Hey, I'm currently working on a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and I am having some trouble getting different colors. Our facility currently has 4 Broad Cyc 3 cell 1Kw lights to color our cyc. I would like to get as many of the colors of Josephs coat to be shown on the cyc. Does any one know what three colors would be best to mix together to get an array or colors. Or, would it be best to rent/buy 4 more sets of 3 cells and insert 3 different colors to get a broader spectrum.
Design color mixing on cyc
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Corbettlight
Active Member
Well... for additive color mixing, I'd say RGB would be the best. It works excellently for me (I use cyc silk to eliminate scalloping). If you want to emulate all of these colors AT ONCE, however, you would probably need to have separate circuits for each RGB fixture, as opposed to all of the reds wired together, all of the greens wired together, and all of the blues wired together. Also, this probably isn't an option, seeing as you have fixtures already, but I'm sure some LED bars with different controllable sections would do nicely for that show - you could even have the colors "dancing" around on the cyc.
shiben
Well-Known Member
However, by giving each cell of your cyc lighting system different colors, you can have a very similar effect, but with only 4 stripes, rather than dozens with an LED fixture. Depending on your budget, you might look at investing in more conventional cyc lights, or if you can afford to put a row of LEDs at the top, that would definitely be cool... In any case, Red, Green and Blue (AP1800, AP1900 and AP1950 or R124, R125 and R126 (Apollo gel and Rosco gel)), will give you a large array of options in terms of color, with at least a few shades of purple, pink, amber, green and blue easily mixable without much work.
JChenault
Well-Known Member
Is it your intent to have the entire cyc change from Red to Yellow to green to gold ( and so on - it's been a while since I did the show and I don't remember it all) -OR- do you want to show all of the colors at once?
If the former - the standard answer would be to use Red, Blue, Green ( or Red, Blue, Green, Amber) and mix them to get whatever color you want.
If the later, I would suggest that you don't want to use the far cycs. The far cycs are designed to spread evenly and blend with the adjacent fixtures. If you want a lot of stripes of color on the cyc, this is probably not how to do it. ( and you probably want to use the far cycs to get color washes on the cyc at other times anyway)
Some possibilities:
Place some lekos, fresnels, or par units at the bottom ( or top) of the cyc. One per color that wash up the cyc and give a clearly defined swath of light.
If you have some old R40 strip lights ( or any kind of strip light that uses PAR lamps) relamp the unit with a spot, and use every second or third lamp with a different color.
Note that if you want multiple bands of color at the same time, you really are not mixing ( well - I guess if you have a Red light next to a Green, you would see Yellow between the two - but it probably would not be as distinct as you want).
Note that if you want the entire cyc to change colors that you might have issues with cue timing, or with being too distracting to the audience.
Good luck. with your design.
If the former - the standard answer would be to use Red, Blue, Green ( or Red, Blue, Green, Amber) and mix them to get whatever color you want.
If the later, I would suggest that you don't want to use the far cycs. The far cycs are designed to spread evenly and blend with the adjacent fixtures. If you want a lot of stripes of color on the cyc, this is probably not how to do it. ( and you probably want to use the far cycs to get color washes on the cyc at other times anyway)
Some possibilities:
Place some lekos, fresnels, or par units at the bottom ( or top) of the cyc. One per color that wash up the cyc and give a clearly defined swath of light.
If you have some old R40 strip lights ( or any kind of strip light that uses PAR lamps) relamp the unit with a spot, and use every second or third lamp with a different color.
Note that if you want multiple bands of color at the same time, you really are not mixing ( well - I guess if you have a Red light next to a Green, you would see Yellow between the two - but it probably would not be as distinct as you want).
Note that if you want the entire cyc to change colors that you might have issues with cue timing, or with being too distracting to the audience.
Good luck. with your design.
Corbettlight
Active Member
What would create issues with cue timing? It seems as though you would just set a fade time and they would fade nicely. I have my Element mix for me, so I don't have to worry about setting up cue timings, but sometimes, if changing colors across the spectrum, it will hit some of the intermediate colors (i.e. if I'm changing from blue to orange, sometimes red will pop out before the green comes in to mix the orange). I don't find it to be an audience distraction, as whenever it happens, it fits; it only happens on drastic color changes with maybe could use a little punch.
JChenault
Well-Known Member
My mental image ( assuming a single color at a time cyc) would be to try to sync the colors on the cyc with the words in the song. Lots of fast cue changes in a short time ( about half a second per color ). It's sometimes hard to get this synced up in the sense that the cueing needs to be very precise, and it might be distracting to the audience.
Sounds like we are talking about different mental images.
The Mr and I did this show about a year ago, and I would strongly discourage you from worrying about making the cyc match the lyrics. For one, the audience's brain can't work fast enough to make the connection between the lyrics and the actual colors, (especially when you get into colors like mauve,) so your efforts will be unappreciated. You can certainly make the cyc lights chase, but trust me, it's not worth the effort of meticulously mixing your cyc lights. (Besides that, how do you plan on mixing silver and gold?)
What I would suggest, however, is getting a couple of ground units, especially if you can afford to rent a few LED units. What we did was up-light the stage left and right show portal with a couple of Color Blast 12's that snapped with each change. But even with LED units and a Chamsys MagicQ, we didn't bother to make them match the lyrics. The only time they matched was for the final, "BLUE!" bump, then we made everything blue.
In short, you should certainly try and make it an explosion of color, but don't kill yourself trying for 100% accuracy. Besides, no sense busting your nut on the second number in the show!
What I would suggest, however, is getting a couple of ground units, especially if you can afford to rent a few LED units. What we did was up-light the stage left and right show portal with a couple of Color Blast 12's that snapped with each change. But even with LED units and a Chamsys MagicQ, we didn't bother to make them match the lyrics. The only time they matched was for the final, "BLUE!" bump, then we made everything blue.
In short, you should certainly try and make it an explosion of color, but don't kill yourself trying for 100% accuracy. Besides, no sense busting your nut on the second number in the show!
Corbettlight
Active Member
Ah, I see what you mean. That would be an issue.
Corbettlight
Active Member
Do you mean manually follow the rhythm? I did some autofollows to recorded music earlier in the year, and it worked beautifully. I just needed to make sure I hit GO at the right time 
.
If you set it up to recorded music, that should be fine; with live music however, it would be an issue.
.If you set it up to recorded music, that should be fine; with live music however, it would be an issue.
Tex
Active Member
This is a true pearl of theatrical wisdom.
QFT
You almost never hear about the "8:15 number"...
