Dead Man's Cellphone Lighting Design
Emerson Blackbox Theatre – 2021
Directed by: John O'Hagan
Set Designer: Stuart Hollis
Costume Designer: Tyler Holland
Production Photos: John Waller and Dan Donovan
The concept for Dead Man's Cellphone was to derive much inspiration from the art of Edward Hopper, where the artist is able to create a sense of loneliness through composition of space. Along with the given direction of creating a sense of mystery through film noir elements, I had lots of room to experiment with color, form, and shadows with the variety of scene locations.
I first began researching natural light typically seen in houses, bars, cafes, etc. Since I intended to go quite abstract with my design concept, I wanted to make sure that the dramatization of each scene still had justified sources of light. I then began grabbing snapshots of the set design from Vectorworks, to then color them and visually communicate the design to the rest of the team.
This then led to my light plot. Since the blackbox theater would be set up in an arena theatre fashion, it seemed appropriate to have front light and sidelight in every corner at a 45º angle so every angle of audience got the full depth of the environment created per scene.
