Moving Lights Control

[adamcoppard]

Well, yes and no.

 

Our school doesn't posses a ladder the hieght of the T-Bar, which is a big factor in stopping me refocussing every day. Also, we have intensive rehersals for a week before, which rapidly changes from scene to scene, form play to play, act to act. That owuld mean refocussing in the short amount of tiem we have the hall for, waiting for lights to cool, moving them, checking them, meanwhile we have 80 members of cast to control, which as we found in a five minute break invovled about ten run ins of bad behaviour / people fiddling with tech desks.

 

I do agree, that, yes, it's only a little time to regel / refocus, with Par Can's / Source Fours, getting them into the same spot can't really be done accuratley, it can be done within a inches maybe, but not to within the accuracy we would like.

 

I understand both sides of the argument, using one set of generics would be a hell of a lot easier, cheaper etc. to run over the couple of weeks for hire etc, but it means I have to spend all my spare time doing all the mic's (making sure I have them, battery changes (and if it's anything like this years, troubleshooting), renaming scenes, writing out over 160 labels, programme design) and then I have to refocus / regel lights, I just think it would use up valuable time that we don't have.

[mark_s]

Infrastructure-depending, hire in more conventionals. There will almost surely be lanterns that will be required in the same place (and maybe colour) for both shows - for example your frontlight may well not change much. So make a few small compromises and make the rigs overlap as far as possible, and then hire in more conventionals which you can use for any required specials, or to add to the rig you already have. Hell if you only have 8 lanterns, hire in another 8 and have 2 complete rigs up at once.

 

Moving lights aren't the solution to your problem in my opinion. Sure they move to where you want them, but if they need to move that much, what about the angle of the light? The light might be in the right place on the floor, but it might also look totally wrong on a person due to the angle. Just pointing a light at someone isn't design...it has all the potential to look poo if you adopt that mentality.

 

I do agree, that, yes, it's only a little time to regel / refocus, with Par Can's / Source Fours, getting them into the same spot can't really be done accuratley, it can be done within a inches maybe, but not to within the accuracy we would like.

 

It's funny that...how touring productions manage to look consistently similar in different venues each week. I wonder how they do it...;)

 

Regards,

Mark

[Tomo]

I do agree, that, yes, it's only a little time to regel / refocus, with Par Can's / Source Fours, getting them into the same spot can't really be done accuratley, it can be done within a inches maybe, but not to within the accuracy we would like.

Then you should take some time to practice.

 

Repeatable focus is very possible - ask anybody who works in a repertory theatre.

 

The time to practice your focussing isn't during pre-production though - the best time to practice is when you're not under any pressure!

 

Finally, the first step to repeatable focus is making good focus notes.

It doesn't really matter what notation you use, just find a way of describing everything about how the light is focussed.

 

For a short run, a few tape marks on the stage along with a re-gel plot may well be enough!

[gareth]

As Tomo says, it can be done - it just takes a bit of skill and practice (and a detailed and accurate focus plot). I used to work in the lighting department of a major UK opera house, which stages six operas in rep every summer. A large part of the job was refocussing the large fixed rig from one lighting design to another - something which was, and is, achieved with considerable accuracy, usually twice a day, from April to September. A team of perhaps six people could achieve a complete lighting turn-around (re-colour, re-focus, and set any onstage specials eg. booms and stands) in a remarkably short time. We did have moving lights while I worked there, but they were a bit ropey to say the least (Strand PALS yokes!), and on the whole manual focussing was more accurate and more reliable!

[adamcoppard]

I would quite happily go and refocus all the lights, but as I said above, I'm not going to have hardly any time, during the production to learn how to re-focus / practice with the methods you suggest, as I shall be put under the same time restraints a everyone else, which generally means I'll have an hour hear or there to get myself aqquinted with the two plot foccuses for the show. If I could get a plot from the drama dept. as soon as they have a cast, I'll quite happily sit down, and get everything sorted out, but as is the way with most school productions, tech gets left till the last minute.

And, if it's anything like last year, it'll be 10pm finishes working out why the ruddy mic's don't work (again!)

