15 South African Scenic Artists Experience Rosco Supersats

Scene Painting Workshop Held at Wits Theatre

The task:

This images shows the step by step process of painting stage draperies.

The results:

Everyone's painting was fantastic.

It was important for everyone in the workshop to experience paints from the international leader in scenic paint for the entertainment industry. They deserved to experience the best. I worked with Oliver Hauser from Congo Blue of Johannesburg, Ron Knell of Rosco UK, Jenny Knott of Rosco USA and the Nic Mayer from the Wits Theatre and Jenni-Lee Crewe from the Wits Drama Department to produce a professional Scene Painting workshop featuring Rosco Off Broadway and Rosco Supersaturated paints.

The Fulbright experience works both directions; 15 South African scenic artists got to experience the pleasure of Rosco brand paints. I got to share with them my knowledge of using these special paints. I use Rosco products in my work at Oklahoma State University as well as in my professional work.

The first step is the shadows. Here I have shown the use of Payne's Grey and Van Dyke Brown as effective shadow colours.

Barati experiences the success of darker shadows.

Rosco Supersats are meant to be greatly diluted. This was the main learning curve for everyone involved. (That, and learning to paint with your brush tied to the end of an extension stick!)

Courtney is ready to apply colour.

 Rosco paints are water-based acrylic paints. The participants were amazed that the paints diluted so nicely (great color even at 10 water to 1 paint). They were pleased that this represents a significant savings, too.

Adriano kneels to get a bit of fine detail accomplished.

The participants first laid in water creating the shape of their shadow area. They made sure the water’s edge was sharp where the shadow needed to be sharp, and abundant where the shadow needed to be soft. Then they brushed in washes of shadow using Payne’s Grey Rosco Off Broadway paint.



Abie begins to add the blue colour

We ate lunch whie the shadow layer dried, and when we returned, we layered on the diluted blue or red and proceded with the paper pounce of the rope and tassels next. The bottom fringe was an exercise in dots for highlights.

Wilhelm adds detail to the bottom fringe.



From front to back, Jenni-Lee, Wilhelm and Klara deepen their red drapery.



Roger pauses to let his red drapery dry.



Oliver of Congo Blue provided Roger's Door prize win - a case of Rosco Vivid FX Ultraviolet reactive paint.

  

More Lighting Instruments Found at Wits

An old floodlight found at the Wits Theatre

Every theatre needs to have an instrument that looks so old it is older than Yoda, right? Here's a floodlight that fits the description.
And here is the view from the front:

Looking at the front end of the floodlight showing the pebbled aluminum reflector.

And, to contrast that old instrument with modernity, here are two favourites: the Source Four Zoom and the Martin 300.

The Source Four Zoom continues the trend of South African lighting designers prefering zoom instruments over fixed angle instruments.  



The Martin 300

  And at the cyc are these quad cyclights:

A Quad Cyclight.

And the sidelighting work horse of this theatre is the Par Can, pictured below.

Par Can

Promoting the snazzy city feeling in the lobbies, the directional signs are done in neon lights.

Directional signs in the Wits Theatre complex are done in neon lighting. It makes the theatre look trendy!

Stage Lighting Instruments Used in The Wits Theatres

          Most of the theatre lighting technology at Wits is from Europe, with a small number of ETC Source Four Zooms from the United States. The lighting consoles include a Strand series 200 (manual, 24 Channel, 2-Preset) and a Strand series 300 (programmable). The software for these has been discontinued, so as they fail they must be replaced.
Julian, the head of lighting here has been trying out an ETC ION and a Grand MA. ETC unfortunately as yet does not have the support back-up necessary to really land a sale, yet, but I know the groundwork is being made with certain vendors here. The Grand MA Ultra, seems to be the current choice of replacement console for the main theatre. Most everyone here relies upon Strand equipment.

          (The theatre on the education campus has a Strand MX with 48 channels. This theatre, called the “Space Frame” is certainly an interesting reconfigurable theatre which I will address in another blogpost.)

Theatre Lighting at Wits…

To begin, while the stage pin connector is a standard 2P&G, it is rated for 16 amps at 250 volts, and looks triangular.

http://clifguy.com/2008/01/20/how-to-make-your-electrical-stuff-work-in-south-africa/

There is a great safety item in all modern household circuits here as well as on all of the circuits you’d plug stage instruments into: each circuit has its own switch!

Circuit # 102 has its own 2 pin and ground outlet, complete with rocker switch to turn the circuit on or off. It also has a masking tape label for what gets circuited when the plot is restored to the standard plot.

In the above picture you can see the end of one of the stage electrics, with its top batten, electrical raceway, and bottom hanging batten. If the instrument doesn’t work after you’ve hung and circuited it for show, part of the trouble-shooting includes seeing if the damned switch was turned on!! ALL circuits have this safety item whether they are standard wall outlets or stage circuits.

This is a Harmony Profile 22/40 Zoom 

One of the well-used instruments here is the Harmony 22/40 degree beam angle zoom and it’s narrower brother, the Harmony 15/22 degree beam angle zoom. These were manufactured by Strand in 1981, and have been  steadfast performers. They are an ellipsoidal spotlight, shutterable, accept gobos, and work very well at hard focus or soft focus. Here is a link to the historic Rank Strand instrument archive featuring these babies: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmony2240data1.jpg

This is a Harmony PC instrument.

The Harmony PC is the most interesting instrument because it is not shutterable and it’s beam quality lies somewhere between that of an ellipsoidal and a Fresnel. It has a single adjustment (knob is featured in the picture below) for a diffused beam variable from a very tight spot, similar to a beamlight, to a wide angle flood. The beam edge quality, which is free from colouration, is similar to a soft-focused ellipsoidal spot, but much tighter than that of a Fresnel.

