Movers or LED Pars?

[justanothertechie]

Hello,

 

We have an annual school event in a few months time and the time has come to design the rig and confirm equipment hires. The budget is quite small (around £500).

 

The trouble is we are undecided as to whether it would be better to hire 2x moving head lights or, around, 10x LED Pars.

 

We want to create a real 'WOW' factor during the show and, I know they are generics, but I don't know whether to use LED Pars creating various flash sequences or two movers?

 

As for size it is your standard school hall and a show for around 300/400 people.

 

Thanks!

[Big Jay]

It's really hard to answer without knowing the desired effect, WOW is not something to work with (we dont know the venue nor the show) With £500 you can probably get a few more than 2 movers if it is just flash and trash. If you want to create a WOW, hire a load of cheap LED's or even par cans to create a Pixel Wall or an array.

 

For a show I programmed a while back, we hire 30 PixelPar's which was chepear than £500 and created a prosarch of LED's to great effect.

[peza2010]

is 500 quid budget for everything or just for extra bits?

[Ynot]

Indeed.

 

If £500 is your budget for 'extras' and you already have the basics in place then that's hardly a small budget.

 

If you think that hiring 10 LED PARs or just 2 moving heads will break that £500 then you are really hiring from the wrong suppliers.

 

For example, Mac 250 Entours or 350 Entours usually go for around £60 plus VAT - less if you have a relationship with the supplier, so (again, for example) that £500 would get you TEN small and good quality movers in a package (assuming the school can lay the VAT off through the books).

 

BUT at the end of the day YOU need to decide on what effects you want to create and what the show is all about will dictate that.

 

Often, saying "I can get THIS kit, how do I make it fit the show we're doing" is the backwards way of looking at it.

[paulears]

First question is the show! We Will Rock You would produce a different answer to High School Musical. That one has the need for area lighting when two things are happening at the same time - so for that one you need to blackout half a stage. Some school rigs just can't do this.

 

I would suggest that the audience are so desensitised by strictly/X Factor/BGT/The Voice etc that two movers are probably incapable of making anybody go wow nowadays - maybe 20? Throwing a few gobo splodges and spinning them is now a yawn factor. I now think that the coloured washes you can get from LED are far more useful as lighting instruments. Only a few years back we never said that, ever! Forget wow, you really don't have budget, and to be honest, nobody appreciates the lighting anyway. I've just done HSM and the lighting was simply awful, by pro standards - what it was, what it did and how it was operated - and nobody noticed.

 

Throwing kit at a typical school show is great for a keen operator or technician, but the teachers, kids and parents won't notice. As long as the lighting doesn't plunge their kids into an unwanted blackout it's fine!

[justanothertechie]

Thank you for your replies. The show is an awards show - like an Oscars or Brits style but for each school department with a recurring story line so, for example, last year was CSI.

 

£500 is JUST for Technical equipment and has to cover lighting and communications equipment plus all relating cabling. The quote actually came in at just over £500 for two movers, a new desk (since ours isn't mover capable) and the comms stuff.

 

The movers in question are Robe 575AT which from our local suppliers hire at £95 a week. VAT isn't counted because, as a school, we are able to claim it back from HMRC.

 

I appreciate the aspect of the 'X-factor' etc. so do you believe people have become desensitized from such small numbers of movers?

[vinntec]

Paul is being a little harsh.

 

But your first priority is to have the basics right. If it is a musical, for example, it is much more important to be able to have face lighting across the stage in areas you can control and a variety of colour washes for the musical sections. The areas depend on the production and the director's wishes. For musical numbers you can colour wash the stage and pick out the singers with the area lights. LEDs are exceptionally good at these deep colour washes which can be just backlights and it is normally less important to have these strictly covering areas - but depends on the production (for instance if there are live set changes while a song is going on).

