Visual Inspiration
Once you have read the play and met with the director and creative team, the next step is to start to begin thinking about the visual environment in a more concrete way. One of the most important steps in this process is to begin collecting imagery that will help inspire your design.
The imagery that you find will inspire not only the look of the production, but also the way that you communicate the emotional reality of the story. Therefore, while many of the images that you find will have a strong sense of light (you are the lighting designer after all), others may not speak to actual light at all, but help you say something else about the design. Ultimately, the images that you choose do not define your design, but help for you to talk about the play, and how your design can help to tell the story.
It is useful at the beginning of the process to collect lots of images. If an image has the least bit of interest for you in talking about the play, go ahead and grab it. You can always thin down your pile later. However, you should make sure that you're able to pinpoint what it is about the image that speaks to you, often in relation to elements of design: color, direction, shape, intensity, etc. There may be a few images that speak to you on a deeper emotional level, to which you might say "I'm not really sure what it is about this image, but it seems right." A few of these can have value, but if you're saying that about many or most of your images, you're not thinking hard enough.
Once you have a big pile of images (I like to have the images in hard copy, rather than just on a computer or tablet screen), start to organize them. Do they break down easily into elements of light? Or does it make more sense to split them into given circumstances and emotional reality? Are there images that lead you to a particular moment of the play? There might be a progression of images that show the arc of the story from beginning to end ('These images illustrate how I think about Act One, and these ones are about Act Three').
Share these images with your collaborators. Discuss in a 'big picture' way how the collection of images helps you define the look of the production. Then, look at the specifics of some of the images and discuss the specific thoughts that they generated when you chose them. The most important thing to remember here is to talk about the play- not the images! The images help to illustrate your ideas about the play, not the other way around.
The imagery that you find will inspire not only the look of the production, but also the way that you communicate the emotional reality of the story. Therefore, while many of the images that you find will have a strong sense of light (you are the lighting designer after all), others may not speak to actual light at all, but help you say something else about the design. Ultimately, the images that you choose do not define your design, but help for you to talk about the play, and how your design can help to tell the story.
It is useful at the beginning of the process to collect lots of images. If an image has the least bit of interest for you in talking about the play, go ahead and grab it. You can always thin down your pile later. However, you should make sure that you're able to pinpoint what it is about the image that speaks to you, often in relation to elements of design: color, direction, shape, intensity, etc. There may be a few images that speak to you on a deeper emotional level, to which you might say "I'm not really sure what it is about this image, but it seems right." A few of these can have value, but if you're saying that about many or most of your images, you're not thinking hard enough.
Once you have a big pile of images (I like to have the images in hard copy, rather than just on a computer or tablet screen), start to organize them. Do they break down easily into elements of light? Or does it make more sense to split them into given circumstances and emotional reality? Are there images that lead you to a particular moment of the play? There might be a progression of images that show the arc of the story from beginning to end ('These images illustrate how I think about Act One, and these ones are about Act Three').
Share these images with your collaborators. Discuss in a 'big picture' way how the collection of images helps you define the look of the production. Then, look at the specifics of some of the images and discuss the specific thoughts that they generated when you chose them. The most important thing to remember here is to talk about the play- not the images! The images help to illustrate your ideas about the play, not the other way around.
The Image Board
Once you have spent some time discussing the play and the images, you'll have a better idea of the direction that you're going with the design. There will be some images that are less relevant, and you can pull them out of the pile. A few images will remain as being very important to the development of your design. These are the images that will make up your image boards, or a collage of related images that help you to think about the play and discuss the play. Depending on the play, you might have one or several boards. You may have one board for given circumstances imagery, and another for emotional reality (or 'setting' and 'mood' boards). For another play it might be appropriate to separate by acts- Act 1 board vs Act 2 board. Still others might reflect different settings in the play: City Board, Forest Board and Fairy World Board, for example.
These boards are useful in a couple of different ways: by placing the boards within view while you are working on your design, you will be reminded of your intentions as you are working. Also, because your work as a lighting designer is not really realized until the cues are written during tech week, the image boards are sometimes the best way to present your ideas during designer presentations during rehearsals. Click the button below to see examples of finished image boards.
