It may have been hot outside, but NYU’s Department of Design for Stage and Film was undeterred. The Design Show’s annual opening reception took place this past Tuesday, May 6, to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduating class as well as the work of 1st and 2nd year students. The Design Show continues daily through Thursday, May 15, from 12pm-8pm and a special Meet the Designers event will take place this Saturday, May 10, from 2pm-5pm where all 20 graduating designers will be at the exhibit eager to talk about their work.
Live Design staff including Ellen Lampert-Greaux, Marian Sandberg, and David Johnson were in attendance and spotted the following VIPs (in no particular order):
NYU faculty members:
Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts
Faculty chair Susan Hilferty
Barbara Cokorinos, administrative director, NYU Department of Design for Stage & Film
Costume designer Martin Pakledinaz
Set designer Christine Jones
Set desgner Paul Steinberg
Scenic designer John Conklin
Lighting designer ML Geiger
Lighting designer Allen Lee Hughes
Lighting designer John McKernon
Campbell Baird, scenic painting professor at NYU and set designer
Curt Ostermann
Maggie Raywood
Robert Wierzel
Other VIPs:
Lighting designer Sarah Sidman
Lighting designer Steve Shelley
Lighting designer Bev Emmons, whose daughter is a first year costume designer
Lighting designer Michael Moody
Set designer Neil Patel
Lloyd Burlingame, former chairman of the graduate theatre design department at NYU
Robin Wagner
Tony Walton
Gabriel Berry
Tisch School of the Arts (where the Department of Design for Stage and Film is located) is at 721 Broadway (between Waverly and Washington Place), on the third floor. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call (212) 998-1950 or email tisch.design@nyu.edu.
It has been a pretty exhausting tech week already for the Opera. Above is a shot from our 10 out of 12 this past weekend of the space with most of the set and my initial lighting look for Act. Tonight was the first run-through of the show as a whole, which was a lot of help to see. There is a really tight schedule for our tech though as the show opens this Friday and Thursday is a preview. I have discovered that teching a show in less than a week is very stressful. As I head to bed shortly, and an example of what my past fews days have been like, I hope to wake up tomorrow around 8 or 9am, review the video tape of the run-through, take down my missing cue notes, write up work notes, get to the theatre by noon to meet with my master electrician and assistant, do notes from 12-4pm, meet the director from 4-5 to discuss changes, get dinner, and then start our second run through, followed by tech talk afterwards…and then reverse and repeat. Two of my major frustrations at this point are: 1. The particular architectural fixtures/practicals I ordered were back ordered and only shipped today. They will be here by Friday, but I am in turmoil about whether to cut them or not if I am even able to have them installed before the house opens for opening at 7:30pm. 2. The follow-spot positions I am using for the show are mounted Source 4 10 degree units. It has become increasingly frustrating programing the spots in the cues on the board (Grand MA, for those who are wondering). Every time I want to change a level or In/Out I need to take focus away from the actual design. It’s driving me and my team crazy. I’m in the process of working out a way for the Spot-Ops to control their own intensity.
In other news, CalArts is reaching the end of the semester, but things do not slow down at all in May. There is a new works festival, portfolio review, mid-res review for many students, final project (which I am a bit behind in due to the Opera), and numerous shows to work on. I wish I could relax after the show opens, but I have to finish designing Les Liaisons Dangereuses for Grad Lighting 1, organize my portfolio, including finalized and updated plot, paperwork and production shots of Platee. I also found out my design assignment for next year. I will be working one of the fall shows called Blue. I am interested in seeing who else I will be working with on my production team.
It is 4am and I just got home from the theatre. We had a long work call today to hang the rest of the light plot, but we still were a bit behind schedule due to a variety of factors. Changes were made in the plot because one of my booms partially blocked an egress. Scenic fell behind schedule a little which will affect my focus call at 9am tomorrow…errr today. We probably will not get any dark time until noon. So I decided to stayed in the theatre all night/early morning because I wanted to get as much done as possible before focus. I spent some quality time with my plot. Sound was in the space late tonight as well, so at least I had some company. In the end though, nothing is more rewarding than hanging a good portion of your own plot, plus when you do, things often get done correctly the first time, and if not you know who to blame. More updates soon. There is a sitzprobe tomorrow, which lighting has been asked not to participate in, so I get a few hours of relaxation, or homework time.
