Your Designs

The_Guest

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Premium Member
Out of all the designs some of you guys have created, which was your favorite? And why? How did it work out, was it a lot of work? What was implementing the design like?
 
design.. whats a design? i have done so many shows lately its hard to remember one that actually had a design..

i think one of my best ones was for a show called marat sade it is about the french revolution. it was in the middle of the hallnot on stage and i use the two foh house bars and lit from the side and put trussing along the front.. and in one of the scenes they kill someone and as the murder was happening all the red lights started 2 come on one by one and then i bled them in from the other side so it looked like blood running across the stage.. it was awesome, i was so impressed i actually bought a copy of the video lol
 
*cough cliche!
red lighting for a murder scene
NO!
please, some originality

but having them come on one by one was, ok

im not going to claim superiorty i must admit ive made the same mistake though!
we live and learn though
 
As you probably already know there is a difference between, designing and "doing". If you're just throwing up lights and simple focusing at the most, it's not designing. Havn't you guys worked on a plot before you start? Or at least created a plan of what you want to do before hand?
 
The most complicating theatrical diesign I have done has to be Blood Brothers.

The script called for a huge flashback and alot of pauses in the show for narration, just to name a few.

I ploted the entire rig by hand, and was also the programmer and board op.

When it was all said and done, I had aprox. 1200 cues.

This show went on the be the best designed show in the history of the theater and raised the bar on future productions. This is by far the best design I have ever created and the best show I have ever been apart of.
 
i believe they call them directors, and i believe the role of the director is to direct, and this director happend to specify red, blue and purple lights for the performace, thus muder scene was red and purple.
anyway, itd be quite unusual to use green for a murder scene...
 
Hopefully my best design will be what I am designing for my schoos upcoming play, the Importance of Being Earnest. I only have 16 pars to work iwht, nothing more, so it's gonna be pretty simple, only a few cues, maybe 20 at MOST. I'm envisioning three main lighting cues, with other smaller cues, like "more light on door" for entrances stuff.

And, just wondering, what WOULD you prescribe for a murder scene mxsa?? I mean, think about it, what other color works as well as primary or crimson red for evil?? Not white, not green, not purple, not blue. The best lighting for a murder scene would probably be dim lighting with some red mixed in, maybe not predominantly red, but just enough so the audiences feels the evil withoutnoticing it.
 
Jah-

We just did oklahoma and when Jud died we did Red cyc and dim regular lighting where they were, it was a snap cue as jud got stabbed...then we linked it to a cue to slowly bring it back to normal.
 
i think i did something like that in jcs with the red cyc when he gets killed, or it might of been a slow fade of the whole stage going red as judas became evil towards the end and then after 15mins it was red..

i remember i did fame a few months back and i had a number of mac 600's in the part where carmen steps in front of the train they all started to slowly move around stage then just as she stepped they all snapped on her and swung out and all the statics b/o'ed. it looked pretty cool...
 
Best designs for me I have probably already described elsewhere between the actor that could find his Hitler light anywhere on stage for a play I forget the title to and Yeat’s “Shadowy Waters” with the sunken ship setting. Had I another week or at least more skilled labor, the boat and set will have been perfection but it by itself was not too bad given a 14' ceiling and a 35' stage which it used every part of in acting area. Big boat that was both raked and canted in it’s decks having a tilt down stage in addition to about a 30 degree angle to it in some areas which were hung off the lighting grid.
Other parts about it which will have been nice will have been more scrim since the background scenery was projected on a reflective white drape. I had about ½ the amount of scrim as I needed and most of it was in 6' wide pieces (someone in the past having cut up all the drape in the theater for their show.) Had to sew it in with also cut up scraps of blacks both on the horizontal and vertical to make it look like something which was still kind of hack.
Finally, I could have made good use of fog to better obscure the deck and make rolling waves in this fantasy play but given a $100.00 budget, it was way out of availability.

Still, both plays were highly successful from the design standpoint in my considerations at least. The angle of light hitting this Hitler character was perfect in making someone otherwise acting normally old business man and only suspect over the top in his portrait of his character when he slipped into the alternative character he was suspected of being. Good talent and directing both for the talent and the design team design concept was necessary in both cases to go along with good set along with sound/set/light/costumes all being equally well done. One of these days I’m going to have to re-do Shadowy Waters/Riders to the Sea show and finish the work done so far. A show I would like to re-visit some day.
 
I'm not an LD, i'm an electrician or an ME at best :) The best design I've been involved with was when we took Metamorphoses to CETA and had to adapt to a much bigger proscenium setup from a small thrust setup. Those guys spent 6 hours hanging and programming and created the most amazing lighting I've ever seen for a show I've been in.

