May
19
I’m a theatre lighting designer. We take 3-6 weeks to think about a design. Every instrument is carefully positioned, focused and plotted. We pick our colours carefully, analyse scenes and then spend anywhere between 12-72 hours stuck behind a lighting desk carefully constructing every single moment of a play. Added to this, I know little …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2013/05/19/lighting-gigs/
Apr
18
So hungry it hurts. So hungry that actually I’m not sure I can eat. It’s a hard thing to describe – that moment you pass through hunger and out the other side and the notion of food is actually strangely repellant. Must eat. Can’t quite work out how. But! The reason for the hunger is …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2013/04/18/the-universal-machine/
Mar
16
Another day, another musical. And to think, a few years ago I hadn’t lit a single musical. Now I’ve done… more than I can comfortably remember. Oh god the triplets. Oh god the key changes. Oh god the sense that there isn’t enough heat proof blue gel in the world… Anyway. What should interest you …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2013/03/16/the-revenge-of-sherlock-holmes-rehearsals/
Feb
26
The top three tips are from my favourite lighting designer, Paule Constable. The rest are mine! 1. Look after yourself. (Or: ‘It’s a show, not a kidney’ as one of my favourite set designers says.) Lighting designers spend a lot of time sat on not-particularly well-designed chairs, for hours without break, leaning over plans and …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2013/02/26/lighting-tips/
Feb
01
It’s been a few years since I left Ra-de-da (as it’s known) to become a lighting designer, and in that time, I have met, I think, possibly every size, shape and extremity of theatre director you can imagine. From the cankerous through to the charming, the cultivated through to the crude, there’s no getting round …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2013/02/01/directors-directors-directors/
Dec
21
Actors! It’s just haze! It’s not ‘smoke’, it’s not floating ash, it’s not blackened carbon that’s going to clog up your lungs and fill your mouth with tar! It doesn’t make you cough, it doesn’t make you splutter, it won’t blind you, suffocate you, intoxicate you or any other diverse chemical reaction of any nature …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2012/12/21/haze/
Nov
19
I haven’t put many photos up for a while… and figured I should! Remember the ‘other job’ I do? The one that doesn’t involve books… well, here’s some I made earlier…
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2012/11/19/on-a-theme-of-lighting/
Nov
12
There’s a letter that nearly all young, fresh-faced theatre graduates will receive at some point in their early career. I’ve received some… most set designers receive more. The letter goes like this: Dear [Young Theatre Designer], We are a dynamic, exciting company looking to bring together a vibrant creative team for a project in the …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2012/11/12/sponsor-a-lighting-designer/
Jul
19
Gone mad gone mad gone mad gone mad! Three weeks, three technical rehearsals, nine dress rehearsals, three opening nights, three plotting sessions, forty two hours spent going up and down ladders, two turnarounds, twenty seven practicals, sixty three dimmers, two lighting desk crashes, one broken DMX adaptor, one sick hazer, endless notes, gone mad gone …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2012/07/19/so-close/
May
17
I usually never write blog posts when tired, but here I am. It is the end of four days of utterly bone-breaking, exhausting work, but I figured this merits a few hundred words…. As readers will know, I’ve been working as lighting designer for Jekyll and Hyde – the Musical at the Union Theatre. It’s …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2012/05/17/jekyll-and-hyde-the-musical/
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