alistermorton

You  could just put a halogen fresnel or profile on a dimmer, but you've got heat to consider, plus will the lamps continue to be available?

If you just want some more light to see the presenter, we've used elumen8 MP60 WW fresnels as rehearsal lights and they'd probably work well for that. Can be set up to use a single DMX channel for dimming. Small and neat, zoomable and come with barn doors to control the spill if need be.

I'm guessing low side light as used to illuminate a dancer's legs. Helps to accentuate the movement. See also "shinbusters" - lanterns mounted low down in the wings (where you can smack your shins?).

34 minutes ago, sunray said:

It's a good tip but be aware the flutes of a drill bit are sometimes bigger than the shank, far more so on larger sizes.

Given he was talking about small drill sizes, I think DrV had that one covered, Ray 😉

Thanks for the inspiration, Tom, I've passed this on to the production team. 

In the past we've done the lights under the logs effect, but for this I'm told they want the effect of the flames suddenly leaping from the grate.

It's an interesting idea. I'm not entirely sure how interested Dimplex would be in sponsoring a 10 night run at a ~200 seat amateur theatre, though. 

That's the sort of effect we're looking to recreate ourselves, but for a smaller sum.

A non RDM splitter would only allow DMX to flow one way. Might be the easiest way. Could mount to the yoke/handle of the lantern, perhaps.

Yes, they got one. On stage we'd need dozens of them. They look good on a small scale. 

Ah, now that  could work. Thanks for taking the time to describe it. 

Not sure silk is the effect they're after. A small smoker combined with lighting could work but the fire will be on for a few minutes (and it's "in" the audience as the performance is in transverse).

It's a good point. We could, but the flame effect is relatively small, about 6"-8" by about 1" at most, and the plastic surround means the flames would quite obviously be separated so would look like an array of small linear flames, rather than a fire. It's something being considered, but we'd probably need a dozen or more to cover the size of the hearth, plus we'd need make sure we could control them all at the same time, which might mean butchering them and modifying the control circuits. So we're looking for maybe a couple of much bigger units, or suggestions how we could do the same effect ourselves. A possibility, I guess, would be a transparent tray of water with floating vapourisers lit from below.

I did suggest a couple of salamanders under the hearth, but this wasn't deemed to be a flyer 😉

We're putting on Macbeth in a month or so, and for one of the scenes they'd like a grate/hearth to appear to have a fire burning in it. Props people have located some simulated fire units, which use red and orange uplighter LEDs under a cloud of water vapour created by ultrasonic vapourisers. It looks quite realistic. The problem is, the units we've found so far only have the flame effect for about a 6"-8" long slot (with a fairly large plastic surround), and they're looking at a grate which is about 12"x18" at least. 

Does anyone have any suggestions where we could source similar but larger vapouriser lights from - it's the ideal safe effect, if we can find one. We'd rather not shell out several hundred pounds (they've seen some for about 800 but they're really for putting in built in wall heater fires) for an effect that will only be used for a minute or two, so lowish cost is good.

Edit: this is the sort of thing they've found so far.

Thanks.

Bit more info (from controlbooth) it appears the OP is in Japan (Tokyo), which could affect any answers. 

I've seen comments and obits on Richard's passing, on FB, on Controlbooth, and I'm sure elsewhere on here too. 

@pmiller056 - do they smoothly dim all the way from completely off to fully on, at any speed of fade, without pop corning or flickering? If they do, you are to be roundly congratulated.

It reminds me so much of a company I worked at in 1980 as a bench assembler - it truly was an electronics "cottage industry". Just like that video - large tables, bins of parts, open dispensers of adhesives, no jigs aids etc.

A quick google suggests that showlite.co.uk are an astralite stockist.

Here's the cuttable sheet I referred to earlier LED Sheet

Even something as simple as a tubular heater like this one from CPC might be enough load.

Just seen on controlbooth a project using a large self adhesive led sheet that can be cut on a grid with diagonals to fit inside boxes like this.

I've used all sorts. Some like sunray linked to, some that came from Klaas Olsen (Tejera brand, I think), "rigger's gloves" from a garden centre, and Dirty Riggers. They're all good for different things; the Dirty Riggers are much heavier than the other ones and lack a certain touch, but they're better padded and stronger and fit well,  so offer better protection, I guess. The garden centre gloves are fine for lugging steel deck about but feel less secure when doing up clamps. The nitrile dipped gloves offer better feel when adjusting things like focus and spot/flood.

It's a very personal choice and what you know, of course. We had Strand desks in our theatre, Minack had Z88 frogs, we used to take our own desk to Minack rather than use the Frog. These days we're ETC and Minack is (full) FLX and we've manged ok with a bit of help on the FLX (although it still catches us out).

6 hours ago, J Pearce said:

and the actor got lost and fell off the stage landing through the violin player’s violin

Sounds like "The Sound of Music" in the stage play of "The Good Life".

Guess which play we've just done 🙂

47 minutes ago, Andrew C said:

the simplest method might be to read your meter immediately prior to, and after a performance.

Indeed at one our local halls this is precisely how they operate - the stage lighting has it's own sub-meter(s) and costs are calculated directly from that.