A while ago, I complained about the then upcoming new $20 bills... Well not only have I not changed one bit now that I got my hands on some of them, I've actually decided that I really just don't like them one bit. I got a stack of them from an ATM a few days ago... I remember reading that they were being printed on the same paper/fabric the old bills have used. They certianlly don't feel that way. I've had crisp new bills before, and they simply don't feel like these do. These things actually feel like monopoly money... They're too smooth, and the one I have been crumpleing up on and off has yet to soften up like I'd expect it to. I'm considering giveing it a bath in hot water to see if that will take the edge off it. Am I going to do this to all the new $20's I get?... No, not likely... This one is getting the torture test to see if its ever going to feel "right" to me after they get out in circulation for a while...
As for the anti-counterfitting aspect of the bills, I'm pretty sure that I heard they have already found some fakes out there on the radio... I wish I had been paying more attention when I heard that, wherever that was... Now of course, if I was going to counterfit them, now would be the time to do it, before everyone is used to what they look like... You wouldn't have to get the colors perfect, since nobody is going to have a gut feeling that something is wrong with the bill... Anybody out there going to count the little 20's on the back?... I think not...
And one more thing... Damn, if these things aren't ugly...
I don't even want to know how much the government spent on this goofy idea....
Hmmm... I just took a look for myself in Google... With just backstage in the search, I come up as the 46th entry... Not too bad I suppose with my limited audience, and a pretty common term... Add blog to the search field, and I come in #1 which I have now found out is due to me haveing the one and only blog out there that deals with backstage stuff... I suppose that's good for me in that I have a captive audience if that's what someone wants to read, but then I was kinda hoping to find another theatrical blog, and perhaps lure some more readers my way... I did find a few references to other blogs with theatre, theater, or backstage in their titles, but they either were refering to something else (like home theatre) or they seemed to be dead... Oh well...
Well if you're in or around NYC, or headed there for a visit/vacation, you can get a feel of what's going on in the theatre scene, both on and off Broadway if you take a look over here...
Reader Jon Henke asks: I get the impression that theatre is either dying or becoming more of a vanity (read: non-profitable) project.
But then I don't know.
What is your impression? What should they do to help it?
To which I have a very easy reply since this was the subject of one of my very early posts... You can read my diatribe here...
However, the short version is yes, we have a major problem in live theatre, in that the "artists" in control (read that as artistic directors, and directors) are trying to compete with movies/TV... We can't do that, because well, we can't really blow up a building on stage for example... That's one of the issues... Another is that the "artists" (have you noted my lack of respect for these people yet?...) are very often trying to do something so "artistic" that even those of us working on the show don't "get it"... Finally, I put part of the blame on the public... There is a phrase tossed around in lots of educational theatre settings, and it is, "willing suspension of disbelief"... Well what that boils down to is that the audience has to come in, sit down, and accept that this is a play/musical/opera, and then let themselves be drawn in to that reality... So now you're saying, "duhhhh... of course"... The problem is, that people have become so accustomed to sitting in a movie theatre, and watching something that they can't determine isn't real, that people have lost a lot of the "willingness"... Back when I was teaching, I had a kid that was complaining that the show was rediculous, since "nobody goes around breaking into song like that"... (naturally we were doing a musical) Well of course nobody breaks into song like that... (I would be way too weirded out if that happened) I really wanted to throttle the kid, but I sat down, and talked about all kinds of other situations where you have to let go of reality to enjoy the show, be it a play, movie, tv show etc... Eventually the glazed look left his eyes, and he took off... A week or so later he came back and said he finally got it...
But I digress...
Theatre is seldomly profitable... You need a real cash cow like Phantom, or The Producers to make any kind of real money... Even then, you aren't talking money like say, Titanic, or the Harry Potter movies...
I think live theatre still has something to give to society, the problem is, the public isn't all that willing, and the "artists" have forgotten what theatre is about...
OK, that is a bit different take on it than my earlier post, but they are both valid, and add to the final answer... Hope that made some sence!
Jon, I notice your email references audio... I may be coming after you for a guest blog if I get an odd sound question as that's not my speciality either...
