Yesterday, I had the opportunity to see GP's edition of Les Miz, one of my favorite shows, not just for its lighting, but for its music, too. Although I did not watch the show to observe the lighting(which would consist of counting cues, taking down my own lighting scheme/plot based on my observations, and giving my undivided attention to the lighting of the show), I will would like to use this journal to analyze the lighting design.
Spoilers Ahead
A common theme seen throughout Les Miz is the use of the color blue, and GP has this theme too, but why? Well the I believe the blue has a double meaning. Blue has been known to have a calming or saddening effect on the audience, and here I believe it is used for the latter. Les Miz is known to be one of the saddest but well written musicals, so the lighting will follow the common mood set by the writing and acting, and so we follow this sad theme by using blues. Now that we have a base color, let's see where depth comes into play.
Starting from the back, there is a large white sheet that covers the edge of upstage. This is lit from two places, the top and bottom. Directly above, there's a row of stage lights, colored blue and amber. the lighting of this sheet is consistently changing based on the mood of the show, and is also used to provide some "day" light. This is where we get that Les Miz Blue. There is also one light below that is shuttering during battle scenes to signify gunfire.
Moving to the front of the stage(downstage), we have lights directly above, and although we do have general lighting from fresnels and parnels, I would like to focus on the Pin Spot. We do not have any of these at the middle school, but Pin Spots are commonly used to spot someone in a fixed point. When an actor entered the pin spot position, the entire stage would normally dim and they would then perform their solo.
Moving to the Lighting from the catwalks above, We have Likos and follow spots. the likos provided amber and blue lighting for the stage while they follow spot is self explanatory. I would have to reexamine the show, but I believe two colors may have been used for the spotlights, a white and an off white. The white seemed to be used more for emotional scenes(love, sadness, anger), while the off white seemed to just solo the actors out while they walked around singing.
Combining these elements made for a very elaborate lighting plot. Whenever there was a change in lighting, even if it was just for a spotlight, the entire stage would change(the benefits of having a programmed board). I found this interesting because it made each scene, each solo, have its own lighting instead of just throwing a spot on one of the actors. Another element I found interesting was playing with the intensity of lighting. This is very noticeable in the last song when they all pick their voices up, it goes from dim lighting mainly from above them, to lighting directly on their faces and a brighter scene, to show the unity.
Comments