Cost effective lighting solution for portable church?

[MarshallPope]

Sounds like a reasonable plan. For the uplight, do you recommend shining it some type of white material like a fire retardant muslin? If so, any ideas for constructing a simple backdrop that could be used for such purpose? Something that is relatively light weight, free standing, and easy to move around?

Also based on your PAR/S4 idea for the uplight, what would you suggest for front light?

This is really somewhere you can get super creative. You can do either a full curtain or some set pieces or some combination of the two. For a budget curtain, you may want to take a look at rosebrand.com's (tent fabric? event fabric? Something along those lines.) It is, if I recall correctly, around $8 for a yard of 130" wide fabric. The 11' width makes a fairly decent height for a backdrop. Last I checked, they have it in both white and in black. If you have more time on your hands, you can work on set pieces. I have built light boxes faced in white muslin for this purpose, I've seen a Chinese-ish screen made with 4' squares filled with white muslin, and I have even used white antique doors to take light. Use your imagination! You may want to check out churchstagedesignideas.com for inspiration. I have friends active on there who tell me that it is a great resource.

 

[waynehoskins]

A great resource is churchstagedesignideas.com. One idea I've used from there is one with corrugated white plastic -- the stuff that's sold for roofing as a translucent alternative to the tin stuff. You can arrange those panels in virtually any configuration you like and hit them from behind with LEDs. Neat, flexible, and I think they look better than splashing color on a white wall.

I've backlit grey spandex on set pieces before nicely (this was for a theatre show at the local high school). We chose grey over white so it wouldn't pick up ambient stage light nearly as much.

 

[Ford]

Hey Preludes,
Where are you located? You're definitely going to try to demo any gear that you're planning on purchasing. $1000 is not much for a lighting system (4 souce-4s at retail price). If I know your general location, I can see if we have a dealer close-by who may have some units in stock for you to look at in person.

-Ford

 

[Chris15]

They do make "bags" for HMI lamps that allows you to defuse and color the lights, that could be a good option to tone down the room and give it a warmer look.

But would they be a viable option where one is merely a tenant in the space for a few hours a week?

 

[shiben]

But would they be a viable option where one is merely a tenant in the space for a few hours a week?

Crazier things are done at rock concerts and those are tenants in a space for maybe 10 hours a year...

But I kind of like the idea of leaving your HMIs on and using some muslin or spandex covered flats with some colored uplights on them. When at a church, I personally like single colors that dont change, mainly because its a church... But thats just me.

 

[emoreth]

There is a company that specializes in designing systems for portable churches, namely Portable Church Industries. We've gotten two off-site campus packages from them so far, and they do a good job of working with you to figure out what you need based on your concept and your space. Might be worth talking to them.

 

[JohnD]

Sounds like a reasonable plan. For the uplight, do you recommend shining it some type of white material like a fire retardant muslin? If so, any ideas for constructing a simple backdrop that could be used for such purpose? Something that is relatively light weight, free standing, and easy to move around?

Also based on your PAR/S4 idea for the uplight, what would you suggest for front light?

For your situation, you might consider pipe and drape.
Here are a couple of companies I came up with in a google search:
Manufacturer of Exhibit Pipe & Drape | Georgia Expo
And this one has some great customer supplied examples:
OnlineEEI.com Event Decorating Products International Store
Check with your local event and wedding planning companies, they might have some excess stock for sale, or might be able to give you a special rental rate.

 

[AhClem]

I've seen plently of suggestions for which lights you should get, but I'd like to suggest the BlueLite X1-Mini as your controller. We have many churches that use the X1 and at $399, it has abilities found on much larger systems. With 1.000.000 cue capability, SMPTE timcode capability for "timed" shows, the Live Panel, the ability to expand out to 16 DMX universes plus other features, we've controlled everything from small theaters to the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas.
We also have sample apps availble which include the MIDI Note Sample to trigger the submasters via MIDI signals and the Windows Media Player Playlist sample app to syncronize our Event List with your WMP playlist.

While we don't currently offer any specific external consoles (they're not required to operate the BlueLite software) it does allows you to connect any external DMX consoles an input control, so you can build on to the system as you budget allows. While MIDI is not the primary input device technique, the Live Panel does recognize MIDI sources so you can use low cost MIDI controllers as external control surfaces. We're also developing multi-platform apps that allow control via WiFi using your mobile devices (iPhone, tablet, etc.)

Of course, the BlueLite system was designed to be used on your PC (or more likely your laptop) and it allows you to run your show using either just your keyboard, your mouse (and keyboard) or combinations of external controls (DMX and/or MIDI) and/or keyboard/mouse control.

