Lighting Dance on a large stage!

[dave singleton]

Hi all,

 

I'm currently Technical Designer for a large dance show next year. I've lit many small dance shows and have been trained to do so. However I am lighting a rather large stage (13m d x 13m w between pros arch) and im convinced its not quite right. I've run through the basics by deviding the stage in to 6 areas, plenty of side light from above and booms (shins, mids - with scrollers and heads), good quantity of back light, as well as a decent FOH rig but the bit that concerns me is on paper the design looks as though theres a huge gap down the middle of the grid. On a stage of this size have I gone wrong somewhere?

 

Just doesnt seem right. Any pointers?

[gareth]

6 areas isn't a lot for a 13m x 13m stage. For doing a basic general-purpose dance rig on a stage that size, I'd be looking at doing a 25-area coverage (5 wide x 5 deep) from the top, 5 strips of shins/mids/tops from booms each side, backlight split into at least 6 (3 x 2) and ideally 15 (5 x 3) areas, and a bit of FOH cover to finish off. Scrollers on the top and back covers would also be in there, unless budget wash really, really tight.

[Bryson]

Ding! You've found my specialist subject (points to sig).

 

On my 10mx10m stage, I use a 9-point (3x3) downlight, and to be honest, I wish I had the lanterns to do it 4x4. On 13mx13m, I'd hope for 5x5 as Gareth says, or at the very least 4x4, along with plenty of pipe-ends, at least 5 pairs of booms, and backlight in at least two rows, preferably three. I'm not convinced that the scrollers would be best used on the mids - I would have thought putting them on the toplight, backlight or pipeends would be more useful. Booms can easily be colour-dropped by stagecrew if you can't find a colour that works for all the pieces. I also wouldn't sweat the FOH beyond an open white "bosh" onto stage, unless of course you're using my method of design that says: "what do you have FOH? We'll use that, then."

 

In short. Toplight is what you have forgotten.

[dave singleton]

Righto, I think I should have been more clear. There is set also used for the show, and the reason for 6 areas is the main dance area is infront of the stage and is actually only 6.5m d x 13m w. I'm using 6 booms (3 a side) for this then another 1 for the raised steeldeck set section.

 

I think I have forgotten top light but im confused as to what exactly to use for it.

[Roderick]

My rule of thumb was to have booms every 1.5m - 2m, with the associated pipe-ends, top light etc. at the same intervals. Backlight approx. 4m spacing US-DS and 3m SL-SR. FOH pretty much the same as backlight. For FOH, keep it at a steep angle, say 45degrees max and repeat on stage, usually somewhere around your second boom.

Avoid patching multiple lights on one dimmer, if you have the dimmers. Always keep all the overhead stuff on single channels, they often come in really handy as specials.

And my personal favourite - overhead follow spots rather than 'bunny in a headlight' from FOH.

 

HTH

[dave singleton]

Lovely stuff, thanks for the advice. I think im going to re-evaluate the design tomorrow and see about deviding into more areas as well as including some more top-light. I do have 174 2.5kw dimmers and 6 5kw dimmers at my disposal so keeping quite a bit of the rig to a channel per lantern shouldnt be a problem.

[gareth]

Righto, I think I should have been more clear. There is set also used for the show, and the reason for 6 areas is the main dance area is infront of the stage and is actually only 6.5m d x 13m w. I'm using 6 booms (3 a side) for this then another 1 for the raised steeldeck set section.

*sigh*

 

Perhaps this post should be in pet hates - "People who ask a question, get a load of useful answers, then realise that they've asked the wrong thing and completely move the goalposts in order to turn the question into the one they should've asked in the first place". :D

 

So in reality, the area that you described as a 13m x 13m area is in fact only half of that size.

 

I think I have forgotten top light but im confused as to what exactly to use for it.

With respect, for someone who's lighting a dance show and has "been trained to do so", not knowing how to top-light a dance piece is a pretty big gap in your fundamental knowledge. Who was it who trained you in dance lighting, exactly?

