Classroom
Lights! Camera! Action!
A centuries-old painting can be many things to many people. Some may look and see beauty; others, history or creative genius. But when Linda Essig looked at a masterpiece work from the Italian Renaissance, she saw a lesson plan.
Essig, a professor of theater and drama, teaches Theater 366: Stage Lighting — a course that introduces students to the art and skill of lighting theater and live performance shows. Usually, the course begins with a unique experiment, which requires students to re-create a three-dimensional model of a seventeenth-century painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio inside a Vilas Hall classroom.
The painting, a famous scene titled The Calling of St. Matthew, has nothing to do with any particular theater production, but it has everything to do with light.
It contains at least seven (some argue eight) different sources of light, so softly radiant and smoothly finessed that the whole painting seems to glow in its own brilliance. The subtle way those lights combine to create an overall effect makes the painting a good illustration for Essig's students, who are, for the most part, in the dark when it comes to light.
Essig, a professor of theater and drama, teaches Theater 366: Stage Lighting — a course that introduces students to the art and skill of lighting theater and live performance shows. Usually, the course begins with a unique experiment, which requires students to re-create a three-dimensional model of a seventeenth-century painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio inside a Vilas Hall classroom.
The painting, a famous scene titled The Calling of St. Matthew, has nothing to do with any particular theater production, but it has everything to do with light.
It contains at least seven (some argue eight) different sources of light, so softly radiant and smoothly finessed that the whole painting seems to glow in its own brilliance. The subtle way those lights combine to create an overall effect makes the painting a good illustration for Essig's students, who are, for the most part, in the dark when it comes to light.
Stage Lighting usually enrolls about thirty students, and most, actually, aren't theater majors. The subject matter often attracts students of art, film, television, interior design, and some areas of engineering. This semester, Essig also enrolled a sociology major. "It can be a fun way for them to be involved in a theater production," Essig says. A course requirement is that students must sign up to work on the crew for one of University Theatre's productions.
Through that experience, they learn how lighting is employed for dramatic effect. Stage lights do more than merely make actors visible, Essig tells them. They amplify moods and set tones. They draw and divert attention. By the end of the semester, the students will have all the tools they need to harness that power — from discrete technical skills to a conceptual understanding about how lights work.
But first, Essig must teach them to see in a new light — literally.
Through that experience, they learn how lighting is employed for dramatic effect. Stage lights do more than merely make actors visible, Essig tells them. They amplify moods and set tones. They draw and divert attention. By the end of the semester, the students will have all the tools they need to harness that power — from discrete technical skills to a conceptual understanding about how lights work.
But first, Essig must teach them to see in a new light — literally.
She uses the Caravaggio painting to introduce students to what she calls "critical seeing." It's a skill all light designers must have — an ability to understand how scenes are affected by different qualities of light. Once students start looking at Caravaggio's work — really looking at it — they begin to trace its sources of light. They examine the light radiating from behind the window; is that light from indoors shining out, one student asks, or outdoor light, shining in? There are debates and discussions, opinions lobbed about "light amber" versus "medium amber."
The experiment has more to do with the realities of theater than it might appear. All stage lighting begins with an idea — usually posed by the person hired to design the lighting concept for a particular play. It's up to the designer to figure out how to hang lights around the theater to replicate that mental image. Think of Caravaggio as a fussy lighting designer for a modern stage production of The Calling of St. Matthew. He's given his orders; he's painted his picture. And he probably left a Post-It note for the crew, saying something like, "Make it look like this."
"The goal isn't to figure out how Caravaggio set this up in his studio," Essig tells the class during a lecture. "It's about how are we going to re-create it in here."
The experiment has more to do with the realities of theater than it might appear. All stage lighting begins with an idea — usually posed by the person hired to design the lighting concept for a particular play. It's up to the designer to figure out how to hang lights around the theater to replicate that mental image. Think of Caravaggio as a fussy lighting designer for a modern stage production of The Calling of St. Matthew. He's given his orders; he's painted his picture. And he probably left a Post-It note for the crew, saying something like, "Make it look like this."
