Treads - Illumination/changing colour

[medyr]

Hey all. I'm design oedipus for my scenic design module in university and I want to have a set of treads as my centre piece. as oedipus' fall begins he steps down one step and I want the step that he was standing on turn colour to red. it is something similar the the set of stairs in the film hook with robin williams in but I only want one tread and riser to change at a time. can anybody suggest what way I could do this. thanks

 

meds

[Piers Shepperd]

Options:

1) External lighting from above / behind although this will be tricky to focus / shutter accurately and will never be very bright. Treads painted light grey to reflect the light best.

2) Internal lighting within the treads themselves. Trying to understand your post, you want both the horizontal surface of each tread to light up (the going) and the vertical surface (the rise) both to be lit?

This can be achieved using 12mm white polycarbonate sheeting mounted onto 20 x 20 SHS steel frames. Your problem is then to internally back light these treads without revealing all of the supporting steel work.

You also need to make sure each tread is internally boxed out to stop light spilling into adjacent treads.

 

Another material to research is honeycomb composite board. This comes in thicknesses upto 50mm thick, and can be used as a structural sheet. Depending on what size your treads are, you could bond the sheets together and make something which doesn't need so much supporting steelwork. I've seen these made out of transparent material, opaque etc, but can't remember the supplier. Reputable staging companies would be able to help source it.

 

Lighting might be done with a linear lamp rather then a point source. e.g. see Encapsulite website covered in a red gel.

 

Others may recommend other ways and other problems (dimming flourescents etc), but I'm thinking this will be a big project!

If you want to go from white to red, then you will also need another complete circuit of white lights to make the switch complete.

 

Good luck.

Cheers,

 

Piers

[Simon Lewis]

Medyr,

 

Welcome to the Blue Room!

 

Piers has given you some in depth information to think about... However, I suspect your tutor would be looking to see how you solve the problem. I know that we all ask for help and advice, but it's better if you come up with some ideas for discussion, rather than just asking professionals how they would do it ;-)

 

Good luck with the design!

 

Simon

[peternewman]

For the benefit of others, even if medyr ignores this and comes up with his own ideas, see this topic.

[Maddison]

Hey all. I'm design oedipus for my scenic design module in university and I want to have a set of treads as my centre piece. as oedipus' fall begins he steps down one step and I want the step that he was standing on turn colour to red. it is something similar the the set of stairs in the film hook with robin williams in but I only want one tread and riser to change at a time. can anybody suggest what way I could do this. thanks

 

meds

 

Cut some holes in the facing of the treads, put coloured gel and diffusion in the holes and then light with LED's sufficently far back so as not to see them at source???

 

And then it's jsut as case of wiring them up and plugging them in as you want them...

[LeeStoddart]

medyr,

 

Piers has given you some good input and as Simon said if this is for a project you are expected to come up with ideas yourself. But most of the time ideas are adapted from something else so follow up your idea of the look in the film you liked - try and work out what approach you could follow.

 

It basically comes down to external or internal illumination but most of these effects are achieved with internal illumination of some sort. To achieve individual control of each step then you will need independent control of each step's illumination - so a different channel on your control desk for each step.

 

A critical question you need to answer is it the going or the riser that needs to change colour (or both) - consider the point of view of your audience. Usually this type of effect is done for a walk down (hence the discussion often comes up around panto season) and is for the riser to change colour.

 

Another source of inspiration for this is the walk down used for the contestant introduction on Strictly Come Dancing - similar effects were used in the Maria and Joseph selection programs.

 

Good luck.