Equivalent colours

[revbobuk]

I suspect this post is just going to show how old I am. Back when I was a youth, and as one of the 'Stage Electricians' at school in the 1970s had to 'do' lights and sound for all our productions, our practice was to have lights covering the whole stage area in 6 regions and two colours, giving us the ability to change the atmosphere easily. And our 'default' gels were Strand 'Cinemoid' 17 and 54 - steel blue and pale rose (or sometimes 52 pale gold). There weren't many colours to choose from, and some in the range burnt out so quickly that we couldn't afford to use them. There's a copy of the range of colours here which brought back a few memories. Do people still use this approach? Or is it horribly out of fashion? Are there 'go-to' colours today? Or has the introduction of LED lighting made all this of no more than historical interest?

[kgallen]

Having taught myself with Francis Reid's various paper-based offerings it's slightly embarrassing to realise how many years I survived on lighting rigs (for plays) based around Lee 103/117/154/152/161. These days I guess I use less 117 (bit too green unless a period feel is needed), but certainly 103 is still used and the 154/152 comes out every now and again!

 

I think these colours are still generally relevant, particularly for plays, but these days we're probably more creative with angles and relative intensities. But for sure when you need to go back to basics, they are still a good starting point!

 

 

Kevin

[alistermorton]

Like Kevin, we still use a lot of things like 103/152/154/161/162 but others find their way in too - historically we've used 201/117/119/120/159/136/137 quite a lot, for example. 501 is a bit less green that the 201 we used for so long for a cool crisp light, and I'm becoming increasingly fond of 716 for a blue wash. 147 for warming is always popular and on the next show 744 is going to get a run out for a "yellowed photograph" effect and 711 for a really cold look. 728 has has a run out, too - very interesting effect when dimmed.

We haven't really invested in good LEDs yet, but that's on the near horizon. With the demise of tungsten lamps the relevance of some gels is going to decline, I think, as the white LED sources aren't really the same.

[gareth]

Two things I've noticed in the last few years regarding lighting designers and colour ...

 

Firstly, the proliferation of affordable LED technology means that LDs no longer have to give such careful consideration to colour before they start lighting a show. Don't get me wrong, some still do - but it's increasingly common nowadays, as a programmer, to hear "put that one into Lee 204. No, try 205. No, 204 is better. Or maybe Gam 365, try that? What about 206? No, back to 204. Oh, just try Lee 236 for a second .... hmm, no, back to 205. Sorry, 204." .... and so on.

 

It's a double-edged sword, I guess. Yes, there's a certain comfort in knowing that if you need to change the colour of a whole wash coverage because the paint on the set isn't the same shade as on the model, or if you want to go for a darker blue on the cyc, you can just tap a few buttons on the console and not have to annoy the flyman by having them drop half the rig in over the dinner break. But at the same time it's diluting young LDs' ability (or desire?) to spend time with the model, a torch and a swatch book, making considered decisions before marking the colour against a lantern on a plan.

 

The other thing (again, it's more noticeable among young, emerging LDs) is an apparent desire, perhaps not entirely consciously, to be somehow 'different' by using some of the more obscure colours. And then they get all precious about how it absolutely has to be that specific colour, and won't even accept a substitution which is so close that no-one apart from the LD and the person cutting the colour call will know that it's not quite what was specified! A lot of smaller venues are functioning on a really tight budget these days, and simply can't afford to buy in half a dozen sheets of Gam 1529 when they've already got plenty of perfectly good Lee 201 kicking around in the colour room because that's what everyone else uses.

[Glyn Edwards]

Two things I've noticed in the last few years regarding lighting designers and colour ...

 

I quite agree with this, and am glad it's not just me feeling like that. There is a similar scenario with moving lights used as specials, which can sometimes feel a bit lazy.

