Cheap Moving Heads

[CharlieH]

Sorry if this has already been asked (I expect it has) but I can't find it anywhere!

 

I am the lighting technician at a secondary school, and I would like to convince my head of drama to move into moving heads. As we only have 48 conventional lights, it makes it very difficult to do anything particularly special on the stage, and I am starting to get a bit bored, and to run out of options. My conventional lights are all quite old are starting to break, and when we replace them I would like to move into the world of intelligence!

 

We have a limited budget, however. I am thinking of using Jands Vista software package on my MacBook to control the moving heads, as I prefer it to Cuelux and it is a lot cheaper than a hardware desk. I still need moving lights though. Is anywhere aware of any cheap moving lights, that are OK to work with, if possible with a prisms and gobos, that I could convince my HOD to afford?

Thanks,

Charlie

[J Pearce]

Are you a school technician (employed and paid, with responsibility and qualifactions/experience) or a student who does lights?

 

Why use YOUR macbook for lighting control, what happens when you leave?

 

Cheap moving lights are made for disco/club use not theatrical, they often have no dimming, and the gobos aren't breakups and windows, they're funny shapes designed for beam work rather than illumination.

[DanHerbert]

John was about to say the same re:using his own equipment - have to remember just because you are bored of it and want to go up market, what does happen when you leave? Will they be able to operate the lighting effectively or will the moving lights just sit in the corner gathering dust?

 

Sorry to sound so harsh! I've seen this happen with equipment in schools too many times!

 

If you have a team you work with or a teacher who in the longer term would be competent to operate etc then go ahead, but remember if you are looking to use them more regularly or at short notice then make sure you have presets etc stored!

[Guest lightnix]

As mentioned oh so many times before, in countless other threads...

 

If you are a school, do not buy moving lights, rent them instead.

 

I'll leave you to have a little play with the Search function (click here for an example) to find out why :)

[J Pearce]

I'd hesitate at going that far Nick (speaking as an employee of a school who own moving lights), but certainly, if you have no in house employed technician moving lights are a no-go.

[CharlieH]

OK, thanks everyone.

I am a student, not an employed technician, and I would use my MacBook because it is so much faster, and easier to use than anything the school has.

 

You make a good point though, about when I leave. I will volunteer to return to light any major events, if I can, but I won't be able to do them all. I will have to try and train someone before I go, but I hadn't thought about that!

 

Hiring might work, but the school doesn't like to hire things much in advance, therefore it wouldn't give me much time to familiarize myself with it, rig it, and program it (for the last play, they got the scaffold company in the day after the play was done to take it all down, I hadn't even started to de-rig it by that point!), but that might be sensible.

 

Thanks

[karl]

As we only have 48 conventional lights, it makes it very difficult to do anything particularly special on the stage, and I am starting to get a bit bored, and to run out of options.

I love the challenge of doing stuff with limited resources (often a lot less than 48 lights - like 5 fresnels). Give an unimaginative person the best lighting equipment in the world and they'll still produce boring tosh, give a lighting genius a torch and they'll produce a stunning show.

 

Not that I'd claim to be a lighting genius - far from it but there are people out there who have produced fantastic lighting with a handful of conventional lights.

[dmoffat]

I would suggest that better understand of how to use generics are a must. By getting "bored" of using conventionals, I don't see what you hope to acheive with moving lights, especially in theatre.

Ok so no refocus inbetween shows, but I really don't think that buy a collection of moving lights cause I'm bored with these S4 profiles is the right thing to do, regardless of how the school deal with any equipment once you leave.

[CharlieH]

I know, it's just that I also don't get much of a chance. We do one large music concert a year, but the musical director is a complete technophobe!! I had to persuade him to use mics last year, and we needed them. There was about 1000 people in there!! But iv asked him if I can do anything snazzy for the lighting and he says no each time. The school production is the only chance where I can experiment and have fun, and that only happens once a year!

 

I might be able to do some cool stuff with the fresnels and par-cans, but I don't have the oppertunity!

[dmoffat]

If you don't have a chance work with par's and fresnels apart from once a year, why is it a good idea to buy some moving lights, that will cost more in maintenance than hiring for one week a year.

 

I regularly used moving lights, doing big gigs for over a month, but still hire them in per gig as A. its cheaper and B. I get the light and the quantity depending on the job, not what I have kicking about.

