1hour 30mins performance time evaluation

Before we entered the theatre each member of our group had a to do list with instructions of what jobs needed doing and rough guideline to how long should be spent doing it. For example my hour and a half consisted of rigging the par cans on a stand and patching them, helping rig and patch Fresnel's-30 mins. Fill in cue sheet-30 mins. Plot-30 mins. Everyone had a different role to ensure the most work was being produced at all times.

Rigging
I felt we rigged quickly and well, we were ahead of schedule. All lights had been positioned and fixed correctly with no alterations to our lighting plan. We were questioned on as to whether there was a reason for using such a high powered Fresnel, however their was none except they were closest to the door and therefore more time effective. If we were repeating this performance we would make the area safer by taping excess wires to the floor using white tape to show a trip hazard, however as we were not using performers and everyone was aware of wires location we only did this with one light during our performance.

Gelling
Gelling was our biggest downfall within the performance time, but i do not feel this is due to the rate we worked at. We had 2-4 people working on gels at all times, however we did not estimate correctly how many new gels had to be cut. In our plan we did not include enough time to cut a gel for nearly every light and therefore this process ran 15 mins over its planned time. Unfortunatly due do our inability to react well to this situation and prioritise our later jobs this cut out our plotting time. If we were do the perormance again we would now have the gels we needed and the process would be quicker. If the same event occured again we would look at alternate solutions such as trying to focus from the ground so that all 8 group members could work or create more gel cutting stations and increase productivity.

Focusing
By the time we came to focus we were 20 minutes behind schedual, this created a frustration and panic amoungst the group in which communications broke down. Godwin worked quickly to get as many lights focused effectively as he could and the girls on the tallescope worked well with him to ensure that the focusing was safe, however we had 2 other group members in the catwalk unable to do anything whislt we tried to focus the stage lights first, this in effect was wasting time that we didnt have and could have been avoided if we focused more than one light at a time. I at this stage was writing a cue sheet to try and plot quickly. Again if this task was repeated under the same pressures i feel we should have tried to focues the lights from the ground, we would lose some effectivness but we have increased our plotting time and perhaps fullfilled some of the aims we had for our lighting states.

Plotting
we managed to program in 2 lighting cues and create 2 groups in the 5 minutes we had on the board before focusing, this was promising as it showed that we should have been able to create 10 cues in the 30min slot we had provided if we had not over run. The only problem we had with the lighting board was that our cues kept replacing each other rather than come before or after, however we asked for assistance and it appeared to be an error we had not been taught to deal with. On repeating the task i would prioritise getting in the lightin cues over and other area after rigging. I feel it would have been better to have a show wrongly focussed and gelled than to be in the situation we were in. Liv and I did our best after the cues and groups were used to create a show, however not all lights cleared when we expected and we lost all of our timings and lighting states.

Overall
Overall i feel the group worked well, we had a clear plan and structure and showed evidence that we knew how to exacute it. Our strong points were our quick rigging and maintaining safe enviroment whislt working at pace, i feel we had interesting ideas and played well to each group members strengths and weaknessess. Everyone showed ability in all areas and proved that they were capable of doing the jobs that needed to be done. Our weaknessess were our inability to adapt to the situations, not priorotising jobs or finding solutions to problems quick enough to keep our show alive.

I feel as if we have progressed from our first assignment together and have learned to plan well ahead and take responsibilities within roles, however this time we did not achieve the final product and this is something that we need to ensure does not happen again in the future.

Sound

Within a brain storming session, we as a group discussed all the sights and sounds we could associate with all seasons. We then decided that we wanted a clear soundtrack for each season that immediately identifiable .

We then decided we wanted addes extras and discussed using bird songs, we took this concept further and what you hear are birds that we hear in certain seasons ie. Swallows-spring, Robin- winter.

The pace and emotion felt within each season was also considered when choosing tracks, we wanted summer to be more upbeat than winter for example to help us achieve our aims within our lighting states.

Our final concept was adding sound to our timeline, we thought of holiday seasons and the idea of schools breaking up for summer and going back in autumn and thought school bells could be used to show this, we developed this idea further and put it in our one day timeline. Bell in the moring represent start of schoolday or spring, a second for lunch (Summer) and third to restart afternoon (autumn) and a bell to represent the end (winter) however we felt this was unneccarsary with all the elements combined and decided to leave it out.

Jamies Sound Track can be found under videos.

Lighting state 9

Our final lighting state represents the final stage of our season time line and life cycle. Our aim is to create a winters star filled sky to leave our audience in a calm and almost tranquiled state in which they can reminisce and ponder on the past and the effects it has had on them.

To achieve this we hung fairy lights from the bar and took out all other light, hopefully this will look similar to the image above and help us achieve our aim.

Lighting State 8

Our aim within this state is to create a cold winters eve, we therefore decided not to use a wash at all within this season. However we did need an evident change in season.

To achieve this we took all our light out except for our cold blue flood on the cyc, with our trees still on stage and a light behind them, we thought we might be able to create something to the effect of the image above making the audience feel cold.

Lighting State 7

As autumn is the not the death stage of our timeline so our aim with the wash is to show the final stages life.

To achieve this we wanted to create the colour scheme of an Autumn leaf like the one above, therefore we replaced the blue within our summer wash with a red, again still using the green and the yellow shows that elements of summer are still around however used in this way progression is evident.

Lighting State 6

Our aim within this lighting state is to create the appearance of autumn and to create the later stage in our timeline.We feel this season is the later stages of adulthood and represents life drawing to its end.

We would use the catwalk profile to create a new sun at the bottom of the cyc and use the floods as we have been to create an autumn evening.