"The goal isn't to figure out how Caravaggio set this up in his studio," Essig tells the class during a lecture. "It's about how are we going to re-create it in here."
During one of the afternoon lab sessions, seven students go about the task of doing that. Matt Ullrich, a graduate student in the theater department and a teaching assistant, demonstrates the three types of light available in the Vilas lighting lab and helps students draw a light plot, a mechanical drawing of the environment to be lighted, showing the angles of every source of light. Once they've figured out where to put those lights to achieve the desired effects, the "lab" part of the lab really begins.
Hanging and focusing lights takes some labor — among the recommended supplies for class are sturdy leather work gloves and an adjustable wrench — and initially the results aren't perfect. One student, perched atop a stepladder among the rafters, expresses frustration that he can't get his light angled quite right. Ullrich suggests that the student who is modeling the painting's figure of Jesus move up a few steps. "And we'll need the angels to scoot over a little so that they don't block the light on St. Matthew," he says.
The experience shows them "the fun part" of lighting design, Essig says —"the collaborative spirit of making everything work."
Hanging and focusing lights takes some labor — among the recommended supplies for class are sturdy leather work gloves and an adjustable wrench — and initially the results aren't perfect. One student, perched atop a stepladder among the rafters, expresses frustration that he can't get his light angled quite right. Ullrich suggests that the student who is modeling the painting's figure of Jesus move up a few steps. "And we'll need the angels to scoot over a little so that they don't block the light on St. Matthew," he says.
The experience shows them "the fun part" of lighting design, Essig says —"the collaborative spirit of making everything work."
Because of their varied backgrounds, students often seem daunted at first by the task of creating a complete lighting design — something that they must do as a final project. This is why Essig begins with such fundamental principles as the property of light. One of the more popular sessions deals with color, where Essig turns on various lights in certain sequences, demonstrating that our sense of color is so relative that we can trick ourselves into thinking that a pink light is white, or an amber light is green.
But it's not all lights and magic. Significant chunks of lecture time are devoted to the most basic aspects of lighting design — such as what's being lighted. Before a designer can hang, point, or focus a single light, Essig says, he or she must understand the themes and dramatic tensions of the play they're working on. In fact, students spend so much time reading and dissecting text that someone who happened upon one of Essig's lecture sessions might think they'd stumbled across an English lit class. "I have had students comment at the end of the class, 'We spent so much time reading plays. I wanted to learn about lighting,' " she says.
But it's not all lights and magic. Significant chunks of lecture time are devoted to the most basic aspects of lighting design — such as what's being lighted. Before a designer can hang, point, or focus a single light, Essig says, he or she must understand the themes and dramatic tensions of the play they're working on. In fact, students spend so much time reading and dissecting text that someone who happened upon one of Essig's lecture sessions might think they'd stumbled across an English lit class. "I have had students comment at the end of the class, 'We spent so much time reading plays. I wanted to learn about lighting,' " she says.
But the students don't tackle a play in the same way as an English class would. They read it as lighting designers, with an eye toward figuring out what the dramatic action should look like under the lights. But even when they begin that process, Essig says, it's still too early to go to the theater. "You don't decide once you get to the theater," she warns. "If you do that, you'll waste your time and a lot of crew time." Instead, a lighting design
is created in the theater of the mind. You have to do it in imaginative space, she instructs, before you can create it in real space.
Essig, who has designed lighting for stage productions around the country, uses examples from her own professional work to help illuminate the process. She likes to bring students "inside my studio, and inside my head," to show them the fractured puzzle pieces that make up a finished design. Her initial notes for a production of Man of La Mancha, for example, are little more than scrawled reflections about key scenes and important themes. "It's a long process of give and take," she says, noting that often her first sketches come six months or more before opening night.
is created in the theater of the mind. You have to do it in imaginative space, she instructs, before you can create it in real space.