[billy bobinski]

I would echo Dave's comments, movers aren't the savior here, especially for theatrical productions, which it sounds as though is the majority of your work. You'll probably find that you're sat there scratching you're head thinking up ways to use them, more than actually using them!

 

If you do need them for the odd musical production, then HIRE. It's cheaper, no maintenence problems or costs, and you get to play with new kit every time you hire if you want, plus it's going to give you the opportunity to learn a lot more using a variety of manufacturers gear, which in the long run, if you plan staying in the business can only be a good thing.

 

Put your foot down on this one, they will thank you for the cost savings!

[paulears]

If you don't have the opportunity to do stuff with fresnels and par cans, where will you find the time to do movers witha laptop. As we have said sooooo many times. Running decent software on a laptop is fine if there are real faders. Simple music shows don't stretch a manual control as long as when somebody shouts go blue, NOW! you can do it. If you have even two faders up on a mouse driven system, how do you pull those down and shove one up, NOW!

 

If you only have one large musical concert a year, and the person with power is a technophobe, then how does buying some cheap movers (and this means cheap compared with other movers - they're ALL expensive) fit in. You should also be aware educational budgets are set a long time ahead, and finding even £1000 once term has started may well be impossible until next September - IF the teacher supports the bid. As an ex-teacher and as an employer I resist people working for me bringing in their own kit. Students get bored/leave/have laptop broken or stolen and this means no lighting, because their expensive movers are connected to what? Same thing with people who work for me who have their own or borrowed kit. It could easily be hooked up, but if next week they get the offer they can't refuse, then I'd be left up in the air, and I cannot allow that to happen, even though I quite fancy 'playing' with some new kit.

 

I hope you have noticed that everyone is saying this is a bad move. For you in isolation, yep - it would be fun, but it's simply a bad use of the schools money. If they don't need moving head style lighting, then it really is a waste of budget.

 

Schools and colleges can do great things with moving lights, it's just that experience shows that the number who have the infrastructure in place to keep them going, in terms of repairs, cost and in-house skills, means few do it well. I can give you the name of a college with half a dozen movers in flight cases, piles of scrollers and an avo control where they sit unused in a store room, hidden away because the current technical and teaching staff don't know anything about them, and would rather pretend they didn't exist. The people who did know, moved on, and thousands of pounds worth of kit sit there wasting away!

 

No doubt this topic will be closed shortly when even more people have chirped in.

 

Please do read all the other topics on the same subject, there are dozens of them, all saying the same things!

[billy bobinski]

Extremely well put, Paul - It's all about experience.

[CharlieH]

OK, I give up. Thanks for all your advice, it's not what I wanted to hear but I can see that it's the sensible thing to do.

 

I will recommend to my HOD that we hire in some moving gear if, and when we need it. I would like the experience with moving gear, especially before I go to 6th form college as it will give me more options if they have any, but I will hire it in.

 

I will probably still use Jands Vista to control it, but on a school computer instead of my own, and I will recommend buying/hiring the hardware control surface for that, so that I can make multiple moves NOW.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys, I really appreciate it

Charlie

[paulears]

Sitting in my venue over the past few weeks have been piles of controls. All belonging to the technical team, not the venue or visiting companies. A chamsys system running with the panel and laptop, a Strand GSX, a laptop running Bluelite x-1, a Jands Hog 600. Which one is the simplest to use - easy. The GSX from 1997! Why? Somebody says go. Somebody else pushes a button. If something odd happens, shove a fader or two. Flashy flashy? prod some buttons. Does it work movers? No. Does it need to for the Chuckle Brothers? No.

 

How about the laptop versions? The chamsys is a pretty decent control system, but the wing fader count means for what we're doing it's not quite enough. Plenty on the hog, and the x-1 has programmed emergency states, and can be flashed with keyboard function buttons, so it is there for emergencies.

 

Laptops are good for off-line, but not much use for live work without expensive add ons. Schools and colleges need something that has an on switch and VERY simple operation - suitable for non-technical people who can spot a fader marked RED and shove it up. Cleverness is rarely required.

 

It's the Jim Davidson style of lighting - "When I walk on, make it bright - when you se my ar*e going the other way, turn them out again"