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MikeDes Inner circle Montreal 1174 Posts |
Hi All,
I'm hoping to get a little advice here. I often perform on a stage in an elementary school gym. As you can imagine this is a very basic set-up. Basicaly if the curtains work and there are a few light bulbs I'm happy. However, frequently I have run into the problem of insufficient lighting or backlighting. I would like to be able to add a little front lighting. Obviously I can't bring a whole lot of equipment for these smaller stage shows and the stage rigging is usually non-existant. Does anyone know of any simple solutions to this type of problem. I must admit that I don't know much about technical matters. Mike |
Dan McLean Jr aka, Magic Roadie Special user Toronto, Canada 804 Posts |
Hello from Toronto, Mike!
I have a Web site with audio/lighting articles written specifically for magicians. At http://www.magicroadie.com/lighting.html, you'll find one article on lighting fixtures, and one on designing a basic light show based upon the very logical & systematic approach called the “McCandless Method”. The system absolutely works, and is the standard in the world of theatre. What I offer is merely a précis of the method, but it'll get you started. As far as selecting lights (pros call them "fixtures" or "instruments"), I'm sure some folks will chime in here with inexpensive options. Good luck! Dan.
Dan McLean Jr
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Kent Messmer Veteran user Montana 337 Posts |
Quick and easy are the Halogen work lights you can pick up at Sears, Home Depot etc. They come with a stand and are fairly compact. I picked up a set at Sears for my shop, two lights with two settings and a tripod for less than $20.00.
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HarbinJr. Elite user I only have 450 Posts |
You can also get a book called The Banquet Book by David Charvet I believe. In there is the plans on how to make a small set of lighting that is very practical to what your doing. It packs nicely and sets up quickly as well. Check this book out and I'm sure it will help you out!
Robert Long |
Jim Snack Inner circle 1338 Posts |
In a pinch I once borrowed an overhead projector from a classroom and set it on a desk on the gym floor in front of the stage. It provided a large area of bright white front light. In an emergency you can do the same with a slide projector positioned farther back in the house. Not an elegant solution, but better than performing in the dark.
Jim |
the levitator Special user Spellbound Productions 546 Posts |
Dan's got some great tips on his site! That's a really nice site, by the way! Once you've gotten a handle on the basics, a really good place to get started on aquiring a system is http://www.cheaplights.com. My humble suggestion would be a simple 8 can set up on a couple of trees with a 4 or 8 channel controller. You can run the whole system with one dimmer pack, and you can keep the lights on the trees to make set up quick and painless. I initially started out the same way as Kent did, but I found that I wanted more happening on stage (different scenes, chases, etc) and I wanted a more professional look with my gear. I also have 4 halogens on two trees that I've used for small shows with my controller, and my only advice with the home made lighting system would be to paint everything black. Once painted, they don't look like shop lights and anyone not well versed in lights would probably consider them to be a professional set up. Going to the 8 can show was a bigger investment, but I have been happy to have my own lighting system. I should warn you though, that lighting can be as addicting as magic. I started with an eight can show and an 8 channel controller. I now have a 32 can show with 8 fresnels and 4 intelligent heads, all run from my laptop. And the sick part it, I want more!!
You can be as fancy or as simple as you like, but remember what Jim said, any light is better than performing in the dark. |
MikeDes Inner circle Montreal 1174 Posts |
Thanks for all the great suggestions.
Mike |
g0thike Special user 722 Posts |
The Levitator,
Can U be more specific than 8 cans some trees with controllers. Some of us in the Café are not light literate. If you can provide brand names, prices, links to products, etc. Just imagine you are selling them to us. And maybe some info on the laptop set-up. Thanks, G0THIKE |
the levitator Special user Spellbound Productions 546 Posts |
Hey there G0thike! Sorry for the short description. I was trying not to ramble too much, as I have a bad habit of doing that. Here's the exact system I started out with. I must warn you that lighting can be as addicting as magic. I started with 8 lights, I now have more than 40 including 4 intelligent heads! This will probably read a lot more complext than it really is, but I am going to attempt to be thorough.
