The Perfect Blackout....

[GridGirl]

My current show has two keyboards on stage for most of the show, and tonight the LX operator decided he wanted to spraypaint their keys black in order to stop them practically glowing in the dark. Aside from the fact the two keyboard players would probably not like this very much, we decided it was a nice idea. This led us to discussing the "perfect blackout", and whether there could ever be such a thing when you have a band in the pit - because music stand lights always seem to spill everywhere you don't want them to. One of us, somehow, came up with the idea of UV music - you put UV sensitive ink in your printer, print the music onto black paper, and stick UV bubbles into the music stand lights instead of ordinary bubbles. There's a production of Cats coming up early next year here, and we think that we're going to suggest this and see if it works. What I'm interested to know is if anyone has ever tried this, and did it work?! We realised that if the band was on stage it'd be hopeless, because the UV would simply be washed out, but for a band in the pit, it seemed like a good solution. Obviously drummers/percussionists would probably want white light, so they could see what they were hitting, but that could easily be achieved with a carefully shuttered profile - less spill than a stand light, anyway! Have we hit on a smart plan here?!

[merlin24]

Or you could just group stand lights together and run them into a couple of dimmers. Then when the Blackouts happen you get a blackout, or at least the ability to fade them down a bit. Works for me every time and way less hassle and cost..

 

Just my 2p

 

Regards

Andy.

[SceneMaster]

Surely if there is music being played during the blackouts this wouldn’t work? I can see having the ability to dim them would help but I think most pit bands would find this annoying. Also some quite ordinary music stand lights which I have worked with switch on and off at about 30% even when grouped together and running with a ballast load, is this normal?

[Ynot]

One of us, somehow, came up with the idea of UV music - you put UV sensitive ink in your printer, print the music onto black paper, and stick UV bubbles into the music stand lights instead of ordinary bubbles. There's a production of Cats coming up early next year here, and we think that we're going to suggest this and see if it works. What I'm interested to know is if anyone has ever tried this, and did it work?! We realised that if the band was on stage it'd be hopeless, because the UV would simply be washed out, but for a band in the pit, it seemed like a good solution.

Hmmm.... (tm Ynot)

I'd have thought that putting UV anywhere in sight of the audience is going to be WAAAY more visible than a dimmed band light.

I'm with Andy - stick 'em on a dimmed outlet and programme the blackouts/brownouts with your LX cues. Also done this for years - had a manual dimmer we used before we stuck them on the LX system.

 

To be honest, other than scene changes, there aren't many occasions when the muso's are playing in blackout, so in many situations they may well have more than enough spill from the stage to play.

 

 

Surely if there is music being played during the blackouts this wouldn’t work? I can see having the ability to dim them would help but I think most pit bands would find this annoying. Also some quite ordinary music stand lights which I have worked with switch on and off at about 30% even when grouped together and running with a ballast load, is this normal?

The band are there as part of the show, and as long as they're given enough illumination to see the notes they should be fine. Some muso's may moan about reduced lighting, but they must buy in to the overall effect of the show. Most that I've come across have always been very understanding and accept the need at times for low light levels.

 

What does annoy me, though, is the practice of band members pinching sheets of gel (usually dark blue) to stick (often haphazardly and very wastefully) over the band lights - this I believe is done in an ill-conceived attempt to be helpful, but they seldom appreciate how much it costs in gels, esp when they've just nicked that last piece I needed to finish off a colour wash!!

 

:blink:

[gareth]

In many theatres, including the world's biggest opera houses, running the stand lights through a dimmer is standard practice simply to enable them to be faded out in order to achieve a decent fade to black. They don't normally vary in level throughout the performace in relation to the state on stage, though - just a fade to black at the end of an act if required, then straight back up again.

[obsoperator]

put UV sensitive ink in your printer, print the music onto black paper, and stick UV bubbles into the music stand lights

 

I understand that the original 1970s production of Chicago on Broadway had (hand-copied) UV music, but I don't have absolute proof of that.

