BPNY – day 6

I got the first light installed! A 3 ft. 35W fluorescent above the diorama. Of course, this is not the only lighting for the diorama, mostly for fill and for the ‘sky’ (read below). There will also be a 50W or higher flood lamp installed from the side, probably at around 40-45 degrees, to give some harsh shadows and really bring out the shapes of the buildings, and to suggest an early morning rise!

We also tried to install the sky today, working with this inkjet printed canvas of a sky, just some clouds, blue and white, which we acquired from that film studio (the sky was originally from a nationalist political party billboard or something like that!). The test installation failed miserably. The original plan was just to ‘dome’ it over the diorama, but doing so really killed the light and created a terrible trapped mood. Even with a giant window (read below) it was difficult to digest.

So we scrapped that idea and so for the time being I moved on to making the viewing window. This one goes way back.

Months ago, while planning out the installation and starting work on the diorama, we started arguing points about the viewers’ experience, and of this window in particular. Daupo and I argued for a panoramic, wide, landscape style window, around four feet wide by ten inches tall, one pane of something clear like plexi, which would let the viewer keep moving but still gazing, and thus to move along the landscape and see it from different vantage points. Jean was pretty adamant that the window be tiny, round, and there only be one, like an airplane window, or porthole. He thought this would restrict the viewer to one vantage point – and this would be favorable somehow – and that it would also decrease the amount of time the viewer spends with this part of the installation, after all we need to keep people moving on this thing, we are surely to have a lot of punters! This debate was raised several times and went back and forth and back and forth. In situ, having constructed the diorama, it was obvious a lone porthole wouldn’t cut it. So we made the wide window and even then it seemed defeating. There wasn’t enough experience, and all the work put into this really layered work was lost with a wide but thin window that seemed restrictive to a viewer who had to be around 5’8″ for the optimal experience. Everybody else got shafted.

Soooooooo… we scrapped that window and re-framed it. I only got to move the bottom part (straight, rectangular), and drew out the top (curved, following the overall shape of the diorama itself) on a piece of plywood before the last train was near to arrive.

Kerry loaned me her watch, so I finally have a timepiece now, and an alarm. I stopped by a 24 hour supermarket which was only three times as big as my bedroom, but finally picked up some real food for the morning, so day 7 here I come! Armed with a digital watch and a full belly I hope!

Related:
Day 6 Flick set