buying new lights

[jot100]

Here is the question.

 

What would be the best lights to buy to increase the pathetic stock I have. I have to consider lighting for DANCE, MUSICAL THEATRE, DRAMA (which ranges from Shakespear to devised pieces) PHYSICAL THEATRE and LIVE MUSIC in various forms classic, rock, DJs and I have yet to see the rest! Really what I want to know are what are the best bog standard lights to have?

 

Here is the problem.

 

I have no idea what my budget is as its not been disclosed to me :D

I work for a College and the common consensus here is ask for the World and you may just get a nice small Carabin Island. Therefore my plan is to have a wish list that includes the best basics I can get and have them highlighted as essential.

 

Any advice greatly received x

[Ike]

What is the layout of the venue and what are the rough dimensions?

[gareth]

As Ike's said - more info needed.

 

Size of venue (including grid height)?

Size of performance area?

Number of circuits/dimmers?

What lanterns do you already have?

What's the most common use of the space - theatre or live music?

[jot100]

oh dear can I get back to you on that as Ive not long laken over and have no info like this to hand!

 

What I do know is its a small space and with the seating out at full houses approx 150 people. Looking around I have an ETC Express board. 7 Dimmer racks that are working 5 are Strand Tempus 10a/15 2 Zero 88 (1 not working are present).

 

As you can see Im not very technical!

[jot100]

What I need are some lights that give a good flood of light that I can add colour 2 as the dance performances are struggling at the moment.

 

I have. 6 prelude 16/30

5 prelude 28/40

1 strand quartet

4 prelude pc

3 strand coda 500/3

1 harmony 15?28

4 prelude f

1 cantata f

approx 6 strand minim f

 

Grid height is approx 4mts and the performance space varies as I have masking flats to create wing space and a variable seating unit. Rough dimesions are 13mts by 19m of floor space. I have no measurements for the grid. Basically its a black box (well black floor grey walls and rust colour ceiling untill the summer hols.) There are large windows down the left wall and the wall opposit the lighting box all with black serge masking.

 

Its a college so at the end of term I have all depts using the space. As an example Mon Tue this week was dance, Thur Fri are live music. Next week are music recitals and drama (Commedia delll`Arte) I dont have days in between as such to rig new lights for each performance. So its lots of general cover with a few specials at the moment. The students are meant to design their own lighting for every perfomance! This isnt urgent as I have the summer hols to "shop" I just want to know what are good to have as basic stock especially for dance.

[TomLyall]

Well as you seem to need the lighting for everything from theatre to live music, and you seem to have a reasonable stock of theatre lanterns, may I suggest some par cans, these will be cheaper than alot of other lanterns and so you will be able to buy more for your money, and these will be good if used effectively for adding color just light to dance pieces and even color washes for more theatrical work. Also the lamps can be flashed (harder) than any of the other lanterns you have which might be useful if your doing live music.

 

HTH

 

Tom

[James]

How about sitting down and thinking up a basic rig you feel happy to use for most events, If you could get it easily adaptable, for example a dozen P64's as backlighting that you could easily gell up in tints for theatre or saturated for dance or Live Music events, Put a handful of your 28/40's above the performance area for specials for Theatre, or stick some gobos in them for Music Carry on putting lights in place that offer more than one use for different styles of show with minimum movement. Then draw it up, laminate it and leave it as a reference, Your students can now move lights at will for whatever they want as long as they return to the square one rig on the laminate that you know will do a reasonable job of whatever you throw at it.

 

Just a thought

 

James.

[gareth]

Given the low grid height, I'd suggest that parcans are going to be of limited value to you in terms of useful general-purpose lights. They'd be good for 'concert' type situations, and possibly doing some fairly saturated colour work for dance pieces, but with the fairly short throw distance you'll get out of them at that height you'd need quite a few to do a decent wash.

 

I'd suggest that you should look at some 1k fresnels as your first priority (more Cantata Fs, or some second-hand Starlette Fs which seem to be in fairly plentiful supply at the moment for <£100 each). You can use these to give a decent backlight for dance, which will poke through your other stock, which is mainly sub-kilowatt stuff, quite well.

 

Also, I get the impression that your performing area can be quite wide, so another couple of Coda 3s might not go amiss so that you can get a smooth wash across the whole width of a cyc without 'patchiness'.

 

Next, some more wider-angle profiles could be useful for gobo washes, etc. - either more Prelude 28/40s, or if you can find some decent second-hand Sil30s or something then they might also have some value. And then perhaps a few more Prelude or Quartet Fs - for a venue of this kind of size, style and variety of program, you can never have too many fresnels!

[themadhippy]

hows about some parnells,just used 1/2 a dozen on a show in a small venue and there realy nice,almost as pokey as a par (ok they had 750w lamps in) but with a bit more controlabilaty

[smeggie]

maybe think about s4pars - short body with the light output of a p64.

or using 6 parnels with a scroller on the front of each using a stock scroll for x-light of the stage - gives a large variety of colours for each lamp [but they are fairly noisy]

cheers

[gareth]

Steady on, chaps - don't get carried away. Remember two of the salient points which Jo mentioned originally - she doesn't yet know what her budget is .... and she works for a college, so it's unlikely to stretch to a complete set of Source4 Pars and scrollers.

[mac500]

Source 4 Juniors are a reasonable compramise for a school situation. Get some decent lanterns which you can get a nice focus from. Or some Selecon fresnels or pacific profiles. V. nice lanterns.

[jot100]

Cheers chaps I feel better about compiling a shopping list now! As its a college its essentials first and the wish list stuff later. Im going to try for it all you never know.

 

James, I did consider a basic rig that covers just about everything. Im hoping with some more laterns I can complete this. As for laminating a copy thats a great idea and I will do that but as for the students they wont be needing it. Here it is a case of "well the character feels jealous so we want green light then a bit of red cos he gets angry. Maybe a spot or something ...." When I said the students design their own lighting I didnt mean DESIGN I meant they come to me the day of the tech and say things like that! They are not taught technical theatre skills here.

[Just Some Bloke]

I'd agree with the general thrust of things up to now: Pars are great for bands, especially as backlight, but make sure you put wide lamps in them (CP62) or they'll be useless with your grid height. SOurce 4 Juniors aren't hugely expensive compared to other good lanterns and the zooms go really wide so would be ideal for you. Some second hand fresnels would let you do nice even washes from on stage, and you can never get enough of those! If you've not got any stands I'd advise spending money on them if you're doing dance becuase side light is essential to good dance lighting. Finally, as Gareth says, another 1 or 2 Coda 3s would help with cyc or cloth lighting and again you could get these cheaply second hand.

 

Hope you get loads o' dosh!

 

JSB

[robloxley]

I'd also budget to get the dimmers fixed!