We Will Rock You Schools Edition

[Ben Lawrance]

Hi All

 

I've just been told that I am lighting We Will Rock You (Schools Edition) in December for the local secondary school I do work for.

 

Has anyone embarked on this before?

 

I've seen the original a few times and not too sure if I can pull it off with a "school budget"

 

Plus the stage is only 12mtrs wide (acting area of 7mtrs by the time the wings are in) by 6mtrs deep, With a trim height of 5mtrs. So it's a really small stage. By the time I've thrown loads of truss and nodding buckets at it, well, you get the idea.

 

 

 

Just interested to see if anyone else has done it.

[Dweeks]

Well first comment... Queen to me doesn't mean nodding buckets... Queen means Par-Cans and LOTS of them! I'd personally stick away from the movers for a project like this.

 

Looking at Blue Aran hire for example - One Robe 575 is £80 - compare this to a bar of 64's for £30. It's so much more rock and roll as well! Dimming hire isn't too expensive, and you won't need a desk for intelligents.

 

I haven't seen WWRY yet (shame!), but I'd imagine you could do a far better job for a show with a small budget ) with 48 channels of Par 64's and some floor cans, with the correct lamps in than 6 Robe 575s... Even scrollers would be more Queen.

 

Edit: Sorry, just noticed your website - so presumably hire fee's aren't an issue per sé? Just a thought, with the low-ish roof height, maybe you'd be better with narrow 56s? Bit less heat, and power, and quite effective.

[Stutwo]

I believe there are a few of us on the college/uni side of things about to do this one. You can't copy the original mega-budget show, so use that thought as a starting point for inventing your own design (with the rock and roll thing in mind, however, it only really turns into a rock and roll show in the last three numbers).

 

The staging dictated in the script is again pretty much impossible without a west-end budget (it's the west-end script you get), so a nice looking stage with plenty of colour and pattern options is the road I went down.

[Alfie]

Hello,

 

Yes I production designed a university show of WWRY just 3 weeks ago! on a stage 8x8 and 5 tall so nearly the same! We even managed to get a gutted long wheel base miliatry landrover on stage so its very achievable even on a budget.

 

Take a sqizz at www.theatrephotos.co.uk if your interested

[dave singleton]

You should have come to me Ben. I am doing it for a local secondary school too that we both know and love so much! ;)

 

I'm lighting a similar size, but being creative with it. School budgets don't tend to allow for truss and movers etc. As it goes it all depends on budget. How much are they looking at giving you?

[Stutwo]

I ended up spending about 2500 on the show but that included a one week fit-up. I used light columns (12 ft vertical rectangular boxes with heavy frost windows) with a Martin Pro400 in the base of each one, 4 sunstrip active blinders, 36 PAR 56's, 2 4-way molefays, 4 MAC250's and 2 bottles of haze fluid. As well as that, our usual stock of generics and a mountain of sound kit. Being an Arts College we have a little more budget than most.

 

Here is the encore from one of the nights:

 

[tokm]

2500 :) I hope that included crewing!! Otherwise it sounds like you've been overcharged somewhere!

 

Great looking design!.. Well based on the 5mins of footage from the video :huh: The blue rotating gobo's you've got coming out of the back lighting 250's is, IMO, specially good. But the sunstrips you have chasing up and down in a pixel line style effect also get a thumbs up for the cheese'y cool factor.

 

:) 2 bottles of haze fluid!!! Last time I lit a show in a similar size venue to the one in the video I barely got through one 3L can on a unique2 and that got complaints from pros and am's!

 

I think Dave's question is pretty much it in terms of specific advice for your production, as we know nothing about what you have to spend to create suitable effects, etc. Roll on the pix & youtube footage of members attempts at lighting this show, been pleasantly suprised so far that the show's not been butchered too much by schools ;)!

 

Tom

[Stutwo]

Nah, the budget was for sound, lighting and extra rigging, so for two weeks it wasn't bad. On the haze side of things, the venue suffers from a constant through draft, so the haze doesn't linger much. Nobody complained anyhow ;)

[MARTYL200UK]

Well done, stunning lighting effect. May I ask, did you make the boxes yourself or did you use square section truss for it. Also what frost did you end up using?

 

Well Done again

 

Martin

[Stutwo]

Thanks. We made the boxes from MDF with Lee Filters 129 heavy frost in the windows.

[sparkzxx]

Did this show earlier this year in April, in total the production company I work for spent about £25,000 on the production!

[tokm]

Did this show earlier this year in April, in total the production company I work for spent about £25,000 on the production!

Well then I hope it looked (and perhaps sounded) good! Should do for that kinda price!

 

Any pix, any specs, venue etc? Silly to post something like that and not give us any details

 

Tom

[Joe Bleasdale]

hi

well I work in education and yes the budget is rubbish. as people say there are three universes, DMX, generic and education!

anyway lots of parcans lots of chases and a few colour washes, then combine them all in the chases.do you have a DMX desk if so witch one??

 

hope this helps

 

joe

[fatfrog]

Hi There,

 

yeah.we did it last year - I wasn't the head engineer though - had my leaving cert to do - Irish equivilant to A-levels!!!

 

Basically, We used lots of rock n roll colours- yellows, reds, greens etc, for the main lighting - mostly par64's. we also used some pixel pars to create some interesting back drops for killer queen.

 

Then for We will rock you (the song) - we used 2x 8 light audiance blinders which really looked good - we had to get 3phase installed especially for these though.

 

We also used a set of movers for stuff like the secret police scenes - Blue strobe effect spinning around the room - You get the idea.

 

All in all - was probably the best show the school has ever done...I"ll try and find some pics if you want.

 

Alan

[Just Some Bloke]

we used 2x 8 light audiance blinders which really looked good - we had to get 3phase installed especially for these though.

 

1. I'd be interested to know what blinders you were using that needed 3-phase. Normally each one needs 2 x 10A single phase dimmers.

2. The cost of installing 3-phase to a venue is really rather high, even if there's not too far to come. I'm surprised a school would pay that cost just for one effect for one show.