Recent content by squigish

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    Creating a Camara Flash

    Do you necessarily have to go with a realistic approach? I did this once last year without any specialized equipment. My original plan was to just flood the stage with light using a pair of s4 pars (because they have a smaller filament, and therefore shorter warm-up time), but this proved to...
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    Lamping 360Q to keep pace with S4s?

    The quick answer is that yes, you can run 115V lamps at 120V, and 120V lamps at 115V, but not without a cost. You probably don't actually have 120 volts. There's always going to be some voltage drop due to the resistance of the wiring carrying power from the transformer to the dimmer to the...
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    Incandescence, Tungesten, Quartz, and Halogen

    Do you know which halogen gas is typically used in Tungesten-Halogen lamps?
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    Global differences in types of lighting instruments

    It's lazy in the sense that getting a dolly to move a huge set piece is lazy. It makes sense in some situations, but not all. The master carpenter at my college loves to call himself "lazy" in just this sense of the term.
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    Lighting T-Shirt

    I've heard (and used) the phrase (this show is held together by) "bubble gum and gaff tape," but I never expected it to be literally true. We did have a drop that was rigged using easter grass though. The cast yanked on it and it fell down, then was carried off stage. That was the show...
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    Using Selecons to project color transparencies

    I don't know if this is overkill or not, but my only experience with either selecon pacifics or the I-pro was from a production at my university last year, where we put an I-pro in a pacific for projection. It sort of worked, but it was impossible to keep both the center and perimeter of the...
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    Light Spill from Strand SL

    Other things that can affect spill: Shuttering--if your shutters are pushed in a decent amount, there's going to be some light that bounces off of them and back into the reflector, and then comes back out at a less-than-ideal angle, which the lens(es) can't focus properly. This is really...
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    S4 - More spill than a rainstorm?

    I'm assuming you realize this, but in the event you're using frost in the instrument, take it out. Other than that, it seems like a canditate for a good bench focusing, and while you're at it you could check the lens(es) too. A 36 degree source four has two lenses, but all the rest of the...
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    First Theater Show...

    One extremely valuable aid for picking colors, which I find to be one of the hardest parts of lighting design, is the Rosco guide to color filters, http://www.rosco.com/includes/technotes/filters/Guide_to_Color_Filters.pdf You can usually also get free printed copies at your local theatrical...
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    VectorWorks 12 Spotlight

    I'm a student, so I have the educational version. I think what LX-88 was talking about was the need to create separate vectorlights in VW11.5 in order for the rendered set to be properly lit, which VW12 still does, just silently.
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    The art of the board operator

    While it seems that nowadays the role of the board operator can be fairly easily reduced to that of a "go monkey," it can really be quite dangerous. For dance productions at my university, we use lighting designers from the theater department (who know what they're doing) and random dance...
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    VectorWorks 12 Spotlight

    I've worked with both VW11.5 and VW 12. Rendering in VW12 is very easy, it consists of creating your plot in spotlight, assigning it a focus point, and telling spotlight to "turn it on" this then automatically creates a vectorlight in the same position, focused on the same point, with the same...
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    VW 12.5 Update

    Mine won't even run; it says that the serial number is not eligible for upgrades. Could this be because it's a student version?
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    Asbestos in Lighting

    Does the "A" in cable type designation mean that it has asbestos? For example, 12/3 SOW-A cable.
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    Express 24/48

    Personally, I'm partial to etc boards, because the names of the buttons are the same as the words you are saying in your head.
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