A question of the
house looking more like the 1920's or the show and it’s scenes looking more like the 1920's?
Two different designs to look into doing. For the
house, an Art Deco or other style period with other
props could help but that’s less what I had a thought on.
For the show, if 1920's a study into the lighting of the times would be
foot lights, top strip lights and certain beams high side, front of the
house and side of the
proscenium would be in use. All would be fairly
incandescent, lime or arc source. None really frosted in
edge other than from the more dim in
color temperature and
intensity foot and top strip lights.
What I might attempt to do is to
lay down a
base of period style lighting that would be
key light and harsh.
Foot light, top light in low
color temperature and perhaps a sort of greenish yellow tint not historically accurate but more
stage convention of harsh lighting of ancient lighting olden days. From say the procenium sides I might also do a
boom with some shins and high tops with hard
edge beams of higher
color temperature but perhaps in the green/blue range but hard
edge. Same with front of the
house perhaps a
box boom and a select few
house positions far away, but in these cases I might go amber low
color temperature with that hard
edge.
This all in a
base of light that’s visible and can be seen but not the balance of the light for visibility more than like 50% of it.
Add to this modern lighting such as a
McCandless style lighting for your own take on the production which at no
point reaches say more than 2/3 the output of your
base of light but does reduce the shadows, harsh light angles and help with visibility some. You than have a
base of light concept, and a scene to scene normal concept for lighting a
play mixing together.
Base of light establishes period and can even
fade some during the
play to
return at the end, and the normal lighting that is there but not really the primary lighting. There to help the talent and smooth it all out some, but not there to make it seem a natural lighing of the period, more a
stage convention of X is what it would have looked like as seen, Y this say
McCandless lighting is what is needed for todays audiences to enjoy the show sufficiently.
Less about going true period lighting, more about it being as if a
wash of paint over the show clouding it. Could try grey
gel also but the Chocolate
gel would most likely be best with most period light fixtures. Harsh
edge on them, soft focus on the modern supplemental lighting.
If using say modern MR-16
foot light
cyc lights, perhaps only use one of three circuits or lamp them down in wattage plus do the
dimmer and
gel. This
spacing between lamps in doing so than would help remove the even
wash effect from them.
Perhaps just some food for thought.
For the thetaer... Bulbrite and a few other lamp companies make some fairly inexpensive reproduction
incandescent lamps with really cool filaments. Perhaps stringing down from the gym
grid some individual lamp sockets with period lamps in them could create quite the atmosphere. Go 60w lamp if possible - where I work has the 40w versions in use and they would not be bright enough other than for prop lights which is feasible if the normal gym lighting were used on a
dimmer, but short of also conveying the harsh lighting by way of these fixtures being the only light, would not be sufficient given the primary lighting comes from modern fixtures. As with the
stage, the
key light to the audience should be from the period lighting and normal
house lights should supplement and fill in.
Hey I even know the specific meaning of anti bellum when applied to US archy-tek-chure.
"I'm going home - to Tara."
What can I say, I love movies, I read history and I keep my eyes open. Sorry.