Essig, who has designed lighting for stage productions around the country, uses examples from her own professional work to help illuminate the process. She likes to bring students "inside my studio, and inside my head," to show them the fractured puzzle pieces that make up a finished design. Her initial notes for a production of Man of La Mancha, for example, are little more than scrawled reflections about key scenes and important themes. "It's a long process of give and take," she says, noting that often her first sketches come six months or more before opening night.
And while the students may think they have it tough figuring out where to hang seven or eight lights, Essig's experience shows them the full potential of lighting in a lavish production. For one recent play, Essig ended up employing some 250 lights, creating a plot that looked like a map of downtown Bangkok.
Not that all her students will go on to do such things. But few people come out of the class without an altered way of looking at their environment. When they take in a performance, a piece of art, or just the splendor of a sunny day, they find that they are better able to notice the interplay between light and perception, Essig says. If she has done her job, they are able to see the light.
— Michael Penn
Not that all her students will go on to do such things. But few people come out of the class without an altered way of looking at their environment. When they take in a performance, a piece of art, or just the splendor of a sunny day, they find that they are better able to notice the interplay between light and perception, Essig says. If she has done her job, they are able to see the light.
— Michael Penn
Class Note
Microscopy
Physics 505: Microscopy of Life
So many tools ... but which one to use? This new course offers help understanding the armada of optical equipment for observing all things tiny. Designed by professors
Gelsomina de Stasio of physics and Jamey Weichert of radiology, it's a moving laboratory, bringing students into labs to work with different imaging technologies, from advanced microscopes to medical tools such as tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.
At semester's end, students are given specific biological or medical problems to solve, and they're expected to know which tool is best equipped to handle the task.
Physics 505: Microscopy of Life
So many tools ... but which one to use? This new course offers help understanding the armada of optical equipment for observing all things tiny. Designed by professors
Gelsomina de Stasio of physics and Jamey Weichert of radiology, it's a moving laboratory, bringing students into labs to work with different imaging technologies, from advanced microscopes to medical tools such as tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.
At semester's end, students are given specific biological or medical problems to solve, and they're expected to know which tool is best equipped to handle the task.
Extra+Credit
For years, students have pulled allnighters, but campus study areas haven't. This fall, the university changed that by opening its first twenty-four-hour study area. The west corridor of Memorial Library now keeps the lights burning all night while classes are in session, giving students the secure late-night cramming spot they've been asking for. The expanded hours represent a one-year trial, but they will likely be kept, or even tried at other libraries, if all goes well.
Jo Handelsman PhD'84 is out to prove that effective researchers can be effective teachers, too, and she's got a million bucks riding on it. The plant pathology professor is one of twenty U.S. faculty to be named as Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors, as part of a new grant program launched by the institute to spark better classroom teaching among researchers. The million-dollar grant will fund programs that involve more undergraduates in hands-on lab research and train graduate students to excel at teaching.
For years, students have pulled allnighters, but campus study areas haven't. This fall, the university changed that by opening its first twenty-four-hour study area. The west corridor of Memorial Library now keeps the lights burning all night while classes are in session, giving students the secure late-night cramming spot they've been asking for. The expanded hours represent a one-year trial, but they will likely be kept, or even tried at other libraries, if all goes well.
Jo Handelsman PhD'84 is out to prove that effective researchers can be effective teachers, too, and she's got a million bucks riding on it. The plant pathology professor is one of twenty U.S. faculty to be named as Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors, as part of a new grant program launched by the institute to spark better classroom teaching among researchers. The million-dollar grant will fund programs that involve more undergraduates in hands-on lab research and train graduate students to excel at teaching.
Students in Journalism 417: Magazines and Magazine Editing took a look at Wisconsin and decided that a road runs through it. The class has launched a new student-produced magazine devoted to exploring the untold stories that lie along Wisconsin's roadways. Called Curb, the periodical's debut issue is being planned, designed, written, and edited by the sixteen students in the fall semester course, taught by Katy Culver '88, MA'92, PhD'99. Check out the finished product at www.curb.journalism.wisc.edu in December.