Let me know it you need additional info.
Craig Spredeman
[email protected]

 

[preludesi88]

Hey guys, sorry it's been a while since I responded but we're getting a little closer to moving forward. I have attached some images of the gym area in which we're looking to hold our services. Kids and beauty & the beast set aside lol, what suggestions do you have for this space? Same budget still applies, which isn't much - around $1000 or so, maybe a little more. We're planning to use the stage area for the worship band/pastor sermon. The idea would be to project the slides on the middle of the wall at the back of the stage. I was wondering if there might be some opportunities to use some uplighting on either side of the stage where it's angled. Regardless of what we end up doing, we're going to have to cut off some of those HMIs to take the edge off a bit.

Appreciate your feedback as always!

 

[StNic54]

The toughest part about working in a worship environment is the money. Remember that whatever you get, you'll need to have room in the budget for cabling, control, etc. I would buy a minimal amount of gear that works well, and not try to do too much with a small budget. Ultimately, you can present your work, and build from there. I would avoid purchasing fixtures that require dimmer packs, mostly since you won't be able to afford them. Buy inexpensive LED's that will allow color change, dimming, and very little power consumption, but be realistic about your budget constraints. You may find that running with some of your work lights on will be necessary until you can make a suitable investment.

 

[preludesi88]

Need Help With Front Lighting A Portable Church In Gym

Back in January I started a thread about lighting a portable church in a gym http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/...ective-lighting-solution-portable-church.html I took much of the advice here and actually ended up spending quite a bit more than orignally planned. For our front light, I have 8 cheap Par56 units with 300 watt MFLs in them. 4 fixtures are mounted on (2) 12' crank-up stands positioned at the far ends of the gym at an angle towards the center of the stage at a distance of about 30 feet from the stage. The problem I'm having as you can see from the attached picture is that there is a lot of spillover especially towards the back of the stage. Now I realize up front that 1.) A Par is not the best fixture for this particular application and 2.) With the stage being 3.5' high, a 12' crank truss really isn't high enough to get the fixtures at the appropriate angle to hit the subjects without having a bunch of extra light spillover. With that being said, do you have any tips or suggestions on how I might be able to limit the light that is thrown towards the back of the stage and wall? It's not as much of an issue when our band is playing as we dim the Pars much more but in the case of the pastor's message, per the picture, we need to crank the Pars up so that he can be seen better, especially since he likes to walk back and forth across the stage. Any input would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks!
Josh

 

[derekleffew]

Re: Need Help With Front Lighting A Portable Church In Gym

... With that being said, do you have any tips or suggestions on how I might be able to limit the light that is thrown towards the back of the stage and wall? ...

Light travels in straight lines, there's no defying that law. Since we can't move the target/talent/actor/pastor, all we have left is that placement of the sources.
A. Can the 12' crank-up be placed, SAFELY, on a 3'-0" or higher platform riser? The greater angle of elevation, the better; although returns diminish when one exceeds 45°.

B. Perhaps try moving the stands to the sides of the room, which will have the shadows fall off the sides of the stage. In some cases, this can be more distracting than having the shadows directly upstage on the backdrop. It also requires double the fixtures.

C. I wouldn't concede that your fixture choice was an error. Had you chosen ERSs, you'd have the same problem, but with a hard-edged beam. Those sharp lines, even when softened with frost or running the barrel, can still be a distraction.

 

[preludesi88]

Re: Need Help With Front Lighting A Portable Church In Gym

Light travels in straight lines, there's no defying that law.

Derek, thanks for your reply. You've confirmed my initial thoughts that the height of the fixtures and angle are my biggest hurdles. With that being said, I was intrigued by your third point:

C. I wouldn't concede that your fixture choice was an error. Had you chosen ERSs, you'd have the same problem, but with a hard-edged beam. Those sharp lines, even when softened with frost or running the barrel, can still be a distraction.

While the height and angle limitations would still be there, doesn't an ERS fixture generally have a more narrow focused beam? I was under the impression that the MFLs combined with an unfocusable Par fixture creates a wider beam spread that is difficult to control and if I had used ERSs maybe there would be less spillover to the surrounding areas? I'm still trying to learn so I appreciate your insights.

 

[ruinexplorer]

Re: Need Help With Front Lighting A Portable Church In Gym

With an ERS, you will have fixed angles (unless you chose a zoom ellipsoidal). Yes, many of them will be a narrower spread than the MFL and you can focus the beam. The benefit to the ERS is that you could then use shutters to shape your beam to avoid spill, but as Derek mentioned, your light will be more sharp. Something you could do with the PAR cans is the addition of Barn Doors, which will help you shape the light to avoid spill.