The underside of a Harmony PC.

In the above picture showing the bottom of the Harmony PC you can see the round black knob that you loosen to slide the lamp/reflector sled assembly forwards or backwards in the slot. This particular instrument has the lamp/reflector close to the lens for a wide beam. (Instrument is pointing downwards to the stage floor)  Here is the link to the historic document from the Strand Archives about the Harmony PC: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmonypcdata1.jpg

Checking the circuit to a Quattro Pro.

In this photo above, the student lighting technician is turning on the circuit to a Strand Quattro PM Fixed Angle profile (650w)... and apparently held together by black gaffer tape, as identified by Julian. Behind her head is one of the Harmony Fresnels. Here's the link to the Harmony Fresnel: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmonyfdata1.jpg

The beautiful tin ceiling of this theatre has been painted black, of course. This picture was taken in The Nunnery Theatre at Wits during the lighting design class final exam.

More lighting instrument stories are planned...including dimmable fluorescents and Fresnels that look like metal eggs!

A Few Performance Art Installations

Signatures was curated by Wits scenographer Jenni-Lee Crewe. Her students were the artists, and each had to create a piece involving their take on what performance art is today. I provided most of the lighting - there was one piece that defied lighting as it's performance was all smell and tactile work. One piece used large maps of differing translucencies and a ceiling of ever-changing map projections and post-it-notes to locate memories. My photos of that unfortunately did not come out. Three of the pieces were on the amphitheatre stage which shared the same setting, including a rectangle of glossy black on the floor. In one case it was a duck pond, and in another it was a barrier for the performance.

This piece involves heavy metal safes, white gloves, ear phones, and things inside the safes that you could look at and consider. The safes were presented on white pedestals with white fabric leading down to them from the ceiling.

There were seven of these safes, all presented as if they were in a gallery. Very audience-friendly.



Across the room from the safes was this cut-out tree with all the good and bad terms for "woman" painted on it. A woman in yellow sat underneath with a huge pile of lemons, eating lemons like they were going out of style.



At the end of the room was a room-sized box of paper with a doorway and a window and a moveable lighting instrument. Participants could draw or paint the outlines of their shadows. In some cases, outlines were enhanced with paint after being drawn in pencil. This could be viewed from above, through the door or window, and through the walls from outside since the walls were just thin paper.



Here is the artist outlining a particpant's shadow onto one of the walls as seen from the outside of the box.



One of the performances in the Amphitheatre used masks, and sound effects came from the actors. The glossy black rectangle was a fishing pond with ducks in it for this one.

One of the Amphitheatre performances used only the glossy back rectangle, with dance-like movements contained tightly by the rectangle. Notice, too, the rectangular mirrors in the upper right reflecting the activity.

In this third Amphitheatre performance art piece, the actor's movements were directed over a loudspeaker by someone in the lighting booth, who changed the procedure every performance.

In the final installation, the audience was invited to go outdoors to watch and hear the boys in blue commune with a blue-wrapped tree against the sodium vapour lights of the city.

I should add that if and when I can get other people's photos of the smells and the maps installations, I would love to post them here as well. I would also love to get a close-up of the masks used in the duck-pond performance. They were papier-mache masks, very lightweight.

Wits Theatre Facility Tour Part 2

So far, I’ve shown you pictures of main theatre lobby and loading bay. Now, we’re off to the scene shop, costume shop and more! More parts of the tour will follow. If you're interested in a specific area, let me know and I will seek permission to photograph it to show you how things are done here. It is really interesting that the flow of the architecture for the purpose of making theatre is similar to everywhere else I've been. I mean, a light booth is a light booth is a light booth. The basic functions remain the same yet the chain of command can be different.

The workshop is full of natural light, and is quite large. The TD and the ME’s offices are in one corner of the shop, with the PM’s office right above theirs.

The paint area functions as a catch-all for the several shows that are produced by the workshop. Once a show buys paint, it is difficult to keep that paint in stock because every last drop is used on another show and so on with very little waste.

The workshop has your typical arc welder, oxyacetylene rig, and band-saw and other power tools.

Here is the arc welder.

And here is flat storage.

Here is the Greenroom for the Wits Main Theatre.

The dressingrooms are light and airy and have lockers for street-clothes.

Upstairs in the hallway off the costume workshop, there are windows into the scene shop which allow natural light into the hallway, and a great view to the construction areas below.

Here’s another picture of the hallway showing how big the windows are that overlook the workshop.

The costume shop is a bright and cheerful place to work. It is small like many other costume shops I’ve been in, and this one has the added duty of supervising the small properties such as liquor bottles and telephones.

Storage for notions and jewelry-making etc. are near the offices of the Costumer/Shop Manager and her staff.

This is a view of the costume shop looking toward the offices. Notice the Juki!!

The laundry room.

The shoe room.

The small props room.

One row of the costume storage room.

Some of the colorful costumes in storage.

The students, staff and patrons get to grab a drink or a snack from the café  in the lobby, and come outside onto a terrace for some sunshine.

One of the other venues managed by the Wits Theatre complex is The Nunnery, actually part of an old Catholic church.

The Drama Department is in a different building from the Wits Main Theatre. It is across the road in what used to be a dental school. This is the lobby of the Wits School of the Arts in which you'll find the Drama Department. The school houses all of the arts, and actually several buildings are used to contain rehearsal rooms, offices, studios, workshops, practice rooms, sound labs, and so on.