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Nice Gel for Ambient Room Light


brainwave-generator

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Hi all, question for the lighting types out there.

 

I am working in a large ish concert hall, and looking for some help just getting the lighting 'tone' right. (I don't really deal with that area, hopefully some theatre folk who deal a lot with cans and gel can help). There's already a fat load of Coda 1kw floods in there, but they cover the room in quite a cold, hard white. It's not very homely, and looks more like emergency lighting than it does like ambient lighting. When the audience are coming in, and n their way out (IE house lights on), it's just not really a very nice atmosphere, especially considering that the foyer and corridor areas have lovely interior lighting to match the building's wonderful decor.

 

So really, I'm just looking for something nice to chuck on the front of the codas to colour correct them a bit, and just give them a lighting tone which is a bit more in line with the yellow-tinted light emitted by your household light bulbs.

 

Any suggestions well appreciated.

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L156 chocolate is also quite nice, [I used some yesterday to shift a halogen camping lantern to make it look a bit warmer) otherwise is it possible to just dim the lamps to 70%, because then you'll get a warmer tone as the lamps shift to amber? (obviously at the expense of light output)
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Lee 204/205/206 could be what you're looking for - they correct from daylight to tungsten in varying degrees, so make tungsten "warmer". Another one I like, and which is quite neutral on skin tones but warm, is Lee 152.

 

Lee 147 gives a really warm look, but possibly a bit much for this.

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A lot will depend on the decor of the room that you are lighting.

 

In our black walled theatre with red and blue seating I've settled on using 764 as our house light colour. It seems a bit strong at first but after an hour under a 1000W flood it settles down somewhat.

 

In a white walled venue elsewhere I've had great success with lilac houselights, gave a cool sort of warm if that makes any sense.

 

I'd second the comments about level, don't blast your houselights to full. Give enough light to see to enter/exit safely without destroying the atmosphere.

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Of course, as others have said, simply running the fixtures through dimmers (if they aren't already) and checking them down is the simplest way, and very effective.

But if you feel like experimenting with a bit of colour, speaking personally, I would avoid anything remotely orange, including the colour corrections mentioned above. I find them a bit "industrial" or "streetlight" for this purpose, though I would make use of them for other reasons elsewhere in a lighting design..

 

I'd say it depends on the type of audience. You say "concert hall". If for a classical music audience, you probably just want to take the edge off the harshness of the floods. Then I'd go for tints rather than strong colours, careful focusing (even with floodlights it is important not to allow the light to go where you don't want or need it)and judicious use of the level control... Gridgirl mentioned L152, or perhaps 153 (or 162 (bastard amber) (I think the HT version is HT004)can be nice. Maybe a bit of frost to soften the light as well. There are cosmetic frosts which combine colour and softening in one filter.

 

For this purpose you should think carefully (as Gridgirl also says) about the effects on all skintones, and try to find something reasonably neutral on all types. I assume you don't want to make people look "wierd" as they come into your venue.

 

If it's "atmosphere" you are after,for an audience of (for want of a better word) "pop" fans, (rock, hiphop, grunge, pick a genre) then the same concepts apply about focussing and level control, but look in the swatchbook for more vibrant colours and try them out. And of course you don't necessarily need to put the same colour in each fixture - try a warm from one direction and a cool from the opposite direction. And you would be less concerned about giving people a natural look - "wierd" might be good.

 

I'm sure you're also bearing in mind that you will need to achieve safe levels of illumination for ingoing and outgoing audiences.

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