Can moving lights be used as follow spots?

[El Senatore]

Hi,

can anyone recommend a fairly inexpensive option for using a moving head (profile) manually? (ie with joystick or somesuch control)

For reasons too boring to go into, followspot isn't an option. The venue has 5 and 3 pin DMX tie lines however, so I'm thinking a mac 250 (for instance) with a DMX linked manual control.

I don't know if I'm making all this up in my head, or if it is actually feasible.

 

Best suggestion gets a free ticket!

Thanks in advance

Dan

[Ynot]

If you're thinking of trying to use a moving head as a followspot, I would SERIOUSLY think again, unless it's for an EXTREMELY simple movement option.

 

Whilst it is theoretically feasible to do this, it is VERY difficult to make it look anything other than pants!!!

[paulears]

Well - you could hire in a moving head, and a control with either joystick, or touch pad or, well... anything - but the results will be pretty grim.

A Mac 250 has a fixed size beam, so you can't change the 'circle' size, and if you defocus it t get rid of the hard edge, it gets bigger. With a real followspot you can do left right and up down moves easily - and can do diagonals too - a mover has trouble doing diagonal movement smoothly under manual control. The other big problem is that the speed of movement of a real followspot can be so subtle you can't see it - to blisteringly fast with a sudden stop. Moving heads simply aren't made to do this. Undershoot and overshoot making the operation quite hit and miss.

 

 

If you really do only have this option - warn people how cack it will look. It's a very often suggested plan, and as far as I'm aware, nobody on ere has ever come back and said how well it went!

[woody74]

I have only had success with this once, and it involved many rehearsals with the actress, lots of spike tape, more rehearsals, multiple timing adjustments, and then another rehearsal.

 

Best of luck, but I agree with the above: it is not intended to be a followspot.

 

-w

 

edit: I just remembered trying to do something one other time: I had XYZ control on encoders and it was still difficult as hell.

[Light Console]

I have done it once, as a last resort. It worked, just about. Not in a hurry to try it again!

 

My tip would be to spend the time to make what ever controls you have end up the same as the light. For example, move the joystick/encoder to the left and the light moves to your left, and move the control up and the light moves away from you.

 

Good Luck!

 

(I had to do it on a Freekie and a Griven Acrobat.)

[Steve Cavill]

As most have said here, I wouldn't bother wasting your time.

 

It really isn't worth the hassle, and it won't look anything like a followspot should.

[avdavesound]

I had good success with a pearl and graphics tablet with tracking. Everything went well apart from concentrating too much on the moving head followspot than the actual show! I wouldn't recommend using one with a joystick, as all the lads said it looks pants!! it will look like a moon chasing the person instead of following!

[paradoxism]

To back up other posters if you can find ANY way to avoid using a mover then do it! I've tried once or twice in emergencies and it's always less than an ideal result! However if you can't then I would consider some of the following:

 

Ideally find a desk where you can trim the XY positions to just the stage area (similar to scaling a dimmer channel to 80% output for 100% on your fader so as not to overload channels) and then set extreme left / right / up / down on your controller so that hard left is the left of the stage, hard up the top etc. Make sure the pan and tilt settings for the controller match the head to avoid brain overload! Others on here with more knowledge of different desk may be able to help you out with that.

 

Mount the head as far from the stage as you can so that there is a smaller variation in spot size as it moves around the stage. Then fix the beam angle for each cue so that you don't need to worry about iris size during each set piece. (Oh and use a mover with an iris in the first place!)

 

If you're working on a pros stage or similar then consider using a moving mirror rather than a moving head fixture - the scan speed is far faster and it can cope much better with sudden movements and dead stops. It will also prevent you from ending up with a spot spinning wildly out of control around the auditorium and then not being able to get it aligned correctly again when the head accidentally ends up 'backwards'

 

Get the highest possible resolution on your XY channels - you need a fixture with a fine pan and tilt to make the movement as smooth as possible.

 

Use a desk with either a touchscreen / graphics tablet option for position control, or at the very least a non centring joystick and set them to absolute rather than relative control. You want the same position on the control to always give you the same position of the spot.

 

Of course there are systems that have been designed to do this such as the Martin Trackpod and the AutoPilot2 but as you mentioned the word inexpensive I don't think they're what you're looking for!

[Ken Coker]

Hi,

can anyone recommend a fairly inexpensive option for using a moving head (profile) manually? (ie with joystick or somesuch control)

 

I think no one can recommend this as an idea. However, if you want an inexpensive way of doing it:

 

Freestyler

 

Plus:

 

Enttec Open DMX

 

Plus the joystick of your choice - those big gaming ones seem to work.

 

However: IT WILL LOOK RUBBISH............(trust me, I might be a Doctor one day.)

 

KC

[Wuddy]

Here's a slight variation on this thread and I suppose that you could try this option.

 

One of the guys doing FS op. for a recent panto, although a technical bloke actually prefers acting and he was relating as to how, one of the companies he performs with use a venue with a large amount of movers in the in-house rig.

 

The Director of this theatre company likes to make full use of these movers and as well as using them in every musical number he also has several of them programmed to follow actors about the stage at various times.

 

This director drives the desk ops. mad because they are having to programme the movers to his exact requirements and he drives the actors mad because not only do they have to remember their lines and actions but they aslo have to remember to start in the exact same place, walk at the exact same speed and follow the exact same route every performance.

 

Apparently it's a nightmare.

[henny]

I carnt rember where I saw it but some tim back I saw a rightup of a system that used an overhead webcam to track people and follow them with movers. you just selected the lamp then clicked the person.

 

the demo was at the enterance to an expo somwhere and as people entered it randomley followed them

[Don Allen]

I help out a live music venue that is always crying poor so have put an old JB varyscan 4 scanner in as a special which includes followspot use. It is run off an LSC Atom 12/24 desk, this desk has a jogger weel for fine control of one channel in edit mode, so for follow spot use we use two faders and it looks tacky. The JB varyscan 4 scanner has a 575 watt discharge lamp, iris (essential), shutter, colour wheel, effects wheel with two colour correction filters. Cost me $300 second hand. I program preset positions before a show, such as spotting each member of bands for curtain calls, handy when there is a lot of them, and have regular roles such as the mirror ball, especially will colour wheel on colour scroll.

Disadvantages are restricted movement as it is a scanner, but sure fits a small budget, and will never replace a follow spot.

[Jivemaster]

It's usually beyond moving head or mirror lights to have the movement style of a follow spot. Also most movers have 256 channels of pan control to cover 180 - 500 degrees of pan so one step is one big step for the tallent. You cannot sight and pick-up as there is only the fill beam to sight with!

 

 

Probably worse than no FS!

[Ynot]

Mount the head as far from the stage as you can so that there is a smaller variation in spot size as it moves around the stage. Then fix the beam angle for each cue so that you don't need to worry about iris size during each set piece.

 

Hmm...

Which ALSO means that the slightest movement of the head will result in a much larger movement of the spot on stage, and also far less control of the positioning.

[GridGirl]

We're using a moving mirror as a followspot at the moment, and getting away with it, but only because it's for a very limited time, it's not truly imperative to the show - the actor is well-lit anyway, it just highlights him a bit more - and because it's only used for five or six very defined movements where the actor follows exactly the same path to the same places every single time. It took us a lot of tweaking to get right, and only really worked because of the skill of the operator in programming the sequence.