jtweigandt
Well-Known Member
Went to see a road company last night. Actors were great, book and music flowed, but the set was primarily 1 large arch and 2 smaller side arches with video wall fill in the middle of each. The transitions and backgrounds were inventive, beatiful, and TOO DAMN DISTRACTING. The wall was way too bright 90% of the time. Primary actors were covered by very soft focused very bright, follow spots that had extreme washout of faces at times, and the poor chorus was left dark even in scenes where it shouldn't have been moody or dark. It almost looked like the primary design goal was to avoid any spill on the video, actors be damned. Lost were any dramatic top color or side washes on the people. If it was there, the eye lost it because of THE WALL. I'm guessing the choice of using the follows so heavily was in part because of having to be in all the different spaces and geometries on the road. 90% of the problems could have been made less noticeable by tuning down the video brightness, so the eye could deal with the contrast better. Made me wonder.. scene design vs lighting design meet at the video wall. Who's in charge of the final balance, and is this the new ongoing interdepartmental battle? This was my first in person show with this heavy use of video, Though have seen for instance the "Frozen" show at Disney, where the video was great, but so was the lighting. Ditto for Mamma Mia at the New Theater in KC. But they had the advantage of being in a resident space. Sorry if anyone here is directly involved.. but it could have been so much more cohesive just by tuning the backgrounds down.