Week 9: Plotting

When I first heard about plotting in the 50C class, I was scared because it was made to sound like some upper division calculus something or other that I would not understand. But surprisingly, this lecture made me excited because it incorporates the math that I actually do like! Simple algebra and geometry. The only thing that seems daunting would be learning how to fully utilize Vectorworks. Which to me seems like a huge 10 levels beyond what Excel is... I guess I was surprised by how much I enjoyed learning the technical elements, or right brained elements of the design process. It doesn't seem so daunting now. It was also a really nice review of the different lights and their placement/use (i.e. box boom, high sides) . I seemed to have not retained that information as well as, say color theory.

Over the weekend I was also able to see "A Sweet Surprise", the DCPs lit by our very own Gilly! I thought the white cyc was beautiful and really made the cherry blossom detail on the set stand out. When the show started, my eyes started getting really overwhelmed by the brightness of the cyc and for about 5 minutes I was holding my hand to cover half of the cyc because my eyes were getting weary of it. I loved the red special cue a lot. But I think that moment fell short for me because the actor wasn't particularly more devilish in the moment, which I assume is supposed to be the peak exposure of his true nature. For surprise, I thought the composition was quite beautiful. In terms of setting though, I don't know how much I see them being in a diner because it had a very film noir feel to it. Overall though, I think for Gilly's first lighting design out of class, this was pretty successful.