[dave singleton]

I was trained at Chichester College. Sorry, last night I dont think I made a great deal of sense with my posts. What I meant is, and what I should have said is does the rules tend to change on a much bigger space? Would more lanterns be used per section etc? I've lit dance in a max 150 seater small venues, im about to light it in a 850 seater venue.

 

I'm sorry about the way my posts were written last night, I'm not the worlds bext at writing what I exactly mean to say and this is why I find the forums search function much easier to get the answers im after. As you can tell im ever so slightly worried about lighting on a stage of this size, and the reason im asking the questions is because I dont really want to get anything wrong (as I think anyone would expect). Sorry if I have caused anyone problems or upset with my posts.

[paulears]

The idea is that you light areas and increase the number of areas to suit the size for even coverage. the number of lanterns per area then remains the same. The only time you need to add more is if the physical layout prevents you duplicating the angles and distances - you may then end up with dead spots or hot spots.

 

'Trained' is a strange word. In truth it means part trained. Nowadays, the requirements in terms of pure knowledge, let alone experience are far too wide. as a result, education takes a tip-toe through it, with so called coverage only a sentence or two in passing.

 

Matt, who works for me sometimes, has a BSc in sound technology - never seen a speakon plug in his life!

 

If you have never lit a big dance show before, don't make the assumption (even though it appears common sense) that it is just 'more' of a small one. The choreographer may well wish for even coverage of the entire stage - and then ask for something very different. A design capable of allowing all the different areas to be lit differently is the key. I really like shadows and contrast - this isn't good for some productions, and the careful plotting gets trashed just to pick up performers who have been (in my opinion) blocked into daft places where they can't physically be seen as they are masked, or are just 'wrong'.

 

First time a went a bit bigger, in honesty, my results were pretty boring - AND I assumed that twice as many areas took twice as long for the focus and plotting. Nope - four times is more like it. The shallower angles often the result of more areas mean they cross to some degree and often bringing up area C has an effect on area A because the beams cross it. Haze in the air make this more obvious, but without haze, in isolation this gets missed.

[Sarah Q]

When lighting dance at Newcastle Playhouse (quite a large stage), we had a 9 point, three colour wash from the top, accompanied by two rows of 3 2kw fresnels as backlight. As we had an empty stage, we used four cell codas to light our white cyc (it took 12 Coda 4's to cover the whole cyc).

 

We also had six parcan pipe ends per bar, in three strong colours, or scrollers, just to blast the colour into the space. As was mentioned before, haze is a great addition to any dance piece.

 

As well as the booms and FOH that have been covered in the replies above, we also used to put a break up gobo wash across the stage from FOH. It was also really useful to have five profiles straight down, hard focussed, aligned in the shape of a five on a dice.

 

When designing dance, I tend to try and cover every eventuality, even if the director/choreographer hasn't asked for it. Much time is saved during the tech when those "inspired" ideas occur.... "Can we just have....?"

 

Just my 2p

[Paul J Need]

Nods in Brysons General Direction. 9 Areas is plenty!

 

Just like to add .. you probably will needta fraction of FOH as you think you do. as the side light will replace virtually all from the front. Just a wee bit of o/w at 30% or 103/202 on faces is all I ever use.

[Don Allen]

I have done dance and mixed shows in a private girl's school with a 15 metre wide stage and they worked in a nine grid square to make it drama friendly for the drama teachers. The foh rig which was on two bridges used pairs of profiles side by side to get the width required for each square for downstage and pairs of profiles for middle stage. The dimmers were 2.4 K and fixtures were 1K or 1K2 in general.

 

I tired a 4x4 design on a medium stage (12m) and was not happy with the wide downstage centre as it is two areas, downstage centre left and downstage centre right. When I tried to highlight someone downstage centre I had to use two areas, which is half the width of the stage. This was using conventionals, movers would make specials easier but did not fit into the budget. So 3x3 or 5x3 is easier to plot for zone control on your shallow dance area.

 

For dance if I am running short of channels, foh comes straight in so I can still get several colour washes but it flattens the image. Backlight and high sides have the highest impact for me as a high side gets over the top of the closest dancers to light further across the stage.