Rock & Roll Color Questions

[digitaltec]

What color's do you tend to stay with when designing the lighting for a rock show. Im currently designing a rock show for a client and just woundering what others suggest. Colors I am thinking of using are: A Congo Blue, Red, Yellow, Pink, White. I dont want to use any green cause It tends to make people look dead. So lets hear some of your ideas.

[wolf825]

Originally Posted by digitaltec

What color's do you tend to stay with when designing the lighting for a rock show. Im currently designing a rock show for a client and just woundering what others suggest. Colors I am thinking of using are: A Congo Blue, Red, Yellow, Pink, White. I dont want to use any green cause It tends to make people look dead. So lets hear some of your ideas.

Depends on the show and music... I leave my whites for ACL's or "fans" and specials. In general: Congo blue or a mix of congo and medium blue, Magenta (I like GAM for most of my rock and roll colors FWIW), Yellow (bright canary), Red (a GAM Red--other reds suck and are too orangy), and then I like a TEAL green (Lee's are great colors for this---no grass green--looks like crap--it has to be TEAL) and a Violet/purple blend. Sometimes I will balance this over the trusses, other times I will make 4-6 light "fans" that go accross or start heavy on the sides/ends and spread out in center. Occasionally if its a HOT group of music I will mix my reds with a FIRE orange. When I say mix for Reds, Blues/teals or Teal and Violet--I mean if I have 12 or 16 lights front and 12/16 lights rear that are one color (like RED for this example), I will make a 70/3 or 60/40 split so I have RED and ORANGE but balanced front and back. IOW, for 12 lights on the rear I will have 8 red and 4 orange, or the opposite, and then balance that in front the same way. It may give you a lesser light coverage for a single color sometimes, but some of those back washes with only a few lights give a nice silloutte effect and a big BOUNCE when you kick on the rest. Same for the Teal and Violet...it adds some nice "blends" to things and breaks up the show. Works best when you have at least a 120k-140k wash of double-hung front and back truss...

-wolf

[ship]

Also remember that Green is a primary color of light and the intensity and fake ness of rock is much more than that of theater where minute details of color are noticed. While I don't do rock - you know that, I do see a lot of Green in use thus it must be a tird or fourth basic color choice or a color blending thing. Even on stage, a dark green might not be as sick looking as it might seem, just out of place in green people. For lighting a forest however, perhaps not that bad.

[Nephilim]

The LD for our current show made a two color orchestra wash with near-primary red and blue, it looks freaking awesome. I"ll see if I can get the Apollo numbers (it's the only swatchbook he could find when drawing up a colour sheet).

Ah Congo Blue... memories of shows past :D Memories of ETC PARs burning right through the gel :D