Week 3 - What Fog Can Do [Bella Keegan]

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend an immersive, horror themed scavenger hunt out in Westminister called "The Mist." While I have qualms with the event itself, I thought the concept was really cool and it was really interesting to see how the event (which was in a vacant mall building) handled themselves and their unconventional lighting. The most interesting aspect of this event was that they heavily relied on fog machines and fog. The moment you walked into the playing space, it felt like never ending fog and the only lights you were given to see were battery operated candles. This made it incredibly hard to see, yet it made most of the facades throughout the building look hauntingly gorgeous. Most of the ambiance lights were these LED fresnels placed up high, so it felt like streaks of beautiful painted light everywhere because of the copious amounts of haze. Last quarter I actually had the awesome opportunity of being the Light Board Operator for Physical Graffiti, and in the show most of the dance pieces used the fog machine. Once the show was finally up and running though, the fog machine essentially gave out by the second performance which made the tone of a lot of these pieces different. Having had that experience as a board op, and having had the experience in this haunt, it amazes me how much fog can be a character of its own within theatre and how it can really change the way a piece is perceived. Below is a picture I took in lobby of the event where a light was being shined through these numerous amount of holes in a fake wall. In this picture it doesn't necessary look like the light streaks were caused by the never ending fog, but in person I could see the fog gave the light a place to exist and it was something that was really awe-inspiring.