Which diffusion/frost

[MarcT]

Hi All,

 

I'm after some suggestions as to which lighting diffusion/frost (or an alternative material) to use for a translucent door covering, which will be lit from behind. The covering must be able to take saturated colours well.

 

Here's the situation:

In a forthcoming show we will have a 20ft wide by 7ft high Steeldeck platform at the back of stage, immediately in front of which will be five translucent doors, at stage level. The doors will be approx 7' x 4' so they fit tight up against the front of the deck. Each end door and the center one will be able to slide open, the other two are fixed.

 

The doors are to be built as a timber frame with one horizontal bar halfway up. The current plan is to staplegun some diffusion/frost to the rear of the door and light it from behind (ie from a source under the deck).

 

Having checked the Lee & Rosco websites, I know that Lee, Roscolux & E-Colour+ all come in rolls of 25' x 4' (7.62m x 1.22m), which is ideal. Unfortunately Rosco Supergel only appears to be available in 2' wide rolls - no good for a 4' wide door.

 

Current thoughts are Lee 750 (Durham Frost) or 253 (Hampshire Frost) - but as I only have swatch books with me at the moment, I don't know how this would actually look scaled up. Any thoughts? Anyone tried this before?

 

The second part of the puzzle is what to light these with? In an ideal world something with colour mixing, but I'd be happy with a fixture with a colour wheel or scroller. I had thought of using budget LED PAR56s (of which we already have 8), but I just don't think they'll be bright enough given the rest of the rig will be 1k tungsten, and some VL5Arc & VL6c movers.

 

I've had a look at the ChromaQ DB4 LED battern, which look ideal but I think they'll be too expensive for a 20ft width.

Options therefore appear to be more VL5Arcs, MAC 300 (bright enough?), MAC600, Parcan/floorcan + scroller, 1k Fresnel + scroller, Coda/4, or maybe some sort of discharge colour changer (Martin/Robe)? The final concern is heat output - since the deck will be fairly enclosed, I don't want it going thermonuclear under there.

 

Any thoughts / suggestions greatfully received!

 

Kind Regards,

Marc

[blackbird]

Not a particularly helpful reply ... but I just think that nothing looks worse than some frost stretched over a door / window - it is just too floppy and looks like you had to do it on the cheap (which may be the case, but you don't want it to look that way).

 

Some perspex made opaque would look better to my mind.

[gareth]

So you're sinking the fixtures inside the steeldeck, just upstage of the doors? That makes the 'angle of attack' pretty steep, which renders what I was going to suggest (pieces of BP screen material) less suitable.

 

Consider something like Lee 129 heavy frost, or 216 white diffusion. I think the ones you mentioned aren't opaque enough to pick up coloured light properly. Get a sheet of each and have a go with them to see if they produce the effect you need - best to waste a couple of £3 sheets rather than buy a roll and then find that it's not what you want!

 

Take care with the positioning of the lanterns - if the horiztonal bar halfway up is on the same side of the covering material as the lantern, you'll get a very nasty shadow unless it's far enough away.

 

As for what to use - well, that depends on your budget and what you need to achieve. If all you want is to light the door covering in a selection of colours, I'd perhaps lean towards a Mac300 - at that sort of throw distance they should be plenty bright enough (as long as you don't need them to light the doors in a dark colour at sufficient intensity to cut through an exceptionally bright state on stage). You might have to experiment with some frost over the lens (and the positioning of the unit relative to the door), though, to even out the coverage up the door.

[woody74]

I have had success with both vinyl shower curtain and white spandex. Both take color really well, but the spandex holds its shape better since it's constantly in tension (and also eliminates any creases or folds from how it was packed).

 

On the gel side of things, I'd vote for Lee 216.

 

-w

[dbuckley]

If LEDs are man enough and you want colours but it doesnt need to move, then you could use a non-moving mover, such as a High End Color Command (incandescent, dimmable, and one of my favorite fixtures), or a Martin Robocolor (discharge, mechanically dimmed).

 

If you need a profile, then (and I'm moving to second hand opinions here, Ive not used either of the next two suggestions) a source 4 with either a High End Color Merge (but I think it's now discontinued) or a seachanger (if they actually exist yet).

[Ekij]

Then there is always the stuff you stick to the inside of glass to make it translucent rather than transparent ("Readyroll window static"). It's a bit floppy to hang on it's own and I'm not sure you can get it in big enough sheets for your needs (the standard seems to be 675mm * 2m) but it does take light reasonably well.

 

Alternatively really thin white cloth might work too.

[Tomo]

Seachangers exist, and look very nice - I've never seen one used in anger, but they looked very pretty at PLASA.

 

I don't know how well they'll work on the 70 and 90 degree lens tubes, but they are nice on the 50 degree units, which may be wide enough for a door.

[whitlock]

correct me if I'm wrong; but the Seachanger goes before the lens so it shouldn't matter what the lens is, should it?

[Tomo]

The Seachanger is far too big to go in the gate, so it bolts in between the lamphouse and the lens tube - it alters the optics by some amount, but it's not really noticeable on the 19-50 degree units.

 

I've not seen it on the new lens tubes so I can't comment on how good the beam is with those.

