Martha Carter Being Awesome (Post #4)

Right now I'm assistant stage manager on Travis Kendrick's DCP on which Martha Carter is lighting designer. The other day, she started creating the backdrop for the play and we all got really excited and started snapping pictures. Here's one of them that I took.

Using 6 spectra cyc lights (3 in the grid and 3 on the floor) Martha has been making some really awesome looking skies, sunsets, and sunrises. Here there are also clouds projected onto the cyc using a combination of 3 or 4 source four's with gobos taken a bit out of focus.

The top of the cyc gets light blues during the day, which fade down to very dark blues at night. Meanwhile, the bottom cyc lights can create very realistic looking sunsets and sunrises by fading from dark blue up to through violet and purple, into oranges and yellows, and then back down. Using long fades times, it looks like the real deal.

As for the clouds, they can be made to move around and change shape by fading in and out different combinations of the 3 or 4 associated source fours. It was surprising to me, but a gobo that really doesn't look at all like clouds when it's sharp can look fantastic after being fuzzed out just a bit.

I totally intend to steal the techniques that Martha used to create these looks because they're awesome. It's a really great way to establish time of day and or weather in a play and is flexible, allowing the different ambiance in different parts of the play.


Here are a few more photos from Travis's facebook page: