the Hemsley Portfolio Review

this weekend, for the 5th year in a row, the Hemsley Lighting Programs presented its portfolio review, design exhibit, and reception. this time, i was there! as part of my graduate school program, mark invites the second years to come as observers--in our third year we go as participants. it was a completely fabulous weekend--i met lots of amazing designers and learned so much straight from the top!

most of the time i spent following around our third year student. she was kind to let me sit in on all of her one-on-one sessions with designers, directors, producers, choreographers, and master electricians, which included Steve Shelley, Al Crawford, Michelle Habeck, David Grill, Rick Baxter, Gary John LaRosa, Mitch Dana, Beverly Emmons, and Ed McCarthy. There were also mini seminars on USA, consoles, moving lights and more. Before the exhibit and reception, we had a panel discussion about the collaborative process led by Ken Billington and the rest of the creative team from Sondheim on Sondheim (James Lapine, Beowulf Boritt, and Peter Flaherty). AND, did i mention that i had lunch with Ken Billington? :)

the most amazing thing about the entire experience was the spirit of the room. true to Gilbert Hemsley, these lighting designers were not only interested in the work you are doing, but also in trying to help you. who you were as a person and your passion for the work you were doing was just as important as the quality of the drafting or whether your pictures were in the right order. on the same coin, they were tough as nails--trying to make you better and showing you what needed to happen in order to be viable as a designer. i wrote an entire legal pad of notes on drafting, cueing, plotting, balance and composition, assisting, and what it's like to be a professional designer.
picture from the hemsley website


and they were a fun lot. they all love what they do and they laugh and joke. that was wonderful to see. Being serious and hardcore has a place but it's "all about relationships at the end of the day" (Ken Billington). the review was like a big family, who was offering young designers a chance to form relationships that would help them for the rest of their lives. that may sound corny, but it really felt that way.

in addition to being in a room full of famous lighting designers, i got the chance to look at the work of 30 graduating lighting students--displayed beautifully. it was AMAZING--the work that these people are doing just blew me away. there were some stunningly beautiful moments and being able to see what my peers are creating was so inspiring for me. it makes me want to return to school and try to apply all the things that i have learned this weekend, so that next year i can be proud to display my work next to theirs. it was also incredibly interesting to see the different styles of design coming out of the different schools. you could recognize the yale or nyu student (and there was A LOT of pretty for sure!) and there were amazing people from schools ive never heard of with a completely different approach. there was one person from ucsd who had the most incredible exhibit i have ever seen! i really can't wait to present my work next year--it's going to be even more fun!

it is rare that you will ever be in a room with 60 other lighting designers--much less one where the primary focus is your artistic and professional development. i don't know of anything else in the world that grants young designers this opportunity. i am incredibly grateful to mark for letting me be part of this weekend. next year is going to be awesome!

thesis propsal? check!

Yesterday, my thesis proposal was accepted by the faculty. Yay! Now to firm up my committee and get crackin'...on the below!

“Word Painting: Conversations in Light”

Word Painting is an exploration of the relationship between light and text, abstracted from narrative. Robert Edmond Jones writes in The Dramatic Imagination, “we use light as we use words, to elucidate ideas and emotions”. (120) In this thesis, I want to explore the conversation created by images which are text-based.

Purpose:
Jones writes, “The lighting of a play should contain an element of surprise, a sense of discovery”. (118) I think that the discovery of meaning and value in a text can be expressed through light. Further, I think that it is a beautiful and valuable thing for one to experience control over the environment in which one is. I would like to marry this sense of control with the sense of discovery in the text. The visitor to the space is in total control over what happens in the space: should he chose to read or not to read, should he chose to sit or not to sit—his degree of interaction with the text determines what visual is created in the world he inhabits. Further, he is unaware of this degree of control until he does something to make himself aware.
It is important to me that part of the this project be about communicating the kind of images which lighting designers conjure up when they read a text, but which other people might not readily conjure. I am creating the images, the visitor is discovering them and manipulating them. I want to have a personal conversation with each viewer through these images.