[Andrew C]

You're not hearing this are you? If you don't have time to re-focus, you don't have time to plot movers.

 

If it takes that long to work out why a few mics don't work, you'll be there gone midnight if a DMX gremlin pops up.

 

DON'T THINK MOVERS ARE GOING TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS!

[mac.calder]

If you cannot work with what you have, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your expectations as far as the lighting design goes. Part of the job of a lighting designer is to work within the constraints of the venue and the schedule. Maybe you need to look at making your lighting design as versatile and generic as possible... maybe you need to talk to the school about better scheduling (ie Show 1 on days 1+2, show 2 on day 3+4) - there are a number of options to consider before movers...

[mrcog]

Wow... 10pm finishes... Bit early isnt it??

 

It takes as long as it takes to get evreything working...

 

Anyhu, I agree with Andrew C, I don't think there was a need to shout but hey... There we go, simple answer.

[berry120]

Wow... 10pm finishes... Bit early isnt it??

Indeed - half 5 in the morning would be more like it!

 

Another thing to consider with movers, of any type is that there's simply more to go wrong, and if you haven't had experience with programming the things before, it'll probably take just as long to learn how to program them on a new desk than learn how to focus quickly and accurately!

 

And in the worst case scenario, what happens if you program everything, then the desk crashes and you lose everything? Suddenly you've got however many movers to program before the show starts, a couple of hours to do it in, and while you might've been able to do it in half an hour with the generics and get most of it back up, you're gonna struggle to get all the movers going again...

 

Yeah of course movers are fun and they can whizz around, look great etc. but as mac said you've got a lot more options you should probably consider first...

[JDLX]

I agree with the comments above - movers don't appear to be the way forward here, especially if you have limited experience with them.

 

When you say there is limited power - do you mean hard power or dimmer outlets? What exactly are you trying to achieve with the designs for each show? If it is a case of different colour washes - scrollers are definately your best option as you would be able to control them from your existing desk without too much trouble. If you need lots of specials - (spots or what have you) and have a limited amount of dimmers available, maybe you should be thinking about pairing your pars together, and hiring more profiles in to do the specials?

 

I am just guessing here of course, you need to provide more details on what you are trying to achieve with the design and what is available at the venue for anyone to give any really advice here.

 

 

 

Joe

[dbuckley]

If by colour changing lights you mean CMY colour mixing fittings, then you cant control these using a manual desk; well, you can, but you cant crossfade the colours correctly.

 

Why: Well, with CMY mixing, you should never have more than two colour filters in use at once. So, if you try and crossfade between (for example) red and blue, you are going from C,M,Y values 0,100,100 to 100,100,0. If you try that using three faders on a normal desk, the 50% fade point is 50,100,50, which breaks the two filter maximum rule, and looks really 'orrible. A desk that knows how to crossfade CMY colours would have a 50% point of about 0,100,0 (which is magenta) or 100,0,100 (green), depending which "way" you go.

[Davethsparky]

Our school doesn't posses a ladder the hieght of the T-Bar, which is a big factor in stopping me refocussing every day.

 

This sounds like your lighting rig is entirely hung from a T-Bar stand. Does this mean you are proposing to hang movers from said T-Bar, or have I just misunderstood you?

[SoLiEn]

I read the same thing as dave. perhaps the OP can clarify this

 

Adam, is your rig done by T Bar or was that merely you saying how useless your access equipment is, i.e. cant even reach a damn t bar, let alone my lighting bars...

 

oh and a T bar is easy to focus IMO, 5 minutes per t bar if you know your design.

[adamcoppard]

Movers. On the T-Bars. Nope.

 

And, yes, we don't have anyway of getting to the T-bars once put up. If we really want to, then it involves blancing very dangerously of the edge of a ladder, whilst a teacher isn't looking, which is a big no no for safety.

[pete LD]

Movers. On the T-Bars. Nope.

 

So where they goin? you aint got a ladder to reach the T bars so you carn't reach lighting bars! surely your not putting them on the floor?

If you give us the info people can help but at the min im with every one else, hire a bigger ladder and learn to focus! a very useful skill that not enough new people seem to have!

Pete.