LIGHTS 8 black aluminum PAR56 fixtures (they are not as durable as steel, but your back will thank you for it in the long run. Most Par cans purchased new come with cord, clamp and gel frame. There are many types of bulbs. I started with 300w medium floods. Bulbs come in a variety of wattages and beam types. Typically there is narrow, medium and wide. Narrow floods throw a sharper, tighter beam while wide floods give a softer and bigger "wash" over the stage. I chose mediums to give me the most flexibility to my set ups. As for gels (the colored sheets of mylar used to project different colors) I used 2 no color pinks, 2 reds, 2 blues, and 2 yellows. The no color pinks give you a great warm look and brings out your flesh tones. The reds gave me a "warm" scene while the blues gave me a "cool" scene. I pointed the yellows at the backdrop to help make the stage birghter and fuller. Remember that a lighting controller gives you precise control of these colors, allowing you to mix them for even more combinations. TRUSSING/SUPPORT Next up I had 2 aluminum lighting trees to hang the lights on. I put four fixtures on each tree, and positioned the trees between 10-20' in front of me at the front corners of my staging area, about 45 degrees from where I stand, one to the left and one to the right. By putting them at a 45 degree angle to me I could kind of create a front and side lighting effect with only 8 lights. Most lighting books will talk about "3 point lighting." This is where you have light coming from 3 different angles to best light a subject on stage. They are Key, or front lighting, fill or side lighting, and back lighting. I was on a tight budget so I aimed the cans in a way to best simulate 3 point lighting from one position on the trees. The no color pinks were positioned closest to stage center on the trees and were aimed straight at me for front lighting. I then positioned the reds and blues to wash the stage area. Lastly I aimed the yellows at the backdrop to help with backlighting. DIMMING The next thing you will need is a dimmer pack. The lights plug into this box and then it connects to your lighting controller. The dimmer allows you to vary the intensity of each light and control which ones are on at any given time. I started with an NSI 4800w dimmer. Each dimmer typically has 4 channels. I had 8 lights, so I paired 2 lights from each tree with the same gels into the 4 channels. By having only 4 channels with the 8 lights I lost some fexibility in my control of the lights, but at $350 apiece, I opted for a single dimmer with plans to add more in the future. Dimmers can be daisychained to give you an almost unlimited number of channels for your lights. CONTROL The last piece I used was an NSI MC1616 lighting controller. This is a 16 channel board that has many presets for scenes and chases. Scenes are static settings, where you are trying to create a certain mood with the lights by combining different lights at different levels. In a scene, these lights stay the same until you go to a different scene. There are also chase settings. Chases are a way of programming the lights to turn on and off in the order of your choosing, usually in time with music. With only four channels I was limited in the number of scenes and chase combinations, but it was enough to have a pretty dynamic light show. ACCESSORIES You will need cords for everything. DON"T USE HOUSEHOLD CORDS FOR STAGE LIGHTING FIXTURES. Standard household extension cords are usually 16 and 18 gauge cords. They don't handle the immense heat created by the combined wattage of all of these lights. My little set up alone was 2400 watts. Spend the extra money and get 12 or 14 gauge extension cords. They will last almost forever and are much less of a fire hazard. One thing I did to cut my set up time in half was to create my own "snake" of extension cords. A snake is many cords combined into 1 cord to clean up your spaghetti of cords all over the place. I took 4 50' extension cords and taped them together with heavy duty duct tape, numbering each one at both ends with a sharpie. Save yourself a ton of time and remember to number the cords BEFORE you tape them together. The only other cord you will need is an XLR cable, or "mic" cable to connect the dimmer to the controller. It's a standard 3 prong cable used for microphones. Cords aren't that expensvive, so get one at least 50'. You never know how you are going to set up from one place to the next, so always have loooonnnggg cables and extension cords. You might also want to buy a portable tool chest (on wheels, prefferably)and create a small maintenence kit. Include a full set of standard tools, extra gel frames, gel paper, utility knife, extra bulbs, fuses for the light dimmer, extra extrension and XLR cables, and extra bolts and nuts for your light trees. Most importantly buy lots and lots and lots of duct tape! Duct tape is your best friend. It can quick repair a faulty tree, put gel paper in place when you don't have a gel frame, and most importantly help you keep your stage trip-resistant. I tape down all of my cords so that myself, or more importantly nobody else will trip over them, and also tables with wheels can roll over them safely. I also use a strip of duct tape on my