[Don Allen]

Cinemoid was what I first used, it was thick and burnt out quickly in front of hot lamps, which is what it is supposed to do. Then along came Chromoid and we put a "1" in front of the gel number so 17 Steel Blue Cinemoid became 117 Steel Blue Chromoid. Then with improvements in manufacturing techniques and competition saw Lee and Rosco among other brands replace Cinemoid and Chromoid. There are filter conversion charts to get equivilant colours, but one piece of useful information is not available to do a proper filter comparison. Cinemoid and Chromoid do not have transmission or Y values. The modern filters are more efficient and let more intensity through which is why we do not use cinemoid if we have a choice. However I know community theatres here in Perth, Western Australia that still use Cinemoid.

 

The concepts of using a base selection of warm and cool colours has not changed, just the bewildering array of colours available to choose from.

 

Have a look at The Rosco Guide to Color Filters and Think Lee which used to be called The Art of Lighting for their suggested useage or applications of colours, it makes it easier to choose.

 

I do a lot of musicals and live music shows so find it easier to use LED's for colour, even though there are limitations in accuracy etc, as I use Light factory and the Filters swatch book feature is great for choosing a colour. It is a bit long winded but if you look at page 138 of the Light Factory 2.19 User Guide you can see several different ways of choosing colours. When plotting a show I have a sheet to write down colour filters used during the show to recreate the same colour later on in the show.

[indyld]

I find that given a free choice from the swatch book, many student LDs will occasionally pick something I've never used (L700-and-whatever) for the odd purpose but it's quite common for them to pick commonly used traditional numbers. This is result of testing with the model box and you'd be surprised how unsurprising many of their top picks end up being. Those old colours must have something about them huh ;-)

 

These are an unguided free choice although I will sometimes reel off a few ideas or alternatives if they describe a particular look and feel. Or I'll relay my experiences of the chosen colour in different situations.

[paulears]

For once, I suspect I'm thinking that the old systems we always a compromise. Great and well remembered shows were lit with a much smaller pallet that has grown and grown, and now we have so many that it doesn't work anymore. Gareth mentioned the LDs who do the try this, no go back, now try this approach. This simply wouldn't have been possible with gel would it? Budgets wouldn't make trying colour changes in the venue possible apart from occasionally where essential. So the LD can try a colour to see, and if it's better, go with it. Impossible with the old techniques, so we get exactly what thew LD wants. It's also instant. If you climb a scope, swap a gel, then ask "how's that?" - can you actually remember what it was like? How many times can you go back and forth without the crew going mad? Surely colour control from the desk is so much better than the previous technique that gel is now totally old school. The way my summer venue works our gel room is full of part sheets, ordered in over the years and I think there are even a few sheets of Cinemoid still there, untouched - a rather nasty cloudy peach colour from a distance.

[gareth]

Surely colour control from the desk is so much better than the previous technique that gel is now totally old school.

 

True, in some ways. But my point was that it removes the necessity to think about colour and carefully consider your choices at the design stage - an LD knows that they can ignore it until they're in the space and then start thinking about it. That may well be a good thing, up to a point - but when it means that the LD has put no thought at all into the colour aspect of the rig, it's a pain in the arse.

 

Perhaps the example I gave wasn't the best, so here's another one. I remember a few years back programming a variety-type show for someone using a rig of colour-mixing VL2000s (they were still called the VL2202 and VL2402 back then, that's how long ago it was!), and it fairly quickly became tedious and infuriating. Every item or song that we came to start lighting began in the same way. "Right, make the backlights yellow. Try purple. No, blue. Back to yellow. Try blue again, but a lighter one. Maybe red. No, yellow. Just try pink for a second. Or blue, but the darker one that we saw first. Just half of them in yellow now. And the other half in pink. Now all in pink. No, back to half yellow half blue." And so on, and on, and on. He'd put absolutely no thought into how each section was going to be lit, and almost every single one started with several minutes of going around the houses trying almost every colour combination known to man.

[paulears]

That still annoys me too - lack of proper design really and then best guesses. Subtle shades though I never really got. Maybe (and probably) just lazy. Swapping very close colours, seeing hardly any difference and seeing the LD very pleased or not used to make me wonder.