Intelligent Lighting Boards - Questions

[adamcoppard]

Hmm, it's all ideas at the minute, and a final decision shall be made later in the year once I put together multiple choices of hire options (sound and lights), and see what we go for.

As everyones probably guessed one option is a truck load of Par's, Fresnels and Source Fours, gelled, and the other is a smaller amount of Par Can's, but spending money on a color scroller etc, to achieve light colours that way.

[LukeDR]

Hmm, it's all ideas at the minute, and a final decision shall be made later in the year once I put together multiple choices of hire options (sound and lights), and see what we go for.

As everyones probably guessed one option is a truck load of Par's, Fresnels and Source Fours, gelled, and the other is a smaller amount of Par Can's, but spending money on a color scroller etc, to achieve light colours that way.

Bit of a late respomce I know but, I wouldn't suggest using scrollers with PAR's. Even though they are fan cooled, in my experance they only last a couple of shows. And then when they do burn out, your hire company may ask you to pay for replacement scroller gel, which I belive costs alot. It also depends on the size of your space, but in large spaces- a small number of PAR's are not going to give out as much light as 5 X as many lights gelled up.

 

Rember to spec dimmers & cables aswell

 

Ask for more advice!

[Joe Bleasdale]

I have used scrollers quite alot, also in apro inviroment, and never had a problem...

[gareth]

Bit of a late respomce I know but, I wouldn't suggest using scrollers with PAR's. Even though they are fan cooled, in my experance they only last a couple of shows. And then when they do burn out, your hire company may ask you to pay for replacement scroller gel, which I belive costs alot.

And what experience would this be? How much real experience have you had of using scrollers?

 

Personally, I've been using them for years - and if yours only last a couple of shows, then you're doing something really stupid with them. To give you an example - our panto rig generally features a parcan wash with scrollers on the front (a couple of dozen or so lanterns), and usually some 2k fresnels also with scrollers, and the scrolls come out of them after almost 90 shows looking little different to the day they went in. Among our stock of scrolls, we have two or three from shows in years gone by which contain a very useful selection of general colours - these therefore tend to get used a lot on shows which don't have the budget for a brand-new set of scrolls. Some of these scrolls are several years old, and over the years have probably done a good couple of hundred performances in aggregate. Some of them are starting to get a bit tatty now, but by and large they're all still usable.

 

It also depends on the size of your space, but in large spaces- a small number of PAR's are not going to give out as much light as 5 X as many lights gelled up.

Eh?

 

Ask for more advice!

Ideally from someone who knows what they're talking about ...

[LeeStoddart]

I wouldn't suggest using scrollers with PARs. Even though they are fan cooled, in my experience they only last a couple of shows.

Sorry Luke but there is something faulty with your experience of scrollers rather than the principle of using scrollers on PARs. Unless you are using pars as vertical up light with scrolls on the top of them or you are forgetting to turn the PSU on before bringing up the pars to full you should be able to use a single set of scrolls for a significant number of shows.

[paulears]

I don't use scrollers much, but in all the shows I have done professionally, they've not been much more of a problem than the other kit, and movers have always been much more trouble. As has been said, in schools and colleges, my experience is grim. It's the usual mistake that anyone can press a few buttons and make lights come on. Switching on the hard power for movers and scroller PSUs doesn't get done, if the lights come on. So the scrolls turn into a melted mass of plastic, and that's the end of that. The one year I used them at college, you would not believe how many scrolls just four units got through.

 

I'm still having trouble with Adam's comments, I'm afraid.

 

In putting the matter straight he said

When I said to go with our colour scrollers, I meant (and I used it as if I were talking to someone) the colour scrollers we are hiring in.

As in the decision has been made.

Then when people questioned the decision

it's all ideas at the minute, and a final decision shall be made later in the year once I put together multiple choices of hire options (sound and lights), and see what we go for

 

So within just a few posts, the decision to hire scrollers changes to ideas and pie in the sky.

 

Please - why not just tell it as it is. Saying you are doing one thing, then backtracking just really wastes our time. If at the very start of this topic you could have said you were looking for advice - but you let us think you were committed - and the problems the choice would bring were forefront in peoples answers - but you tried to bluff it out.

