Week 10 - Alexander Waxler

As I was sitting outside my residence hall talking with my brother to other night, I noticed light spilling onto a tree:

While there are some other lights in the background of the picture, the only light illuminated the tree is coming from the rectangular window that I made sure was visible at the edge of the picture. The warm light on a mostly bare tree gave me the feeling of sitting outside a cabin in a haunted wood (a la Cabin in the Woods). While the dark tree and in a sea of dark night is itself ominous, the warm glow coming from the window signals that safety and warmth are not far away. If this were a horror movie, this shot would probably be closer to the beginning while the characters and audience still (wrongly) believe that the cabin/house would be able to protect them from whatever is lurking out in the dark. If this were done on stage, it would likely be accomplished by putting an amber-tinted Fresnel inside a set piece with a physical window. This would allow for the window source to be visible. If the source were offstage, I would use a Leko on a floor mount with a gobo, an amber tint gel, and a frosting gel to achieve the more diffused effect of a Fresnel.