Tiny venue lighting

[Majik]

Hi all.

 

LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time lurker here finally getting involved :)

 

My touring theatre company (Majikal Theatre - www.majikaltheatre.co.uk) have just come off our first tour, and BOY have I learnt a lot of things :D We tour rural village hall venues, some with stages and some not - most have no stage lighting (they tend to hire it in for shows) and although we got away with it as our first production could be played without lighting cues at all, the next productions are definitely going to need some kind of lighting.

 

Naturally, I've got next to no money...but here's the plan anyway. The company uses a simple black backdrop during performances, and most performances areas are 3.5-5m across. Depth of performance area can be as little as 2m (seriously) or as great as 4m. To get some basic, but flexible, lighting going I'm considering purchasing an LEDJ colour storm DMX batten which I'm hoping will provide enough variety, power and colour to flood the stage with an accent colour (probably floor mounted) and then a couple of NJD quartet 300s on stands with DMX dimmers for lighting set and actors. I plan to run this with MagicQ on a touchscreen netbook which will also run my digital sound cues.

 

Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Anybody take apart a problem with it? All the kit I've mentioned is small and portable, which is ultra important as I have to load it all in to the back of a PT cruiser! (along side the sound kit of course).

 

Apologies if I haven't given enough information to reassure me that the plan is reasonable - please do ask if I'm not being clear :)

 

Hi to all!

 

Mike

[timsabre]

Do you really need all that colour? The NJD quartets are great for bands and discos but pretty horrible for face lighting, they give nasty coloured shadows and you can't get any sort of white out of them.

Personally I'd be getting a few cheap 650W fresnels and some stand mounted dimmers.

[Stuart91]

Do you know what the beam angle of the batten is? If it is intended to wash up walls the angle might be quite tight, so difficult to get a "flood" on stage. You could possible use some diffusion gel over it to widen. The best thing to do is try it out and see what it looks like, before you have a show.

 

I'm also not a great fan of the Quartets. The Quartets use dichroic glass to colour the output of a standard security lamp style halogen tube. The dichroic lasts far longer than conventional gel, but won't go on forever, and is expensive to replace. I've seen some mobile DJs with faded dichroics in similar units, and it just looks lame. Also the halogen tubes have a relatively short lifespan, and Murphy's law states that they will fail at the worst possible moment, leaving your actors performing in a sickly blue-green light.

 

These days the output from good LED fixtures comes close. A Quad par (with lenses that combine the different colours) won't give you the weird shadows, and there's more scope for decent looking whites and pastel colours.

 

LED will also have less heat output, which might be a real bonus in a small village hall on a summer's evening. The other big advantage is vastly reduced power draw, so there is far less chance of the mains tripping when the tea ladies fire up their urns.

[gordontech]

Im with Timsabre, Go for a few cheap fresnels/ par cans and work from there. There are some units like the transcension showbar that could be useful to you as they are dimmers and T bars in one. This will keep price low and provide you some face light.

 

LED par can units are up there and if you beg/borrow/steal the money I would highly recommend the Showtec compact par 7 tri units. I have a lot of them and send them out to fringe venues as a good colour wash that can do most small venues well.

 

 

 

The colourstorms are very bright nice units but if it was me I would go for cheaper battens and buy enough to do the largest backdrop you think you may have (sounds like 5m). The price of one colourstorm will get you 4 eurolite led bar 2 rgba.

 

 

 

Hope that helps

[timsabre]

The Quartets use dichroic glass to colour the output of a standard security lamp style halogen tube.

 

They're actually coloured dichroic MR16 projector lamps. Lamp life is quite short.

They've got fans too which is bad for theatre.

Are you getting the idea I don't like them.

[Stuart91]

The Quartets use dichroic glass to colour the output of a standard security lamp style halogen tube.

 

They're actually coloured dichroic MR16 projector lamps. Lamp life is quite short.

 

Sorry, my mistake - I was confusing them with something like this.

 

I'd expect that replacing the MR16 bulbs is going to work out significantly more expensive than halogen security floods.

 

 

They've got fans too which is bad for theatre.

Are you getting the idea I don't like them.

 

Another point against them. Especially in smaller venues where the noise will be far more noticeable.

[timsabre]

Given that you can now buy LED pars of comparable brightness for a similar price, there really is no reason to buy these any more.

 

Anyway, for a theatrical show you are still better off with conventional fresnel lanterns, unless you are feeling rich in which case buy warm white LED fresnels.

[Stuart91]

Anyway, for a theatrical show you are still better off with conventional fresnel lanterns, unless you are feeling rich in which case buy warm white LED fresnels.

 

I'd agree with that, although we don't know what kind of show the OP is putting on. Given the evident desire for lots of colour, it may be that a conventional fresnel rig might be a bit limiting. (Or it may be that he needs to think a bit further about what he is trying to achieve)

[Majik]

Wow. Brilliant advice so far from all - many thanks. The fan noise is a MAJOR point I hadn't considered, so many thanks for that. Consider the quartets dumped.

 

I'm still thinking the colourstorm as having the range of colours gives me major scope for halloween productions, kids shows, pantos etc.

 

So something like four LED par cans will really light a 3m by 5m stage?

[timsabre]

So something like four LED par cans will really light a 3m by 5m stage?

 

You will struggle to light a variety of different sized stages with LED pars because they have a fixed beam angle which is usually quite narrow.

Get some proper fresnels, which have a widely adjustable beam angle, to light the stage. Call me old fashioned but I do like to be able to see the actors on the stage as a first priority.

Your LED batten idea is good for adding saturated colour if you really need it.

[Stuart91]

The variable beam angle of fresnels is very handy, but if the first thing you are going to do is put saturated gel colours in them, you may be better off with LED.

 

One option is zoom LED pars, which are more expensive but have a variable beam angle.

 

Or, if you can afford it, go for a mixed rig, with a couple of fresnels per side for face light, and a couple of LED pars for colour.

[LXbydesign]

Go for LED fresnels if you can - along with some LED pars for colour. Small venues = little power and you can happily run off quite a few LED fixtures just from one plug

[Majik]

LEDJ Colour Storm RGB purchased :) Now on the hunt for some fresnels, although I get the feeling I'm not going to get any cheap...

[EmilyB]

you can get some Fresnel quite cheaply for the size venues your looking at you probably only need 500W minuettes or similar. They often crop up on used lighting

[Brian]

eBay is always awash with Minuette fresnels. You'll not need anything more (FWIW I lit a whole show with just 12 of them a couple of weeks ago. No profiles, no par cans, no cyc floods, nothing but 650W fresnels)