 

So before you decide anything sit down with the director and make a written cue synopsis - their vision of how they would like each scene lit (areas, moods, colours - not how as that's your job). Don't reject hare-brained ideas at this point, but when it is complete go through it and work out which you can cater for with the budget you have - and which you have to talk him/her out of. Movers are much more useful as the primary way of having lots and lots of specials particularly if you have limited power available and/or space (then effects can be used as a bonus when they are not in use, for instance for the preset - not the other way around). Hiring conventional lighting and extra dimmers is usually much cheaper but they might not be an option.

 

Incidentally, the lack of a cue synopsis can cause trouble later on when the director suddenly calls for an effect you don't have at the dress rehearsal! Also it is not static - during rehearsals new or changed requirements will come up and these should find their way into the synopsis which is your check on what is being asked for.

 

It is usually better to make the synopsis early on then roughly cost how much budget is needed to cater for everything asked for - then look at what the big cost/low use items are and take them out while everything is still on paper. The director has the final call but has to allocate the budget needed to cater for their decisions. This is how an amateur group should come up with the budget allocation for lighting, but all too often is the other way around.

 

With a synopsis of this kind you can start thinking about an outline solution. Can your area lighting + other conventionals cater for all the specials needed - or do you need to use movers to provide multiples of these? Are there "must have" effects which you can't do (or make) so need hires? What lighting desk have you got - can it control the number of lanterns plus movers in your outline design - if not how much will it cost to hire one and can you integrate it into your environment easily? Where do the movers need to be - can you get hot power and DMX to them?

 

There is no correct answer to this - you have to work it out for every production. "WOW factors" for amateur productions, which is what I do, are very low on the list of priorities except as a bonus from what you need for other things. Sometimes good control over your main rig plus a little haze can give good effects for little cost and this might, or might not, include movers.

 

No answers - just my thoughts on how you might end up with a better outcome and one which the director has signed up to (based on 45 years as an amateur LD - ouch!).

 

Peter

 

Thank you for your replies. The show is an awards show - like an Oscars or Brits style but for each school department with a recurring story line so, for example, last year was CSI.

 

£500 is JUST for Technical equipment and has to cover lighting and communications equipment plus all relating cabling. The quote actually came in at just over £500 for two movers, a new desk (since ours isn't mover capable) and the comms stuff.

 

The movers in question are Robe 575AT which from our local suppliers hire at £95 a week. VAT isn't counted because, as a school, we are able to claim it back from HMRC.

 

I appreciate the aspect of the 'X-factor' etc. so do you believe people have become desensitized from such small numbers of movers?

I see you replied while I was bashing out my thoughts, but to a large extent they are still valid. Write down what you are trying to achieve then how much could you do with what you already have. How much of the remainder is essential then what do you need to satisfy these and how much will it cost? It is always a bad idea to shoe-horn equipment already fixed into a design! I have used the Robe movers in question but picked them for requirements on my cue synopsis. Peter

[justanothertechie]

Hi Peter,

 

Thank you for your detailed reply. The 'show' element is achieved by using the generic lanterns we already own and run since it is basically white, yellow, blue and red.

 

Either way a desk will need to be hired as our desk isn't capable of handling LEDs or Movers. The main problem is their is very little in the way of lighting cues etc. to be discussed with the director and we have a month from meeting to show.

 

The element that it is to be used for it simply for the winners to be walking up and down to plus use during some of the 'show' numbers where appropriate.

 

To put it into perspective for the same price as 2 movers I can hire roughly 18 LEDs...

[themadhippy]

The quote actually came in at just over £500 for two movers, a new desk

couple of tings,firstly 2 movers wont give much of a wow factor.And second allow plenty of time plus a bit more to get your head around how to program and operate the new desk,nothing worse than having to dig the manual out to find out how to stop everything strobing during the opening speeches

[timsabre]

What desk have you got? Unless it's analogue it could run LED pars.

[justanothertechie]

We have a Zero 88 Frog but we'd be running around 18 lanterns plus another 20 generics and, according to others we've asked the desk wouldn't handle both?

[vinntec]

In that case...

 

What desk do you have and how many channels on it are not used? If there are spares and it is a DMX desk, you might find you can control the LEDs from the desk particularly if you want them to do the same thing together.