Have a question for me?.. Theatre, concerts, TV, Film... Tools, Woodworking, Whatever... (I know very little about the acting world, perhaps I could find a guest blogger for that if it comes up)
Just leave me a question in a comment someplace, and I'll make a point to get to it as soon as life allows...
Found this quite ammuseing... Might be interesting to keep it updated over time...
Via Wizbang
Ok, back on Oct. 8th, Mookie put up the Hierarchy of The Theater... Its quite nice actually, and in an educational setting, it occasionally works out that way... Unfortunatly, reality has absolutly nothing to do with what they teach people in school... (that is perhaps the single biggest failing of university level theatre departments, they only teach you what you need to go from college straight in to an educational job) Well I commented that I would get around to doing one that resembles the reality I've seen, so here it is finally... (yea, yea... I'm massively behind... the computer ate my CAD program, so I had to wait for my new edition to come in... I didn't feel like doing it in a graphics program)
Sorry... I still use a free account, so no images right inside the blog... Anyway... Depends on where you are, but this shows the basic framework. The money heading covers lots of sources... could be a producer, or grant, or subscriptions, etc... The Production Manager is responsible for overseeing the entire tech department, and the artistic staff. They are essentially on par with the director.... They never make an artistic decision though... Final artistic decisions fall to the director... The PM is the person that will eventually have to reign in the director to the budget, or more often the realities of what is actually possible... (I've heard directors ask to make things fall slower... yea, let me go and start altering gravity for you... I've got Einstein and Newton in a storage room to work out the details...)
The red box is often considered the artistic staff, though the TD is often not designing anything really... The designers and the TD then flow down to their respective shops/departments... Some times the prop department is part of the scene shop, sometimes not... Sometimes Sound gets lumpped in with Lights, which is just dead wrong, but its still common...
The purple lettering is the show group... They all answer to the Stage Manager once the show is in "Tech"... Before that time they answer to their respective departments...
As I said, this chart is different in every theatre you walk in to... This is pretty common for regional theatres though...
No... I'm not talking about some perverse rondevous with a processed meat product... I'm not even stateing my hatred for spam email, which is pretty much a given... The government is actually making motions to screw the spammers!... That's right... The same people that shocked you with the good idea called the "Do Not Call List", are actually going to try to reduce some of the volume of garbage that you have to delete on a constant basis...
Now, as a random side question, how in the world do the spammers find us?... I can accept that the email I have been useing for years has been sold by some miserable SOB to the spammers... I suppose I can accept that somehow, there are random email generators out there that can just send out tons of mail, and make note of the ones that are not returned... But riddle me this... how is it that the email attached to this blog, which has never been used for anything except the registration here gets more spam than the address I've been useing now for 8 years?...
I'm not sure this can ever be answered... Don't worry about it... It's just me venting....
I vaguely recall my first flight on an airplane... I can't recall the airline though... I remember my sister and I getting little plastic pilots wings, a deck of cards, and a little matchbox type airplane... We were naturally in awe since we were probably 5 and 3 or 5 and 4 (depends on the month we flew)... Air travel was pretty routine then I guess... My father did it all the time for his work, and I don't recall thinking that we were "special" for flying... It was just exciting since I was 3 or 4... As I got older, I became interested in planes, and used to read lots of books on them... The Concorde was always an amazeing plane to me... I also remember there being an SST in some of the books that was a similar design... There was even a little bit about the Russian super-sonic passenger plane... The more I read, the more it just seemed logical, that eventually, there would be nothing but super-sonic planes... I didn't know about the restrictions placed on the planes due to the sonic booms... So why not fly everyplace faster than the speed of sound right?... Well the SST never really happened... The Russian plane didn't due much either... But there was always the Concorde running between New York, and either England, or France... It was something I always dreemed of doing... I still wish I could... $10,000 is a bit steep for my entertainment fund though... Well now, I will never get that chance... Nor will anyone else... The final commercial flight leaves New York tommorow for Heathrow... There are a few flights after that for VIP's, and I suspect there will still be a few here and there as they retire the fleet to the various museums they will go to... (One of them arrives at the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in NYC on Monday... Have to see if I can get in to the city then...)
