Gear and Crossing Over

Moving from Entertainment Lighting to Architectural has been an interesting transition. One of the things that you have to get used to almost immediately is what decisions become so important on the Architectural side, are hardly after thoughts on the theatrical side. In Architecture, details matter, really matter. From the lamp-type, to shielding and lensing right down to the color and shape on the flange, the level of detail in selection is incredibly important to pleasing your design team and clients.

Sometimes a project lends itself to more theatricality. For a nightclub project my office is working on, I got to pull out an old favorite tool of mine. The product is called NEOFLEX, I was first exposed to it on the set of Inside the Actor's Studio, lighting designer Jeff Burns used a continuous run of it to underlight the talent-platform. Needing a similar effect in the club I was able to pull it from the back of my mind, and it in all likely hood will end up accenting our club.

Of course that's not the only ghost of my lighting past that is making it into the night club. To light a performance stage some of the structural/decorative elements of the room, we are turning to an LED Wash Light solution. This one, I have used before in theatrical applications and on photo shoots. The SPECTRA PAR, by Altman lighting, is going to get employed in a more permanent way on this job.

This is the crossing over of entertainment and architectural lighting. And knowing enough about the tools that make them different and the same. When thinking about lighting the stage, I remembered back to the results I got with the Spectra lighting people....

It seemed like the right idea.

Crown Point, Gearing Up-Pairing Down

Gear selection is a problem. The budget for Crown Point is tight. Here's the situation. The space has a lighting stock of about 50 Source Four fixtures ranging from 36 to 19 degree. They also carry 30 PAR 64's all WFL. There are 36 dimmers in this antique space. These have varying, large capacities, and are re-patched using a patch bay with sliders.

That system would be entirely adequate, if not for my needing to light a new musical act every night and create a comprehensive lighting design. For budgetary and, thankfully, artistic reasons I have really tied whatever lighting elements I pull in for environmental design to the music element. I think in the scope of the festival they share the same space for an audience member, they both represent living art the audience gets to actively participate in; whereas film, and to a much lesser extent theatre are more passive mediums. Thus the design for the environment and music need to be more alive, more personal, and more organic. To me this takes the design to a place where the entire theatre can change it's depth and form, but we can also choose to focus on individual musicians or points of interest on the stage or in the house.

There is simply not enough room in the budget for an LED and a Moving light solution. To level with everyone, my total gear budget for Crown Point is $3500, for a five week period. 4wall entertainment gave me an excellent quote on a dream package that is still about $3000 over what I can afford, before perishables.

I am going to try and pair down, it looks like renting additional dimming is out of the question and its going to be a PA’s job to run the re-patch for every play. Budget and toys are really all about resources and if we lack funding in one place we can make up for it with man-power. I hope we have lots of man-power.

Macbeth

When not ruminating on producing decisions, in my copious spare time I create lighting for theatre. ShakespeareNYC's production of Macbeth is currently running at The Beckett theater of NY's theatrerow. Despite a challenging production calendar, the show is up and looking pretty good. I wanted to share some images I have taken by Fight Choreographer and photographer, Al Foote.

Macbeth is one of my favorite plays in Shakespeare's cannon. Lighting can be created purely based on character point of view. And from there you can drive from a visual library of your own choosing. Lady Macbeth's drive to power and manipulation of her husband. Macbeth's desire to rule and his hubris, these are discussed intimately by the characters, and they can be displayed in the visual arc of the show.

As always for ShakespeareNYC, Macbeth was directed by Beverly Bullock. Her allowance for visual freedom and her fearless direction to me (it can be very dark), drove me to create a visual field of saturated color and deep contrast. While I would never call myself a designer based on subtlety, Macbeth allows for even more visual freedom. Brandon Giles set is a stark, blank canvas of floating material and black frames shaped in a flowing arc. This gave ultimate opportunity for freedom and creativity from scene to scene.



Here's some of that work.