Lighting a skeleton set

[vinntec]

Here's a tough one. My next assignment is to light a set consisting of the interior walls of a house - but the walls are just a skeleton with nothing between the spars. Behind is nothing but black tabs all the way around. The floor will be partially chequered going out to a middle grey colour so I can light the inside of each room fairly conventionally and can use colour to suggest moods in the normal way (except I can't put anything on the walls, just the spars). The snag is what do I do with action outside the skeleton - sometimes close to the black tabs? My concern is that these actors will either disappear or become flat from frontlight as they are a long way from the audience (in terms of our small theatre).

 

If I stick to one area for now. Upstage is an almost straight wall with an arch in the centre. In three acts, the set is a bedroom (arch leads to landing), a study (arch leads to main corridor) and a kitchen (arch leads to steps up to the street) in a posh 1917 house. The background is black. What can I do to reinforce the mood of each act by lighting the area upstage of the arch in a particular way?

 

1. Put colour onto the black - tried it and it takes a lot to get anything visible and looks pretty awful (and goes against set designer's intentions as I might as well have a cyc!).

2. Downlight colour into the area - I would not expect this to be terribly visible except when actors walk through it.

3. Backlight through the arch (which I will probably do anyway)?

4. Backlight the entire back wall of the set?

5. Backlight the entire back wall with appropriate colours (pink, cyan, blue)?

 

In the case of 4 and 5, remember the light goes straight through the set "wall".

 

Has anyone worked with anything similar (I think there has been some Shakespeare recently which used a set of this kind which needs the audience to use their imagination)? if so, any tips and tricks on how to help set the mood?

 

Thanks -- Peter

[GridGirl]

I stage managed a show which had a set very similar to what you describe - except that we did have a solid back wall, it was the two side walls and front wall which were in skeleton form. Our lighting designer ended up using a HEAP of sidelight - it caught the bars and made them visible but not intrusive, and of course stopped the actors from looking flat as well. It took some time to get the focus right, but when he did it was very effective.

[vinntec]

I stage managed a show which had a set very similar to what you describe - except that we did have a solid back wall, it was the two side walls and front wall which were in skeleton form. Our lighting designer ended up using a HEAP of sidelight - it caught the bars and made them visible but not intrusive, and of course stopped the actors from looking flat as well. It took some time to get the focus right, but when he did it was very effective.

Hi GridGirl - conventional sidelight is not an option as our theatre is too small. But it might JUST be possible to put lanterns onto pipe ends and deliberately shine through the set which will also give sidelight closer to the set "wall". This might work well with backlight through the set from upstage. I will have a look. Peter

[Ken Coker]

A picture of the set model would be good....but why not think differently? Lights on the floor; lights attached to the set; desk lamps pointing at odd angles out of the set....no reason your lighting has to be McCandless-like given the set.

What's the play? Any clues in the text?

 

 

KC