I ran across this article over at MSNBC, and it set me off on this rant... Moran brings up some things to think about...
"Yet Friday, as the Concorde roars off Kennedy’s runway for the last time, I cannot help thinking we are losing more than the last vestige of this “golden age of air travel.” What succeeds this wonderful aircraft? At one time, the Anglo-French consortium that built it had a faster, quieter, bigger, more fuel-efficient Concorde II on its drawing boards. Instead, the company changed its name to Airbus and built a flying toothpaste tube."
Yes, it is centered around the passing of Concorde... It is however about a far more important concept... Have we decided that we're ok as is?... Are we as a human race going to simply tread water where we are?... Have we just lost intrest in further/faster/bigger/higher?... Something to think about... Personally, I'm not content... I love to read/hear about/see the biggest whatever... the fastest something... the thought of going back to the moon, or Mars, or elsewhere... I've had it with people who say that this kind of thought isn't practical... Or that bigger is bad because it might interfere with some microbes existance... Have we become so concerned with our surroundings that we are becomeing stagnent?... Quietly, I hope that the Chinese sending up someone to space will light off another spark of national pride, and we'll start funding NASA propperly again... Imagine that... They might be able to stop worring so much about cutting costs, and get back to designing a replacement for the shuttles, or atleast be able to get the existing fleet into a more acceptable level of existance...
Hmmm... You'll have to excuse the rant there... I did digress somewhat... I'm just too typically content with the current reality to go back and do anything about it...
Reader Mookie asks "Why and how did you start your buisness? And did u go to college first?"
Oooooo... We're off to a good start...
Why?... I was tired of working for people that were either clueless and or uncaring about doing events right, be they theatrical, corperate, or rock-n-roll jobs.
How?... I had been collecting equipment for some time... (I'm a tool junkie) So I had 99% of the tools needed for the shop. I also had come into a bunch of lighting equipment through a store I did some display work for... (They closed, and told me I could salvage anything I wanted) I also happened to be there to pick up the pieces when one of the shops in the area dropped the ball for a very large corperate client... So it all came together... Main client, tools, and lights... Finding the actual shop space was the hardest part...
College?... Yep, I did indeed go to college... (hard to accept looking at some of my spelling and grammer at times... but true...) I got a BFA in Theatre Production from Penn State... (took 5 years to do it, but it was worth it, regardless of the headache... now if they had only told us that the real world didn't work like educational theatre)
Have a question about some aspect of theatre/concerts?...tools?...woodworking?... Leave me a note, and I'll do what I can to answer it...
So you're driving along the road, minding your own business... You pass a sign that says "Free Speeding Tickets Ahead"... Are you going to take that thing seriously?... Personally, I wouldn't really bother normally... But now in a couple areas in NJ, they have come up with a few of these goofy signs in the hope of slowing down drivers... I have to say, I happen to like the speed limit signs we already have... Nothing fancy, just basic black and white information... I don't need some technicolor attempt at humor to tell me I'm speeding... Moreover, I don't want my tax dollars being spent on new, redundant signs... You want people to slow down?... Get your police force to get moving and write a tons of tickets... Now I don't want a ticket naturally, but I can tell you there are a few towns around here that are like police states when it comes to speeding, and guess what... Nobody speeds there!... The same people that are against grading kids in school probably came up with this crap... Are they afraid our self worth will be effected if we get a ticket?... Are people not supposed to be responsible for their own actions when they break the law?... Do we need to be entertained by the speed limit signs?...
This guy has way too much time on his hands... 'Course, if I did, I hope I could do these things as well...
Ok... Now wasn't that just a real dose of feeling sorry for myself... Geesh... I'll try to refrain from that in the future...
So my beef today is about producers and the clients for fund raisers... I'll just stick to the ones that are raiseing money for good causes today... Not things like political fund raiseing, since that's a whole different animal...