The Opera is loading in this week in the MOD (CalArt’s flexible black box theatre), and things have been incredibly busy for the entire production team. Scenic is about 50% load in and things are looking good on there part. There is a lot of rigging involved in this show for these giant red kites that can fly and collapse in the air. Sound loads in their gear tomorrow. Paints starts their treatment and touch ups on Friday. And Lighting is a little more than 50% hung, but not focused yet. I have an 8 hour call on Thursday to bust the rest of the plot out.
Overall, our production team is working well together and we are all helping each other. I have found it very important to be in the space as much as possible. I get a lot of lighting work done, but I find it surprising how useful it can be in other regards. Right as I was leaving for the day, I saw one of the red kites which we are using as a projection surface for our super titles being loaded in. There was a little miscommunication about where a wood panel, to prevent light from washing out the projection, was supposed to be placed. One panel was in the correct location, the other was unnecessary. My first reaction was that it was going to change the way my lighting would illuminate the kites. After thinking about it more, I realized the panel would be in the sightline of the audience if we did not remove it before we rigged it to fly.
In lighting land things have been on a roller coaster ride this week. I found out these very specific architectural footlights that I ordered are delayed because 8 of the 9 units are in stock and the company is waiting for the remaining one to arrive before they ship. I was basically forced to expedite my shipping so they would arrive in time for tech and the show.
I also have run into an electrical problem with getting power to the 2.5kw HMI unit I am renting. At first glance it looked like we could power the unit fine, but after a closer look, we decided we would need to tie into one of our circuit breakers to power the unit. It was a busy day of phone calls and meetings with the school electrician and PRG. I had to add a good 100’ of feeder cable to my order to get from the breaker box to the HMI ballast. I do want to give a big thanks to PRG for being so helpful today. I am still hoping everything will work out alright when we install the unit, as I am still a little nervous.
I’ll have some pictures of the space/set up soon, but I left my camera in the theatre.
And on a final note, I can’t wait to fly back East and attend BLMC. I got a phone call this morning confirming my registration which got me psyched. And as yet another reminder, make sure to register for any of the Master Classes before May 1 to get the $100 discount. See everyone there!
It is really nice to be in an academic setting at times, and have a light lab at your disposal. I have been finding myself locked away more and more this week in our lab, not for our weekly light lab homework assignments, but doing tests to make sure all of the individual ideas I have for the Opera will actually work. One of the big moments that I wanted to really hit on the mark was this rainbow that appears at the end of Act 1. We have a 20′x8′ vinyl wall that will turn into this abstract graffiti covered rainbow. I had picked some preliminary colors for the rainbow from multiple swatch books, but nothing beats seeing it for yourself. I spent a few hours in there swapping colors, changing my mind, going back to my original choices. In the end I am pretty satisfied with my take on how the colors will blend with each other. I am still a little unease about the green. The current choice in the photo below is R95, by my original choice was R93, slightly more blue, but I think it will fit better. Finding the right green has been the biggest challenge in this test. There is also a lot of water effects in the show. I met with the director and set designer to show them the type of effect we’ll get by shooting an instrument into a plastic container with water. We discussed a bunch of ways to keep the water rippling: fans, battery powered bath toys, pumps etc… Ultimately though we went with the most economic solution, that I am interested in exploring. I was very fascinated with how a single drop into a still container of water would make it shimmer. Our idea is to suspend a bag of ice above the containers with a few small pinholes in the bottom. As the ice melts over the course of the show it’ll keep the water moving and shimmering. The backup plan is small fans. So that is what I’ve been doing with most of my free time, along with running around picking up a lot of small accessories I need. Light rig for the show is tomorrow, but it is being double hung with a music festival concert that opens this weekend.
Also if anyone knows where I could order about 7 or 8 of these, I would greatly appreciate it:
