Movers lighting design/programming

[Munro]

Hey. I don't want to spark off a big debate here as to whether movers should be in schools or not.

 

So, today I recieved 4 Robe 575 AT colourspots, I have placed them as follows.

 

back left

back right

front left

front right

 

Of my stage.

 

I also have a hazer, we are hiring them for our end of term show, the H Factor, (our x factor spoof) anyway, they are closing our school down soon so this will be the last show.

 

But I am in need of some help. The fatfrog is not the most mover friendly lighting desk, so any tips will be appreciated, I have never used movers before, and require some knowledge. Please share.

 

Thanks

Joe

[Mr Steve]

Not knowing your space it's hard to say, but I don't think one per corner will look great....

 

When you say you need some knowledge, what are we talking....have you addressed them? Do you know their channel allocations? Are they on hard power?

[Russ83]

1) I would suggest that your desk is running the latest firmware (10.12) but at this late stage it is probably not a good idea to start updating it. Make a note of your version though as there have been some significant changes and this may affect your method of programming.

2) Make sure you have a VGA screen plugged in.

3) Decide how you want the desk to act when programming - Tracking Off, On or On(--)

4) If you are running the movers live then my preference is to put the brightness of each head onto one of the submasters and then program a selection of colour, movement, position and beamshape pallets.

5) Also when live use the F1 button to lock the VGA screen to the Pallets.

 

Have a good search of the BR if you get stuck when it comes to assigning fixtures and programming as there are some very good instructions on here for when the manual does not give you the answers.

[Munro]

The space isn't huge, about 35ft by 15ft. I say corner, they are more like this

 

____*__________*___

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

|___*___________* ___| Where a * is a light

 

 

We would have put them on a scaffolding pole but their is not enough time after the show to bring them down.

 

I have addressed them ok, I have either done or know how to do everything you have said, however, what is this tracking you speak of, what does it do? How do I turn it on and off?

 

I was asking mainly for design ideas, and how things like the zoom/frost/gobo2<>(gobo rotate?) work.

 

Thanks again

Joe

[david.elsbury]

To be honest you'll be better off playing with the heads and seeing what they can do, rather than trying to get people on an internet forum to try and explain how the functions work.

[GridGirl]

I'm assuming you've hired the units, your post isn't 100% clear - if this is the case then you'll probably find that 99% of BR members are not at all against this, as time and time again people have said "hire, don't buy." If that is the case, practical questions about the actual functioning of the heads are probably best directed to the hire company you got them from - they hopefully should be happy to give you some assistance.

 

Tracking can be a tricky concept to get your head around. With tracking off, the desk is in what's commonly called "CUE ONLY" mode; what that means is that when you record a state, the desk takes a "snapshot" of every channel which has a value other than zero. In tracking mode, what the desk records for each cue is a record of what has changed since the last cue. There's a really good article in the Wiki about it - have a read.

 

The only real design advice I can give you is to spend some time playing with the units in the space - without being there, we can't really advise you very well!

[Russ83]

There's a really good article in the Wiki about it - have a read.

Thankyou for finding that. I started to reply and try to explain tracking but gave up after 15min after doing a really bad job.

 

Congrats on the promotion btw GridGirl :)

[charl.ie]

Check out onstagelighting.co.uk. It is written by a BR member (indyld I think), and there are some good articles on the basics of movers. There should be more than enough to get you started.

[paulears]

I often find that if you have just four, then if it's the visual effect of the beams in the air with the haze you are really after, and not so much actually lighting the people, then 4 in a row behind them looks much better than 4 corners. You can do sweeps, and all sorts from behind, and having 4 identical beams coming down looks more impressive as a 'look' - if you need them for actual face lighting, then your idea is fine - but I like movers as back lighting, throwing gobos, and strobing, as well as the usual wobbling.

[Wol]

I was asking mainly for design ideas, and how things like the zoom/frost/gobo2<>(gobo rotate?) work.

 

As for design ideas - those are the things that you worked on before deciding that you needed to use movers to achieve that specific design for a scene so you should already know the answer to that one.

 

Or was it more a "what fancy looking things can I do with movers to make people go - ooo"

 

- select a dashed circle gobo, stick on gobo rotate and point them up into the air above the audience with some haze?

 

(edit to add: I'll second paulears' point as well. Maybe have them on stands/risers to sit above the height of the performers, otherwise you'll just end up lighting the performers backsides!)

 

 

How they work? Well from the manufacturing side: Theres a microprocessor inside the fixture that reads in the DMX stream and works out which value received is for which parameter and can control stepper motors accordingly. Zoom will be a stepper motor and some form of screw thread that moves a lens back and forward I think. Frost is usually the same as a CMY colour mixing module to bring in a frost filter in the way of the beam. A gobo wheel is a metal disk with lots of gobos on it in a circle with the axis of rotation off center of where the beam is. Moving that disk around selects a gobo. For rotating gobo wheels, each gobo on the wheel can rotate and has a gear ring around the outside of it. Having one central gear that touches all these means that a separate motor can turn all the gobos at once to a certain angle. If you do some google image searching you'll probably find a picture of the internals of a mover.

 

If you want to know how zoom works in terms of optics, go and ask your physics teacher. Frost is basically a random diffraction based on the texture of the glass that you put the beam through that scatters the light a bit (imagine a PC lens). Gobos work because metal blocks out light!

[Aiden Johnson]

I often find that if you have just four, then if it's the visual effect of the beams in the air with the haze you are really after, and not so much actually lighting the people, then 4 in a row behind them looks much better than 4 corners. You can do sweeps, and all sorts from behind, and having 4 identical beams coming down looks more impressive as a 'look' - if you need them for actual face lighting, then your idea is fine - but I like movers as back lighting, throwing gobos, and strobing, as well as the usual wobbling.

 

Yes, I agree. With my designs I usually have our theatres 6 mac 250's at the very back of the stage. Take a look at my ALD, this might help you see why I put them there. As they are a young audience I think they will love audience sweeps and that sort of thing.

 

All the best