Cool Looking Preset Light

SketchyCroftPpl

Active Member
Hey Ya'll

For open mic night we were trying out some stuff and happened to find a light that looks really cool for a preset when the curtains are closed. What you do it take a S4 (well thats what we used) and gel it a color thats alot like your curtain (our was deep red). Then you put it at a really shart anglie to the curtain so that its almost in a line right along it ... like its not at a 90 Degree angle to the curtain but maybe a like ... 10 or 15 degree. Then when you put it on you only put it on one side. With the natural folds of the curtain it makes a really cool pattern of a lit up one fold and then when it goes back in it looks darker. which I think looks pretty nice.

~Nick
 
SketchyCroftPpl said:
Hey Ya'll

For open mic night we were trying out some stuff and happened to find a light that looks really cool for a preset when the curtains are closed. What you do it take a S4 (well thats what we used) and gel it a color thats alot like your curtain (our was deep red). Then you put it at a really shart anglie to the curtain so that its almost in a line right along it ... like its not at a 90 Degree angle to the curtain but maybe a like ... 10 or 15 degree. Then when you put it on you only put it on one side. With the natural folds of the curtain it makes a really cool pattern of a lit up one fold and then when it goes back in it looks darker. which I think looks pretty nice.

~Nick


Cool. Now try this--From the opposite side put a light at the same angle only gel it with a deep magenta purple (Rosco 39 for example) or a deep or congo blue (Rosco 80 or 83) to contrast it. When mixed with the red from the other side--those folds that were shadowed now have a contrasting color that outlines the edges of the folds in blue or deep purple and adds a bit of color to the folds while still giving you that shodow and outline you like. Just a couple of thoughts....

-w
 
I have done something similar with our cyc (we could try it on the cyc drape as well, I suppose). What I did was take two S4's, hang them at the edges of the cyc, angle them at 45 degrees toward the bottom center of the cyc, and gel them yellow (or another vibrant color). This looks neat when the cyc is also a vibrant color (say, orange).

Another drape lighting trick that is really cool is ungelled cyc lights on a black drape. It looks really good - not sure if it has a practical use during a show, though. We discovered it accidentally after we had put away all of the cyc gels.
 
for my preshow from now on, im just going to put 2 zooms on thr balcony rail and put a light and dark blue and put a break gobo in them. i hope this will work.
 
I do a lot of this for ambient type stuff during the cattle call (what I call the pre-show, when the doors open). Since there's no front curtain most of the time (we're on a portable stage, etc.), I run something at that type of angle against a fiber optic curtain. Since the fiber doesn't have the folds of a regular curtain, I use a moving light with a breakup type gobo, and cycle through a bunch of colors, or just rotate the color wheel.

Another thing you can do if you have an open stage, or whatever, is to put a watery effect on the walls, or the ceiling, or the stage floor, or whatever.

Basically, not every light has to be used to light up a part of the performance. The show doesn't start at the curtain, it starts when the public pulls into the parking lot. So whatever you can do to enhance the experience is going to impact the success of the show.
 
Yeah ... I might take a look at trying to do some of that stuff with the two lights. I kinda like the way this one works cause the curtain is a red so it makes the folds of bright and dark red.

~Nick
 

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