I’ve been a little slack in my blog entries lately…I vow to catch up. I have more updates to make on the gear-getting process and on my ever-expanding scope of work. But before I do, I wanted to post my own reminder of New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As designers I think its important that we always stay connected to the world around us, it is so easy to get caught up in the here and now of our own lives. The following is from a trip to New Orleans I made last summer. I was following Common Ground Relief and the work they do in NOLA.

Welcome to my blog. I should let you know a little about myself to get things started. This blog, for starters, is going to focus on my first year at the, California Institute of the Arts, here on out known for short at CalArts, as an MFA 1 lighting designer. As an added bonus you‘ll also get to read about my adventures as an intern with the LA Opera during their 2007-2008 season. I hope to include some commentary here and there on stuff outside of the academic world like products I like, reviews and what‘s interesting me in the industry.

Here‘s a bit of background information on myself to catch everyone up. I am originally from northern, NJ and just moved across the country to the west coast. It has been exhilarating to say the least. I went to undergrad at a small liberal arts school called Bucknell University, located in the dead middle of Pennsylvania, in a small town called Lewisburg. I earned my B.A. in Theatre and Philosophy and also managed to get a minor in computer science, which has come in use a lot with automated lighting. I graduated in 2006 and stayed a 5th year to work in the department as the technical direction intern.

I have done a bit of everything. While lighting design is my passion, be it theatre or dance, I have also been a stage manager for dance, technical director, master carpenter, master electrician, and dabbled in sound. One of my particular interests and areas of research is automated show control.

So, today I drove to downtown Los Angeles to fill out some paperwork for my internship. The Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, home of the LA Opera, is enormous and seats just under 3,200 seats. I also met Jeff Kleeman, the technical director at the Opera, who showed me around quickly. Things work fast at the Opera, and I will start work next week. There are two other interns at the Opera that I will be working with.

Onto my life at CalArts. Orientation is September 4th, course registration is the 6th, and classes start the 10th. I‘m still in the process of picking classes, but my tentative class schedule is below. I‘ve been able to lump all of my classes onto Monday and Tuesday, which frees up the rest of my week. Five day weekend you might think, not a chance, because here comes the Opera to fill in any free time I might have. The Opera schedule varies from week to week, but I expect I‘ll be at the Opera a few times a week.

Class Schedule:
Lighting Design Seminar M 8:30-10
Techniques of Design M 2:10-4
Graduate Lighting Design I M 4:10-6:30
Advanced Light Lab M 6:30-8:30
Vectorworks for Lighting Designers T 10:10-12
Dance Showings T 1:30-3

In other news, I saw a preview of a show called Matter of Honor that is in a pre-Broadway tryout at the Pasadena Playhouse. I enjoyed the play a lot, mainly because the storyline is based on historical facts. The production team was still in the process of putting the final touches on everything, but everything ran smoothly during the performances. The play changes locations constantly, but worked well between choreographed set changes that were aided by distinct musical variations and different lighting looks.

I am really happy to be starting my blog this week. Expect regular updates about what I am up to over the course of this year. I hope everyone can find a little something they enjoy in my blog. Thanks and comments are welcomed!

Comment on my Blog

Take an insider’s journey with R. Christopher Stokes as he begins his MFA program in lighting design at Cal Arts.

With gear decisions looming, its coming time to make decisions as to some of the tools that are going to go into the festival light plot. I was trying to stay away from moving light solutions. However, since the last production meeting, it has become clear to me that we will need some kind of moving light solution if for no other reason than to accommodate all of the musical acts we will be hosting as part of the festival. Because of the nature of programming for the festival it may be impossible to know what musical acts will sign on until very close to performance time. This being the case, I will have to set looks for these musicians during their sound check. That alone is reason enough for even a basic moving light solution.

Couple that with several sponsor-supported parties that are now included in the festival and the necessity of a moving light solution has become even more apparent. The issue I am having now is given the limited budget of the festival how many moving lights will I be able to rent for the 5 weeks of tech and performance? And now incorporating the movers will make the ETC Express 48/96 an impossible option for tech, given that we are talking about teching 8 shows in 3 days. I am open to suggestions on this one. So any readers out there that come across this, I would ideally have 8 movers in the plot Martin 2000 series comes immediately to mind, but hopefully those and a console won’t blow up the budget.

Thoughts?

Festival Lighting Design

When one thinks about designing lighting for a festival, for multiple plays, it becomes easy to move toward a rep plot. In New York City, every festival situation I’ve ever encountered works that way. The house or a festival designer devises a repertory light plot based on areas. Those are lit with as many of the fundamental lighting angles as can be arranged and everyone works from those confines.

I wouldn’t be working on the Crown Point Festival if that alone were to be the arrangement. As designers I think it is incumbent on us to do as much as we possibly can and collaborate as much as possible as artists. I wouldn’t work on a festival that only allowed me the resources to accomplish a simple rep, cue it and move on. Rather, I am designing each play as though it were standing alone. The only common thread among them being the cyc and scrim upstage which all but one play will be using.

Still though, common threads among these shows will inevitably creep in. Some might even be of my own creation. One of the design devices I am looking to employ as often as the festival directors are interested in, is the idea of actors physically changing their own lighting. This can meet anything from booms on dollys to practicals to calling for lighting changes. It is a way to give the audience that much more to believe in. It is , I think, a way to lay bear all of the tricks and give the audience no reason not to believe in what you have presented. I hope to make it a common thread as often as possible.

More later, had some great design meetings this week with Tom Ridgely of Persians and Stephen Brackett of Ixomia. I’ll be sharing some images and design ideas on those shows over the weekend.