So, 12 Angry Men opens tomorrow, and I am one of it's official Light Techs.
Which basically means I show up, sweep the stage, mop the stage, channel-check (push a series of buttons that cycle through the different light-chanells and pretend to know what I'm doing), then sit with an important-looking head-set on in the Tech Cave and push a button 34 times over our two-hour show :-)
There have been no ladders involved, so, I'm happy (though I did get to push my boss around on one while he balaced thirty-feet above my head, focusing lights). I did get a piece of wooden-riser embedded in my thumb, which I've been wearing around like a badge of honor for a few days.
There are sooo many things I know now that I wish I'd used back in my ET days!! How to adjust a source-4. How to put together a cue-script. How to organize and call cues. What the function of a Stage-Manager actually is (in ET, the Director actually did most of the things that a Stage Manager handles in professional theater. Think of all the work I could've delegated if I'd only known!!).
I love theater. Wish it paid ;-)
So how do you have 34 light changes in a play that takes place in one room? Are you mimicking the sun's every move? Or spotlighting all over the place?
ReplyDeleteWe have a fairly unrealistic staging plan for a play like this. The background is mesh, and so the lovely "hot day" colors on the backdrop are a major part of atmosphere. Most of the light changes involved spotlighting during down-time one-on-one convos, or lights going up on the bailif's hallway when he comes in, or the thunderstorm, or the fan turning on, or this cool sillouette effect at the end of both acts :-)
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