 

It's pretty clear that you have been asked for input, but have no idea what the person who will be making the decisions is thinking.

 

Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but these kind of things really grate!

 

On the BR, if you make a statement, stand by it, don't fudge!

[Just Some Bloke]

Here's a thought:

 

£1000 will BUY you 18 par cans with lamp and gel and still leave you change [source]. This would allow you to have 3 x colour washes with 6 lamps in each. If you chose suitable colours for the show you could mix every colour you require from those 3 washes. This would give you far more than the 16 colours in your scrollers AND you'd be able to do the same for the next show on no expense at all. All of this could be run happily from your Alcora. The other £500 could be spent on a last night party. :)

[gherriott]

Just a tip should you decide to go with scrollers after all.... to help with wear and tear and to prevent any damages to the string should you accidentally leave the lamp on the congo blue frame once you have turned the fans off...put some heatshield in the frame in front of the scroller this helps eliminate a lot of the heat before it reaches the scroll. Also another thing to be weary of, scrollers do not like spray paint, so be aware that when your paint team come into to touch up, that you have your fans turned off before they start! Learnt that one the hard way! Apart from that I would say good luck, if you want to hire them in just even for the purpose of gaining experience with them then I say go for it, there is only one way to learn these things and that is by doing. Don't let people scare you out of trying equipment that is new to you, just be sure to take on board their advice and you should be fine.

[ianknight]

Notwithstanding the debate about Scrollers and Desks - can I just add my two penn'orth?

 

Talk to the Hire company you think you will use and one other Hire company - ask them to send someone out to look at the venue and talk things through with you. If they're worth their salt, they will be happy to come - and as long as its not silly travelling distances, they likely won't charge for the visit (but offer them a cuppa please!) They will be used to dealing with folk in your situation, and they will also be used to squeezing kit into most sizes of venue. If they won't come out without charging or they turn round and say "oh - dead easy you need X,Y and Z etc" then thank them politely and ask somewhere else.

 

Having said all that, you MUST have a more concrete idea of what lighting you are trying to achieve (and be able to express that) or they won't be able to help you much no matter how good they are!

 

 

P.S. Don't judge the Frog by its offline editor. Although I know people use the OLE - most don't and sit at the desk to do edits. Have a look at the manual (downloadable from Zero88's website) first and then see how you feel.

[greenalien]

My 2p - Nobody seems to have suggested using LED lighting - with your budget, you could hire in a lot - then you've got pretty much any colour you want - and no problem with damaged scrolls. As a school, I would have thought that you'd embrace the future - LED's are the way the industry is moving. (and before the inevitable comments, yes I know that LEDs aren't a substitute for everything you can do with incandescent lamps - but the gap is narrowing!)

[LXbydesign]

Bit of a late respomce I know but, I wouldn't suggest using scrollers with PAR's.

 

What rubbish!!

 

Prehaps you could give a good reason to the hundreds of lighting designers who do - why they should'nt!!

[mbthegreat]

My 2p - Nobody seems to have suggested using LED lighting - with your budget, you could hire in a lot - then you've got pretty much any colour you want - and no problem with damaged scrolls. As a school, I would have thought that you'd embrace the future - LED's are the way the industry is moving. (and before the inevitable comments, yes I know that LEDs aren't a substitute for everything you can do with incandescent lamps - but the gap is narrowing!)

 

Last year I used 6 SGM Palcos as the main source of colour (wash) in my design for our school play, worked nicely, though the white from them isn't very good.

[themadhippy]

A little tip for our younger viewers,if your using dark colours in scrollers for par cans dont use short nose cans also if you half the number of colours but double up the width of colour you can then either alternate which bit of the scroll you use,or if your scrollers or LX board are clever enough you might find an option were the scroll moves slowly backwards and follward within the chosen colour lessening the changce of crispy bits.

[compant]

I work in a school myself, and I understand how stupid all the budgets and decisions are for productions. Though having read this thread from start to finish, I would suggest BUYING the LED par's in and using them for this production and productions in the future.

