Thursday, October 15, 2009

"Make it Pretty"

In the spring of my freshmen year of college I took my first Stage Lighting course.
The class was good and covered all of the basics, Nuts to Bolts or maybe that should be Amps to Volts.
I remember one class demonstration turned into both a funny episode and good learning moment for me.
Working with several lights and colored gels in the classroom, our teacher was showing us what colors worked well together and how they would look.
We looked at several combinations of colors when the teacher said that ambers do not work well on black actors.
Having an African-American in the class he was asked if he would stand in the light.
When the amber gel was put on him he looked great, the color worked well on him and everyone laughed.

What I learned from that class was not to assume anything, but test it for yourself.
Rules and conventions are a good starting place but I have always found that I will do what it takes to make it look right.
Many times over the years I have used the wrong type of light, hung in the wrong place, removed a lens or made my own mixed color gels by cutting and taping them together to get the desired result.

Jumping ahead a number of years, when I was in grad school at the University of Michigan there was a talented undergraduate lighting student from Canada who took classes with the grad students.
During one summer took the small three light mixing box home for the summer.
The unit had three “Inkies”, 3 inch fresnels, and dimmers mounted on a box that contain samples of all the gel colors.
He spent the summer looking at all the hundreds of various combinations of colors and wrote down in a notebook his thoughts on what he saw.

I must admit that some of us laughed at him when he came back in the fall.
Timothy Hunter got into the Yale School of Drama, worked in Europe for a while and designed the lighting for Smokey Joe’s CafĂ© on Broadway.
His hard work, plus talent, did pay off as he is the Interim Department Head, Professor of Lighting & Stage Design at the University of Connecticut and also has his own production company.
http://www.timhunterdesign.com/

The summer after my first year of college I went home, armed with one year of college and one class in stage lighting I took on the responsibility of designing lights for the Sayville Musical Workshop’s production of No, No, Nanette.
I was ready when I met with the director to discus the lighting for the musical.

The four controllable qualities of light: Intensity, Distribution, Color and Form
The Four Functions of Stage Lighting: Visibility, Composition, Form and Mood.

I knew my lighting basics, had read the play, I am ready here I come!!!
I met the director and all he said to me was “Make it pretty”.
Make it Pretty, MAKE  IT  PRETTY! ! !
Where was that in the lighting text book?
I am an artist, how dare he . . . .
So I made it "Pretty” and had fun doing it.

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