 

Our musical-in-concert series, Encores!, has black fome-kore folded shields that eliminate a lot of spill from each incandescent stand light. Since the band is on stage for these events, the lights are even more conspicuous than they would be in the pit. We do black out the band for blackouts that don't have music playing, warning the conductor before the first time this happens.

 

Because the conductor faces upstage, his stand light lamps (i.e. the sources) would be directly in view of the audience. So his music is covered with one clear Source4 and one blue Source4. Besides the good practice of covering a critical location with two lights and dimmers, this allows him to briefly keep his place in blue light, when there is say, only a soloist playing with the stands down on dimmer. The clear S4 also lights his baton and arms.

 

I've seen a few pits covered with black sharkstooth scrim. This also serves to catch wayward props. But there is a danger that someone might step on it during a worklight rehearsal, when the stand lights aren't visible below.

 

Scenemaster's problem is an interesting result of energy conservation demand for fluorescent replacements. This is an application that should be exempt from energy standards; They're only on for three hours/six hours a day.

[mumbles]

Scenemaster's problem is an interesting result of energy conservation demand for fluorescent replacements. This is an application that should be exempt from energy standards; They're only on for three hours/six hours a day.

Eh... :blink:

 

I presume you are comenting on his comment about a ballast. In which case, I had assumed he meant using a dummy load, in order to increase the load to such that the dimmer can cope with.

[Tomo]

Some muso's may moan about reduced lighting, but they must buy in to the overall effect of the show. Most that I've come across have always been very understanding and accept the need at times for low light levels.

Some musos DO moan, but generally they are the ones who have such huge egos that they wouldn't fit a reasonably sized orchestra pit anyway and an amateur production may be better off without them.

[StevieR]

Either build the stage out over the pit to cover them in (except for the conductor) or move the whole lot of them to another room somewhere or backstage with a two-way video link. Helps the sound balance too!

 

Steve

[Ynot]

Either build the stage out over the pit to cover them in (except for the conductor) or move the whole lot of them to another room somewhere or backstage with a two-way video link. Helps the sound balance too!

That depends on whether the soundie doing the mix tries to use speakers for the band to monitor the stage......

:blink:

Happened last year to one of our visiting companies - we'd JUST finished installing the multi-core upstairs to a rehearsal room for just that purpose - installed video distro as well, got talkback links in place....

 

And they wondered why there was so much trouble with feedback.

 

I wasn't on site at the time, but could've easily pointed them at a portable headphone amp in the booth...!

[Ekij]

Buy each member of the band Infa-red night vision goggles and leave them in perfect darkness

:D

[ChrisD]

How about, put the orchestra in a big red-gel box and give them blue lights...

[Peter Chivers]

I work regularly with the Kings of Swing show from USO Productions. In that show, we have a medley of three songs with just piano, bass and drums backing done in a stage blackout. The music stand lights are therefore split onto two circuits, the above are on normal sound mains, and the rest are run through a dimmer circuit so that they can be faded out for that medley.

I have also found that a sheet of blue gel does appear to work both in terms of allowing the musicians to see their charts and reducing the glare.

And a happy new year to all Blue Room members :D

[Neil Hampson]

Whiel not UV, I have in the past copied the scores onto Day-glo yellow paper and used Congo blue gel over the lights, It reduces the spill to almost nothing, but the music is just as well lit as it would have been under a L200 gel'ed light anyway. dispite all efforts I have never been able to stop a band from complaining about lighting, in the eyes of a musician, there does not seem to be anything between, 'it's too dark/shadowy and I cant see my music' and 'it's too bright and glares, so I can't see my music'

I did a carol concert two weeks ago in a 'difficult' venue, and over half of the LX in the hall ended up as open white on the orchestra, while the rest had to provide 'festive colour' its a bit hard to provide a three colour wash to a large stage with half a dozen fresnels and a few P64's. Anyway there' something for pet hates.... this wasn't intended to start as a rant.