Then to show the concept of death, we would take out the blossom of our 'trees'. our audience should now see a bare tree and feel in a state of venerability or isolation, emotions i attach to the inspiration image.

Lighting State 5

Our aim within this lighting state is to enhance the feeling of summer within our audience with a new warmer wash, we also aimed to start and establish a pattern within our piece ie. Sun & skyline-wash-sun & skyline, this is because this is how the seasons are working, the warmth of the sun is what effects the earth therefore it seems only logical that the position of our sun and the warmth of the skyline should effect our floor and flowers.

We decided to take out the rose from our spring wash and replace it with a warmer yellow, this in effect raises the warmth of our wash and give us a new summer feel whilst we still keep in our blue and green from spring to show that their are still elements of spring.

To show some more progression we aimed to up the intensity of our flowers to create the image that they had grown further as they do in nature. Again we did not reach this stage during the performance we can never be sure whether or not we would have achieved this aim.

Lighting state 4

The aim of this lighting state is to first establish we are in a new time, and secondly to introduce our second season- summer.We wanted to maintain our theme of sun position and cyc establishing the time of day, or life. We believed that summer was the teenage, high paced years of a persons life and tried to show this through bright, warm and positive colours.

To achieve the time of day we wanted to position a warm yellow sun at the highest center point of our cyc and took the cold blue flood out, leaving a warm sunny skyline, this immediately establishes mid day its warm,its bright and this should have raised spirits within our audience. However we never made it this far.

We decided within a group discussion that although the seasons change, in the early stages elements of the previous season still remain. To show this we decided to keep our 'tree's' in as they were.

Lighting state 3

In this third lighting state we wished to progress more with our idea of birth or rebirth being a part of spring. Our aim was to bring to life flowers or trees on stage to provide a more literal element of our piece.

The flowers were achieved by placing cut umbrella's on the stage. The inspiration for this idea comes from a previous production i was involved in where they are used to the same effect (see pic above). We then used profiles and spot lighted our 'trees' using branched gobo's and vibrant floral coloured gels. Although we did not see this in effect within the correct lighting states, i feel that we really did bring our tree's to life within the piece in a powerful and exciting way and had it all come together at the right time i beleive we would have fully achieved our aim within this lighting state.

Lighting state 2

This lighting state see's the introduction of more specials added to our wash. Our aim within this state is to establish our idea of time representing seasons.

With a profile rigged withing the cat walk we aim to create the image of a sun rising through placing an orange circle on the lower section of cyc. We felt that this would give our audience a time of day reference for spring with that time being early morning. However due to the lack of focusing, when we reached this stage the sun was not positioned correctly and therefore the effect and reference was lost.

We wished to provide further visual interest and create a skyline to match our season and sun rise. To achieve this we aimed to place a cold blue gel in one flood light, another warm orange gel in a separate flood and light the cyc. At the right intensity we should have been able to create a warm spring morning with a little of winter still present. Again this is not what we achieved as by performance we had not programmed our lighting cues thus far.

Lighting State 1

Our first lighting state is the introduction of spring. Running with our theme we aim to create the idea of new life without drifting away from the colours and image of spring.

In order to achieve this we first created a wash of colours we associate with spring. Within a group discussion we decided we like the idea of delicate colours to match nature during this time of year. We tried to achieve this through our 3 point wash by placing a light blue, rose and green gels in our 3 fresnels.

In addition to this we wished to create the image of rebirth as a metaphor for flowers rise in spring and the birth stage of life. To achieve this we placed two par cans on stands directed at the audience. By fading in the intensity with the wash the audience are momentarily blinded by the par cans white light before being able to see the world we have created on stage the audience should feel a slight overwhelming or sublime, an new experience or being reborn into our piece.

During performance we had not focused our parcans or backstage fresnel, therefore the wash did not achieve its full potential and our par cans blinded our audience on what was probably an almost dangerous level for the duration of our first cue immediatly creating discomfort and a negative atmosphere to start the show. I do believe however that had we focused the lights properly we would have achieved our aim for this state.

ground and lighting plan

The concept of our piece is to create the 4 seasons in a visual and entertaining way in the attempt to provoke the emotions felt during each season.
We decided that each season was like a stage of life from birth to death and tried to incoporate this element of seasons growing and changing over time.

We aim to create washes through a 3 point lighting plan with our fresnels and had to add an additional 2 to the front so that we can change the washes with seasons.


The stars represent umbrella's which will be explained in a seperate post and these will be lit by the profiles above them.

We have floods to create a skyline and add a temperature to each season. These will work with the 3 profiles placed in the catwalk to create a sun positioned on the cyc.

The par cans are placed on stands and directed towards the audience for reasons explained later.

Lighting cue sheet

Introduction to Theatre Making 3

After being taught the correct procedures and given some information about lanterns and the differences in functions and purposes we were divided into groups again and asked to produce a brief lighting rig and performance to show what we had learnt.

After learning from our mistake the week before our group decided to go with simplicity. We quickly drew up a lighting plan that involved a 3 point general cover using fresnels to use a wash for the section of the stage we were working on for our first lighting state.

Having rigged these we decided we wanted to highlight our chair within the piece from 45 degrees in front of and above. This created a shadow behind the chair and closed the space for our second lighting state.

Our third and final lighting state saw the introduction of a par can from a side bar. With the barn doors we were able to open up the light to again open the space but from a new perspective when used with the profile. It also moved the shadow of the chair heightening a visual interest for our audience.

Again with the introduction of colour and more lighting states i feel we can progress from what we discovered during this practical.