Lighting Design – Key Terms

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Lighting design – The concept that a designer creates to provide light onstage to support the mood or atmosphere of the play

Light Plot – The map that shows where all of your lighting instruments are placed and where they will be lighting

Lighting grid – Up above the stage, it is a system of bars and electricity that powers the lights

Lighting Board – The control panel that powers the lights; when they turn on and off and at what intensity

Cyclorama – The large white ‘sheet’ at the back of the stage that can be lit or projected on

Back light – Lighting from the back

Side light – Lighting from the side

Top light – Lighting from above

Front light – Lighting from the front

Foot light – Lighting that is placed on the floor in the front

Spotlight – A single source of light focused on a single subject

Fill light – Light sources that add lighting in and around the set/scenery/stage – they ‘fill in’

Wash – A large group of lighting that can ‘wash’ the stage in light that can bring up at once together

Lighting angle – The angle of the lighting instrument in relation to the subject; usually 45%

Gobo (or patter) – A pattern ( in olden days it was a circle of metal) that blocks light to give you a shape onstage

Gel (or color gel) – The color that you want the instrument to throw onstage (or light onstage)

 

Behind the Scenes: Julie Taymor

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PART A

You are to assume the role of a director or designer. You have been presented with the following…challenges. Imagine how you might solve these direction and design problems.

  1. You have to show or create a shipwreck on stage. How might you do that?

First consider where the shipwreck is, what the current mood of the scene is, and the weather condition. Then add elements such as where the water is, where the ship is, what kind of lighting best matches the mood etc.

2. One character in your play is a spirit. How might you have a character as a spirit onstage?

A spirit can be represented as an emotion, it’s like a soul. You could use masks to represent spirits or just use some sort of fabric or piece of cloth if the spirit is small.

3. Another character is imprisoned in a rock. How would you show a character imprisoned in a rock?

there could be a hollow dome/rock-shaped sculpture where the character can go inside from the back. The rock can be covered with a piece of fabric, light could shine from the back of the rock to cast a shadow of the character imprisoned in a rock

 

PART B

  1. “Inspiration” comes from many sources. Describe one source of inspiration for Julie Taymor when she was setting the scene for the play.When creating the character Caliban, Taymor was inspired by the Mud Men of New Guinea. She liked the clay masks that they wore over their head because in one of Caliban’s lines he states that he is imprisoned in a rock, so to represent Caliban, Taymor was inspired by the masks and decided to use this element to this character.

2. Describe one moment where you went “a-ha!” or “that is brilliant!” or “I never would of thought of that!” and describe how or why that moment stood out to you.

It was very interesting where the play uses shadows and different lighting to tell part of the story, I found it interesting because it gave an ancient feeling

 

The Paper Menagerie CER

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In Ken Liu’s short story, “The Paper Menagerie” the paper origami that his mother makes symbolizes his mother’s love towards him and how love is fragile just like a piece of paper. Throughout the short story, the author often describes the origami coming to life and that this was “her magic”, we also can see that there is a relationship between the development of the mother and the development of the origami she made. For example, we can see this development in the story where it stated: “But Mom’s kind was special, She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic.” In the beginning, we can see that from Jack’s point of view that the origami looks like it’s alive and that it was because of his mother who gave life to these origami animals. But as the story continues Jack’s personality develops and his mother dies also the paper origami animals changed as well after his mom’s death: “The paper animals did not move. Perhaps whatever magic had animated them stopped when Mom died.” From these key points in the short story, we can see that Mom’s magic has something to do with her feelings towards her son which is the love she gives to her son Jack.

Thesis Paper Menagerie

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In Ken Liu’s short story “The Paper Menagerie” Jack, the main character, understanding of his identity changes and developed through the author’s use of characterization, symbols, and POV.

On the Sidewalk Bleeding Thesis Statement

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The main character Andy in Evan Hunter’s short story entitled “On the Sidewalk Bleeding” initially believes that he wasn’t going to die but later understands that he is dying from the bullet wound. His changing understanding is revealed through the use of the change of weather, his thoughts, and his interactions with people. For example, paragraph 79 states: “Now in the alley, with the cold rain washing his hot body, he wondered about the meaning. If he died” this explains how the author uses symbolism to escalate events making the scene dramatic. The author also uses Andy’s thoughts to make the reader feel that the scene is building suspense. For instance, in paragraph 87 the author wrote: “He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone, and wet and feverish and chilled. He knew he was going to die now.” As the story continues the author adds in other characters that interact with Andy which eventually makes Andy realize his injuries weren’t minor but could lead him to death. For example, an interaction that the author wrote was: “‘I don’t want to get this mixed up in this. He’s a Royal. We help him, and the Guardians’ll be down on our necks.” (paragraph 66) From that moment on Andy starts to feel negative about himself.

