A new begining...

with a new class.

Welcome to LCD.  Thanks for setting up your blog pages, great to see people already making posts.  I have downloaded the blog address file to the course page so please start reading what your classmates have to say about light.

As far as what I have to say about light, well looking out the office window today I see clouds; lots of big fluffy white clouds.  What strikes me about these clouds is how the contours are defined by the angle of the sunlight hitting them.  As the clouds move so do the shadows and without these shadows clouds would appear to be really big cotton balls with smooth surfaces instead of the craggy, crinkly, lumpy, bumpy "congregation of vapours" that we are used to seeing. 

So look up, admire the clouds and appreciate how different the world would look without shadow.

That's all for now, see you in class. 

Changing clouds, changing light

Sitting in my office I get to watch the light change throughout the day as time progresses and as the cloud cover changes.  Sometimes it is incredibly bright out and I don't need my desk light on, other times it gets very dark and the desk light is necessary to be able to see what I'm doing.  So that leads me to today's point to ponder... mechanical dimmers.

On stage we can use Neutral Density when we want to decrease light output without changing the color temperature of the source.  Moving lights need to use a mechanical dowser to decrease light output since you can't electronically dim an arc lamp, same with our follow spots.  But what about light in your life.  How do you decrease the amount of light you get from a source.  Maybe you use blinds on your window, open them to let a lot of light in, close them to varying degrees to decrease the light.  What about lamp shades?  Are they dimming the light or just changing the direction in which it is being emitted? 

Look at all the ways we decrease light in our lives without actually turning the light off.  How can you realistically make this happen on a stage?  Something to think about this week.

later...

Baseball Caps

Ok gang, here is a problem for you to ponder.  You have to light a speaker on a stage and said speaker is wearing a baseball cap.  How do you deal with the overhead lights hitting the bill of the cap projecting shadows down below their nose?  Think about this because it is something you are sure to encounter at some point.  It might not be a baseball hat, it might be a cowboy hat, but there will be a hat in your future that makes it impossible to light the face underneath it.

Remember not all light needs to come from above.  Look at light in the world around you, how is it that the underside of your chin is lit up when the sun is overhead?  Where does that light come from?  Unless you are emitting a glow it must be reflected off of a surface, maybe your shirt or maybe the desk.  Ah bounce lighting, your best friend or your worst enemy.  Try and find some examples of bounce lighting and blog about them this week.  Analyze what the light is reflecting off of and how changing the surface would change the reflection.  Think of how you can use reflected light on a stage (hint: look at the first paragraph).

More later...

Blogs

Don't forget to set up your blog and fill out the contact information form before the next class session.

And so it begins...

Welcome to class and welcome to Show Pro!  You will be setting up a blog of your own for this class and using it to journal your observations of light in the world around you.  I expect you to read each others blogs and comment on what you read.  You may learn something from your classmates or they may learn something from you, I might even learn something!

In order to get started, I need you to fill out the following form: http://tinyurl.com/lcdcontact.  Once I have everyone's blog sites I will share that information with the class.  You must make an entry on your blog everyday and a comment on at least one of your classmates blogs once a week. 

Day 2 - Managing a crew

E-mail.  Boy, life changed when e-mail became the norm, no longer having to wait for the post office, no longer having to wait for a returned phone call.  Need information and need it now?  No problem, type a message, click send and there it was.  But like everything, with the good comes the bad. 

Need to fill a crew, send an e-mail.  People want to be on the crew, they send an e-mail back.  Now what to do with all those e-mails.  I created folders and then folders in my folders and more folders, so many folders that my in-box tree looks like a twisted old live oak.  And still replies were falling through the cracks.  "I sent that to you yesterday, I don't know how you missed it."  Yeah, neither do I... oh there it is, sorted into the wrong folder.

Along comes Shawn and a brave new solution... GOOGLE DOCS!  Wow I am in love.  It's easy, it's organized, it calms my OCD, what more could a girl want.  GOOGLE FORMS!  No more e-mails, send a link and everything comes back to a nice, neat spreadsheet.  But there's more.. Blogs, Web pages, g-mail.  I feel like 7 of 9, I've been assimilated, or googleated, either way there is no going back. 

I always tell crews and students work smarter not harder.  I think I just learned the lesson.

Entering the 21st Century

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?  One thing about the entertainment industry is if you don't keep up with the technology you will find yourself sitting in your living room wondering why the phone doesn't ring anymore.  The changes that have occurred over the years leave me wondering how I have managed to keep up with them.  It's not enough, however, to know all about the latest gear you also have to be able to embrace new ways to collaborate, communicate and disseminate information.  Welcome to this old dogs attempt at learning new tricks.