Lighting design with LEDs

[Marineboy63]

When designing a show, I send or turn up with a plan with gel numbers on.

 

If the venue has a full LED rig. How do I communicate my colour needs?

 

Most LEDs match gel numbers very badly and different makes don't match each other.

 

What do other people do?

[gibbothegreat]

If it was my venue, I'd consider that my responsibility to match tjhem to your requirements. Different LED fixtures are going to behave in different ways, so there's no point in you trying to second guess what you're going to find there, unless it's a fitting of which you have first-hand knowledge.

[paulears]

Surely the venue will just tap in the closest number to what you ask for, and then while you're focussing, you can make tiny adjustments till you are happy. Is it really a problem? After all the same thing happens if you roll into an older tungsten venue or one that has Source 4's all over the place - the colours are different then, too? In the main, I've found people rather like the idea of blueing a green, or adding a little more red to a yellow. Probably takes a bit longer if you don't like the colour they produce at first, but a least it doesn't involve a ladder and a knife!

[WiLL]

It's not just about the LEDs matching, it's the ability of the desk to correctly interpret the RGB balance of your chosen colour isn't it? If then the LEDs are a different temperature than the one you were expecting then most desks will be able to tweak a parameter to get closer to what you were expecting. Also, the way you use the term LED's sounds like there are only one kind of unit out there, which isn't true, A S4 Lustre 2 for example has seven colour parameters for a desk to be adjust and so could probably get a close match, compared to a disco LED par which porbably has 3 and therefore unlikely to get as close.

[Brian]

How do I communicate my colour needs?

 

Surely you just use words? As someone once said (slightly paraphrased)...

 

You must tell them, Paul. Looks. Gestures. That's what lighting design's all about. OK?

[pete LD]

If the venue has a full LED rig. How do I communicate my colour needs?

 

You don't need to communicate it on an LX plan surely? in the same way as you don't put which attributes your going to use within a moving light? You just put the fixture and the address and any other information related to rigging it. The crew rigging the LED fixtures don't need to know what colours you intend to mix with them!

It is then down to you or your programmer to mix the colours you want and update the colour pallets as necessary.

Pete

[gareth]

If you're trying to translate a rig originating in a venue with a tungsten rig to a venue with an LED rig, just send the drawing as you normally would with the colours that you'd ordinarily have in each unit. If the venue has a bunch of LED profiles in their FOH rig, for example, it's pretty safe to assume that they're going to have a console which can deal with colour palettes in order to control them - when you get to the venue, take a little time to get a few palettes set up for your desired colours, and apply palettes to fixtures in the first cue of the show (making sure they track through). Even better, make the appropriate palettes the default values for your LED fixtures (in ETC-speak, make your home preset reference the desired colour palette - or whatever method any other console requires). Job done! And probably in less time than it would've taken to cut the colour for the rig and drop it in ;-)

[Just Some Bloke]

We have a mainly LED rig in our studio and we just create a mix on the day with the LD or re-lighter. Unless you have a huge number of cues which use lots of different colours, then I wouldn't bother being too prescriptive in advance. Just say what you want to achieve then use the afternoon to achieve it.

[EddyP]

Through names of colours of course!