume, it has been a modification of the ‘area lighting.’ The stage is broken up into many little areas and a lot of little spotlights are pointed at those areas from various directions and in several colors. Virtually every theatre in the U.S. is equipped to light a show based on some variation of this idea. It is a very effective means of lighting a stage, but in many ways it feels like its aesthetic usefulness is coming to a close. I certainly do not envision seeing a broadway show radically diverge from this model any time soon, but something about it feels increasingly out of place in the modern world.

My fundamental problem is that it looks at the performer as an object. As little more than a moving prop that talks. The actor moves, the light moves, simple and easy. Yet, there is so much more available to light than mere illumination. Film understands this. The great cinematographers use light as a dynamic storytelling device in ways that are almost unthinkable in the theatre. There is a fallacy among a lot of people in the theatre that ‘if I can’t see their eyes I can’t hear them.’ Yet, Marlon Brando was heard throughout The Godfather while cloaked in shadow for most of his screen time. A cursory look at the Noir genre shows the almost limitless potential of light as storytelling device.

Revealing the actor to the audience is the primary goal of lighting. Yet how that revelation occurs is something that must be answered uniquely at every moment. A character is not simply illuminated. They are revealed. They are revealed existing within a given psychological and physical context. The are revealed through someone’s perception. They are revealed in relationship to some one or some thing. The performer does more, much more, than simply stand here, then there. They live. They exist as a complex matrix of thoughts and feelings and action. It is that whole that must be revealed, not just the deed of crossing the stage.

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Posted in design, opera, theory | 4 Comments »

un/conventional

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

So far for next season I have been hired for two shows because of a reputation I have for “unconventional” lighting. I understand the intent behind this categorization, but I find it curious that my work is seen as unconventional. Perhaps this comes from the fact that I do not think, initially about theatricalizing the text, but approach my work at a more formal visual level. When I am lighting a show I do not think first about lekos and fresnels and gobos and gels. Rather I think visually in terms of what quality of light do I wish to create. Are we interested in directional lighting or soft diffuse lighting? Do we want a compressed grey scale or something very chromatic. Should the light be solid or dappled? This is why I love using images to discuss lighting a show. It keeps the conversation focused on what the lighting should look like rather than technical execution. That part comes later, much later. At the beginning of a process it is about looking and reacting.

Because of this approach I get sold on the look rather than the technique. As a result I use a mixture of traditional theatrical lights and other types of lighting instruments. Heather Carson taught at NYU my first year of graduate school and I had the pleasure of assisting her at San Francisco Opera this past season on a production of Norma. Heather is a designer known for her “unconventional” lighting. How she came about it is quite interesting. Working on a lot of European opera with Paul Steinberg, who creates large architectural sets, she began exploring architectural lighting. This search has led her to embrace an aesthetic composed almost exclusively sodium and mercury flood lights as well as fluorescent lighting. For those of you who are unfamiliar, sodium lights are the yellow street lamps and mercury, the white/green parking lot lights. Her work is quite stunning and very powerful.

Working and studying with her gave me a strong appreciation of the power and beauty of a much wider array of lighting instruments than I had previously explored. Let’s think of a lamp post at night. Most of us have probably seen some scene in a play that takes place outside where the characters are supposed to be standing under a street lamp. The lighting designer took a spot light, made the edges very soft and colored it some shade of yellow or amber. The effect feels little to nothing like a streetlight. An actual street lamp has a very beautiful quality to it. The light is very intense when you are close to it. Harsh and almost disorienting. As you move away the light thins out and dissipates rapidly. Far away there is a thin breath of light, barely visible. Certainly there is something here to be said for dramatic effect, but if what one wants is a streetlight, nothing can do that better than the real thing.

In Cupid and Psyche I was expressly interested in the quality of light. I was exploring the relationship between the formal quality of light and the creation of psychological space. We had quite a number of locations to deal with on a single set, so delineating the location came down to lighting. Two of the most important locations in the play were Cupid’s cloud where he laments his lovelstruck woe and the Apolo’s palace where Cupid takes Psyche to woo her. These two physical locations simultaneously represented psychological spaces as well. The palace was lit with 23 large tear shaped incandescent bulbs. They gave off a warm glow and reflected the other lights in their glass. This gave a kind of jewel like sparkle to the palace. The cloud on the other hand was a space of lovesick anguish. It was lit in a diffuse, soft, cold, grey light. Fluorescent tubes hidden behind the fabric walls of the set were the primary lighting for this location.

Had I limited myself to the conventional palette used by a theatrical lighting designer for Cupid and Psyche, the show would have been just that, conventional. In Suspendida we lit the entire piece in bare lightbulbs laying on the ground. Here the lights on the ground pulsed like breath, slow and deliberate, It was actually a very complex random sequence of programming, such that every time we performed the piece, the lighting was different. Looking beyond the conventional means of working a scene or an entire piece can be very difficult. A lot of the tradition has come about precisely because it works. But the sad reality is that a lot of work ends up looking very similar.

What I have found interesting is that as a result of doing a lot of “unconventional” lighting, I am able to take a conventional piece and give it a kind of unique quality. This is why I love working in a variety of mediums as well as in both traditional entertainment and more avant garde work. The different works talk to each other through me and inform one another in often surprising ways.

I was once working on a piece that wanted to be very “old-fashioned” in style, so I went back to the work of Stanley McCandless. What I ended up with was a modern interpretation of his ideas. And that research led me down some very interesting and exciting avenues of thought specifically in the realm of color theory that I might not have otherwise explored. The old and the new are often surprisingly close to one another. Both McCandless and Carson’s work is concerned with a kind of economy of volume. That is how to fill a stage both efficiently and beautifully. While the final product could not be more different, in many ways they stem from the same origin.

It is because of this that I find labels like ‘unconventional’ to be rather strange. In fact the whole idea of an Avant Garde sounds hopelessly mid-century to me. If for no other reason than the rate at which information is disseminated and absorbed into culture, the idea of an advanced rank of artists or producers of culture is just plain silly. Any work that has reached completion is already old and dead. The revolution is not a single event. It is not a deed or an act. Rather it is like the Aristotilian notion of Praxis, it is an underlying motivation that must and will continue until it has reached its final goal. If that final goal is a product then the revolution will die. If, rather it is a way of Being, a mode of existence, then it will continue on forever, always finding new sources of fuel and new means of expression.

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