The best design I've seen yet is for The Frogs on Broadway at the Beaumont in the Lincoln Center. Go see it if you can.
 
It's hard being the designer AND master electrtician for a show, mostly because I make hard plots to pull off in 2 weeks with only 1 assistant that's there only half the timne AND having to do the rigging because TD is behind! Phew! I hope I can pull it off! I only get to deesign for the childrens shows, but I think I did a really good plot, basic, but fancy. There is a white backdrop that I am lighting with lots of neat colors, soft pinks and blues, lots of gobos, saturated cycs, and the ambery color if bare striplights. There is a pipe 1 ft off the ground about 1.5 feet from the drop where lights will be, too. It's this time I wish we had more floor pockets! I'll try to remember to post pics of the final product, I think it should be really good!
 
Well, I just joined and this seemed to be a good topic to make my first post on.

A couple years ago I did the lighting for "God's Favorite", a Niel Simon play. It is interesting because the entire play takes place in a single room. here's the kicker - in the first act, the room is normal; in the second act, the house has burned down.

First act was fun because we had some "in the dark" scenes with moon light pooring in through french doors. There was also lighting and even a lighting strike (first time ever for me triggering a flash pot from the light board!) Most of the scenes were normal indoorsy scenes - really warm colors on a really warm (yellow walls) interior set.

Second act, all I did was use plain old halogen work lights front of stage. What a contrast! It worked out really good and got lots of gasps from the audience when they saw the burned out room.

The funny thing was, it was the simplest show I've ever been involved with from a queue standpoint. The second act had only two light queues! And the first act didn't have many more. So, basically I could sit back and enjoy the actual play which is rare.
 
avkid said:
violation of commandment :thou shalt not just sit and watch!

Ah yes - but which is the worse sin: to just sit and watch or to create a bunch of unnecessary light queues to avoid sitting and watching, hmmm?
 
OK - I thought we were being whitty but obviously you're serious.

It would have made no sense for me to try and make my way back and forth from the control booth during the show to help back stage. Quite frankly, once they did the scene change from Act 1 to Act 2 they were pretty much done for the show as well. The sound guy had a few queues but nothing too tricky. There really was nothing "technical" going on in the second act. So, I could either watch the show or sit there twiddling my thumbs pretending that there wasn't a show. Either way, my job was done. I chose to enjoy the moment. Considering I've done shows where I've had to run both sound and lights at the same time, this was a pleasant change.
 
lol I agree that less can be more sometimes :) But hey, I know the feeling of not having to do much for a show. (tomorow I get to show two movies in the auditorum after school to two different groups of middle schoolers. Basicly I sit in the booth from 2:10 untill 8! That booth will be spotless by the time I come out!

Hey ya, by the way, welcome to the forums! I hope you stick arround and keep posting! It's good to have new people with new perspectives here on the forums!
 
JahJahwarrior said:
Hopefully my best design will be what I am designing for my schoos upcoming play, the Importance of Being Earnest. I only have 16 pars to work iwht, nothing more, so it's gonna be pretty simple, only a few cues, maybe 20 at MOST. I'm envisioning three main lighting cues, with other smaller cues, like "more light on door" for entrances stuff.

And, just wondering, what WOULD you prescribe for a murder scene mxsa?? I mean, think about it, what other color works as well as primary or crimson red for evil?? Not white, not green, not purple, not blue. The best lighting for a murder scene would probably be dim lighting with some red mixed in, maybe not predominantly red, but just enough so the audiences feels the evil withoutnoticing it.

it doesnt have to be a colour thing, all im trying to say is break out of the red=emotion, green=nature, yellow=happy, etc. mindset. people just instantly jump to what they know best, without actually sitting down and thinking about what else could work well in a scene. a murder scene could be done totally effecively in open white
 
gengwall said:
Well, I just joined and this seemed to be a good topic to make my first post on.

A couple years ago I did the lighting for "God's Favorite", a Niel Simon play. It is interesting because the entire play takes place in a single room. here's the kicker - in the first act, the room is normal; in the second act, the house has burned down.

First act was fun because we had some "in the dark" scenes with moon light pooring in through french doors. There was also lighting and even a lighting strike (first time ever for me triggering a flash pot from the light board!) Most of the scenes were normal indoorsy scenes - really warm colors on a really warm (yellow walls) interior set.

Second act, all I did was use plain old halogen work lights front of stage. What a contrast! It worked out really good and got lots of gasps from the audience when they saw the burned out room.

The funny thing was, it was the simplest show I've ever been involved with from a queue standpoint. The second act had only two light queues! And the first act didn't have many more. So, basically I could sit back and enjoy the actual play which is rare.

that sounds like a really cool design
was it a good play?
 

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