Been a while for me on the subject of
gel and I have long since forgotten the exact ways the
gel is made or if it's still valid any more, but I thought I remember
Lee having both high temp and normal
gel. Wolf or anyone else, how about a refresher course in the differences in how the various brands make their
gel.
Might want to ensure that you are using the high temp version of your
Lee because that short of a duration is wrong. I believe that if I remember right, the low temp stuff will be only one side with a Matt finish and it should
point out at that, but it's been a while for me. The high temp. stuff should be more like a
Rosco gel in it's feel and look of both sides shiny. If high temp, it should not be burning up that fast, unless very saturated. If it's burning up really fast, you probably do not have the right
gel.
Rosco I believe also offers a high temp
line. Perhaps that's what the E-Line is. That in addition to Cinegel from them.
Otherwise, if high temp. I would assume that you will probably have the same problems with the
Rosco or
Gam lines. You shouldn't, but since I don't do shows any more, I can't really say what steps if we
gel them at all, we would do with 2Kw and 5Kw Fresnels. I expect we might be using
heat shield, but it's also HT.
Lee that I would expect.
I would recommend going with a
heat shield gel in front of the color if swapping brands is still giving you problems. That's something that is going to absorb much of the IR/heat in the light beam.
Lee and the rest offer it.
Lee makes the second best stuff, the best
heat shield comes from some company in California, but I would have to look it up at work as for who it is. We use it for our 5K
Fresnel scrollers and
9-Light mole lights, and that's about it because it's like a buck per square inch. For other things the
Lee gel is what others recommend. Subject was just discussed on Lighting
Network a few weeks ago so it's fresh in memory.
Tips on
heat shield is that the more space you can create between it and your
gel, the better off you will be. In other words, at very least install the two in different
gel frames. If possible, perhaps you can
bolt the frames together with a 3/16" standoff between the two. Even better than that, if you are using barn doors, you can put the
heat shield in the normal slot, and the
gel frame in the
barn door gel frame slot. Were these lekos, I would say test your
bench focus - especially doing that paper technique to see where the
focal point is.
Of a final note, if this is a more or less perminant production,
Rosco and other companies sell
dichroic filters and glass color filters for a price that will not wear out. Could be worth it as long as you use some screening to protect the audience.