College Production

[casschr05]

Hey,

not many posts here (sorry :) ) but I am on a performing arts collge course

I have an interest in technical theatre and I have been tech operator for many productions however I am now the actor :D

We are currently working on a 'Horror' production with a working title of 'Toys'

I play the character 'Dad' and have a prduction role of Tech director.

I have ideas for sound but what lighting would you use for a bedroom scene at night? I am probably use darks lighting and a window gobo.

would this be suitable? (I havent had to design lighting for a night scene before)

plus my tutor gave me good news earlier I am going to swap two units (both acting) and replacing them with a unit on 'Assitant stage management' and 'Stage Management' :D so I am glad I decided to do this course

 

thanks

[gherriott]

You have to take a look at say your bedroom at night and then pinpoint where your main sources of light are coming from. Are they coming from natural sources such as the moon or unnantural ones such as an outside street lamp of a bedside lamp. If you want to go into detail you can also look at adding in things like equipment lights that are on standby and so on. If it is a room being lit from sources outside the window then you can use a window gobo as your 'key light' and then use a suitable colour wash at a low level to act as your 'fill light'. The fill light is a trick used on stage to help the audience see everything, and when used in conjunction with some key light such as the gobo or a bedside lamp or something, it creates the illusion of the scene being dimly lit but in actual fact it is much brighter than it would be in real life. I hope I am making sense here. Maybe you can give us more of an idea as to what time of night, whether a light is on inside or not and so on...

[Just Some Bloke]

The window gobo is a good idea, but think about the scene itself: would the curtains be open or closed? If they would be closed then the winow gobo wouldn't be appropriate. If they would be open then that would be fine. A half-way option - blinds? Nice gobos available there.

 

{Example: From 'Spoonface Steinberg' Hazlitt Arts Centre earlier this year}

[dizzidido4]

Hey,

not many posts here (sorry :( ) but I am on a performing arts collge course

I have an interest in technical theatre and I have been tech operator for many productions however I am now the actor

We are currently working on a 'Horror' production with a working title of 'Toys'

I play the character 'Dad' and have a prduction role of Tech director.

I have ideas for sound but what lighting would you use for a bedroom scene at night? I am probably use darks lighting and a window gobo.

would this be suitable? (I havent had to design lighting for a night scene before)

plus my tutor gave me good news earlier I am going to swap two units (both acting) and replacing them with a unit on 'Assitant stage management' and 'Stage Management' ;) so I am glad I decided to do this course

 

thanks

 

Open up your mind... lose the gobo and come up with another way of showing where the scene is set.

 

The advice to actually look at ur room (and possibly other rooms) at night and focusing on where you want the light source to come from is very good advice.

 

The reason I say lose the gobo is because a) it is over-used and b) it's actually quite hard to pull off effectively. Hope you come up with an effective way of achieving your goal ;)

[casschr05]

thanks to everyone that posted with advice that really helped me

I apologise for not being able to come back on here since I originally posted simple because of Internet issues I have had

 

I thought you might be interested to know that in the end I decided that because of the play (improvised horror) I would concentrate on the sound so it gave that 'scary' effect and used dark lighting throughout the night scenes where the girl was awake but when she started having nightmares it turned red with a hint of yellow from a profile on the bed

 

I think in a way it was difficult to design the lighting as it was an improvisation without a script so things kept changing dramatically so I am glad I didn't go for a gobo

 

thanks again,

Chris