Why this is not a piece about acting or designing a scene:
I think that through this project, the visitor would become aware of the emotion being expressed by the text in a way that differs from a play. I am not interested in how one would convey a sad scene or a lover’s scene to an audience. I am interested in making the visitor understand/feel/generate the emotion that the text conveys. There is no audience to watch.
I think that the real-time, interactive nature of this project makes it different from designing a scene from a play. Like an aria in opera develops an emotion over its various sections, I think that the exploration of the text will develop the visual picture in real time. As the person becomes aware of his degree of control, he can revisit and reorder the text, thus manipulating the visual world around him. It is a tangible, breathing set of parameters. There is a “livingness” to the light. (113)


Why tie this to a text?
In a world where everyone is not a lighting designer or a theatre artist, using text gives the everyone a common language, so that a conversation through images is possible. I am not interested in creating something pretty to look at, nor am I interested in making an installation that people walk through. I want to create a piece that forces you to interact with it—something that doesn’t exist unless you interact with it. I am interested in the creation of theatre inside of one’s mind—in the everyday fantastical pictures that ordinary people get when they read a love poem or listen to a song play. In tying the project to text, I provide a medium through which people can interact. There is a structure to what they are doing, which will allow them to discover their control and manipulate it more easily. Also, I think that text is integral to theatre, whether that be in the form of a monologue or an action. Just design is, in my opinion, just visual art.

Structure:
There are three types of text that would be explored in this project: commands, literature and song. Types are as follows:
Direct command: stage direction, eg, “Stand over there”
Literature: imagery from poetry and prose, eg, “the rosy fingered Dawn…”
Song: song lyrics without music, “I’m Mr. Blue…”
When the visitor arrived at the space, he would be given one of the three types of text and directed to enter the space. Once inside, he would interact with the text- either speaking it out loud, singing the song, or completing the action. This would begin the sequence of lighting: creating a predetermined atmosphere to reinforce the experience. There is no scenery or props—everything is supplied by the design.

Misc:
Set Up:
Light needs to inhabit the same space as the viewer: a black-box style space would work well. Also, due to the conversational nature of the piece, I will be cueing most of it live every time—building from a few existing looks.
Design:
It is important that each possible permutation within a visual sequence be compositionally sound. However, there is something to be said for a set of confusing emotions being confusing visually until they resolve into something familiar.
As much as possible, there needs to be a tangible quality to the visitor’s interaction with the text. Things should not appear to be happening to the visitor; the visitor should feel as though he is making things happen.

Other things I would like to incorporate:
1)Ensemble experiences: three people, one for each type of text. Make a piece of theatre, by working together to figure out the rules of the visual design.
2)Free-form environment creation: some sort of mapping system for exploring texts outside of the preselected group

the opera begins!

today i turned in my plot for the opera. it is the largest light plot i have ever designed and has 384 non-cyc units on it. (it also has a ton of cyc units!!) i am both very proud and completely terrified. it's a lot to think about--and a lot to focus. also, with so many units i cant help but worry that in the shuffle i forgot to check some angle somewhere that is going to wreck havoc on the design. but, for the most part, i feel incredibly excited about the next few weeks.
in order to show the team the lighting ideas and also to help me finalize colors, we lit the model box. the singers have these pictures up in the rehearsal hall now, which i think is incredibly helpful since they can see the atmosphere that we are creating. here are some of the results.
oh what a pretty night













romantic cabin
















the potluck

moving light wonderland/translucent paradise!

today i got to program a GrandMA with a rig of 24 heads from Martin, VariLite and Comar. 4Wall came up to do their demo and it was amazing. Those ACLs and 3ks are BRIGHT! And, there is NOTHING like seeing 24 moving lights moving through haze. We were divided into groups and each group had to program a song that Mark selected from his iPod. It was really challenging....especially since this was our first exposure to the GrandMa.

It was really cool to see all the lights side by side (and in the case of Martin and VariLite, a good deal of their respective lines) in order to see what this one does that effect better or how this color mixer is different, etc. I really enjoyed seeing how the different instruments shaped the beam and the different color temperatures in openwhite. And, since the demo was very thorough, I feel like I have a much better idea of what mover is good for what task. All in all, a very fun and instructive weekend. Plus, 24 moving heads in 210: that's just ridiculous :)

the other half of the weekend was more applicable to my current design work (Susannah)--the lighting of a translucent drop. I have to say right now that I am completely amazed at the things Mark showed us during that seminar. I had no idea that some of the effects he demonstrated were possible, or that a lighting designer needed to put so much thought into the drop. I assumed that it was just like a regular drop, except from behind mostly. I couldn't have been more wrong. Adding specials that bounce in specific places, using a skrim, knowing what top light does well and doesn't do well---these are all things that I am trying to squeeze into my already full plot, simply because after seeing Mark light that drop this weekend, I am keenly aware of what incredible potential the drop in Susannah has.



the difference here is simply a matter of shooting something like a src4 into the bounce or RP and controlling where it lands. SO much more control that just a cyc light! plus, add templates to the front.

