Snow lighting

[heinz57]

I have just read on another forum that someone was thinking about using lighting to get the affect of snow.

 

Has anybody done this before? What did it turn out like?

 

Heinz

[themadhippy]

Done it a couple of times,and both with similar average results,first time was with a gobo and a DHA animation disc,the second was with a 2kw effect projector and suitable wheel.I think in hindsight we needed to use more,brighter lanterns.

[indyld]

Snow effects using an effects projector or flicker wheel need a decent amount of planning or it looks naff. The trick is to realise that the lighting effect cannot do all of the work. Just because you hire a Strand EP don't mean your stage is going to be covering white stuff.

 

Things to consider:

 

It's really important to get the set, props and other physical now stuff looking good. The lighting just adds a hint that it's snowing and can't produce a good effect without a lot of visual help from other stuff.

 

The rest of the scene needs to be lit like a snow scene. Daytime means bright, reflected light from below.

 

Night time is harder. At night, only shafts of available light or glows reflect the snowflakes. This means that just blatting a whole stage full of snow effect just looks like a disco .

 

Overlay a couple of projectors to get a range of "flake" speeds.

 

Experimenting with this kind of thing can be good fun and a good learning experience( pauses to get all misty eyed about how moving lights are not helping anyone learn lighting design these days).

[Barney]

Something that can work quite well (depending on your show and set) is to have an effects projector with snow disc focused in on each window in the set (a painted window, not actually glazed). Use a mask to shutter it in to just the extent of the window and it looks like it's snowing outside.

 

Alternatively, if you have an open window in the set, project on to a cyc behind it.

 

As Indyld said, overlaying two projectors at different speeds also makes the effect better, particularly when projecting on to a larger area such as an entire backdrop.

 

Bear in mind that the snow 'flakes' are actually very small dots on an opaque effect wheel, and you will lose a lot of light output from the projector because of this.

 

The key is to have plenty of time to fiddle to get the look right!

 

Barney

 

Edit to add: And if you know you're going to do a show that needs projected snow, make sure you get in early and book them with a hire company as soon as possible. It can get quite tricky to find snow effect discs in December and January!