vinntec Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Hi all For a musical coming up I will have enough LEDs to take care of all back and sidelighting very easily. In the old scroller days, I usually lit musicals with two tints of face light - pink/yellow and blue. Now it occurs to me that I can dispense with this and original thought was to have a single neutral (lav) set. But then I wondered, what about having no colour face lights (there are a few darker skin tones in the cast)? Just wondered what other people's experience is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LXbydesign Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Lavender works fine on dark skin tone although used as a wash it can start to look a bit too cool generally I think. I just tend to use L223 for facelight. Works well for any skin tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 We tend to use 152/162/159 for facelight (sometimes with o/w) and 136/137 from side but depends on your skin tone mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My home safe choice for two tone is L053 and L763. Single tone I tend to go for OW, but L053 can pull the colour temp closer to LEDs. I find 201/202 etc too green for facelight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac500 Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 L003 also works well for front light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBoomal Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 My home safe choice for two tone is L053 and L763. Single tone I tend to go for OW, but L053 can pull the colour temp closer to LEDs. I find 201/202 etc too green for facelight. Agree, L 201/202 is greeny. Rosco 372 is the same temperature but less green. Much nicer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 There's also 501/502/503 if you find 201/202/203 less than ideal on skin. Although personally I very, very rarely go as extreme as 201/501 for frontlight - 281 is about as far as I'd go as a general rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinntec Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Thanks for the ideas guys. I had hoped there was a simple answer but maybe I'm wrong. My thinking was full on NC will be harsh (which is fine for the scene in the courtroom for instance) whereas everything else can have the faces slightly dimmed to make them look warmer. I also know a neutral colour will tend to blend better with warm or cold background than NC. I further know that when using both warm and cool to make white light, it is things like jewellery which show up much better than when using a single neutral light. Decisions, decisions... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Ignoring the skin tone problem for a second and thinking generally about colour, I don't think O/W is an overly harsh look - but it depends entirely on how bright you're going. Dimmed tungsten has a very nice warm look - especially against other sources with a higher colour temperature; I have been known in the past to use O/W tungsten followspots against a discharge or LED rig to add a bit of warmth and intimacy while separating the subject from the background. If you're lighting predominantly with LED, I'd be wary of going much warmer as you start to get an unappealing imbalance against the cooler LED sources and people start to look - relatively speaking - a bit orange. Even if only dealing with tungsten I hardly ever find an excuse to go warmer than 206 from the front. Another option to look at is 702 - it's a very flexible neutral colour. It's a fairly sharp and cold at high intensity, but warms up nicely as it's dimmed. It's one of my go-to colours for sidelight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Agree with Mark's comment on source balance and related : dimmed brightness. When picking gel I always consider at what level I think I will be running the lantern at. This is particularly the case when choosing light for skin tones. The example given of, say, L202 is hugely different in look when run at 100 vs 20 percent. The additional yellow shifting at low levels drags the green right in your , ahem, face. This is true not just for unsaturated colours. So, a rig full of HPL 750s, all at 15% or a Minim F at full pelt trying to compete with the front projection? To flip this on its head, I often suggest to students to consider what level they would LIKE to run the lantern at and then pick the unit from there. It's just one more way of controlling colour. E2A: I like the modelling that two angles and two colours provides even when straight mixed on stage to a neutral middle tone. Is more rounded than a single colour and is the theatre equivalent of key and fill encountered in life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 And at the risk of dragging this completely off-topic, I completely agree with what Rob's saying there. The effect that dimming has on a colour can't be overstated, and it's really quite important to consider it when making your colour choices. You'll often find things such as 0.3ND in my colour call, when I know that I'll need to run a fixture at close to full to achieve the effect I want - but don't actually want the brightness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinntec Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 In that case, let me be more precise... I have the lanterns from both the theatre we are hiring and my own to play with. The theatre has just enough conventional lighting for a two colour face + toning. The distances are much