[David Buffham]

Marc, I'd recommend talking to Ed Pagett at AFM Lighting (020 8233 7070) - he's designed something very similar in the past with backlighting translucent doors on the front of steel-deck, and will know exactly what the doors were covered with - it was some kind of Rosco frost - and worked very well.

 

At that time he mainly used 1m LED strips mounted vertically and horizontally on the steeldeck legs and frame to get the coverage and consistency. He only used moving lights to light some non-opening panels on the upper sections of the set where there was sufficient throw from the wings to get the necessary cover (~4m).

 

Nowadays AFM also carry a range of X-Chip PCB LEDs which are modular in 10cm pieces and extremely bright - so these would be worth looking into. They are fiddly to install, but well worth it given the flexibility they offer. The rental pricing I've seen for X-Chip suggests that you should get quite a lot of it for the cost of a couple of moving lights. (It is certainly cheaper than DB4)

 

Cheers,

David

[MarcT]

Firstly thanks to all who took the time to reply - its appreciated!

 

So you're sinking the fixtures inside the steeldeck, just upstage of the doors?

Yes, although I have 10' depth of SteelDeck - so have some flexibility with the positioning the the light source. The original plan was to fit some sort of LED battern in the top of the deck to skim the rear of the doors. This would mean people could move about under the deck without creating shadows on the doors.

 

Consider something like Lee 129 heavy frost, or 216 white diffusion. I think the ones you mentioned aren't opaque enough to pick up coloured light properly. Get a sheet of each and have a go with them to see if they produce the effect you need - best to waste a couple of £3 sheets rather than buy a roll and then find that it's not what you want!

Looking at them again I think you're right about the opacity. One important thing is that 129 is flame retardant whereas 216 is not.

I will get in a few sheets of the flame retardant ones to try out. I'm going to need 3 rolls - so it has to be right!

 

Take care with the positioning of the lanterns - if the horiztonal bar halfway up is on the same side of the covering material as the lantern, you'll get a very nasty shadow unless it's far enough away.

That's a very good point(!) :)

 

As for what to use - well, that depends on your budget and what you need to achieve. If all you want is to light the door covering in a selection of colours, I'd perhaps lean towards a Mac300 - at that sort of throw distance they should be plenty bright enough.

Indeed, all I want to do is light the door covering in a selection of colours. I'm tending towards the Mac300 option at the moment as they're comparatively cheap and plentiful, thought I'm intrigued by the LEDs David mentions below.

 

I have had success with both vinyl shower curtain and white spandex. Both take color really well, but the spandex holds its shape better since it's constantly in tension (and also eliminates any creases or folds from how it was packed).

Interesting ideas - thanks!. I think spandex is called Lycra this side of the pond. I'll have a dig around for some prices.

Did you have to frameproof these?

 

you could use a non-moving mover, such as a High End Color Command (incandescent, dimmable, and one of my favorite fixtures), or a Martin Robocolor (discharge, mechanically dimmed).

Thanks for the suggestions - I need to check if any of the local hire co's have them.

 

If you need a profile, then (and I'm moving to second hand opinions here, Ive not used either of the next two suggestions) a source 4 with either a High End Color Merge (but I think it's now discontinued) or a seachanger (if they actually exist yet).

A wash light/fresnel is probably more appropriate - I'm not worried about spill & don't need shutters or gobos.

 

Marc, I'd recommend talking to Ed Pagett at AFM Lighting (020 8233 7070) - he's designed something very similar in the past with backlighting translucent doors on the front of steel-deck, and will know exactly what the doors were covered with - it was some kind of Rosco frost - and worked very well.

Funny you should mention that - I think this possibly is the same show (director with similar ideas), though the actual staging layout & look will be very different. I didn't get to see Ed's work in person though I have seen the photos on the web & it did look very nice. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery... ;)

 

Nowadays AFM also carry a range of X-Chip PCB LEDs

I'll investigate - thanks for the pointer!

 

Cheers all - keep 'em coming!

Marc

[MarcT]

Just to follow up on this, in the end I chose LEE 261 - Tough Spun (Polyester) Flame Retardant - FULL to cover the doors. They were lit from behind by 5 SGM Palco 3 LED washes with a 40degree lens, sat on the floor.

 

The LEE 261 worked very well and was cheaper than any of the frosts. We did end up with a small wrinkle on one door, but this was only visible when the backlights were off.

 

The Palcos were excellent - to the entent that they could wash out a MAC500 doing gobo work on the doors!

 

Above the deck I had a white sharkstooth gauze washed by 5 Selecon HUI 1kW cyc lights and backlit by 7 of the cheap LED PAR56s from our friends in Germany. This arrangement worked better than I'd expected - I had thought the LED PARs wouldn't be bright enough - but the effect was great!

 

There are some photos from the dress rehearsal below (for a limited time). There's rather a lot, but check out the first and last ones. The lighting did change significantly after the photos were taken (mainly because we hadn't finished plotting Act 2 in time for the dress :huh: !)

 

DDOS - Hot Mikado

 

Thanks again to those who made suggestions!

Marc

[son of lx dad]

I've just come from a gig that used white Lycra stretched over a frame to create a tube.

it stretched very well can be staple gunned to the frame with generally no creases It had a mac250 wash behind it and was more than bright enough.

quite a cheap solution