Gobos History

Throughout the romantic era many innovative features were introduced such as gas lighting, trap doors and fly wires. Gas lighting was used as the transition light from sunshine to moonlight for the ballet acts. Gas lighting created a mood to tell the story of a love that was destined to fail, especially in Giselle. The dark light of the second act filtered across the willis as they haunted the graveyard. Trap doors and fly wires were innovative as it gave the effect of the ballerina’s disappearing and flying through the air delicately.

The technological advances of the 19th century played a big role in theatre. Since America was having an Industrial Revolution, many people from the country moved to the expanding cities in the east (“Nineteenth Century Theatre”). This migration made the growth of theatres possible. Theatre seats, balconies, and the basic structural support were made of wood (“Nineteenth Century Theatre”). During the 19th century, theatre lights were “upgraded” three times, the theatre went from candle lighting, to gas lighting,

Additionally, indoor performances, primarily requested by courts and nobility, specifically used candles and torches as sources of illumination. Candles were placed at the front of the stage, between the wings leading to the stage, and above both the stage in order to frame the players. Chandeliers were also hung above those in attendance, to create a sense of audience. This marks both the first appearances of footlights in the theatre and, though basic, the beginning of a formulaic structure for lighting a performance space. Issues prevailed, however – there were still no successful methods for specific lighting, unless an actor held the light themselves to illuminate their face, nor were colored lights or gobo devices available. Though lighting was making its way into the theatrical world, it was purely technical, not called upon to be inventive, create illusions or accomplish tasks at this point in time.

In 1821, Michael Faraday created the electric motor, which led the way for other inventions like the light bulb, invented by Thomas Edison in 1879 and the refrigerator, invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834. The light bulb helped to provide a stable source of lighting during the night, and helped to shift from the working schedule of dawn to dusk, and in turn get more things done. It also helped to create a nightlife, where there was for the first time of entertainment in the evening and during the night, with theatres now being able to perform at times other than during the day. One example of this is the Savoy Theatre in London, England, shown in Appendix A. The Savoy theatre in 1881 was the first public building in the world to be entirely lit with electricity. The refrigerator is another example of the importance of electricity, as it allowed food to be kept for a lot longer than before. Meats could now be kept for weeks, which was a lot easier than the 24 hours of before. These are examples of the importance of electricity, and how important entrepreneurs and inventors were to the progression of the Industrial

Galinda, the other main character, wears a costume that includes a great deal of sparkly embellishments. From where I was in the theatre, the details could not be seen, but whenever she was under a spotlight, they reflected the light and gave off a magical effect. This could be seen from quite far back, so to those seated in the stalls it would’ve been even more impressive. That being so, I should use a similar type of decoration in my designs because of it’s success in Galinda’s

After reading"The Incredible Talking Machine","History Of The Cylinder Phonograph", and"Psst...Hey, You", it becomes evident that the phonograph and Audio Spotlight are similar.Both products were built,refined,and marketed.As a result,they became widely used and evolved into products we still use today.

The 1800s was a time of, “advancement, invention and enterprise in the world of moving images.” Thomas Edison, with the help of his assistants, created and patented the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope in 1891. These tools later created series of still frames that passed at a continuous rate. Because of the defect persistence of vision, the average person views a moving image. By “1894, attempts [by Lumiere Brothers] were made to replicate and improve Edison’s Kinetoscope design.”

Reasearching a lesser known representative such as Nathaniel Gorham was more difficult than it would be to research a more well known delegate such as Benjamin Franklin, but it was still relatively easy to find a good biography online. The only pictures of Gorham that exist online are different versions of the same portriat, but the portriat in question is quality enough to give a good impression of what Gorham would've looked like. And although the few online biographies and articles of Nathaniel Gorham do not exactly give up a wealth of information, the facts and sources they provide are enough to do a decent synopsis of Gorham's life and reprenstation of his state in the Constitutional Convention.

