Thom

Color is often used to help provide a sense of the play's location. That's what lighting designer Thom Weaver did for a production of "Villa American." He also has some important things to say about how to use Roscolux and gobos effectively on a cyc. Here are Thom Weaver's comments on what he was trying to accomplish and how he did it:

"The play is set on a beach, which at times must be the South of France and at other times the Hamptons, in and around the 1920's. The most present and most flexible design element in the set was an enormous, classic curved cyc which was very wide and and very tall.

In this picture shown above, I created a bright and beautiful sunny day in Antibes on the cyc with a combination of R80, R65, R3220, and R362 with Rosco Cloud gobos, very softly, scimming across the cyc to add both texture and breakup and give some depth of field. The main scene light was R4215 and NC. The important thing to remember about lighting a cyc as a sky is that it can't just be one solid color, like a blue. That's an abstract wall of color, not a sky. If you really look at the sky-in any state-you'll notice a vast array of layers and color. Saddly this also requires a lot of lights as well!"