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.

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.

We had a production meeting last night and the shape of the festival is starting to come together. The running order of the festival was distributed. I am starting to get a global feel for the festival and what the integration will be from Music to Theatre to Film. Some sticky choices are going to have to get made soon. The limitations of my budget are going to force some tough choices to be made between balancing the needs of environmental design and the live music portion of the festival. There will also be several party nights, brought to us by some sponsors. Integrating those aspects of the festival will mean a kinetic solution and most certainly some moving heads (a decision I had been avoiding), I fear however, if too many toys cover that aspect of the festival, we will lose out on the proper design and integration of the environmental design.

The plays needs are starting to take shape, and it seems for now will be almost exclusively handled by house gear. It’s the other portions of the festival that will need gear. Knowing now more clearly what I have to accomplish I can begin to approach vendors and see what we can come up with.

Bridget Dunlap (director), Emily French (set designer) and I had our first design meeting for The Girl Detective last night. I think there was pleasant surprise at the design approach we are taking when it comes to Crown Point. Rather than define a rep plot with two or three specials. We are taking the time to design each piece individually and address it’s lighting needs. We discussed some preliminary “big think” ideas about how the play moves, where action is directed and the need for texture within the play. We are using the upstage cyc and scrim and while I like that this can instantly change the color field of the space, I always feels a desire to integrate texture downstage of the cyc, as they tend to flatten things out a bit. We talked about possibly using haze, lots of gobo’s and some integrated scenic lighting. The play is very theatrical, the conventions are non-linear and staging and acting will inform me much more as to how the script is going to work on stage. That said, the director and designer have a firm grip on the world of the play and what it is visually, I love to collaborate with a group like that. After a rehearsal or too I will be able to make specific placement of lighting, but I already have an idea of what my gear list will be.

Shop drawings are to be submitted Friday, and we have production meeting with upper staff tomorrow. Let the good times roll into September.