We're building this year's set for our traveling show choir group and I need some help on a lighting aspect of it. At the start of one of the big songs, I want a huge flash of light to be a blinder effect as they start coming through some doors. I can use pars because they have to slow of build to full strength. I need something that can have power stored, and discharge when I hit a button. I've looked at photofloods and from what I've seen, am not impressed. Any suggestions?
CROWD BLINDER
- Thread starterdjnotloc
- Start date
That would be the textbook definition of a strobe, in "one-shot" mode. See Lightning Strikes and/or Hungaroflash.pdf and/or Solaris.
FWIW, the standard R&R audience blinder/8-light uses DWE lamps, and I've never heard complaints about that lamp's reaction time.
Les's advice to preheat is very valid also.
Perhaps something from this thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/special-effects/6924-beauty-beast-transformation-white-out.html will be useful.
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JD
Well-Known Member
If you need something that sustains for awhile, and you have them available, you could always use some movers preset to be in the audience's eyes. Popping the dowsers off is almost instant and without the filament ramp-up that you would have on almost all conventional lamps. Also, you have the option to exit the effect in a multitude of unique ways.
shiben
Well-Known Member
I think these might be your best option. Get a them in, turn them on full, let them go until they drop off a bit, and then you can have them start dropping into strobe pops to keep the "blinding" effect going but make it even more flashy. Complement with N/C PAR 64s that come up at the same time if you want to keep the effect going for more than a few seconds. The strobes will blind the audience right good, and the PARs will keep the punch up until you want it to go. I have also seen those 3000s in blinder mode, and it is probably exactly what your looking for. If you have a bit of haze in the air (which would make sense, what with a musical and all), the effect will be even better for the audience, provided that there is at least 1 light pointing at each bit of the auditorium. If you have them all focused right, you probably wont be able to see the stage at all.
Now, another option might be the VLX. 20 of them around the procenium of American Idiot was reported to have a "searingly bright" white effect. Also, they can strobe faster than you can process, and jump between colors at the same rate (based on what I read in LSA about the show), so that might make for a cool effect.
All these solutions aside, I have started to become an advocate of conventional instruments. Having watched a pile of old school concert footage, I think we might have lost some of the amazingness that they used to do in exchange for piles of moving lights and other tech (not to say thats not cool, but nothing beats the feeling of raw power when a 40' long truss full of OW PAR 64 VNSPs jumps to full through the band). If money is an issue, pre-heated 1k PAR 64s will do you very well. Another thing that might work well for you is ETC PAR EAs. I have had excellent success with these as blinders, and they fade up fast. Yet another conventional option is to use MR-16 striplights. We have 12 of the L&E 3 cell x 750 W units, and those things pop to full fast (so much that I use them when we have dance events to do colored strobe effects). If you want to make sure no one can see the stage and everyone on it can see the audience (which I recall being mentioned as a spec of I want to say Slipknot at some point), these buggers will do you well. Wire them up so each strip is a circuit, Take out all the color, and line the cyc and main portal with them. Focus so when standing on stage you can see the entire house well. Blinding flash of light very fast. You can also set the dimming curve on these guys so that its instant on, and that might help a bit.
Hope this helped some.
I suspect that something a little broader would be closer to what to OP is trying to achieve.
PadawanGeek
Active Member
Can't answer the subjective "fast enough", but...
the lower the wattage, the less material in the filament, equals less thermal inertia, thus faster reaction time.
Which is why shiben's MR16 strips using 12V 75W lamps work so well. And in fact, there's the 20-light, a blinder fixture using the same MR16 lamps:
Hey, shiben, here's a neat application of MR16 strips and strobes. (Watch the video with the sound off.
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Thanks guys for all the replies! I would love to use a few Atomic strobes (I have one for DJing) but for the company cost is definitely an issue. As of now I think I'm going to try to use Pars and bring them to 10% early and see if that works. Fall off isnt a problem, it may actually make it look better. I just need a quick up time.
shiben
Well-Known Member
Can't answer the subjective "fast enough", but...
the lower the wattage, the less material in the filament, equals less thermal inertia, thus faster reaction time.
Which is why shiben's MR16 strips using 12V 75W lamps work so well. And in fact, there's the 20-light, a blinder fixture using the same MR16 lamps:
Hey, shiben, here's a neat application of MR16 strips and strobes. (Watch the video with the sound off.
Yeah, something like that would work like I was thinking. Another advantage to that look is that if you have an intermission you could theoretically put in different colors (supposing hands could reach all of them) a la glee. Its really too bad no one makes a scroller for these things. Hey Apollo! Figure out a way to put a scroller on an MR-16 strip for me, will ya?
There are large format scrollers available for different lights although I have yet to see one for a zip-strip. I know Wybron makes ones that fit 8-lights, 9-lights, and ETC 3-cell multipars and other companies probably do too.
Update: Morpheus and Chroma-Q also offer 8-light scrollers. Maybe, others do too.
Anvilx
Active Member
The litepod is probably one of my favorite luminaires for concert lighting. The don't really do anything that a 9-light and a separate Atomic 3000 doesn't do but they look much cooler while doing it.
shiben
Well-Known Member
Not in the slightest.
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