Animal Farm

[tobybennett]

Hi All,

 

I am lighting the famous Orwell based production 'Animal Farm'. At my dispensal is a host of conventionals (everything from Minim's, 64's, Birdie's, Cantata's, ETC Source4's) and 10 MAC250's (2 Entours, 4 Kyrptons, 4 Washes). Its in a small theatre (seats 350), grid height of 9m.

 

I was wondering if any one has had any past experiences of lighting this production, or seen any nice effects from an audiences P.O.V. (Leeds playhouse is a bit to far for me to get to easily!). This is not meant to be a case of 'please do my homework for me', but I have not been privaliged to see the production for myself as of yet!

 

A few ideas that I have conjured up are using some of the birdies, fixed on set, to illuminate the characters, with only cool blues and filters representing some of the dark (metaphorically!) backgrounds of the storyline.

 

Few other ideas/questions, do please comment on;

 

- Would it be too out of context and over the top (with regards to this play) to start using some effects on the movers for some of the hectic scenes?

- (Wall) Lamps on set

- Security floods (cold and menacing war connotations)

- Large angles (promoting facial shadows)

 

Thanks in advance

Toby

[mark_s]

You're asking the wrong people. As Lighting Designer, you really need to talk with the director to establish what they're trying to achieve, and how you can support that. At the end of the day it's their production, and your job is to support their vision - not to go one better than it. Without knowing what the director wants to achieve, how can we possibly advise you on the best way to go about it?

[Gerry]

You're asking the wrong people.

 

Yes I agree, talk to the Director and the Set Designer. They are the ones with the overall vision of how the show should look.

 

Cheers

Gerry

[Russ83]

Toby can you confirm if this is for a school production or local group, if it is for school then I would get this topic moved to the next generation section.

Also, are you also responsible for the set design? Are you actually a student or employed as a technician?

 

Talking to the director is a good first step but if your drama teachers are anything like ours they just leave everything technical to me giving them more time to work with the actors. Quickly go through the script with them to work out what specials are required and how they are using the performance space (e.g. do you need to light anything FoH?) Have a read through the script a few times by yourself and see what images come to mind and think how they might work on the stage. If you can, try setting up a few of your ideas and get the actors to rehearse on the stage so you can see if it works and get some feedback from the director to check it fits in with their overall vision.

 

School productions don't always work in the same way as professional or amature productions and many of the jobs are dumped onto the same few people. When we did Sound of Music last year I ended up doing all the technical design rigging and programming, set and stage rigging as well as taking over from the producer when she went into hospital and actually playing in the pit band every night.

[Modge]

A long, long time ago, as a student, I was involved in a production of this. Whilst it wasn't my design (mostly: it was a collaborative effort) on the specific issue of using the 250s I can say that when we did we tried to use 2 * mac500s moving and flashing (with break up gobo's in IIRC) to create the storm scene. It looked poor to say the least and provided me with an important learning experience of the valuable never ever do it that way again kind. Granted yes you do need to get some energy going in that scene and it needs to be clear bad things are happening (lighting flashes from above seem pretty reasonable for example and probably could come from the 250's) but silly movement isn't called for.

 

Hopefully learning from some one else's mistakes will be better for you than having to make them your self. (And we were saved much criticism in this case because the lighting still wasn't the worst thing about that play. Which was a shame because it's a great book.).

[Big Jay]

- Would it be too out of context and over the top (with regards to this play) to start using some effects on the movers for some of the hectic scenes?

 

Why?

 

It may not be out of context, but why do something with 'Moving Lights' that everyone does, (im not saying everone does) instead of thinking about movers early on, try and think of something creative, or a way of doing thing conventionaly, then if it cannot be done that way then think of alternitives, personally, I always think of movers as a last resort.

[themadhippy]

I think I saw the film once,was very different to the book

[kitlane]

I'm sorry but it really is a fairly futile excercise asking for advice on a lighting design when we know virtually nothing about the production. I have been involved in two different productions of Animal Farm. In the first one the set consisted of 7m high corrugated iron walls, several tons of soggy peat, the windmill was built out of pallets and there was little or no attempt at dressing the actors as animals. In the second the set was a stylised farmyard with a revolving farmers house that became the windmill by flying in some large sails, the actors wore masks/headgear and used crutches as forelegs. The adaptations were by different writers, the second version had a lot of music etc. etc. etc.

 

Talk to the director, read the script, maybe even read the book! Then come back with more specific questions if you need to.

[SoLiEn]

The last two bullet points in the OP are waht you need to be focusing on, these are ideas, and I think depending on the production would be nice, its up to you to liase with the other creative team to realise your design, see the rehearsals, get into the spirit of the show and design it, we cannot do it for you.

 

I like the idea of the flood lights in the set to give it liek a concentration camp feel, and when the animals are liberated they can be hidden or overgrown or something, when it goes full circle or when boxer realises it they can be used again, to illustrate the full circle nature of the show.

 

use your own ideas, have an experiment, talk to the director.

[willburgher]

I've just done a production of it and we did it as a rock opera with a few movers for the songs.

 

a word of warning if you are doing the peter hall adaptation pay close attention to the lines of the boy as it tends to change season rapidly over very few lines so I designed states for each of the seasons as the play is set over 7 years

[lampie lex]

I have worked on this, smaller scale though. But as people have stated above, the best person to discuss it with is the director. As the director I was working with had a very basic approach to everything, Its all down to what they want.

[pritch]

I think the OP may have got this one sorted, seeing as they asked about 13 months ago...