 

If need be, just persuade the school that they are necessary for improving how the productions are, and that it will save the school in future. Works for me (just persuaded the school that they wanted to stump up 50% for the lights for our next production - with the other 50% from tickets).

 

It will make it easier to control, and improve the productions in the future. At the end of the day, the director of the production tends not to know too much about what is available, so they will take whatever advice and direction you provide.

[adamcoppard]

I work in a school myself, and I understand how stupid all the budgets and decisions are for productions. Though having read this thread from start to finish, I would suggest BUYING the LED par's in and using them for this production and productions in the future.

Hmm, might be an option. However, I only have two / four big productions left with the school, so, this may not be an option for them, but I sure will suggest buying some kit each year, and hiring some, until we get to the stage where we own most of what we hire.

 

If need be, just persuade the school that they are necessary for improving how the productions are, and that it will save the school in future. Works for me (just persuaded the school that they wanted to stump up 50% for the lights for our next production - with the other 50% from tickets).

Hmm, may, again, go and see SMT after the school pantomime, which will not be lighted very well due to point's raised previosuly (lights out), and see what response I get. But a drama studio is being built, which will need lighting (which can't seat the whole school), so, I'm not sure where they would rather spend the money.

 

At the end of the day, the director of the production tends not to know too much about what is available, so they will take whatever advice and direction you provide.

Yes, agree with. All I know is that radio mics are banned after this fiasco we had with them last year.

 

A little tip for our younger viewers...

Noted, as the possibility is for dark colours.

 

Nobody seems to have suggested using LED lighting - with your budget, you could hire in a lot - then you've got pretty much any colour you want - and no problem with damaged scrolls. As a school, I would have thought that you'd embrace the future

Certainly a possibilty, will see what hire company's suggest.

 

Talk to the Hire company you think you will use and one other Hire company - ask them to send someone out to look at the venue and talk things through with you. If they're worth their salt, they will be happy to come - and as long as its not silly travelling distances, they likely won't charge for the visit (but offer them a cuppa please!)

Shall be getting different views from different company's, but we seemed to have forged our way into knowing an hire company (they are brilliant), but it would be cheaper to go direct (sometimes they sub-hire), and director doesn't want to loose the ties, but shall try and see at least three. I think we can provide them with refreshments ;-)

 

Having said all that, you MUST have a more concrete idea of what lighting you are trying to achieve (and be able to express that) or they won't be able to help you much no matter how good they are!

I Do, and, the manual looks good, but got drawn in by the Wholehog manual.

 

Don't let people scare you out of trying equipment that is new to you, just be sure to take on board their advice and you should be fine.

Thanks for your advice (unquoted). I'm not scared of trying out new equipment, just wanna cover all bases before a major flaw in something or other gets pointed out.

 

£1000 will BUY you 18 par cans with lamp and gel and still leave you change [source]. This would allow you to have 3 x colour washes with 6 lamps in each. If you chose suitable colours for the show you could mix every colour you require from those 3 washes. This would give you far more than the 16 colours in your scrollers AND you'd be able to do the same for the next show on no expense at all. All of this could be run happily from your Alcora. The other £500 could be spent on a last night party.

We could even go the other way around (it only takes 3x Par 64's to provide a complete (and them some) stage wash, so that could a) fix our lighting problems and b)get productions sorted. Oh, and the party budget might go down as we'll need some form of strucutre to hang these from.

 

It's pretty clear that you have been asked for input, but have no idea what the person who will be making the decisions is thinking.

I have been asked to draw up the quotes from the hire company's which shall get done by de-construction previos quotes, and then building our own new out of the recommendations of hire companies.

 

Thanks all for your input. It's still a lot of options as to what to hire in, rig, how to rig it, and what control to use. Any other tips / advice / words of wisdom. Ah well, at least the sound is easier...

Oh, and I do realise that it's more than pressing a few buttons to make lights come on, but essentially, I need the lighting design done and a Go / Next button on the desk for the performances, as my evening shall be taken up fixing any problems with the sound mix.