That was the catch phrase for my first night of cues with the director. "Can we make that brighter?" It's called Twelfth NIGHT! Night! Night as in dark. Night as in, it's ok to make the stage look like night time. As in, the audience won't have lights on a tech table in front of them causing their irises to open and allow them to see in the dark better.
Ugh!
She walked in as we finished running thru the show for the first time tonight. When we were ready to start the second run thru, she initially sat in the front of the house. But after criticizing my first two cues, she thought it would be better to sit right next to me so she could just "tell [me] what to change."
Basically, every cue's front light went up in intensity and the whole show is now a big tennis match. Every time a scene takes place on Stage Left, there is a cue, if it's on stage right... well that's another cue. And the two times I did actually focus on one part of the stage, she didn't like.
I should have bought a pack of cigarettes today. I only smoke when I'm stressed. This is my senior project and its completely unfair that I'm losing creative control. I was really starting to like the show and today, people were just looking jaundiced from the amount of yellow light to emphasize the "daytime."
Ever heard of establishing the scene? Yeah, the scene lights get brighter with an auto follow after I've established a time of day. She decided to start criticizing before the cue was even finished running its course.
So in conclusion: I have a lot of work ahead of me this week.
3 comments:
"Can we make that brighter?"
lol. Oh dear. Yes, I too have had that one many a time mess up my (what i considered to be) rather nice lighting designs ;) I'm sure it all turned out fine in the end. Great Blog btw!
Wow. Just happened upon your site, thought I'd check it out. Pretty negative and disrespectful towards me, and very public in that you have it out on the internet for everyone to share. I really am shocked to hear your views. Very hurtful. Lisa Wolpe
No disrespect Lisa, this was my own private journal for venting after Twelfth Night. I never had this many problems during a production before. All my experience at Fullerton College never prepared me for major changes during the course of a production. I used this blog as a way to relieve stress and never thought you’d actually read it. My comments were based on observations and assumptions I had before the technical rehearsals began. I had listened carefully to you in directing class trying to anticipate your needs, but you seemed to contradict your own class lessons. (This method worked once before with a teacher at Fullerton College).
No disrespect, but it seemed that a lot of your changes were the biggest problems I had with this show. The shift of the set, not just coming downstage but also pivoting it to run parallel to the proscenium created about three more hours worth of work for me. Moving the shrine to upstage center as opposed to upstage right, which had been discussed at designer run thru, I did anticipate correctly by placing two specials but only using one worked.
I also understand now the need to see the actor’s faces during a Shakespearian play, so I understand why you kept asking for it to be brighter; I discussed this in my senior project which has not been posted yet. I would have fixed the Malvolio cage scene with a follow spot on Feste to maintain the dark, scary environment you had previously asked for. Making the scene brighter however to see Wahima’s face took away the darkness that motivated Malvolio’s need to talk about how dark it was, and not being able to see Feste’s face.
Again, I took all of these as lessons. This is something I walked away from months ago. My only future plan is to post the entire senior project online and move on to the next show. I did receive e-mails from other designers sharing similar situations, and this blog is just one forum for designers to share problems they had and how they got past them.
Best of wishes,
Roxanne R. Rosas
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