What does your mental picture say is an airport when you are on the
runway/
gate area in olden days?
Does it have some type of search light like light
house beam revolving around from a high tower, does it have
runway lights you can see from the loading area, is it dark in actual fixtures but very ambient in light, what's the set providing for you that you can motivate from
etc?
Might do a drive by or stop by to a small reagional airport. Sit as near to the loading area as you can if it's only in the parking lot. How's it lit, what is different about it from any other parking lot, and what's different about it saying this is an airport verses mall parking lot or farmer's field? Where is the light coming or motivating from and what
intensity and color is it from each direction? What do those under the light look like in the normal ambient light, much less when that revolving search light hits them? How wide is that beam anyway? Is it more like a clearly disquinguishable beam of light, or more like a
wash of everything.
More important in concept yet, that
wash of light or spotting every what 15 seconds, is it also washing the audience in annoying them but also bringing them into the show past the third wall in a Brecht sort of way, or do you want to
shutter or project off them to prevent this? On the talent washed or spotlighted, how will this relate to their own giving of their lines and motivation? Do they take the script and do pauses or meadiate their giveing important lines in between that search light passing over them - given it's more than just a light in being blinding, or does it have an
effect on them? When they are clearly in the light, given others will now be watching them, can they say what they need to, or how does that search light
effect the beats and momentum of the script. Does the speed of search light even act as a motivation for having to leave? What changes in the loading area when the plane is ready to go? Perhaps brighter
in one direction? What direction and at what angle? How much
effect verses the rest of the scene does this have?
Than once you get your
image of what an airport
runway or
terminal is like, how do you represent it in the super realism and compressed space of the
stage both to convey that
image along with the set in providing it, than even if by
stage convention in saying this light might not have been invented or used yet, but it's what we expect to see at an airport thus it's what I will use to help locate the scene. For intstance, you might not expect to see a row of closely spaced blue
ground lights from the loading area, such things might not even be realistic, but what about a
ground row of transparent blue but dim lights say on 18" centers? That in additon to the scenery and that revolving light might make the
effect given you still need ambient light off the
terminal or street lights and moon.
More important yet is the feel. How fast is that search light going? Anyone who has been around an airport gets a basic feeling for how fast it travels and instinctively knows that speed is airport search light. Can you match that revolving light speed on
stage? If nothing else, such a sub contious detail can make or break your scene. If off you need to put forth much more effort in making it believable.
Hope it's some hints in at least where I would start. Add to that the color
vision and modern time you will see verses what you want to convey as black and white and the past. Perhaps that search light is very amber and grainy - hard to describe in other than that term. Perhaps the blue lamps are a little more washed out in the white spectrum, and ambient light chocloate, shadow
etc. Once you get the
image for a scene, making it practible to the concept is techinque that follows. First get those images and concepts, than wonder and theorize about the how.
I realize this is many more question than advice, but hopefully it's also something you can find useful in designing your scene.