sunlight

[gjawhite]

Hi,

 

Any ideas on the best way to create the effect of sunlight on stage? The scene is 'who will buy' from Oliver!

 

Thanks for you help

[pritch]

I'm afraid to admit that I don't know the scene (Dickens? Who?), but what sort of sunlight are you looking for?

 

Summer? Winter?

Dawn? Midday? Evening?

Indoors? Outdoors?

[woody74]

Any ideas on the best way to create the effect of sunlight on stage? The scene is 'who will buy' from Oliver!

 

Is this an interior or exterior (I am not familiar with Oliver!)? However you go about it, the sunlight should be the brightest light for that particular scene.

 

My two bits: use an un-colored fixture(s), high wattage. If it's interior, any other light on stage could be corrected a little orange to make the sunlight read a little more true white. If it's exterior, having it come from behind at a 45 degree angle and filling in from the front looks pretty good. Also, having it all come from one direction helps sell it.

 

Finally (and I can't recommend this enough), watch movies and television and see how daylight is represented. With exteriors, more often than not, it will be behind the actor. Look at the color of the light, and how it compares to the surrounding fill light. Sometimes on first glance it looks real, but upon closer examination, it looks silly and fake.

 

Bottom line, the audience knows it's theatre, so you have license to do what works for you and the show. The power of "suspension of disbelief".

 

-w

 

edit: pritch types faster than me...

[gjawhite]

I'm afraid to admit that I don't know the scene (Dickens? Who?), but what sort of sunlight are you looking for?

 

Summer? Winter?

Dawn? Midday? Evening?

Indoors? Outdoors?

 

It's a summer day, mid-morning, outside. Bright shafts of light etc..

In the scene, Oliver is looking through a window to the outside world.

 

thanks

[david.elsbury]

Are you the Lighting Designer?

Surely the point of being the designer is to... design the show?

 

Otherwise, take a look through the "Show your Show" thread and the Stagelink photo gallery and see what others have done, to inspire you.

 

At the end of the day, whatever looks best/most realistic/whatever-you-decide-is-important wins.

I would consider using a bright (5kW) source outside/ above the window that he is looking through perhaps?

 

 

 

(Edit to fix formatting tags)

[gareth]

Have a look outside your window one morning. Look at the quality of the light, look at the colour of it, look at what the shadows are doing, etc. - if you're aiming for naturalistic sunlight, that's what it needs to look like.

[Just Some Bloke]

I don't know where all these people have been all their lives - they don't know Oliver?????

 

Who Will Buy takes place very definitely outside. [Oliver looking out of a window is from the film] It begins with just one person selling their wares then another then another until there are 4 people selling their wares. Then the whole ensemble pitch in and it turns into a big production number.

 

You may want to pick the first 4 up one at a time in spots (fixed spots if they're static or follow spots if they move around). Otherwise don't start too bright as the day is just supposed to be starting then brighten up on each new seller. Once they all crash in hit it with lots of light, but save some back so you can do a build at the end (you'll need a "big ending").

 

The sun can be coming from wherever you want it to come from - e.g. behind the performers as back light, to one side of them or from out front. However, for a song and dance producion number at a school, village hall or other smallish venue (at which I presume you're working or you wouldn't be asking the question) you'll probably want to just put lots of light on the stage and not worry too much about which ones are the sunlight and which ones are the dance light as, to the audience, it'll kinda merge into one bright happy wash.

 

Sunlight colours could be, for instance, pale yellow (007), sun colour straw (764), half CT orange (205) or gold old fashioned 103, but remember that the main aim at that point in the show is to show a big contrast with the dull lighting of the workhouse.

 

As Gareth says, have a look outside on a bright summer's morning (plenty around at the moment) and get some inspiration from that. Then put in something for the sun and something for the dancing (e.g. pale pink side light) and make it look big and bright whilst saving something in reserve (maybe those workhouse blues) to add in for a big finish (traditionally known as a FUF: Full Up Finish).

 

Enjoy! :D

[mac.calder]

It all depends on whether you want to make it naturalistic or not. If you want to use the exact colour, you really do not have to work too hard to get 'noon day sunlight' on stage - that is about 5500K - most lanterns are arround the 3200K range. A bit of CTC (L201) gel and you have natural sunlight (roughly)

[Just Some Bloke]

It all depends on whether you want to make it naturalistic or not. You really do not have to work too hard to get 'noon day sunlight' on stage - that is about 5500K - most lanterns are arround the 3200K range. A bit of CTC (L201) gel and you have natural sunlight (roughly)

 

Absolutely true and, technically, the corect answer.