When discussing the design elements, I feel as though the element of light gets overlooked more times than not. Throughout the entirety of the performance, light played a key role in developing effects, and creating a visual reality. The first instance we saw light was in the myth of the greedy father and his daughter. In the story, the father is granted one wish; that everything he touches turn to gold. Unfortunately for the man, his wish comes true and every single thing he touches is instantly transformed to gold. In order to display this element of the play, a golden light was shined on any object the father touched, including his daughter. This light illuminated the action of the story and worked to fulfill the director’s concept. As an audience, we also saw the use of light during an actor’s important set of lines. In

Equality 7-2521 had discovered a tunnel that contained remnants of the Unmentionable Times. By performing an experiment consisting of a dissected frog hanging from a copper wire and a metal knife, he later discovered and holstered the power of the sky, or electricity. With his discovery, he performed another experiment by sticking an iron rod outside of his tunnel during a thunderstorm, learning that the power of the sky causes lightning and that it is attracted to metal (Rand 52-54). After gathering multiple materials from around the tunnel, he combined them together and placed them into a box. When Equality 7-2521 closed the current, the wires of the lightbulb glowed without the use of flint or fire, and thus the invention was reborn. The single light consumed the entire room and was far brighter than any candle. Equality 7-2521 determined that his discovery and invention of a lightbulb, a symbol of knowledge, was far greater than any man and should be shared with all of his bothers. By sharing his invention with the World Council of Scholars, he would be forgiven

Experiments in electric generation had been under way for decades, and by 1878, the Avenue de l'Opera in Paris was lit with electric arc lamps. But arc

Even though the lack of an elaborate set design focused the audience’s attention solely on the performers, it also detracted from the performance as it created no connection of the audience with the setting or, at least, with the important themes. The set designers could have created some sort of background that resembled the emotions expressed throughout the various individual acts or could have even contributed with better props that enhanced the audience’s connection to the performances. Despite the dynamic colorful projections, there was little relationship between the lighting design with the entire performance. It attempted to evoke complementing emotions to the dancer’s movements and the music by using a variety of colors and shapes and it was also used to mark the beginning and ending of each act. Nonetheless, the message remained very abstract and hard to grasp, which did not help to enhance the vicarious experience. Given that this was more of a dance performance rather than a theatrical one, there was not a lot of room for character transitions on and off the stage, yet the lighting would have contributed effectively to the performance if it had been more integrated with the characters’ movements and not just projected on a screen as a separate act. Finally, the costume design attempted to create the same effect as the lighting and stage design by using colors and patterns that reflected the emotions of the performance on-stage. The costumes of some performances showed more elaboration, such as in the ones in “Belinha,” while others were less sophisticated and around plain clothes. Nonetheless, as was the case in “9:35, 11:10, 12:45, 2:20, 4:10,” using plain clothes did not necessarily detract from the performance as it created a connection with the setting and important

Kenton Yeager mentioned that lighting a thrust stage can be difficult because it is essential for every audience member from all different angles of the stage to be able to clearly see everything that is unfolding during the performance. I was impressed by how clear the visibility was throughout the production because there was never a moment where I felt that I could not see the faces of any of the actors. Another quality of lighting which helped with the visibility was the intensity of the lights. I noticed that the intensity of the lighting changed based on the locations where the scenes took place. Whenever Dave and Cris where having their date in the restaurant, the intensity of the lights was significantly lower to create an indoor restaurant atmosphere. On the other hand, in the scene where the two girls were playing soccer, the intensity of the lights dramatically increased to portray the idea that they were outside on a soccer field. The lights did not only get extremely bright, but also a lot warmer to give the illusion that the source of lighting was the

Knowing this, Edison set out to make a motion picture machine. Edison saw no commercial value in it, which is somewhat ironic, but still decided to make it anyway. In an interview in 1887 he said, "It is possible to devise an instrument, which should do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." Edison assigned the aforementioned, William Kennedy Dickson to pursue the research and development of his idea. Dickson discovered is that they machine must use light. That may seem very obvious but light was fairly new and somebody had to come up with the idea it must be incorporated in Edison's idea. For film, Dickson used a 1 and ½ inch wide strip of celluloid. Celluloid was brittle and broke easily but it continued to be used. George Eastman discovered a better substance for film. It was called Eastman film. Eastman had developed the film for Edison's already invented kinetograph. So using that name, Dickson developed a machine he called the

So the year was 1894 and the city was none other than New York City. It was then when the public caught the first glance of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope at work. With this invention, pictures were projected in