Late yesterday, a friend of mine called me and said, "Hey, can you come to a meeting tommorow morning in the city? (NYC)" Me... "What for?" Him... "Its a fund raiser for charity/orginization X" Me... "Ok, but I can only spare you 2 hours tops, I'm slammed right now"
So off I went this morning, to find out what the job is, where it is, when, etc... I'm not going to get into just exactly how disorginized these people are, because that's quite common... (that's after all why they hire people like me) My problem comes from the overall client thinking that everything will be free, and they will not have to worry about minor things like the union labor contract at the venue in question... I will tell you, that the theatre this event is happening in, is a no-nonsence, serious, production facility... They do all manor of events there, and the house crew knows their job... It is in fact, how those crew members make their living... They all have their union cards and contracts, and the place runs well, because the contract is not abusive to clients, or the crew members... One of the first things the producers are discussing is how to circumvent the union rules... Hello?... If you didn't want to deal with the union, why the hell did they book this space?... There are enough other places without the union aspect... Next beef is as I sat there, giving these people a sence of what various aspects might cost them, they start hitting me with "well the decorating company is doing everything pro bono, and it would normally be a $40,000 job for them..." I'm thinking, but sure didn't say "well la de da honey... why don't you go and get your decorater to hang several tons of equipment overhead so it doesn't fall and kill someone..." What I did say was "hmmm... Well that's very generous of them, unfortunatly, while you represent a very worthy orginization, this is how I make my living, if I compped everything to all the charities I work for, I would have been out of business a couple months after I opened... If you would like to research other scenic companies that may be more willing take on the job for nothing, I will be happy to provide you with a list of every company I currently know of." Yes, I know, that was a bit snotty, but its true... Probably 25% of my jobs are charities.... I do make an effort to not over-charge them, but there are costs associated with what I do, that I simply can not let slide...
Now, I might have managed to feel just a tad bad about not being generous in this case, except I happen to have found out what they are chargeing people to get in to the event... I am estimateing that the space will seat roughly 1500 people... They have sold every seat in the place... They charged $5000 for every one of those seats... My total estimated bill for my contribution to this event is just over a grand... Let me extend out a few of these numbers for you... That comes out at 7.5 million dollars in ticket charges... I am guessing that the space, the house crew, and most of their rental equipment will cost around $100,000... My little piece of this is lets say $1250.00... So my bill is 1.25% of their event cost... The event cost is 1.33% of their ticket sales... Which means my cost is .0166% of their ticket sales... Am I missing something here?... I'm usually pretty good with numbers... They have sold the tickets already... That means they have the money from those ticket sales... They are trying to nickle and dime with me over my little piece of the pie?...
If you could invest $100,000, and inside 1 month, turn that around for $7,500,000, don't you think that would seem fair? That's a 7500% return on investment... Not to mention, they have the $7.5 mil now, before they have invested the $100 grand... Anyone out there know of a sweeter deal than that?... I mean sure, you could hit the lottery, but you actually have to spend the dollar first before you get the payout...
I am simply disgusted... I should run the bill up on these cheapskates...
I remember my friend Time... We used to see lots of each other... Somehow lately though, I can't seem to find my friend anymore... I'm wondering if my other friend Work jumped Time in a dark alley someplace... It wouldn't be the first time... Work and Time have been at odds since I first met Work... No matter how hard I try to get them to play nice, they are simply at odds all the time...
Ugh... I gotta get some sleep... Perhaps sometime in December, but then I'm already talking to a client for a January show, so that might just suck up December too...
Happy blogging folks... Thanks for stopping by... I'll be back as often as I can, and hopefully I may even have something to say at that time...
Ok... It is currently 7:10pm... I've been sitting down here in my basement, doing my blogging, and reading some others... 2 minutes ago, there was a banging on my door the likes of which I have never heard... It was so loud, and so obviously being done with a hard object, that I went upstairs with a hammer in my hand... If someone is trying to get in here that badly, there has to be something wrong for them, or they're looking to do something wrong... My town isn't exactly paradise to say the least... However, I live on the back of a building, and for the most part, nobody knows we're back here... The most noise I ever hear is the cats when they're hungry...