 

However, we are talking here about a production number in a cheesy musical! I think the chance of naturalistic lighting being required are less tha 1%!

[paulears]

This scene always causes headaches in amateur production due to the large number of cast, and the choreographer always has precedence. So even if you can start the scene with some really nice naturalistic lighting, they'll demand a full up bright state to see all the people. This puts you, as the LD, into the situation of an expensive (if you're hiring) rig add on for just a few seconds, and this will be very difficult to justify. I've seen oliver both professionally and amateur over the years, and even in the pro budget shows, the arty, emotive lighting gets saved for fagins den, not the street scene. I'd bet, however, that somebody asks you to ensure you can pick out the people doing the famous who will buy,who will buy,who will buy,who will buy,who will buy section! Ten to one, the director re-invents a tableau and wants them highlighted in the correct order, even when they fail to hit their marks each performance.

[mac.calder]

It is also worth noting that whilst lighting a daylight scene with L201, many people will not equate it with sun light. L201 actually gives a blue tint to the light, which is natural, but most people mentaly think of daylight as beeing yellow/orrange. The percentage believability rate decreases when they can see the lantern or if they know that the daylight scenes have the blue gels.

 

Environmental lighting is not so much about getting the colours technically correct, but rather tricking the mind into believing the scenario you are setting up. So you may be better off using a light straw or another yellowish gel for a hot day, steel blues for cold days or cities etc.

[Tomo]

Personally I love L764 (Sun Colour Straw) keylight with either L103 (Straw) or L013 (Straw Tint) as fill & possibly backlight.

To me it adds a bit more depth, and allows some more subtley of modelling, to go all arty on you for a moment.

 

That said, if budget is tight this may be going a bit too far for you.

L764 from both sides at the front with L201 backlight may work better for you, as L201 works well as backlight during night scenes as well as daylight scenes.

 

L764 is a very bright, cheerful sunlight yellow - I much prefer it to the more drab L009 (Pale amber Gold), which I feel is more of a late afternoon colour.

 

Depends whether you can spare the lanterns for two or more colours of key, fill & backlight.

[woody74]

It is also worth noting that whilst lighting a daylight scene with L201, many people will not equate it with sun light. L201 actually gives a blue tint to the light

 

It is also worth noting that the Lee CTB line is a film color series, meaning that you correct tungsten light to match daylight when either using daylight film stock, or white balancing video to daylight. It will not look correct for a theatrical setting unless you take all the other light the opposite direction into the CTO range so that the audiences eyes white balance to the CTB's. And even then, it's going to look odd.

 

The other quality of daylight is that it has the most lumens of any other source; so to second David's post, use the highest wattage fixture you can get, so even if you run it at a lower intensity than full, you are still gettting a lot of light out of it.

 

Lastly, sunlight is white, and only gets colored by the amount of atmosphere it has to pass through. So the time of day is important to the quality of light.

 

[/rant]

-w

[Paul J Need]

May I suggest you go look up a table of colour temperature. A very useful tool indeed.

 

A point above about L201 not "cutting" it with an audience....... Question: whats the difference between using CTB (201 - Tungsten to daylight conversion) in a 1200w Fresnel and a Par64? Colour Temperature seems to be the key.

 

Daylight IS actually Blue as closer to the UV end of the Spectrum than IR ( Must be something to do with that BIG filter in the sky over our heads?)

 

One thing no one has mentioned is colour or costumes or set. Straw or o/w or 201 will subtly change the way these elements look.

Do you want direct sunlight 5,000 K or shaded ( inidirect) sunlight 7,500K? The higher the number the more blue the light appears.

 

 

If in doubt ..... Paul J Need Pallette No 37. 14 K of PAR/2K 201 Backlight, 2k of 103 FOH at 40% ) Works a treat. 7/2 ratio less 60%

[Just Some Bloke]

One thing no one has mentioned is colour or costumes or set. Straw or o/w or 201 will subtly change the way these elements look.

{snip}

If in doubt ..... Paul J Need Pallette No 37. 14 K of PAR/2K 201 Backlight, 2k of 103 FOH at 40% :D) Works a treat. 7/2 ratio less 60%

Paul, haven't you just ignored your own advice? First you say you can't ignore costumes and set, then you give a very precise lighting design that ignores costumes and set!

 

:D :D

 

[sorry, couldn't resist it! :D ]