I went to the theater last night

[johnnym]

Kind of reminds me of the color shifting ink now being used by the US Treasury for paper money. Don't know how it is done, but the process sounds interesting. I found a hit on google for fabric from the Alsa Corporation by searching for chameleon fabric. There is a photo of a necktie viewed from 3 different angles. Each shot is a different color.

[arrogcow]

Surely it was not just a purplish fabric that looked different at different places on the stage. The colors would shift if the actress remained in place but merely turned to face a different direction.

It could be some color shift fabric, but just because it happened as she was standing in one place doesn't rule out lights. Changes is the lighting, another actor moving and thus causing/stopping a particular light from striking her. I went with light (I teach film lighting BTW, and have lit several stage productions), since she seemed to be shifting from red to blue (i.e. purple - or actually magenta- is the combination of these two lights). Any of the two primary colors would have lead me to this conclusion (red/green = she was wearing yellow. Blue/green=cyan). Now if she was shifting from blue to yellow, that couldn't just be a lighting effect.

Now having said all that, it probably is a combination of the two (fabric, and light). To just be fabric, the lighting would have to be the same color through out the stage or really weird effects might happen, to be just light, ir probably would not be that noticeable unless it were noticeable on other actors bodies/clothing as well.

Adam

[wsk]

Thanks for that explanation Adam.

But ... But ... Wouldn't that sort of special effect require everything else on the stage - furniture, actor's costumes, actor's makeup, etc - to be specially colored to avoid the effect that happened only with this particular actress' dress?

The stage appeared to my untrained eyes to be lit with a uniform, generally electric lightbulb colored white. The lighting designer had it easy for this play. Lights up, lights down, intermission, lights up, lights down, play over, lights up, players take a bow, done.

I have probably not given you enough information in any of my posts in this thread and for that I appologize.

[Jimmy the Celt]

Kind of reminds me of the color shifting ink now being used by the US Treasury for paper money. Don't know how it is done, but the process sounds interesting. I found a hit on google for fabric from the Alsa Corporation by searching for chameleon fabric. There is a photo of a necktie viewed from 3 different angles. Each shot is a different color.

[WHEEL OF TIME GEEKERY]Or the color shifting cloaks that warders wear.[/WHEEL OF TIME GEEKERY] :LOL:

[crboltz]

I think what you saw was most likly a product called "Shot Silk," which (according to my notes from my costume design class years and years ago) is: "Silk woven with one color in the warp, and another in the weft. Produces a color-change effect in changing light conditions."

I am a stage lighting designer and recently did a play all about "magic" and the costumer made several costumes out of this stuff, and between the constantly changing colored lighting, and its own natural desire to change colors, it was pure eye candy for the audience.

The stuff we used was very light weight and billowed and moved at the slightest whim -- which was great for the show. I don't know if it comes in heavier weights or if you would have to line it to make a kilt that didn't fly up all the time.

OH, and the Shot Silk we used wasn't real silk, it was a synthetic (cheaper) alternitive bu the designer still referred to it as shot silk.

(Long windedn and probably not completely accurate, bu it give you a direction to look)
Cheers
Chris

[wsk]

Thanks Chris. I think you may be right.