suggestions and ideas

[rroten]

Hey everyone,

I'm beginning the process of designing a lighting system for my church. I'm not too familiar with lighting, so I'll see if anyone here has any ideas. I'll link to some pictures of our room at the end of the post. During the day, with the lights off, there is still some ambient light coming through the windows. The lights will mainly be for color washing to give different moods. It would also be nice to incorporate a few spots to highlight different things. The requirements are as follows:

Budget: I'd like it to stay around 3000 but i'll entertain ideas up to 5000.

Fixtures: I would like all fixtures to be LED for 2 reasons--1)Heat/Power consumption 2)Lamp life.
(I will not rule out moving heads if they meet LED and budget requirement).

Aesthetics: This is a church, so the lighting system must not be an eye-sore.

Noise: Any moving heads must be sufficiently quiet when in idle mode.

I'm open to any suggestions regarding types of lights, brands, how and where to mount them, etc.
One idea I had was to uplight the two wooden columns on each side, and perch a small moving spot on the top of each one.

Here's the link to the photos

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[Sony]

Just FYI, you most likely wont be able to buy enough LED Lights to cover your stage with $3000 or even $5000. DECENT LED Units cost between $1000 and $3000 per unit depending on the make and model. It would most likely be best for you to go with conventional lighting equipment. LED Technology right now is very new and VERY expensive.

In order for us to provide you with useful suggestions, we are going to need much more information about your space.

Mainly,

How big of an area are you trying to light?
What is your throw distance (i.e. How far is it from the fixture to the stage?)
Do you already have dimmers?
If so, how many dimmers do you have?
What kind of hanging postitions do you have?
Do you own a Control Board
If so, what kind of Control Board do you own?

All this information will greatly assist us in helping recommend you some equipment that fits your budget and requirements.

From the looks of your pictures you have a fairly large area to light and no places to hang lights from. Are you planning on adding pipes to hang lights from? You can't hang lights from those ceiling tiles, they are not solid and wont hold them. You'll need someone PROFESSIONAL to come in and hang pipes and wire electricity to your hanging points if you plan on using any lights at all, even LED units. Thats going to cost quite a bit unless someone who is part of your church is a PROFESSIONAL rigger willing to donate their services. I stress the word PROFESSIONAL because if it's done wrong you could easily kill someone.

 

[rroten]

Thanks for the reply. We have professional carpenters, welders, electricians, etc. as part of the church, so safe rigging won't be a problem. I was thinking hanging truss from the Iron structure above the ceiling to hang the lights on. Everything will have safety cable as well. We are not necessarily looking to get professional light shows, just something to enhance the mood of services and provide expandability. I would be perfectly fine with the chauvet or ADJ stuff if it gets the job done. I would like to stick with LED as much as possible. I like the idea of getting several colors from one fixture. Also, as you can see from the picture, changing lamps and gels would be a pain. We want something with little upkeep. Also, this is going from scratch. We have no lighting gear right now.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Esoteric]

I would look at bringing in a professional designer even if you have someone to install the design. It will save you a lot of time and headaches.

Avoid Chauvet and AMDJ if you can. Cheap DJ stuff not worth the price they charge for it.

My main question is what are you going to do for house lighting? Are you going to keep the flourecents on the whole time?

From there you can floor mount LEDs for your back wall and the wooden panels, I know a great LED supplier.

Power should not be a problem (especially with LEDs), but for front lighting you will have to have conventional units which will require more power.

As far as control there are a number of great solutions, but in that price range, you will be looking at a computer based control system.

Mike

 

[rroten]

So what kind of lights are used for front lights? We have juggled a few ideas about houselights. One idea is to turn of the 2-3 rows above the stage leaving the rest on. The other idea was to install some recessed lights above the congregation that could be dimmed, and some sconces along the side walls. Another option is to turn off all the house lights except for by the rear entrance. What types of lights/brands would you recommend for LED backlighting? Also, will the baptism window and projector screen cause problems? What type of lights should be used for color wash and where should they be placed? Are there any moving lights for under $1000 that are any good? I know these are a lot of questions, but I want to be as well informed as possible before making any decisions.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[BillESC]

Your throw doesn't look to far. You might consider creating a false beam situation by slanting a section of the dropped ceiling, this will allow you to conceal the lighting fixtures.

Four RGBAW LED strips will probably give you the color wash you're looking for. For spotlighting, the addition several RGBAW Par 64's would take care of the area highlighting. All in all quite doable within your proposed budget.

 

[rroten]

Can you explain the false beam idea a little more? I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[BillESC]

If you were to take one row of the ceiling tiles parallel to the stage and drop them 6 to 8 inches at a downward angle and take the next row (closer to the stage and angle them up by the same amount, you'll end up with a hole in the ceiling that will not be visible to the audience. This will become your FOH lighting position.