English 9.8 Goals

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I’m good at writing dystopian novels, mainly because in my past classes we have been focusing on the dystopian universe, and I find writing dystopian novels pretty interesting. I’m a bit of a slow reader, but I like to analyze books and write important notes down. I would like to work on my grammar skills to further improve my writing and to do that I will need to look at some references and examples as well as taking important notes relating to grammar so that I can fully understand how to use grammar correctly

Christopher’s Journal

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For this task, we were instructed to create a journal of a character living through the time period that we previously researched (American Revolution). Christopher born and raised in Massachusetts is a candlemaker facing the crucial acts the Parliament had passed so that Britain could cover the cost of the previous war, eventually, Christopher had enough of these sick acts, so were many others. With the anger rising up in the society around him, he’s no longer afraid to put out his opinions.

 

The American Revolution in Plain English

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Our assignment for humanities was to create a video with all our knowledge about the American Revolution, our video begins after the end of The French and Indian war to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. We collaborated very well during the making of this video, we came across some challenges for instance one of our group members was sick during the making process of this video, but my other teammate and I spent a lot of effort into completing this video, and we eventually were satisfied with the outcome. Please enjoy our video “The American Revolution in Plain English”

The 57 Bus – A Book YOU Should Read

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In this video, Clarence will give a short summary of the book “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater, and give a brief overview of the theme of this book.

The book “The 57 Bus” is a book written by Dashka Slater. Throughout this book, it talks a lot about gender discrimination and gender inequality which Sasha, the main character faces a lot in this book. Sasha is a non-binary teenager living in Oakland, California, one of the most dangerous cities in the US, it was on the day when Sasha was wearing a skirt, that a reckless act done by a stranger changed both their lives forever.

One theme in this book is that looks do not judge a person, but it’s the personality that really matters. For example, on page 59, Sasha was approached by an elderly woman she asks, “Why are you wearing a skirt?…. You’re not a girl!” which I thought this part showed how the old woman cared about gender and what people wore, which in this case Sasha also faced this same problem when Richard (The boy who burnt Sasha) burned because Sasha was wearing a skirt which he thought Sasha could not. Another example was on page 42 when Sasha stated that before Sasha had people at school who kept coming up to her asking nonsensical things, and questions that made Sasha uncomfortable to share.

Two reasons why I would recommend this book is because 1) this book teaches us discrimination and how it may affect someone else’s life and also teaches a lot about decision making and how to make good decisions, 2) although this is a non-fiction book and it may sound boring, but actually the book has a lot of life lessons you can learn from the actions the characters did in this book. But overall this is an amazing book for readers.

One thing I learned in this unit was how to organize my notes and how to take notes and find the theme, central ideas, and social issues in my book.

 

Do the Boxers Deserve a Bad Rap

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Around the 1900s, the Boxers also know as the rebels, referred to by Westerners caused many missionaries and Christians to die, which therefore I think the Boxers should deserve a bad reputation. According to Jeremiah, the tour guide of our trip, “The Boxers were angry and blamed the churches for causing droughts in Shandong, so they burned many catholic churches and killed many people in the churches.” This showed how the boxers hated the Western culture by accusing the Westerners of the droughts because of the churches even though the churches did not cause this to happen. In the Legation quarters, the Boxers were damaging the legations and killing many Christians in that area, which tour guide Jeremiah also stated, “The boxers a placed a bomb under the french legation, which caused partial damage to the French legation, this forced the french and Austrians to refuge in the British legation.” The bombing that caused partial damage to the legation was more of like a warning to the other legations in that area, they recklessly plundered and set on fire to the Belgian legation, during the war which many were killed. In some of my evidence collected showed how cruel the boxers were stated that “The German Minister, Clemens von Ketteler, and German soldiers captured a Boxer and executed him. In response, thousands of Boxers burst into the walled city of Beijing that afternoon and burned many of the Christian churches and cathedrals in the city, burning some victims alive, and Clemens von Ketteler was executed.” As a result, all the cruel doings of the boxers resulted in bad relationships with Westerners, the brutal killings of the Boxers really show why the Boxers deserved a bad reputation.