love, mr. stanley

my favorite thing about grad school is by far my advisor. like today, when i brought in my giant opera plot and i had all these questions: i spout out all this nonsense and all this worry and he sits there and then calmly points to something and suddenly all is clear. for real.

today i had too many lights. now i know.

reviews!reviews (and thoughts on the summer)

more reviews have come in for both diventare and foreverendia which i thought it might be nice to post here. the first comes from the colab theatre company , whose blog i have followed for quite some time. read it HERE .

the second comes from the ever present BU Today, but it has some lovely pictures as well as my favorite part, “I thought it was really beautifully done — visually and the acting...The lights convey different moods, and the flashlights seem like the characters’ auras.” Yay for nice writeups!

further, i have found several small theatre companies (all in NYC/MA/upstate NY) which i am incredibly interested in. more details to follow, as well as more information about my never-ending quest to find a way to work at the getty!

hello broadway! it's me, mary ellen.

today i left NYC after an INCREDIBLE weekend in the city for Boston University's InCite Arts Festival 2010 (and YES i just posted a BROADWAY WORLD link!!!). all i can say is WOW. not only is new york a FABULOUS place to work and visit, i am so totally starstruck that i hardly know where to begin!

we got to nyc on friday night and spent all of saturday hanging, focusing and teching on stage one at new world stages . on sunday morning, i had my tech for diventare and then a performance, to which some of my new york friends came-- YAY! in fact, over 350 people came to see my show in NYC...which is amazing! on monday we set up the exhibit in the lobby and in the afternoon/evening the faculty, students, alumni and friends all had a big to-do.

first let me say that the honorees this year were totally stellar: lara crowe, abe jacobs, chuck giles, wynn thomas, and franco colavecchia. that list right there is ASTOUNDING: those people together are responsible for some of the best theatre of the last 35 years. just being able to talk to them, ask them questions and listen to what they had to say was totally amazing. AND, as if that weren't enough, mark had invited many prominent lighting designers (think tony award winners here!) to come to incite. as i stood next to my exhibit, all of these amazing designers approached me and wanted to talk about my plot, my drafting, my show and my plans. i got so much wonderful feedback--and all from these amazing lighting designers who are literally living legends. it was one of the most amazing experiences i have ever had. to be able to talk to kevin adams, ken billington, ml gieger, frances aronson, mitch dana, steve shelley...the list goes on and on---just wow. it was a truly transformative experience, and there is no way to describe the incredible amount of wisdom and advice that they all gave to me during those few hours that we were at the exhibit/reception.

AND: if that weren't enough, this MORNING a group of us went to the lincoln center (at chuck giles' invitation) and got to see the new york city opera in action. while we were just sitting there in the house, looking at everything, who should show up but robert wierzel, who decided to come over, introduce himself and talk to us about being the lighting designer for the season. more stars!! plus, the lincoln center is HUGE and GORGEOUS! i would have totally taken pictures if i had felt that it would have been ok :)

i think the most amazing thing that i took away from this whole experience was the fact that these wonderful professionals were interested in helping me succeed. they were eager to talk about work and give out advice. they wanted to know what questions i had and they wanted to share how they worked out all the kinks in their own careers. everyone was so supportive and so honest in their critique--it was truly wonderful to get such intelligent and frank feedback on my work and answers to my questions. i am so so so grateful to mark for bringing all of his colleagues to the festival to meet with his students--it was a once in a lifetime experience and chance to really present myself as a designer to the giants in my field.

thesis inspiration

So, I can't succinctly state what it is Im going to do... but I know that this things is important.

MIT Media Lab I/O Brush

foreverendia review!

read the review! YAY foreverendia!

READ THE REVIEW HERE

"Tuttle and his skeleton crew of a production team, paired with six refined actors, produced one of the most tender and thoughtful pieces I have seen in 2010."

:)

kennedy center!

so....exciting news! diventare, which participated in the ACTF region 1 festival in jan, has ***been selected to go to the kennedy center in april!!***** YAY! that's really exciting for two reasons. 1) designing in the kennedy center is a great opportunity and a bit of a big deal. 2) this is the first time in a long time that BU has gotten this far in the process :)

tonight is our last tech run before we pack up and move to NYC for the weekend at new world stages. (click on "InCite" down at the bottom and scroll down!!) and even if you ARENT excited about diventare, who COULDN'T be excited about avenue q and 39 steps?!



in you're in NYC, get tickets! come to the show!