In this chapter, technical theatre is a very complicated field. Unlike other subject that technical theatre has so many subtypes so it is easy to understand what I want to do in technical theatre but hard to expert at how to do well what I want. Furthermore, some techniques and instruments in technical theatre are too distant from our previous studies so sometimes the concept will be very obscure. When we started our chapter at very first, I was asked to research the lighting part and do a presentation. So I looked up “stage lighting in theatre”. I found many sources that tell me about the concept of some elements in lighting, and they introduced the concept in a easy way. However, when they start to introduce the work that needs to be done in a lighting project, I got totally confused by those varied instruments. Each of them has a special use, obviously I would not have time to learn about everything. And the next thing coming was the lighting plot, a floor plan of the stage wit...
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Turandot cast: Appearance: Helen Zheng, Megan Huan. Both girls use a lot of make up and do not look like good people. And these 2 people are suitable for cool tone makeup and dresses. Voice: Olivia Williamson, she is a high-soprano and can do powerful head voice. Calaf cast: Appearance: Abdulla Alblooshi, John Digiacomo. Both boys are middle Asia looking and look like a positive figure. Voice: Peter Deng with half octave up range. His voice has a good quality and sounds “official” and his voice is good man’s voice.
In the next project I will conduct a scene from the opera Turandot as my tech theatre designing project. The scene is about the process of how the Persian prince got executed, and how Calaf decided to persue the marriage. I will be giving proposals of how to design such a scene in multiple aspects: lighitng, sound, makeup, costume, music, and stage design. In the lighting part, I would like to start with discussing the lighting of each part of the scene: 1. princess passed Persian prince and walked in the palace 2. Calaf walked to the middle and exclaimed everything happening 3. People dismissed and the body of Persian prince took away. The first part I would like to highlight the front part of the stage and make the surrounding dim as the princess passes through people and the Persian prince. The second part I would like to have 2 focus that one is Calaf and one is the Persian prince. The third part I would like to highlight only on Calaf as he determined...
Despite of my own presentation, others’ presentations helped a lot in my understanding on tech theatre. These presentations helped me establishing a new perspective on theatre career. In Helen’s presentation, she briefly introduced the history of the makeup. In Ancient Greece, they started to use masks to decorate their faces and Rome continued this tradition. But it was not until the 1800s, people started to realize the role of cosmetic in theatre. Makeup enhances the characters while sometimes helps the performers to create a different person from the performer. For example, when females try to act male characters they need to do some makeup anyway, like Lexi in Les Miserables. Makeups reflect the mental conditions or the mood of the characters, and certain kinds of makeups only appear in certain time period. Costumes, however, had played an important role since the origin of theatre. Then they became more important in the Renaissance. The usage of costumes are to dep...
http://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/lighting-design-process/ https://youtu.be/8nSvnu-h-Xo Video http://www.stagelightingguide.co.uk/ http://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/lighting-design-paperwork/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_lighting https://youtu.be/LX066IHgZEM
I took Puccini’s Turandot in Valencia, 2008 as my analysis sample of the lightning design. First I will explain how stage lighting designer works. So as a lighting designer, your job will be to help performers and directors to achieve what they envisioned in the scene in corporations of lighting tools. Before you start to design, usually you need to watch the rehearsal without lighting effects and discuss with the director about what he wants, then you can start doing your job. Then, your will need to write a list about what you need and what you will do called “cue list”. When you have your cue lists, you can start mixing the lighting effects with rehearsals. So as you advancing, use the cue lists as references, deleting and adding new cues all the time to see what’s the best arrangement. Turandot, a story of a indifferent princess, who would marry the man that could answer all her 3 questions or she would kill him. Foreign princes died for Turandot’s beauty but they kep...
Silence: focus without speaking, establishing relationship. Try different music and silence to see which works best. Set needs to fit the style. Special effects: smoke, lighting, projection. The tech is all about managing your time, the actors' time and the lighting and sound operatives' time. More preparation advance, more better the tell be.
Though I will do my presentation again on Friday, I write this reflection on my previous presentation for some notes for Friday and some thought on this study. Overall, this was a long and big project for us. From the beginning of the January to the end of the March, three month in total, this was my biggest project in my life I have ever done. During this long period, I did the project in a consistent pace. For example, after I chose the tradition, I classified my work process into several steps: find the convention, look up the background knowledge of the tradition, find the my theater moment part, write my lines, do my powerpoint, and practice. I got laziness when I was going to present because of the project stretched through the spring break. Other than that, I thought this pace of doing project was fine. I think my biggest problems in this project are all presentation problems. I blew up my try-out presentation before the break which made me really nervous so I almost bl...