longer than in my theatre (FOH especially) so more powerful F/PC and narrower profiles. They also have a large stock of RGB lighting which they have recently acquired which are not perfect but have the advantage of being able to wash the stage in most saturated colours pretty well if used in large enough groups. From my theatre I am thinking of bringing mainly the Selecon LEDs we just purchased, our Selecon Acclaim profiles (for M gobos we already have) and Strand Preludes (for B gobos we already have). Yup you guessed it the theatre's profiles are all Pacifics, the wider ones of which need an A size gobo. Its a musical so I have lots of naturalistic moods (sunshine, sunrise, sunset, internal lamp lighting, storm, tropical, inside a tent, and a courtroom). Songs are typically on colour saturated stages with specials (or facelights for ensemble pieces). Colouring from FOH is a problem as the distances are long so they really need to be no more than tints at the most. I can have a box rail, but this is low down, right on proscenium edge, and very close to the front of the stage. There is also a circle bar which is even lower so ideal for tab warmers ;-) LX1 is quite a bit upstage from the front of the apron and in this gap a lot of action will take place... If I go for two colour facelights, as would be my norm for a musical, I use up most of the theatre stock (two FOH bars, LX1, LX2). Being a musical there are lots of specials needed - and I don't have anywhere to put follow spots and FOH movers will be almost impossible. I can use LED back and side lights (theatre LED backlight, Selecon LED sidelights) plus some breakup from Acclaim but that has pretty much used everything I have available. I need to bring lots of less suitable lanterns from my theatre to do the specials (but the ones for solos need to be bright) or hire more. So if I could get away with a single colour face lighting system then I get quite a lot of the more powerful theatre stock to use as specials, then I only need to fill gaps with my theatre's conventionals.. Does this set the scene more clearly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 If you want to save a whole colour worth of face light then I'd pick a tone you think you can work with and offset it from straight on (depending on audience seating). Then you can blend some variety with the opposing pipe-end or ladder type positioned LEDs especially if they are slightly angled upstage across cheeks (the face ones.....). You may find it not only gives you back your kit for specials but maintains some colour control over faces. (How you orient your offset is very much based on audience postion and the blocking. It's a similar technique to the Key and Kicker although in that instance I tend to throw the kicker over the shoulder, so slightly DS. Either way, it saves you a fill. Go for the majority of time spent facing into key, obviously, otherwise it looks a bit odd) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinntec Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 If you want to save a whole colour worth of face light then I'd pick a tone you think you can work with and offset it from straight on (depending on audience seating). Then you can blend some variety with the opposing pipe-end or ladder type positioned LEDs especially if they are slightly angled upstage across cheeks (the face ones.....). You may find it not only gives you back your kit for specials but maintains some colour control over faces. (How you orient your offset is very much based on audience postion and the blocking. It's a similar technique to the Key and Kicker although in that instance I tend to throw the kicker over the shoulder, so slightly DS. Either way, it saves you a fill. Go for the majority of time spent facing into key, obviously, otherwise it looks a bit odd)I don't think this will work here. First, the FOH bars are too far away for the LEDs I have to work, the box rail too close, and LX1 quite a long way upstage from the apron front. So overhead LEDs don't come into play until close to mid stage. When this theatre is in its pros configuration, all the seating faces straight at the stage (the other seating would have a restricted view). The set also has areas defined in straight lines perpendicular to the stage front, so any angling of the face light will cause headaches. Of course I could put some key lighting or open focus colour FOH but that will eat up profiles which I need for specials. So the LEDs can paint the floor and actors from sides to suggest the mood, but front will the one colour or NC I have chosen dimmed to the appropriate level. I can't even economise with a McCandless approach to face lighting as it will put light and shadows into all the wrong places. Oh my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 I don't think this will work here. First, the FOH bars are too far away for the LEDs I have to work, the box rail too close, and LX1 quite a long way upstage from the apron front. So overhead LEDs don't come into play until close to mid stage. I would certainly wouldn't suggest using the LEDs from FOH, I was more angling (geddit?) to imagine your two angle split rotated around rather than up and down the centreline. However, if you can't get coverage all the way downstage from overhead and don't have advance positions then it isn't really doable as you still need it to happen everywhere without faces clanging between 1 and 2 angles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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