Nick LX Posted October 13, 2009 Share Posted October 13, 2009 Hi there,As with any "lighing designer" (and yes I use that term loosely, however I try my best) at a younger age than the pros, you must always learn from somewhere/someone. One person only has so much they can teach you, therefore I was wondering if anyone could give me some top tips concerning lighting design in a traverse configuration. Maybe if anyone could be helpful enough to send a lighting plan/drawing? Rigging positions I have: Fake grid (@ 5m height) above covering the 13m x 4m stage "FOH" bar running the length of the stage. (13m long, @ 4m height, 3m from the stage) In terms of lights I have a range of fresnels (selecon/cantata), profiles (source 4/cantata), PCs and par cans (source 4) Many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heinz57 Posted October 13, 2009 Share Posted October 13, 2009 Well of course one thing you need to be sure of is to make sure that the performers are lit properly. The problem with traverse is lighting it from one side creates alot of shadow on the other side and means the performers arn't lit properly. Don't get me wrong, shadow is a great effect and I like to experiment/mess around with shadow. An obvious point is that esentualy you are lighting from two angles. So try and get a decent mix/level of light on each side. If you can, try and have a little 'play' around with differant ideas and see what you can come up with. Have a look at differant intensity levels for the differant angles, something I mentioned in a post a while back is about a basic mix of open white and 'straw' (103) lighting from differant sides and angles with differant levels (using 1K standard Fresnels) I know it's a realy basic effect but even things like that draw away from the simple open white wash on the stage. Do you have a little more info on the show you are going to light? For example the desired effect. Or is this just a general question about lighting traverse in general? Hope this helped a little Heinz EDIT: Missed something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted October 13, 2009 Share Posted October 13, 2009 One of the venues I design in quite often is a traverse venue. The key, I find, is to accept that it won't - in fact it can't look the same from both sides. Not if you wanmt it to look any good, anyway. That means you are effectively lighting the whole thing twice. Also, the backlight for one side is the face light for the other side, so your options in terms of colour choice are somewhat limited. I tend to light things using a three colour wash, at 120 Degrees from each other. Two of those are coming from above each side of the audience and are in a light tint: (204, 202, 007, that sort of thing) the third one is basically a sidelight that does the job I would usually assign to a backlight in a regular design - it's my splash of colour. I tend to use lighter stuff than I would usually go with in a backlight though. I don't have any plans on this computer, but can post something a little later for you if you want to have a look. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Some Bloke Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 It works to think of it as an in-the-round design with only 2 sides! In other words light from the outside in and the inside out from each side then, as Bryson says, use your sides in a way you simply can't for in-the-round. There's always top light as well, of course for strong base-colours. Suddenly you get something easier than in-th-round rather than harder than end-stage! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick LX Posted October 14, 2009 Author Share Posted October 14, 2009 Cheers for the advice. I will give this some thought. Bryson - it would be great if you could upload a plan! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robloxley Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 AFAIR Jackie Staines' book on lighting design in the round has some good ideas applicable to traverse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJMcG Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I don't mean to be one of 'THOSE' forum posters who correct everybody but is it not a Transverse seating configuration... The Traverse is a theatre in Edinburgh; who rumour has it got its name becuase of the same confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron-Hill07 Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I'm pretty dead sure that it's a Traverse stage although both terms are known within the industry as correct. Also, the way it's taught is to be a 'Traverse' instead of 'Transverse' if you google both seperately, you'll find a lot more information about traverse than transverse. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJMcG Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I've just always seen it as you can traverse a transverse stage, not the other way around... eg... "A skier will traverse a steep slope by following a transverse route across the mountain face" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I don't mean to be one of 'THOSE' forum posters who correct everybody but is it not a Transverse seating configuration... No, it's Traverse. You might be right about the etymology of the word, but that's irrelevant - the word is Traverse. Although here, everyone calls it "alley". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJMcG Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I know its not a major educational resource but Wikipedia gives the reason for the term traverse... Link to the wiki page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_Theatre#The_Buildings Quote from the wiki page"The Buildings 15 James Court, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh (first performance - 2 Jan 1963) The first Traverse Theatre was situated in a former doss house and brothel also known as Kelly’s Paradise and Hell’s Kitchen. It was “a long , low-ceilinged first-floor room barely 15ft wide by 8ft high” [3] with 60 seats salvaged from the Palace Cinema placed in two blocks on either side of the stage. The theatre is named because Terry Lane mistakenly believed that the staging arrangement is called ‘traverse’; he later realised that it is ‘transverse’ but it was already too well known to change it." sorry to deter from the OP's post - its just a bit of a pet peeve of mine but I'll leave it at that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidLee Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I know its not a major educational resource but Wikipedia gives the reason for the term traverse...I'm afraid that comment is merely an usupported assertion by an unknown author and therefore absolutely worthless! Factual statements like this are supposed to be supported by suitable references but this one seems to have slipped into Wikipedia without being noticed. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renny Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I know its not a major educational resource but Wikipedia gives the reason for the term traverse...I'm afraid that comment is merely an usupported assertion by an unknown author and therefore absolutely worthless! Factual statements like this are supposed to be supported by suitable references but this one seems to have slipped into Wikipedia without being noticed. David The author of the Wikipedia article is actually the Traverse Theatre marketing department. Would it be churlish to point out that the Traverse Theatre itself refers to the seating arrangement as "transverse"? To the original point of the thread the best way is to forget all of your preconceptions about correct angles etc and embrace the steepness that you will end up using. Also as well as lighting across stage from the "FOH" bars also light up and down stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidLee Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 The author of the Wikipedia article is actually the Traverse Theatre marketing department.That makes me less likely to believe the story!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 This is exactly why wiki in general are a valid educational resource, but as a broad 'get started' source that then gets checked with other data that can be evidenced. In this wiki, the snag is really that we are talking about a specific venue that unfortunately has the same name as the staging style we're talking about. So in this case, their wiki content is fine - written by people who really do have the knowledge and accurate data to hand - but it's no use about the staging style, this is the thing that confuses. If the theatre marketing department give you the data, I can't really see why David finds this unbelievable. They're not making claims, or even trying to sell tickets - they're giving useful background. If you wanted info on a certain venue, surely info provided by the venue is likely to be the most accurate or complete - or at least, should be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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