Week 9: MORE Disney Fun!

This Thanksgiving Weekend my family and I went to California Adventure to celebrate my mom's birthday. It was an interesting experience, because the park was so crowded that it was virtually impossible to do anything but walk around the park to look at the Christmas decorations. I found myself most interested in the lighting design, and felt that the most cohesive area of the park in terms of lighting and decor was Car's Land. As soon as I entered this land, I was taken back to the 1950s, because of the use of neon lights/pastel colors. Along with neon signs, I noticed that the canyon (in the background of the picture) is lit to communicate a sense of source, and to me the sun (or source) colors the canyon in a way that makes it seem as if the sun is setting. I very much appreciated the cohesive look of the entire land because (besides the awesome neon signs) the lighting is very simplistic with not much flash or effect. The simplicity of this design truly allowed for me to feel the sort of buzz and excitement that I feel this land, or world, represents. This allowed for me to reflect on my project designs this past quarter, where I feel that I often attempted to create very sophisticated looks using many sources and many colors within one cue. Though this is very thematic lighting, I appreciated the reminder that I received from visiting Car's Land-- to keep it simple and to evoke emotions, which seems to be a constant lesson for me in all of my artistic work this quarter.