Silent Sky

Storyboard for select scenes:

Scene I.1

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  Wisconsin Sunset - The dark oranges of this ‘ruddy sunset’ provide beautiful highlight to one side of the trees while the deep purples and blues of the sky compliment the other.

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  The structure of the forest creates this beautiful, interesting geometry with the sunset. Similar effects can be used with the skeletal structure of the set, which I attempt in my design.

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  A beautiful winter sky that felt longing and yet hopeful, as if there is so much out there yet such a comforting feeling about that, as if you are not alone. Motivated my opening choices of using dark blues and purples to surround Henrietta, a decision which then carried through all the color palettes of the show.

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  A look into the cold, brittle, bright, diffused white light of a winter day in Wisconsin. Used for Wisconsin day scenes.

Scene I.2

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  Research into the look and layout of the offices at Harvard Observatory. Gives a sense of warm whites and wooden tones.

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  Additional images display the lighting as even and diffuse. Motivated by electric lamps. Warm.

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  The lamps from the 1900s indeed produced a warmer white tone. Motivated a push from the warm sides and tops in the Harvard and home scenes.

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  A look into how light bounces off of wood and illuminates a room. Loved the harsh rectangles of light from the windows, which inspired me to add a desk special which is shutter cut to the size of the desk. Used to light Henrietta during the letter.

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  The feeling of loneliness and isolation during the night leads to the thought of a dark landscape with a single silhouetted figure. This image of a black or dark purple empty landscape inhabited by a single, top lit or side lit figure occurs frequently in my design.

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  A look at what a home in Cambridge, MA looked like. Though larger than I imagine for Henrietta, this gives a sense of what she might have lived in. Also shows that sunlight could motivate some interior scenes as many windows are seen on this home.

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  Interior shot of a 1900s Cambridge, Ma house. Though greater in scale than I imagine Henrietta’s home, the research provides hints on color. Warm whites and browns light the interior. Cold white light shines in from the window. Inspiring color palettes for the home scene.

Scene II.1

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  Inspiration for the more dream-like, imagined sequences such as the non-realistic boat scenes. I imagine a cyc colored in a dreamy wash of deep purples and blues with hints of pink, orange, and green thrown in and lighting Henrietta and Peter.

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  A sense of beautiful brilliance, the Northern lights shine above while below is a dark water blue. Further motivated the lighting of the boat scenes.

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  The cold white lighting of a lecture hall. Used for the end of the scene.

Scene II.2

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  A more realistic night on a boat. The harsher moonlight whites and less colorful sky juxtapose the Northern Lights while still remaining beautiful in their own right. This more ‘realistic’ look is used for the actual boat scene.

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  The further differentiate the dream-like boat scenes from the real one, this image motivated me to light the platform in a harsh white as if it is the bow of a ship Henrietta is standing on. This varies it from the dark blue water-like lighting it is covered in in the dream-like scenes.

Select examples of paperwork. Only first page of channel hookup and instrument schedule shown.

A sense of realism with a bit of escape. Dreams that crash into reality. A world that splits time and location.

Silent Sky is a holds realism in location. The lighting must be motivated and believed as the intended places of Harvard Observatory, a cold winter night in Wisconsin, a bright snowy day in Wisconsin, the Cambridge home of Henrietta, and an ocean liner. In fact, it is essential that the lighting accurately differentiates between these locations; supporting the use of a simplified set while delivering clear context to the audience. Thus, the color pallets and directionalities used for all scenes are believable. Winter days are cold whites and diffused. The insides of homes and offices are warm and directionally lit, motivated by lamps. These shifts in tonality are achieved through a system of one warmer side and one colder side mixing to white but able to shift toward either end throughout. The fronts remain a slight cold white, always providing that sense of cold winter and allowing for easy mixing between the sides. The tops are triple-hung for a daylight blue and two Harvard-esque light chocolate brown layouts. The sides utilize color-scrollers to allow for mixing that can match any color placed on the cyc so that the looks feel truly motivated by the surrounding environment. The cyc is utilizing a 4-circuit CYM+W setup.

This system is then built up to allow alterations on reality and subtle hints at the state of the world these characters live in. The layout of instruments is such that all warm gels are on stage right. This is motivated by the West, the direction the sun sets in, and is viewed as such when imagining upstage as North. The warm white light – this sense of comfort, daylight, and hope – is always lighting Henrietta from this side. Just as we see the sun set in the opening scene, as the play progresses this sense of Henrietta’s past coming back to her is pushed through directionality. In every letter scene Margaret is lit from the west, i.e. the past. In the Wisconsin home scenes Henrietta is lit from the west. And with such a layout the cold whites are in the East. A place of future hope. And as such when Henrietta grows more attached to her work, when she is too preoccupied to deal with her family, or when she is on a boat trying to figure herself out, she is lit mainly in the brittle, unknown light of the future. When Henrietta is at work, there is another subtle use of directionality and shape.

When we first enter Harvard, the desks are outlined by a warm chocolate top light system shutter cut to surround them in this clearly defined rectangle. Saying that the world is boxing in these women and that the academic society at Harvard thinks with a closed mind. This top light system is triple-hung. One set are blues used for day scenes. One set are the brown shutter-cut rectangles. And the other set utilizes brown but with no shutter cuts. As the play progresses, and Henrietta shifts the dynamic at Harvard, we start to fade in these un-restricted tops and fade out the shutter-cut ones. This is done slowly over the course of the play, until we reach the end, where no box surrounds these women, and especially Henrietta, anymore.

Shifts on reality are also seen in places such as the boat scenes. When the boat is nothing than a thought or dream, there is a push of blue top light, purple and orange backs, and dark blue sides lighting the set. When the boat comes into reality, the blue tops are faded out a bit, the unnatural orange disappears, and the purple loses intensity to blend in to the night sky surrounding Henrietta. The stars appear believable, spread out across the cyc with templates and in a slightly cold white. Single stars, when needed, are accomplished through projection.

The play is grounded in this sense of dramatic reality, where we constantly jump between the realistic and the dream-like, and the systems in place allow for such flexibility.