Forest lighting

[golfball54]

Hi, I am lighting a production in a few weeks of a terry pratchet play "wierd sisters". Some of the scenes are set in a forest and am curious as to if anyone has any good ideas of how to light this form of scene, I have some ideas but wondered if anyone else has lit this kind of scene state before and found any good solutions.

 

Cheers

 

Steven

[the kid]

WYRD I think you will find. ( V big fan here).

It is going to depend on set, thinking as you are a school it is going to be small ish mainly being the castle? Most people will say a break up gobo with some kind of green. Don't go too dark but also don't make it too sharp. Why I say about grey is that I think it works very nicely with green break ups especially for a forest.

 

One technique I have seen and done is cut the gell so its like a fan (will make pic if you want).

 

Oh and don't forget to search I think there is something there as well.

[golfball54]

if you could draw a diagram that would be great! im very intrigued into that and set is going to be quite extravagant suprisingly for a school, we are building flats to surround the stage to construct the castle and also to double up as the inside of the witches house and using the area we have in front of the pros arch to have our forest scenes which makes things harder b/c of the lack of set we can physically put there. I am having to rig extra FOH bars to capacitate for the rig I need, so any other ideas u can think of would be a of much help. Would side lights/uplights/backlights create any useful effects? Also do you mean search the forum or something else when you say search?

[the kid]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v623/m1ndy9876/gel.jpg

 

Green is obvisuly the gell.

 

I never use too much up, its just me I think. There are some places I would use uplight but not in the forest. I honestly cant remember what time of day the forest is but some broken side might look good for sunlight.

[golfball54]

Fantastic thanks, that looks like a great idea actually, If you think of anything else that might help in some way please let me know!

 

Thanks

[lightjocky]

Fantastic thanks, that looks like a great idea actually, If you think of anything else that might help in some way please let me know!

 

Thanks

 

hi I light a forest scene for a drama production last week I agree with the above also pre made gobos and break ups give a great "foresty" look

[golfball54]

thank you, ive recently seemed to hit a gobo phase, im using the all the time atm and bought loads for school so ive got plenty at my disposal, I shall have to try some experiments with it.

[woody74]

As weird as this may seem, watch Return of the Jedi and look at how light is portrayed for the Endor scenes. Or any film or photograph of light coming through a canopy, then figure out how to reproduce that with your available fixturing.

 

-w

[golfball54]

ACtually that makes a lot of sense

 

many thanks

[w/robe]

It is definitely a split gell and leafy break up moment.

 

I'm sure you would any way but try cutting your gel in to 4 triangles and then mixing the colours and reassembling then. I've seen this done with occasional smokey purple sections in the back and side light which can be interesting.

[si_cole]

Hi

 

I have had most success with green as a wash with perhaps a bit of amber or straw as sidelights for sun coming through the trees and open breakup gobos so you control the intensity of the forest effect.

 

HTH

 

Si

[darrenlee]

Hi, one thing that I used when creating a forest scene was to use an army camouflage net (the netting the army use to cover vehicles) draped above the stage then had some fans either side, then if you shine light through this netting it gives a great effect as if your in a wood great if used with a hazer etc, hope this gives you another idea.

cheers

darren

[andy_s]

Hi, one thing that I used when creating a forest scene was to use an army camouflage net (the netting the army use to cover vehicles) draped above the stage then had some fans either side, then if you shine light through this netting it gives a great effect as if your in a wood great if used with a hazer etc, hope this gives you another idea.

cheers

darren

 

But make sure your camouflage net is flameproof - most of the stuff from army surplus stores is not . I suppose they figure that if your camouflaged tank gets hit by a missile, you won't be in a position to worry about a few flames... Also, make sure you have some lights that don't shine through the net for any scenes that aren't in the forest, otherwise you won't be able to see the wood for the trees.....

 

OK hat and coat time.

[ptheboris]

Break-up gobos are the ways to go. We used them for the forest scene in the Wiz. Two different ones, with one FOH and one on stage. I found that 728 worked well with the break-up gobos when used with a green wash. Little hint of 713 from the side does not go a miss either.

 

PM me if you want some pictures.

 

Paul

[Just Some Bloke]

Something to bear in mind is that, although trees are green and brown, the light coming through trees is not green or brown. Add to that the fact that green light on people's faces makes them look ill and you may decide that any gobos from in front should NOT be in green. Possible answers to this are putting green tree gobos from behind or putting sunlight-coloured gobos in from the front and a back or top light wash in green over the top. Of course, if it's at night you may not want to use green at all. Blue might be the order of the day.

 

You're the designer, so it's up to you! :blink: