Gel Colors

[soundlight]

My school has a miniscule gel collection, almost no gels. And the ones that we have are mostly burned out, and many have tears at the center from being so brittle. So, I would like reccomendations for the flollowing:
RGB Primary gels (R26/R27, R91, R80)
warm, cool, and amber wash (R35, R65, R02)
various intense and not-so-intense specials, some of the most useful (a good purple, orange, aqua, etc.)
My ideas are shown in parenthesis next to each one.

I'm open to any suggestions on this.

We will be purchasing 2 sheets each of the RGB gels and the warm/cool/amber gels, and a sheet each of the specials, with a max of 6 specials colors.

All will be Rosco gel, as we still have a few good sheets of that, and will be staying with that.

I plan to make a gel filing cabinet (already have the filing cabinet, just need the folders and the gels) with some other lighting stuff in it too.

Thanks!

[avkid]

What is the main aim of your question?

[Foxinabox10]

What fixtures are you using these for? Remember that cycs will take a full sheet, so that will impact how many sheets you buy. And ABSOLUTELY, DO NOT cut gels until you need them for a fixture. It will screw you up in the long run.

[soundlight]

The gels will go in anything from old strand ellipsoidals lamped at 500W to old strand fresnels lamped at 500W to new PAR56's lamped at 300W. Our cyc lights are R40's and have glass roundels, which are very pleniful around here. They're the only thing that is plentiful. We're thinking of complementing the R-40's with some smaller cyc lights later this year.

So basically, I'm starting a gel collection from the ground up. Where do I start?

[ship]

Start with what you desire for a show.

Design your lighting upon what you wish to gel the fixtures with. Given a budget to buy a few sheets per production, and what you bought in the past, for the most part you don't need to re-buy, your gel file builds up from there. The art of the sow is more imprtant than some gel file of stock gel colors.

Eventually if even keeing as part of the production budget for gel, you will be stocking your gobo file with that budget in addition to replacing or supplementing your gel index.

At that point I expect you will ask what standard and stock gobos to purcase. The answer would be the same in designing the show first and worrying about conforming to future needs only after aving a host of them and budget left over to supplement what you think you might at some point need or want.

A good gel file takes years to stock up. The need for a bunch of #33 gels matters not at all when one really wants a single cut of #34.

Lavendor - definately lavender is a good thing to stock, but after that, in a gel file, you will always be one short or one color change missing in what you really want. Make art in buying what you need for the show first. Than supplement the gel file with what you might want to bulk up on.

[soundlight]

Well, I'm a senior this year. I know that if there aren't any gels in the school, the next techs won't care. But I also know that if there ARE gels in stock, they will use them. So, I am trying to leave my school in good hands in terms of having stuff to use. Also, they aren't going to be dealing out the tech budget in the future, as I'm not going to be there, and tech isn't emphasized as much at my school. I am the first tech director that my drama teacher has given a budget to, and I have been given very broad powers, and I would like to leave this school with the ability to pick up and keep going, because I know that the people that I'm training right now are going to be good. This is a school that had ONE wired microphone on my arrival, and will have a whole selection, including shures, sennheisers, and A-T mics by the time I leave. (slightly off topic, but slightly relevant, so I'll leave it in the post.)

I've never used gobos before, but if I was going to use them, I'd probably make them out of heavy-duty pie plates with built in handles. That's what a lighting professor at one of the state universities told me to do when I was visiting colleges a few weeks ago, seeing as we aren't made of money at the school where I come from.

That's my position as of now.

[Mayhem]

You worry about the school buying gel in the future once you leave but if that is the case, what good is an inventory of gel if fixtures are not maintained?

Whilst it is easier to replace something that fails than it is to go out an make a decision on something new, your above sentiments concerns me about the tech department. Shouldn’t such things be the responsibility of the teacher? Sure he has you doing this work now and good for you that you are given the responsibility but do you really think that if it wasn’t for you that nothing would get done?

If your (honest) answer is yes then your troubles extend further than a few sheets of gel.

You say that the kids you are training are good, so surely they can be taught to source some gel for the shows as needed. Whilst I can see that some stock colours would be a good basis you would still require some additional colours. Surely they wouldn’t do shows with every fixture open white would they?

[soundlight]

In the past, if fixtures needed repairing, she called Stageworks. If a mic died, she reluctantly took money out of the budget to buy a new one. If there is asbestos on the cords, and there has been for seven years, she doesn't really care. She is grateful for what I have done, and I am grateful for the opportunity given to me, but she has said that she will not be letting the next tech director spend money like I do. I go to a rural pubic high school of under a thousand students and the school system has little money to do anything, even if they wanted to. We only have one person for drama, and she focuses more on acting. She's OK with set, but when it comes to teaching sound and lights, she always tries to get me out of class to come teach her other classes. Anyway, I don't think that they next tech director would make up a budget even if he had the chance.

[Foxinabox10]

Sounds like you need to start training some people.

[Mayhem]

Sounds like the problem is more complex than simply putting together a gel starter kit.

The "A" word in there should be of concern, as should the ability/interest of your teacher (based on what you have written).

Does she know (and understand) that she needs lights for her actors to be seen and sound reinforcement for them to be heard?