sleight of light to transform living room into cathedral?

manu

Member
Hi lighting gurus,
How can a make a living room scene, slowly transform itself into a large cathedral like space? I'm trying to do this just with lights as the decor is sparse and needs to stay that way.

So far I'm thinking warm light flushing the stage including the three surrounding walls, and to make the room increase size, make lights colder and stop lighting the walls to give illusion that stage is boundary-less... Something like this work? Other ideas using lights?

thanks a bunch!

manu
 
Here is some ideas, but in doing this there will be many ideas, so I hope to see others posting their ideas.


Describe the set more please. I take it for granted there is boarders and legs and a box set? Doors, windows etc, wall hight, furnishings, color/decorations, moulding style etc. If you can write a picture of the play space it might be easier to see solution.

Starting warm and amber, cozy and going cool and white can be a solution, as with steep lighting angles though it's not something I really have studied the effects of. On the other hand, low angles in placing large shadows on the scenery, when balanced with other lighting so those in the light don't look gastly might help with the effect. Also a focus on the action in the center of the stage and just letting ambient light light the walls can make it tight, than expand out the lighting with lighting the walls especially the tops of them, but still it's not much cathedral like.

If you don't have much in the way of doors and windows you can do a slow fade up of some tall double hung window patterns on the sides and do a shutter cut peaked roof on the rear wall making it into more of a triangle than a rectangle, than do another pattern projection on the rear wall with a golden cross gobo and gel. On the windows, try to get ones that are tall but very narrow, this will both help with depth and height. Keep all your edges hard so there is not much spill and flair.

Another note would otherwise be to not light the side walls much other than the patterns, because dark sides with light back walls tend to make a room seem longer than it is. In any case if you make the back wall say twice as bright as the side walls, or do the same intensity between the windows and back wall than it will be long and tall.

Hope that's some starting ideas, more detail from you could help.
 
Re: sleight of light to transform living room into cathedral

Thanks for the great tips! Ship, you are absolutely correct, I should've given way more details in my original post...

Well, here goes, it is Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs. The stage walls have 11 imagined doors all around center stage. So when I say cathedral-like space, i simply mean a large and imposing statement for the orator to deliver the final, ultimate message. We are a very low-budge production, so the decor will be a half circle curtain, and corridors to each door drawn on the floor, forming a spider web. The epicenter of the web is around center stage. There will be a large number of cube-like stools for the chairs sprung all over the place (simulating the imagined crowd in the play).

That's about as far we've gone. The theater will be a straight 40 seater and, to complicate matters, we don't have that much lights (3 ellipsoidal, 15 PARs of varying power, 6 fresnels 1600, and miscellaneous others).

I really like highlighting the tops of the curtains, I think that might be a best bet and somewhat economical in lights. I also like contrasting the side walls and back wall, also. The again, we can always black out all the walls, and use some low angles. All great tips, thanks! If the above sparks any new ideas, please pass them on!
 
Re: sleight of light to transform living room into cathedral

Shadows!, and the walls might want look very straight and verticle, as if they were colums reaching way up...maybe lighting from the ground straight up...

~Garen
 
You can do a really good and cheap effect with some drapery hooks that are shaped like a number 2 and rope light mounted at the back top of the drape so it is not visible but it reflects off walls behind it or the ceiling.
You can also do a fun effect with the Lekos shining patterns up at the ceiling assuming it's white and you can see it, but short of specific patterns and color of rope light I just described my living room so it's not very origional this idea.

Let's keep the ideas going if possible...
 
Re: sleight of light to transform living room into cathedral

How about pattern projection from a high position of vitraux? Maybe some Rosco Colorizers in sharp focus. This ought to give the impresion of a cathedral. I think that opening up the scene will be a good olution, kinda like going from intimate lighting to a big pool of light, a crosfade like that will create the ilusion of the space "opening up".
 
Re: sleight of light to transform living room into cathedral

Thanks all! For your great input! I'll post whatever devices we end up using when we draw the lighting plans up. thanks again!

manuel
 

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