Hello Ouedis,
A friendly list lurker here -- Cat Hebert
Last year I mentioned something about Light Cones being a problem. What =
I didn't mention was that I know this from first-hand experience -- =
since we tried doing something very similar in the mid-80's.
We were working up "physical processes" for a series of experimental =
pieces based on the premise of combining works from the same period =
and/or author. In any event, we were looking for ways to deal with =
nasty-spooky 17th Century pieces and the concept of light =
cones-as-characters came up --> initially to represent a couple of =
Macbeth's (Shakespeare's) witches. (It was probably my idea since a =
couple of years previously I had developed a couple of non-verbal pieces =
that used cones as physical prisons.)
We set up a series of experiments with different kinds of cones -- =
color, height, width, movement, adding projected images, etc. etc. and =
brought in actors (who were to do the performances in rep) to see what =
would work. I saved some of the notes from those experiments since I was =
going to write a book (never finished) on directing experimental work. I =
summarize:
We found a series of difficulties:
FROM THE ACTOR'S POINT OF VIEW
1. Actors (some professional, some advanced acting students) had =
difficulty relating to the cones--even with large, misshapen faces =
projected through them-- because sound was coming from the wrong place. =
Mounting speakers directly above/below the cones helped this somewhat. =
They still had a strong tendency to look in the wrong place.
2. There was substantial difficulty for actors interacting "emotionally" =
with the cones, even when light color was changed to suggest mood (as in =
one of the suggestions I've seen for Ouedis). Not helping this was the =
occasional lag time from lighting cues. We switched from techies to =
actors and then to actors with puppeteer experience to control the =
cones. Actors gradually got used to the problem.
FROM THE TECHNICAL POINT OF VIEW
1. A decision had to be made whether to keep the cones constantly "on", =
to phase shift them in some way (including color) to indicate changes, =
or to have them turn partly on and off as though they were actual =
puppets. The on-and-off method constantly got the cast laughing =
uncontrollably, so we immediately abandoned it (for serious pieces. It =
did get a lot of play at cast parties, however :)) Phase shifting seemed =
to work for brief periods of time, but after that it started to look =
boring and live actors' performances started to deteriorate.
2. Determining the personality of a character using light had us trying =
different gobos, filters, etc. until we finally came up with a group of =
lights which had the same distinctive gobo.
3. The puppeteer-trained actors recruited to run the cones convinced us =
that we had a classic puppet-problem on our hands. Puppets that don't =
have facial (or obvious non-verbal emotional) activity at all simply =
don't work well except for very brief periods of time. (Asian and =
African stick puppeteers apparently use stylized gestures recognized by =
the audience as representing particular emotional states.) We tried =
projecting facial images and even projecting a live video feed. This, of =
course, made the rest of the lighting on the set a nightmare, since we =
had to try to isolate the cones physically from the rest of the stage.
FROM THE AUDIENCE POINT OF VIEW
We brought in some cast members and friends to take a look at some of =
our "more successful" experiments with the cones. They were being as =
polite as only actors who think they've found a "hot" company to work =
with can be, but clearly had difficulty "keeping a straight face". We =
seemed to have found a fairly successful laughter-producing mechanism. =
(I realize that German audiences may be somewhat more polite -- having =
experienced them sitting placidly through several-hour-long ranting =
performances in Frankfurt and Stuttgart.)
IN CONCLUSION
We used the cones only for one comedy scene and used projected live =
video of distorted faces to get our macabre effects.
I would strongly suggest that any use of light cones-as-characters be =
undertaken only after testing reaction to the cones with test audiences =
from different cultures.
-----------------------
Cheers,
Cat Hebert=00=00
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