Cyc lighting challenge

[Mysticsmil]

I'm lighting a community theatre production of "ONCE ON THIS ISLAND" and my director has challenged me with an idea. He'd like to have the cyc lit like the French flag .. the WHOLE cyc ... even panels of Blue White Red. He's not looking for a gobo projected, but rather the entire cyc to look like the flag. Any ideas/suggestions?

[Van]

It's called a drop, paint one.

Hmm, he want's this to be a lighting effect, but not projected? Maybe with a buttload of 50 degree< insert favorite ers here> Source 4's, all shuttered down to the size of the stripes. It would be a real challenge get even tone where the beams over lap. What kind of theatre are we talking about? How much stage,fly space have you got? what's your gear situation? Where are you? Post a "howdy" in the new members forum. We're a nosey bunch.

[bslproductions]

Welcome to the Forums!

I am with Van, but you need to figure out several things to get good coverage. Where are the leko's living? How far from the cyc is it? How wide is the cyc? and How wide does each stripe need to be? That will tell you optimum degree. 50 is a very good bet though.

[TupeloTechie]

4 90* ERSs 2 red and 2 blue shuttered and a ungeled cyc for the white?

or how about one red and one blue drop, each about 1/3 of the size of your cyc flown in on the closest batten from the cyc with ungeled cyc lights?

also, just wondering why you need a French flag for "Once on this Island"?

[ship]

Linenbacher projector otherwise with a painted slide, though much easier with the gobos.

[zac850]

Either:
a) projected from high powered projector
b) projected from Source4 (or other ERS)
c)several ellipsodials from somewhere (probably the pipe you use for your cyc lights). Half red, half n/c, half blue. Just use the shutters to draw your lines in, and use however many fixtures you need.
d) use normal cyc lights
e) paint a drop
f) paint your cyc

IMHO:
Choice A would be hard because I presume your going to have light and actors on stage at this time, so your not going to have a powerful enough projector to make it work.
Choice B has the same issues as choice a
Choice C IMO would be the best idea. Get a bunch of Source4 or similar ERS and gel them the necessary colors. At the points that colors meet, just use the shutter to get a nice hard edge. When choosing the position of the fixtures, remember that if you put the fixtures right on top of the cyc your not going to have a sharp line going down, and the further away you put the fixtures, the dimmer the light and the more likely it will be that someone will walk into the beam.
Choice D would kind of work, but you wouldn't get the distinct line that you want.
Choice E is the best option
Choice F, well, if your going to consider choice F, send me your cyc, I could use one.


Not to ask a stupid question, but why does Once On This Island need this?



ON A COMPLETE SIDE NOTE, AND NOT TO HIJACK THE THREAD:
Les Miz on broadway (not whats on now, the original) had a great effect at the end of Act 1 when they hazed up the entire stage fairly well, and shot the french flag into the air. As far as I can tell, they used their entire toplight PAR can wash (or whatever it was) and had them in the colors of the french flag. However, the lower section of the stage was lit by front and low sides so that there was the french flag hanging in the air, and a normally lit company marching under it. Gorgeous effect.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by zac850

Either:

ON A COMPLETE SIDE NOTE, AND NOT TO HIJACK THE THREAD:
Les Miz on broadway (not whats on now, the original) had a great effect at the end of Act 1 when they hazed up the entire stage fairly well, and shot the french flag into the air. As far as I can tell, they used their entire toplight PAR can wash (or whatever it was) and had them in the colors of the french flag. However, the lower section of the stage was lit by front and low sides so that there was the french flag hanging in the air, and a normally lit company marching under it. Gorgeous effect.

LOVED that, tried to do the same thing w/ colorblasts a few months ago, no bunch, but w/ a monkey load of S4s and some movers w/ the colorblasts, I almost made it happen.

[Logos]

I once achieved this effect (Three horizontal colour stripes on the Cyc) by first using a ground row to wash the cyc up in my base colour. I used barn doors to cut off the light from the floods at a bit above the right height .

Then I put ERS lanterns on booms each end of the cyc and on an overhead bar pointing down pretty steep (about 60deg) in my middle colour washing out the base colour and using shutters to keep the edges sharp.

My top colour of the three was in floods from above, once again with barn doors cutting them off about 1/3rd down.

The light from the ERS's in the middle was strong enough to cut across the top and bottom giving nice crisp lines between the colours with no bleed. The ERS focus was very difficult and did slip no matter what we did so checking that was a nightly task for the ME before the show opened. I had to be careful plotting in order to achieve the effect without one of the colours appearing brighter as well, but that is stating the obvious.

You should now completley ignore everything I said. I just realised the french flag is vertical stripes not horizontal. I am a complete idiot. Well on Saturdays anyway.

[gafftaper]

I think you are missing a key point with gobos... You don't want to use a gobo to project a picture of the entire flag. Instead you want a series of gobos, some with red gel, some clear, some no gel, all just barely overlapping each other in a somewhat soft focus to build the components of your image. Since it's just stripes you could probably make the gobos yourself quite effectively.

And welcome, got introduce yourself in the New Member forum.

[Van]

Originally Posted by Logos

...............You should now completley ignore everything I said. I just realised the french flag is vertical stripes not horizontal. I am a complete idiot. Well on Saturdays anyway.

You are not a complete idiot, Or if you are then I am too. I was right there with you on the horizontal thing. As soon as you mentioned it I did a Homer Simpson "Doh".

But I do think you could still acomplish a vertical stripe in the manner in which you described, you'd just need to rotate everything.