So, up I go, and as I'm getting near the door, I hear a police radio... I'm thinking what the hell?... The worst I do is speed a handfull of miles per hour over the limt... So being the rational one, I did atleast put the hammer down before I opened the door... At that point, the cop was walking away... When the door opened, he turned, and said "sorry, wrong address"... Wait, you've got to be kidding me.... There's a big damn number on my building, and the apartments are well marked... I actually have dents in the outside door from his banging... Its a brand new door!... They put it in last month for some reason... (the old door worked fine) Now, really, I don't care too much about the outside door, since really, its not mine... But hey, do you suppose that they might try the DOORBELL before banging on the door with a heavy ass flashlight or night stick?.. (I'm thinking positive and telling myself it wasn't the butt of the idiots gun)
Tommorow, I'll let the complex manager know that the paint job on my door is a mess due to the cop... That will be the end of it... I'm halfway glad I was in the basement and it took me a few seconds to get upstairs, so I didn't get to meet the moron at the door... I just know I would have shot my mouth off, and well that's just not the best of choices... Ugh...
I just got home from working for a regional theatre that shall remain nameless… They asked me to set up their turntable system for their present show, because, well, I’m the only one in the area that knows how their system works… I was staff there when the system came into being, so it makes sense… So this time around, I built everything into a single box, that you simply plug in, and it works from the electrical end… You do still have to actually set up the motor/drive system, and the unit that tells you how far the table has turned…
At any rate, I headed in today to set the various settings on the unit that are buried in the electronics units with the director and stage managers present… That way, they should be basically happy with things, and will only change the speed setting a little to get it just right… I didn’t need to stay after that… I asked the young assistant stage manager if she was comfortable with the controls, and she was very hesitant… So being a semi-nice guy at the very least, I said I’d stay for a while to make sure she was ok… No big deal, I didn’t have anything going on at my shop really except cleaning the place after my last event… So the actors come on stage and start rehearsing the show… Honestly I still don’t know the name of this show, but let me tell you… It is DULL!!!.. I will however, give them the benefit of the doubt that this was their first day on stage, so they were off somewhat… It would take some seriously amazing acting to give the lines I heard any life, but I’ve seen it done before…
The turntable only turns 4 times the whole show, so I had lots of waiting to do… I figured that I’d go sit out in the audience area so I could see it from that perspective… As I crept quietly out there as I am accustomed to doing, they stopped rehearsal… They told me to get what I needed and get out… I was not welcome out front… The fucking arrogant director will not tolerate the likes of a technician to be out front during a rehearsal… Needless to say, I was shocked… I mean this isn’t the first show I’ve worked in that theatre, or the first with that director, or the stage manager, or any of the other artistic staff members that were out front… They all know me, and we address each other by our first names… But that old, ugly line between “technician” and “director” reared its ugly head… So now, I’m home… I left the girl that has to run the equipment there in an uncomfortable situation, because those people out front don’t deserve the time of day from me… I don’t think I’d piss on them if they were on fire… I did leave her my cell phone number to call me with any problem since I’m literally 5 minutes away… I feel bad leaving her there when it was obvious that she didn’t fell good about pushing the buttons, but really she’ll be fine… I’ve shown many people this system over the years since I put it together… Its pretty simple… Set the direction, and push green to go, and red to stop…
What really set me off was that, what do these people think I was going to do sitting out in the house?... I certainly wouldn’t consider making phone calls, or eating potato chips… I hadn’t intended to fall asleep and snore… I hadn’t planned on moving around a lot to make a distraction… I mean for heavens sake, I’m a professional here folks… I have a clean track record in that department… What are they afraid of?... Could it be that the show sucks, and they don’t want me to know it?... Hell, I wouldn’t recommend it one way or another to anyone… I don’t do reviews on the shows… I have been known to offer an opinion on scenery, or lighting, as those are my areas of expertise… Yes, I said the script was dull… That’s just a reaction from someone who has seen a lot of shows… I wouldn’t tell anyone that since it was as I said, their first time on stage, and I was listening from backstage where I couldn’t see much of anything…
I swear… Every time I go back in that place, I am more and more glad I stopped being a staff member there… I also wonder why I keep going back… I suppose I do since they are literally right down the road, and I like to get an “artistic fix” now and again… There’s just not much “art” in the corporate productions I do…
Ran across this (thanks to Suburban Blight)...
