Beauty and the Beast
Sharp Edge Lighting Design
LD: Lisa Weinshrott and Michael Kimmel
"Beauty and the Beast"
Harrison High School
About the Show:
While Beauty and the Beast has some big, exciting dance numbers in it, much of
the show is dark. Whether it's dark and foreboding, or quiet and romantic, we
knew we would use a lot of saturated colors. We had a few moving lights to help
accent the looks, but the main looks came from gels. Apollo 4100 (Mournful Blue)
really helped make the castle an unwelcoming place for Belle when she first becomes
the Beast's prisoner. The lamps from our front light had a much warmer color
temperature than everything else in the venue, and AP3200 (Submissive Lavender)
gave us a really nice face light that worked well in all of the brighter scenes.
For the town scenes, we wanted to warm things up a little bit. We knew that with
so much of the show being cool, we wouldn't have to go too warm in these scenes.
AP7100 (Hot Cocoa) warmed up the stage just enough for the brighter, happier
scenes. We took the warmth one step further in the tavern scenes where the
lighting played a big part in setting the scene. There wasn't much of a set
for the tavern, so AP7800 (Apricot Orange) gave us a different look than any
other scene in the show. We also needed to light the woods. We put MS 3583
(Leafless Trees) in the movers to give us a nice look of scary forest.
We knew we could count on Apollo gels to give us all the moods and looks we
needed. And through the countless hours of tech and six performances, only
a couple of cuts of gel showed signs of burning out.
If all of that wasn't enough, there was one other important issue that
helped us make our decision. We have said this before, but because of
Apollo's perforated gel, it was a no-brainer. We had just the two of us,
and an extremely limited amount of time for load in. The perforated gel
saved us so much time, especially when we learned all we had was our scissors.
Apollo gels gave us all the looks we needed and stood up over the countless
hours of tech and performances. The perforation gave us extra time to sit at
the board and perfect the looks instead of standing and cutting.