These boards are useful in a couple of different ways: by placing the boards within view while you are working on your design, you will be reminded of your intentions as you are working. Also, because your work as a lighting designer is not really realized until the cues are written during tech week, the image boards are sometimes the best way to present your ideas during designer presentations during rehearsals. Click the button below to see examples of finished image boards.
'Eurydice': Image research and production shots
Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice takes place in three 'movements' (or acts). The first movement happens in the 'real world'. The second movement is in the underworld, and the third movement involves Orpheus's deal with Hades to allow Eurydice to return to the world of the living. These pictures illustrate how inspirational images can translate into the look of the production.
The third movement is dominated by Orpheus and Eurydice's walk to the surface. This image with the lack of clarity on the figure, and the very bright and overexposed intensity led to a sharp use of intensity and direction (low angle). The resulting high contrast shots gave this movement a unique look not seen in the rest of the play.
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A few rules
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Web Image citationAn Image (Including a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph)
Provide the artist's name, the work of art italicized, the date of creation, the institution and city where the work is housed. Follow this initial entry with the name of the Website in italics, the medium of publication, and the date of access. Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Museo National del Prado. Web. 22 May 2006. Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York.The Artchive. Web. 22 May 2006. If the work is cited on the web only, then provide the name of the artist, the title of the work, the medium of the work, and then follow the citation format for a website. If the work is posted via a username, use that username for the author. brandychloe. "Great Horned Owl Family." Photograph. Webshots. American Greetings, 22 May 2006. Web. 5 Nov. 2009. (from Purdue English Department Online Writing Lab) |
Tips for finding good imagery
Google images is sometimes a good place to start, but the imagery you'll find there is sometimes a bit pedestrian and not very interesting. If you are using google images, be sure to keep on scrolling. There are 141,000 images available- why do people stop after seeing 20?
Better yet is to search using more interesting sources. My favorite is flickr.com, a site for photographers. One of my favorite things about this site is that you can sort the results of a search by 'relevance' or by 'interesting'. I almost always click the 'interesting' filter. For example, I searched for "Winter Day" on Google and on Flickr (with the interesting filter) and came up with vastly different 'first' images.
Better yet is to search using more interesting sources. My favorite is flickr.com, a site for photographers. One of my favorite things about this site is that you can sort the results of a search by 'relevance' or by 'interesting'. I almost always click the 'interesting' filter. For example, I searched for "Winter Day" on Google and on Flickr (with the interesting filter) and came up with vastly different 'first' images.
Sebastian Saur. "The Jachen stream during a cold winter day." Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. 29 January 2011. Web. 24 July 2015. <commons.wikimedia.org>.
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Loren Kerns. "Day 338: Winter berries." Photograph. Flickr. 4 Dec. 2013. Web. 24 July 2015. <www.flickr.com>.
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Now, depending on the show and what you are looking for, the first image might very well be wholly appropriate. The thing that you'll notice on google, though, is that most of the images that pop up right away are very similar to one another. By choosing the 'interesting' filter, you find a greater variety of images.
One more note on using Flickr and other sites on which professionals post their work. Many users have placed usage restrictions on their work (as is within their intellectual property rights). If these download/use restrictions are in place, you cannot use the images! As a fellow artist, you should respect the wishes of these photographers! If the picture is absolutely perfect, you can often contact the photographer and explain how you'd like to use it, and in most cases permission will be granted. You can search for 'only creative commons' images in order to avoid those images that have copyright restrictions.
One more note on using Flickr and other sites on which professionals post their work. Many users have placed usage restrictions on their work (as is within their intellectual property rights). If these download/use restrictions are in place, you cannot use the images! As a fellow artist, you should respect the wishes of these photographers! If the picture is absolutely perfect, you can often contact the photographer and explain how you'd like to use it, and in most cases permission will be granted. You can search for 'only creative commons' images in order to avoid those images that have copyright restrictions.