 

[rroten]

Ok, I see now. So would the LED strips and the pars be placed there?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[BillESC]

Correct. They would be recessed into the hole you've created. To the audience, the white ceiling appears to keep going unbroken.

 

[rroten]

Ok, that makes sense. Now the thought of having a few movers is interesting because it allows you to use one light to highlight several different positions in one service. Are there any movers that have low upkeep, long lamp life, and low price?

 

[BillESC]

I don't believe there is a moving head LED fixture that will work to your satisfaction without chewing up your entire budget or more. However, a work-a-round could be a RGBAW Par can with Apollo's RightArm for movement.

 

[rroten]

I would consider non-LED mover if it were to be low-upkeep and low enough price.

 

[rroten]

The church is Christian Assembly Christian Assembly.
We play mostly contemporary, but it can range from rock to country gospel. The lights will mainly be used to help the mood for worship. The house lights will probably be brought back on for sermons. We also have occasional short dramas and skits from our youth group as well as the occasional small concert. A few movers would be nice as follow spots for our growing youth drama team. I don't think anything else will be moving or flashing too much during a typical service. I am saying that I want LED, but if I can be convinced otherwise, I would reconsider.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[BillESC]

For a mover to be of any use to you at all, it will need at least the following abilities:

DMX focus
DMX beam spread adjustibility.
DMX frost

These traits are only found in fixtures in the 2K plus range. I don't think it is a wise use of your limited monies.

 

[BillESC]

Let's suppose you use 7 LED strips for your wash lighting. This would allow you to highlight an area of the stage while having the rest of the stage either in a different color or simply off. Effectively, you'd have 7 acting areas and these areas could be individually colored. Two adjacent areas could be colored alike creating a larger acting area.

Lots of possibilities.

 

[Esoteric]

Movers are really out of yoru range both budget wise and the use you will actually get from them, so I would set that idea aside.

As far as using LEDs from the front, dont. Waste of a good fixture. Your front light will just wash them out and any light that would hit the wall would have to go through people and thus you would lose any and all punch from the units (not to mention the nasty shadows). The false ceiling idea would work for your front light. You could also use the same idea on the back row of tiles to hide your wall wash. I would use an up or down wash directly on the wall. Pull your screen out a bit, and it will take care of that problem. Then a couple of LEDs for backlight, your front lights, and replacing the house lights with some dimmable cans and you will be set.

Mike

 

[BillESC]

Movers are really out of yoru range both budget wise and the use you will actually get from them, so I would set that idea aside.

As far as using LEDs from the front, dont. Waste of a good fixture. Your front light will just wash them out and any light that would hit the wall would have to go through people and thus you would lose any and all punch from the units (not to mention the nasty shadows). The false ceiling idea would work for your front light. You could also use the same idea on the back row of tiles to hide your wall wash. I would use an up or down wash directly on the wall. Pull your screen out a bit, and it will take care of that problem. Then a couple of LEDs for backlight, your front lights, and replacing the house lights with some dimmable cans and you will be set.

Mike

I'll challenge you on LEDs being a waste as front light. The LED 420B fixture features 60 one watt LEDs with twelve each Red, Green, Blue, Amber and White diodes delivering 4100 Lux at two meters. For a fixture available for around $ 500.00 it offers both a budget friendly price point as well as a color pallet not usually found at the price point.

 

[rroten]

So Bill, are you saying to use 7 of these 420's from the front in the false beam? If so, what other lights do you recommend being used in conjunction with this?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[ship]

Just spent some time looking over a few new catalogues for Lightroller and another from Cooper. No doubt all architectural fixture manufacturers and or theater sources have similar technology these days in similar timed fade and computer operated lighting solutions often even DMX in taking control of them where needed. Amazing though the technology for architecture now leading that of stage again

Amazing the buy outs these days much less how common DMX is for architectural fixtures. This much less how common remote controls for fixtures have become in being able to focus them individually or as a group by remote. Blows my mind the technology that is architectural these days.

I would think such an architectural spec system would be more proper for your purposes. Timed delays ranging from 30 sec. to hours on a fixture or from the dimmer control. Simply incredible what's on the market and available these days in programming a look hour to hour and day to day.

My recommendation is to to find a good theater supplier such as Bill and others and or electrical supplier and work with them in sending you the catalogues and you reading and it in being a both type of thing - you and them finding what's best for your budget. Years ago such as you wanted would have needed lots of gear, these days you could go general control or indipendant fixture control for your needs.

Technology abounds for your situation and needs on the market. I wouldn't think you need to go moving light for your purposes these days if all it requires these days is say a TV remote control to re-focus a group or fixture. On the other hand, watch the LED or fluorescent light amount in coverage in balancing them out with full spectrum other sources so as to provide real color rendering. Less power but ain't real full spectrum light or at times even close to it.

Stepping out now in not really my field and the recommendation if budget of a designer experienced with such things might help.