 

LEDs also often have sound-to-light using an inbuilt microphone or maybe autochase built in and you could use these again with a small number of channels (or even stand-alone just by power control)?

 

Can your desk and/or desk you are thinking of hiring do sound to light (so you can set states to beat to a feed of the live music)?

 

What about follow spots which can look effective for this kind of production if the stage is colour-washed in saturated colour(s) at the same time? Do you a. Have any? b. Somewhere you could put them? c. People who could reliably operate them? For parents, this is the ultimate wow factor with star status but they must be bright and the rest dark (so must be MUCH brighter than whatever other light is on at the same time).

 

Peter

[timsabre]

We have a Zero 88 Frog but we'd be running around 18 lanterns plus another 20 generics and, according to others we've asked the desk wouldn't handle both?

 

So how many dimmer channels have you got? What do you mean by "generics"? (In my head lanterns are generics)

I believe the standard frog (assuming it's not a Fat Frog or Leap Frog) will do 48 channels, and you should be able to pair up a lot of your lanterns to free up channels for LED pars.

The LED pars can easily be grouped by setting them to the same DMX address as each other, so you could control as many as you can afford as long as they don't all have to have individual control. You can get a great effect with just 4 groups, maybe even just 2 groups.

[vinntec]

We have a Zero 88 Frog but we'd be running around 18 lanterns plus another 20 generics and, according to others we've asked the desk wouldn't handle both?

 

A Frog (with no moving light control) has 48 channels in wide mode. I am not sure what 18 lanterns and 20 generics means but presumably 38 dimmer channels? In that case you have 10 channels free doing nothing.

 

The simplest RGB lanterns can use as few as three channels - one for each colour - so you could control three of these (or three sets of these with the same DMX address) with just hot power and a DMX feed.

 

The Frog also has sound to light so you can get chases to beat to the music with a little patience and the right feed from the sound desk. If you haven't done this before it does take a little experimenting but is easy once you have figured it out. You can practice with a few conventionals when the theatre is empty if you are hiring the LEDs to save programming time later on.

 

If you had two movers, simple ones could be controlled from the Frog - for instance MAC250+ or MAC300 can work with only 9 but would do things together. The Robe needs a lot more so not an option here.

 

Petert

[paulears]

Harsh? Nope. Realistic.

 

Followspots? Yep - had two of those hired in from Viking. One girl worked hers by tugging on the mains cable as she was unable to stand for two 40 min acts. The other was simply irised out and blasted hell out of their clever projected scenery. In school shows, you really have to consider if spending a fortune on clever kit actually makes sense. My experience is simply that some schools have really excellent in house kit, and can benefit from hired in extras to improve the quality - as long as the performers are good. Turds and polishing come to mind. For every A* performer, there will be those who can't even remember their two lines, or even in which scene they come.

 

My point is that if the show demands it - and some are technically heavy, then it's worth it, but some are really musical plays and flashy-flashy lighting is simply not required. Master of the house with wobbly movers being the example. However, one of the popular ones set in a disco in the seventies needs flashing. I'm just saying that the show is the most important fact - which one are you doing?

 

Whenever people have asked about movers, the advice has always been one is useless, two a bit better but unexciting. Four offers more scope, and eight starts to offer excitement and more possibilities. The Robes are not especially wide, so doing a wash with them defocussed is rarely possible with school size stages or spaces, as you can't get them far enough away. School lighting typically is too sparse to get good colour washes, so the LEDs score heavily there. My thoughts are that their benefit to the production from being used as light sources is better than being used only for eye candy in the music numbers.

 

Vinntec obviously works at a school where the teacher has excellent directorial skills and a full understanding of performance techniques. Frankly, this isn't common. I've visited hundreds of schools and colleges in the UK and NI and perhaps 10 have what I'd term as good technical facilities, and only about 4 of these have production quality that approaches the standard of the real world. It's far more common to have a drama graduate as head of department who has never learned or performed a proper script in their life publicly!