Simonhoy Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 I am involved in amateur theatre and am doing the lighting for a Pantomime in February, this is not normally a problem as we use a large hall with lighting bars that we attach our mix of PAR64, Profiles and Fresnels to. However this year the director has decided that we will do it in a much smaller rectangular hall and instead of having a stage at one end, it will be at both ends with a large "aisle" in the middle between the ends. the audience will be sat parallel to the aisle in the middle. The cast will be using the stage at both ends and the aisle in the middle at various points so it will all need to be lit. At first I wanted to shoot the director but now I realise that I should embrace the challenge and more importantly use the excuse to buy some new shiny stuff! I have some LED Moving heads (unbranded) Headbanger 10s on the way to look at, I'm hoping that these will get me out of a few holes and will allow me to have the spots that I need. But I still have a rather limited span to hang my lights, approximately 6m of width. I'm currently thinking of putting some truss across the width of hall at the mid point, this should allow me to hang lights pointing at both ends at a pretty good angle. The aisle lighting will be limited but will be lit from a balcony at either end. Since I will be more limited on the number of lights I have I am concerned that I'm not going to get the colour that I need so am considering some LED Par64s. BUT... there are so many out there and few seem to quote things like beam angle. From the LEDs that I've used in the past I found that the beam angle is quite narrow making for bright spots of colour rather than a nice spread. I'm after thoughts on using LEDs for staging rather than just effects/light shows. I also want recommendations of ones to look our for, my budget is not massive, or even big... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior8 Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 What's the height of the bars? Will the audience be sat on both side of the aisle? Also has the director shared with you the vision they have for the amount of use each area will have? Until you know this I would think any planning will be difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simonhoy Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 Yes, there will be audience both sides of the aisle. We have done a rough lighting plot, height will be about 5 metres. The main areas are at the end, with a bit of use in the aisle. The aisle is mainly used for traveling between the 2 ends, with a bit of action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Be careful of the budget end of the LED market. Whilst the brightness/quality is certainly improving you still have to spend a few 'bucks' to get the decent 'bang'. Rather than buying I would recommend you hire as that way your budget WILL go further by far. As for the kit, my choice would be to go for at least the Tri type heads where the colour mixing is done before the lenses. That way you'll get the mix of colour out of the heads rather than lots of RGB that's mixed after it leaves the lantern. You'll still have , in most cases, several point sources of light but at least they'll all be the same colour. The Headbanger (Stagg as I recall) - I think that's the ones I had on loan from AC last panto to assess. I had some small moving heads and some fixed flood types, and thought they were OK, but not sure I'd have bought any - even if I were actually in the market at the time. But they did the job I wanted them to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinntec Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Am I being dozy here, but doesn't this layout mean that the audience can only see either stage along a line of heads at the same height, even if tiered, and will get a cricked neck in no time? Their best view will be on the aisle which is secondary as far as the pantomime is concerned. And if you are a small child, do you have to stand on the seat to see anything? Maybe I have misunderstood the description of the layout but that's what it sounds like to me which sounds VERY unsatisfactory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave m Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 I guess it depends on the size of the audience but I am imagining a standard traverse setup but with rostra on each end?If you are talking maybe 25/50 per side it is doable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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