Design Interior Scenes/Research tools

[e.clarkson]

Two reasons I am posting this:

1. I am looking to broaden my research horizons in terms of initial research images. If there are any sites you really like that bring up decent photos of natural, or theatrical lighting would be greatly appreciated.
2. I am currently designing two shows in rep that are both set indoors in a kitchen/living room area. I have designed several other interior shows in the past and am--quite frankly--bored. If you have any ideas on ways to spice up these kinds of designs, I'd love to hear it! I like window gobos, and I've even tried shooting leaf break ups through the scenery windows (didn't work so well on that particular show but am considering trying that again). I'm really just looking to be inspired and find some ways to spring board my own creativity.

Sorry if this message seems a bit brash, I typed a longer quite eloquent one and it got deleted somehow...

 

[Vega]

As regards No.1, have you looked at Flickr? Although it doesn't have so many photographs with theatrical lighting, it does have an absolute glut of images with natural lighting (and artificial, flash gun lighting, some of which is made to look more natural).

 

[theatricalmatt]

Check out interior design magazines, and "country life / southern living / coastal style" magazines. Full of pretty pictures of beautiful homes, and almost always exquisitely detailed. Sometimes there's even some copy about how the designer or architect chose this color to match the sunset, or the water, or the nearby cliffs. Anyway, it's a decent mix of "set design" and "dramaturgical research," without being immediately applicable to the stage.

Try different things. Kitchens and living rooms often have the same basic appurtenances - refrigerators, sofas, and so on - because they serve the same basic functions. See if -- or how much -- you can push things. Most plays won't use all of those functions; so how little can you get by with? How much can you add?

Also, since the two shows are in rep, look for ways that the shows as a whole contrast, or can comment on one another.

 

[e.clarkson]

As regards No.1, have you looked at Flickr? Although it doesn't have so many photographs with theatrical lighting, it does have an absolute glut of images with natural lighting (and artificial, flash gun lighting, some of which is made to look more natural).

I have indeed tried Flikr. I love the range of the lighting you can find, and there's another site I use --Idee Labs--where you can search by color or upload an image you like and it will find others similar to that, it often links to Flikr. The only real issue I have with it is that its a little complicated getting the images off of the website. Possibly I'm doing it wrong...

 

[MNicolai]

You're not doing it wrong. Flickr lets users control the rights for their images, and among the ways in which they do that, they allow publishers to determine what the greatest size is of an image that a person may download, if they allow users at all to download their images.

There are some easy ways of defeating the restriction on whether or not you can download a given image, but at the respect of users who wish their images to not be repurposed/reproduced/distributed/republished, I will not detail that here.

Reason being, I've seen scenic and video designers blatantly steal from photos before without giving attribution to the photographer or soliciting the photographer's permission. In one case I saw a lighting and scenic designer work together in stealing images off the web, and, without permission, print up transparencies of those images to project from Source Four LED units onto the set.

Always be careful with images you draw from. Strictly research photos you shouldn't need permission for, but if they are very literally incorporated into the production, it may be considered copyright theft.