There is a bar in Hamburg Germany, where women can drop off their husbands while they go shopping for the afternoon... Now at first glimpse, I'm offended by the idea they are conveying with this... However, then I sat back and thought back to shopping with girlfriends in the past, and said, hey, wait, this is what I wanted to be doing... If someone wants to slap a name on it, and market it as day care for their husbands, who cares... The end result is the same... Sit around, have a meal, a couple beers, probably play some bar games, and there is talk of slot car races and such... If the women think they're winning in this case, rock on... I can't tell you how much I hated waiting around while garments were tried on... How many bloody pairs of shoes does a woman need, let alone how many she looks at... I don't want to go look at the crap dust collectors that are "cute" and make a house "homey"... Hell if I decide I'm going to start playing the dating game again, I'll be looking for one of my pubs in the area to start one of these deals... Though I somehow suspect that the woman I would date would be smart enough to see through the scam... lol...
Well, as I sit here in my office over the weekend, waiting for paint to dry, I figured I should get started on this...
Part 2 - Color Theory of Light in Theatre
There are a couple important physical differences in light and pigment color. Light is an additive process, while pigment subtracts light. What this means is as opposed to theoretically getting black when all the pigments are present, you get white when all the wavelengths of light are present. The primary colors are also different in light and pigment. Red, Yellow and Blue in pigment, while it is Red, Green and Blue in light.
When designing lighting for a theatrical production, (and that is massively different than TV or Film lighting... perhaps that may be another post...) the lighting designer's primary, most important job is to provide visability, or the lack there of. Now that's easy, you could do that by just leaveing a bunch of lights on stage, and turning off the switch when you need a blackout. That however is not the only function of the designer naturally... As a Lighting Designer (LD) you have to know quite a bit about basic electrical theory so you design a system that will work in the space. You also have to understand how light reacts to many different surfaces, and skin tones. You often have to work with a given set of equipment rather than being able to pick your exact units. (most theatres have a stock of lighting equipment rather than renting everything all the time.) You need to know what is available in terms of color media (colored plastic that sits in front of the lighting unit so it only produces that color of light) and patterens. (patterens are steel or glass that you can insert into certian lighting fixtures to project that image) You need to read and understand the script, as well as working with the director on the concept that your production is going with. (it would do no good to have a flourescent light in a scene in the 15th century) You need to work with the scenic designer and costume designer on their selection of colors so you know what your reflective surfaces are going to be. (remember, you generally do not see light directly, almost always you are looking at light reflected off something else)
Once you have all that information, you can start on your design. You really need to consider where light is coming from in a scene. Is there a table lamp, is it moonlight, sunlight, fireplace, etc... Most people talk about this as the "motivation" for the light. It helps you determine the direction your lights come from as well as their color. Now you can't simply use that as the only light source usually... Remember, visibility?... So you will add additional light sources from different directions to "fill" the area and remove some shadows.
Ok... Back to color... Now, lets assume you have a scene set in a log cabin, in the winter at night... What are your first thoughts on the colors and where they come from?... Probably you thought fireplace right away... Ok... Add to that the cold crisp light from the moon streaming in a slightly frosted window... Where is your cabin in history?... If its modern, you'll probably have some regular lights here and there, possibly some flourescents in the kitchen area... If its in the middle of noplace, or further back in history, then you'll have candles, and oil lamps... Ok... Now, with that you get to work... You're going to have some yellow/amber/orange from the fireplace... That light is most likely going to come from several units so you can make them flicker a bit to give that "fire light" look... Moonlight through the window is going to be something in a light blue most likely... Sometimes people add a tint of green, or pink dependant if they want a "strange" moon, or a "happy" moon... For your regular lights on tables, you can use straight white light, but that actually looks wrong to most audiences, so you would probably pick an amber... The flourescents you can get away with white as well, though adding a tint of green will make it really read as a flourescent... Candles and oil lamps are usually in the same range as your fireplace, just without the flickering so much...
