Colouring musical numbers

[vinntec]

I am designing for a musical with limited resources. For the deep colour states needed for the musical numbers, which would be the most flexible and/or economic direction to concentrate on if I can squeeze a set of scrollers from the budget: toplights only, backlights only, sidelights only (onstage booms not an option), or from the front? I am thinking about concentrating on toplight as this would make defining areas very easy but not sure how well this will show scenery/people up who aren't in the area of the singer(s) - assuming I overlap them to have complete coverage at head height.

 

Peter

[Shez]

I would tend to go for saturated colour washes as backlight. Pipe end positions could also be useful for scrollers. Definitely not from the front. Depends a bit on the specific requirements of the show though...

[Ashley R]

If you need saturated colours, I have always used some LED Par cans, At least for me I can hire then very cheaply, and they pack a punch with 20x 3w Tri LED's, This also allows you to mix whatever colour you need.

 

I have found these LED Par's to be cheaper than scrollers to hire. (LED Par - $15/ day, Scroller $25/day) But that again depends on who you are dealing with etc.

[paulears]

I love your "I have always ....." as the rationale for using LEDs - so this always has been how many years? It's only been in the last couple or so that LEDs can be bright enough to do this, and even now, a 1K PAR64 with a scroller is a more useful, if inefficient lightsource. I'm not suggesting that now your figures are wrong, or the idea is duff - but it's not been possible that long, really. Bar end positions tend to work well with oval beams, not quite so well with circular ones. Have you got magicly powerful LEDs in Oz, Ashley? For my money, 1K of CP62 looks a lot brighter - but I'd probably consider them too. Now, but maybe not just a year ago?

[LeeStoddart]

Front I would not consider as an option for heavy colour, Top would be my last choice.

 

For me the first considerations would be back or high side. If I can only afford one direction of colour then I'd almost certainly choose back light as I think of it as providing more definition and separation from backgrounds.

[Just Some Bloke]

Bear in mind that if you want to pick out individual areas on their own, then a front-light special on your 1 area + a congo-blue backlight over the whole stage will isolate the area more than just a front-light spot on its own. Counter-intuitive? Yes. What happens, though, is that the spot on its own has a small amount of spill which means that if your gaze starts to wander you can see the rest of the stage. With a dark backlight covering the rest of the stage you don't notice the frontlight spill any more, and as the rest of the stage is now lit from behind then you can't see any detail, so you only look at the area you're trying to highlight.

 

For this reason, and all the others mentioned above, I'd go with backlight washes for deep colours.

[vinntec]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I will focus attention on backlights as suggested. Have a problem getting to US area as I don't have any bars, but will figure out least worst compromise for this. Peter

[Ashley R]

I love your "I have always ....." as the rationale for using LEDs - so this always has been how many years? It's only been in the last couple or so that LEDs can be bright enough to do this, and even now, a 1K PAR64 with a scroller is a more useful, if inefficient lightsource. I'm not suggesting that now your figures are wrong, or the idea is duff - but it's not been possible that long, really. Bar end positions tend to work well with oval beams, not quite so well with circular ones. Have you got magicly powerful LEDs in Oz, Ashley? For my money, 1K of CP62 looks a lot brighter - but I'd probably consider them too. Now, but maybe not just a year ago?

 

Ok maybe I should have rephrased that to Ive been using LED's for the past 2 years, mainly on smaller stages though where originally 10mm LED's were sufficient. I was finding the LED's were putting out much nicer and stronger in the heavily saturated Blue's and greens compared to 300w Par 56's and 650w Fresnel's (Acclaims and Minuettes), also the ability to change colours to almost whatever the director required was a big winner for me. I have never tried it with a 1kw PAR 64 though, so cant comment on that. Now moving on to slightly large stages, the Tri LED's are allowing me again to wash that fairly sufficiently with colour, and the colour mixing is even better (You all know the drill).

 

But 3 years ago I was still using Fresnels/ Par Cans/ MultiPars, even though I had seen the TJE PixelPar90, which I was impressed with its output for LED, the price was astronomical for one fixture ( I think it was $80+ per day) and we stuck to the tried and tested methods.

[son of lx dad]

'Pipe end' is your position for Pars with Scrollers. Best top - side - backlight compromise.

[mark_s]

I'd vote strongly in favour of backlight too, with the caveat that, as always, it depends on the look you want to achieve. Saturated colour from the front would look absurdly wrong. High sidelight and toplight are both also sensible possibilities - I don't quite understand why toplight would be Lee's last choice.

 

I was finding the LED's were putting out much nicer and stronger in the heavily saturated Blue's and greens compared to 300w Par 56's and 650w Fresnel's (Acclaims and Minuettes)

 

You're hardly comparing like for like though, are you? I don't know anyone who's first choice of luminaire would be a 650W fresnel for a saturated colour wash.

[LeeStoddart]

I'd vote strongly in favour of backlight too, with the caveat that, as always, it depends on the look you want to achieve. Saturated colour from the front would look absurdly wrong. High sidelight and toplight are both also sensible possibilities - I don't quite understand why toplight would be Lee's last choice.

 

My order of preference (for saturated colour) is

1 - back

2 - side

3 - top

 

And as we've all said Front is not appropriate.

 

Top is certainly valid but it would be my third choice (out of three options) - because I prefer the other two.

Back will provide highlighting in hair and shoulders, giving separation from backgrounds.

Side light gives sculpting (although low is better than high for that) and I like the option of different colour from each side.

 

For me top provides a wash which is good (especially when a single area is lit from other sources or when a breakup gobo is thrown over it) but it doesn't give me the highlighting of the subject which the other two do.