Re: Lighting %26quot%3BThriller%26quot%3B with 150+ people dancing to it.
I was just reading this thread last night and today found out that I was going to have to light thriller
Would I be able to pull off the same silhouette
effect with scoops instead of a
cyc, btw, what's the difference?
I'm not sure if you know this, but a
cyc isn't a lighting
instrument - its a white or very light blue full-stage
drop hung all the way upstage which can be lit with different colors to show mood, location, atmosphere,
etc. A
scoop is a large lighting
instrument.
So is the question now, "can I light my
cyc with scoops?" This depends on a lot of things, including the size of your
stage, the number of scoops you have, the number of colors you'll need on the
cyc, and the distance from the hanging location to the
cyc. While not ideal, I have seen shows use scoops to light the
cyc and it seemed to work fine. The only issue you might have is that the light on the bottom of the
cyc will be less than the light on the top. But you should be able to lessen this problem by being careful where on the
cyc you focus the scoops. I'd recommend that you try it out yourself to see what you can get. Space your scoops evenly along an
electric pipe and focus them towards a
cyc. Then see how even or uneven the
wash is. You may need to experiment with distance from the
cyc,
trim height,
etc.
Unfortunately, using down or back light will never be able to match the
effect that you would get from a true silhouette against the
cyc. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just something different, and you may decide that you actually prefer using backlight or something. Silhouetting against a
cyc works because the light is only on the
cyc, with nothing at all on the actors. This causes their outlines to
block light from the
cyc, which shows just their shapes. Once you go to down or back light, you are actually putting light on the actors, which will illuminate them differently. Again, neither is necessarily better than the other, it just depends on what you want to do.