So you say, hey, wait, there are already all these lights on the set, why not use them? Well, you do enough for the audience to beleave that all the light on stage is coming from them... They just will not have enough punch to light the scene for an audience... Also, we do try to avoid real fire on stage all the time, so many candles and fires you may see on stage are faked with lights and a variety of physical effects...
Ok... Back to the cabin... What is you feeling with all that amber/red/yellow light and a shaft of moon coming through the window? Most people will perceive it as a warm scene, untill an actor steps to the window... Someone steps into that blueish light and all of a sudden, you feel cold... What changed?... Nothing... Its still extremely hot for that actor up on stage... The temp in the audience chamber didn't change... Its a human perception, based on color... That is why lighting is such a powerfull tool in the theatre... There are less "rules" in lighting than scenery, and costuming... There are naturally the common conventions such as what I used in my example, but really, the best way to work through your color choice it to visualize what you are going to see, and try to understand peoples reaction to it...
Ok... That's basically what I wanted to talk about, but I didn't work in a good way to explain one of the most common methods of lighting out there. If you pick two complimentary colors of light, together, they will make white light... One of the tried and true methods out there to provide front light (lighting from the audience to the stage, usually pretty high up) is to take those colors and angle them so they are 45 degrees off straight on to the actor... The most common colors are amber and blue, and they work really well for this... You end up with a fully lit actor, with basically all the wavelengths of light, but because of the angle, you get more definition to texture and facial features... (basically you get the definition from the little shadows that are more blue or more amber dependant on the side of the surface they are on...) Stanley McCandless Came up with this theory back in his book Method of Lighting the Stage. He was the electrician, for David Belasco's theatre projects... Those two are responsible for many of the ideas, as well as much of the equipment we have to draw from in lighting today... (not moving lights... we have rock 'n roll to thank for those little widgets) McCandless was the engineer that made Belasco's ideas work.
Hopefully some of this made sence... I wanted to get this posted before my admin went down again...
4 hours of my life were stolen by my client today... Four hours I can never have back... Four hours spent in NYC (in a less than scenic spot mind you) In the cold, outdoors, while I waited for someone to take the drapes I needed to hang, before I put in my deck, from someplace in Atlanta (yes Georgia) to the airport, put them on a plane and send them to NYC, where someone else had to pick them up, and bring them to me... Did I mention that, this process took 4 hours?... Now, I'm actually impressed that I can get drapes from Atlanta to my site in NYC in 4 hours... But why the hell didn't they send the damn things last night?...
Ok... That's enough vented rage for the moment... We now return you to your regularly scheduled programing...
Well due to a client calling and asking if I can move up a load in to tommorow this morning, Color Theory Part 2 is on hold untill the weekend at the earliest, next Thursday at the latest...
This is the same guy that called about the ellipse deck mind you... Glad I finished that up early...
Him... Hi, its So and So, do you have a minute?
Me... Sure, what can I do for ya
Him... Do you suppose you could put that deck in earlier than we talked about?
Me... That shouldn't be a problem... How much sooner?
Him... Tommorow morning.
Me... Tommorow?... As in 24 hours from right now?...
Him... Yep... Would that cause you a problem?
Me... Well you're talking about moving this up almost 36 hours... We're not packed, we've got other projects that will have to get pushed around... I'll have to call you back in an hour or so to see if we can do that...
Him... Ok... I'll be here all day...
An hour or so later after I actually have had my morning coffee...
Ring...Ring... Ring... Ring... Beeeeeeeep.... Thank you for calling So and So... We are out of the office today, so please leave a message... Beeeeeep...
Me... *muttering* You have got to be kidding *to the machine* Hi... Its Tim over here at Thus and Such Company... We can move the load in up to mid morning tommorow, but not first thing, give me a call to let me know that you got this, and I'll see you tommorow...
*click*
Um... ok... I was not compleatly honest with him... I could have gotten there first thing in the morning... but I didn't feel like getting up at 4am to fight traffic into and around NYC... Screw that... This guy's client must be certifiable, I swear...