controller to mark which channels have which color lights, and to label scenes and chases. Every show is different, so we program the board differently depending on that. By using duct tape and a sharpie we can label everything for that show. When the show's over, you just remove the tape from your controller and you're ready for the next show. Another thing I learned from personal experience. Get a label maker and label EVERYTHING. Your fixtures, trees, dimmers, controllers, cords, everythying. I hope that gives enough detail. I would be happy to provide more if I missed something here. As for using my laptop, I use a very simple set up. I have a MIDI capable lightboard, and that's the interface I use to control my board. The software I use is Sonar. I created my music using Fruity Loops and made the songs into .wav files. I import the songs into each track for each effect. I have a breakout box that uses my serial port to convert the signal to a MIDI port. I think I paid $20 for it. I assign each channel on the board a seperate channel in Sonar. I then program the lighting changes "on the fly" and Sonar remembers my changes. This way you can have scene changes and chases move perfectly in time with the music. Any mistakes I make "recording" the show on the fly can be cleaned up once I have it in the computer. Then all my lightperson has to do is click "play" on the laptop and the music and lighting for each effect goes automatically. As for sources for this equipment, here are the ones I primarily use: http://www.cheaplights.com http://www.ebay.com (do a search for "stage lighting" and "DJ" lighting) http://www.lightbroker.com/index.htm http://www.americandj.com/ http://www.fullcompass.com/ http://www.nsicorp.com/NSI-Interactive/Content/index.html http://www.nsicorp.com/NSI-Interactive/Content/index.html I hope this helps!! If you have any other questions I'd be more than happy to share what little knowledge I've accumulated with you. Good luck! |
Kevin Ridgeway V.I.P. Indianapolis, IN & Phoenix, AZ 1832 Posts |
Levitator...
Good post, nice in depth and clear cut for those geting into lighting. One small thing I would change is never use duct tape. Only use gaffers tape. The first time you leave some residue on the venue floor, someones gonna be unhappy with you. Also on your own equipment use gaffers as well. When you go to take it off a month later it will be much cleaner and not sticky. Kevin
Living Illusions
Ridgeway & Johnson Entertainment Inc Kevin Ridgeway & Kristen Johnson aka Lady Houdini The World's Premier Female Escape Artist www.LadyHoudini.com www.livingillusions.com |
MikeDes Inner circle Montreal 1174 Posts |
The Levitator:
I have never been so scared in my life! Mike |
John Martin Inner circle 1017 Posts |
Hey Mike,
In your quest to become illuminated, you might want to visit Kostar on St-Hubert(one or two streets north of Jean-Talon on the right). They have or can order many different kinds of lights. At the very least you can talk to them about your needs. Also, Addington(sp?) the electronics store in the east end is selling a tripod stand set with ten foot truss for 147$ cdn. Could be used for a backdrop or as individual light stands out front. Either way the are very portable and lightweight. Good luck, John |
MikeDes Inner circle Montreal 1174 Posts |
Thanks for the info John. I'll check it out.
As you know I mostly work small stages in elementary schools and have to haul everything myself. That's why I need to keep things real simple and small. Some of these stages don't even really have any wings. I don't want to turn down these shows because my equipment doesn't fit and, only doing this part time, I don't have time to taylor my show to every venue. This hasn't been a huge problem but something to consider adding. I like the Halogen work light idea. Small, simple and cheap...just like me. Mike |
hugmagic Inner circle 7655 Posts |
The "Banquet Magician" by David Cavett does have a reasonable lighting idea from Zaney Blaney.
Halogen light give off a very bright light and is very harsh to look at. They also take a fairly long time to cool which can be a problem in packing. Great Post Anthony. I agree with Kevin about the duct tape. We did a trade show for a grand opening for a Mercedes dealership. There was a lot of glass that we had to block off with drapes. Besides the fact that the heat from the sun kept melting off the tape ( no matter what we used), I started using duct tape to save some money when the boss complained. Never again. It was an absolute mess to clean up. I still use black duct tape on something but only in very careful in what I use it on.
Richard E. Hughes, Hughes Magic Inc., 352 N. Prospect St., Ravenna, OH 44266 (330)296-4023
www.hughesmagic.com email-hugmagic@raex.com Write direct as I will be turning off my PM's. |
the levitator Special user Spellbound Productions 546 Posts |
Thanks for the tip Kevin! I seem to remember something about all that. Is it much more expensive than duct tape? I may have just been being cheap and learned a bad habit.
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n3cromanc3r Loyal user 248 Posts |
Wow that's some good info on lighting. Great job, levitator.
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