I’m sorry the following two blogs are up so late, I did not have internet access last night, I apologize.
Today (addendum: April 2nd) was a slightly slower day than the rest, although there wasn’t any less information to absorb.
I started my day with a fantastic seminar by the Jennifer Tipton. She is one of the most famous lighting designers of all time, and has no formal training. She began her life as a dancer and through that fell in love with light. She has lit many shows on Broadway, and probably more than she can remember over all the rest of the country.
As I have never taken a lighting class, her session was basically a crash course in lighting for me. She taught us all about the dynamics of light and how speeding up or slowing down a transition can have any entirely different mood feel. She also taught me a whole lot about the angles of light, and how they’re incredibly important. For instance front light, with no back light can really flatten a person out, and down light alone will put someone in shadows, and make the floor more important, but if you add a shin splitter (named because of the fact that dancer’s split their shins on it because of location) you can light both the person and the keep them isolated in a circle on the floor.
This also helped me grasp what lighting can do to a costume (my field). A different lighting effect or color can truly change a whole outfit, which is why the lighting and costume designer need to work so closely together.
After this I went to the Young Designer’s Forum where I saw work of many grad (and a few very, very talented undergrads) from all over the country. This really helped me decide on my top four grad schools (You can never start looking too early right?): University of Missouri at Kansas City, North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Texas at Austin, and The Conservatory at Webster.
Peace kids.