This was two productions in rep (Three Sisters and Measure for Measure). We needed to play with the language of the playing space, which was common to both productions, and the back scenic panels and white back wall of the theater. Previously I'd used the human figures found in Vectorworks. But they're very memory heavy, complicated, and their heads tend to fall off. I began playing with "cookie-cutout" people (shapes made to follow the costume rendering, extruded, and then the rendering applied as a texture).
Top of the show we wanted a suspended image of the sisters framed by the rest of the world. The colors on the back were from research images that we felt captured the right feel.
I took the set designer's (Dirk Durosette) paint elevations for the scrim panels and made virtual translucent panels meant to imitate the effects of a scrim. Here, as night falls, we wanted the panels to feel architectural while the back wall receded.
I wanted to be able to show the director (Dan Kern) how at the end of Act 2 we would shape the light directionally from upstage left with templates and a little "moonlight" fill, take the panels to something cool and "nightish," and have a dim back wall with some groovy little clouds on it.
Real life.
You can see the identical angle and template coverage.
Act 3 was about relationship of the warm bubble of the interior and the ominous clouds of the fire on the back wall. We decided we wanted to use red as a visual indicator on the back wall, and keep the negative space the black screens created.
Real life.
The use of red as a foreboding color switched to the panels, and the blank back wall became the ominous black space.
Top of Act 4. Not quite a recreation of the start of Act 1. We wanted the sisters to be in a world of dappled light, framed by the back wall and panels.
Real life.
The rest of the world is in the textured light, with the sisters (accented more than in the renderings) suspended against the sky.