Hi i am currently working on a lighting design for my college and my director wants one of the scenes to have a "dirty" look on the set using lights. the set designer has currently painted the walls of the set a tan and dark brown. i have thought about using a gobo but am not thrilled with the way it looks. just wondering if anybody has any suggestions. Thanks.
"Dirty" look.
- Thread starterDiscoPony
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coldnorth57
Active Member
shiben
Well-Known Member
What kind of dirty? NCB or Grime?
i tried the rosco R99 Chocolate. it just made the brown pop in way that made it look a lot cleaner than under normal stage lights. it normally works but not this time.
as for the look its more of a dingy lack of cleaning look. like if you didn't clean your house very well for the past few years.
thanks for the helping.
as for the look its more of a dingy lack of cleaning look. like if you didn't clean your house very well for the past few years.
thanks for the helping.
coldnorth57
Active Member
there is a list of differnt sodium colors L650, L651, L652,
L653
L653
shiben
Well-Known Member
shiben
Well-Known Member
What does that look and feel like? Is there dust in the air? Isnt that the carpentry and properties departments job? Get a doughnut and let them deal with it?
You might try "de" optimizing your lighting fixtures to an extreme degree, so that the focus is totally off, and the beam/field completely wonky. I've had people complain of the light "looking dirty" when it really needed to be bench focused. Easier to do with ERSs than with pars or fresnels. Come to think of it, not sure it would be possible with a fresnel.
But that seems like a lot of work, since you'd have to go back through and re-bench focus all those lights afterwards.
But that seems like a lot of work, since you'd have to go back through and re-bench focus all those lights afterwards.
I had the same thing happen on a Christmas Carol once. Director asked the LD if he could make it dirtier. He got on headset and said could I get the dirty lights to full, the board op not knowing what to do just dimmed a couple of things and the director was actually happy with it and convinced there were actually "dirty" lights. As for a real look, I have to go with Shiben, you can't really make it dirty using light, you can make it warm or cold but often times what they really want ends up being more of a scenic thing that they just don't realize. Best of luck.
shiben
Well-Known Member
Plus I have a fairly good idea of what I would do with "dirty" looks, but without a check in the mail, I dont really want to go further with doing the legwork. Im lazy like that...
Plus I have a fairly good idea of what I would do with "dirty" looks, but without a check in the mail, I dont really want to go further with doing the legwork. Im lazy like that...
Mall perhaps meaning put your lights in the wood shop during the fabrication stage of construction. Bad for the fixtures and clean the lamp before re-install but could be a concept.
Very dependant on what fixtures you are using and if gel just won't do it (thinking a light silk frost but don't know why) but other options.
I referred it to a more grainy look well in the past about how a PC fixture was still useful in a way that modern lighting is just too as it were linear for a look. Cannot re-capture the look of a PC or old school light say in photos or movies is short of using them to see the difference. Minds eye in looking old is in creating the old which today's lighting style doesn't allow for. Mind's eye for an audience is in having a reference point before they were born as old. See a movie and remember the good movie and remember the harsh lighting - even if night time scenes were filmed during daylight and filtered down for night. Very directional lighting even during the day in shadows that modern lighting has designed around in realism. Break from McCandless and realism in genereal is a way to make it old. Otherwise, concentrate on the shadows but not making it as harsh for modern well lit audiences and perhaps the effect without loosing foot candles.
Main problem in realistically using them in looking like old photo lighting more so than modern stage ligthing can do - about the shadows and stuff... is that hard edge to the PC spots verses wider less useful focus of the floods. If using them you both have to fight the harsh edges to a PC beam, and fight the lower intensity of the floods or when designed around covering for them harsh edges of the beam.
In other words, if using PC or flood - they were invented around another era where less lumens on stage was acceptable. I would think a base of modern stage ligthing on a lower setting for fill will cover for all of this still in retaining a grainy/old look. A base of stage ligthing design normal now, but with a punch of specials done in the old school way.
If on a 6x9 say you went old school and removed one of the lenses and reversed the other one to the front, it will narrow the beam spread in compensation but also look a lot different.
Also and perhaps a better concept in retaining your looks but being more grainy... What if you were to install either PC Leko lenses into your Fresnels in making them into PC fixtures, or if not enough 6x9 lenses available, have a look at removing the lenses all together.
Obviously this would make all the above fixtures into specials and or gel will be different in results to what you research now. Makes it dependant on inventory available for an act or a scene in making a sufficient amount of even bone yard gear into specials, yet still having enough lighting for a show in other scenes. And the gear available.
Against taking something out of bench focus. Good for effect but harsh on lenses and reflectors for doing this effect in limited results.
Cheapest and easiest in doing the easy first, look into something "Tough Spun" or a harsh "Silk" and see where that leads you with a blend of various gel.
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shiben
Well-Known Member
Crushed Dichro will look like stained glass. Best option is gonna be coordinate with paint crew on a color that you can make "pop" with the lights or go away with a different set of lights, if only part of the show needs to be dirty. A friend of mine has an excellent "dirt" paint recipe that they use a lot, its water, india ink, some sort of sealer, paint and something for texture, might be dirt, cant remember. Put in a squirt bottle like chem labs use for water and acetone and squirt on to desired run. Very effective at masking seams and in corners and making things look dirty.
An idea on finding the proper gel short of a lighting model.
Just found the source for my way missed and otherwise special order Krylon #1310 "Dulling Spray" McMaster Carr sells it under the not well supported description but it is the above product. Look for dulling spray, and or reply back and I'll search up it's part number. Yey!! I found a favorate product again.
Otherwise hair spray is a noted alternative - though probably not the same operating temperature for dulling.
Given this spray, find I think a catalogue page in say "House and Gardens" or "Architectural Digest" ETC that most matches your set in look. Believe in lighting design there is some kind of look research done... been like 20 years since I made a photo morgue. It's already properly lit in the photo so use the dulling spray to neutralize the gloss of the page some won't other than make it able to be lit more realistically by you in what effects it. Get out your swatch book and halogen/quartz Mag Light - yes not a LED upgraded one as it won't work in accurate color rendering.
Thinking that a de-glossed page in a magizine will work in concept in you going thru your swatch book in colors and seeing what Mag Light does to them in leafing thru the gels while shining on the image.
Just an idea, might work or not.
Just found the source for my way missed and otherwise special order Krylon #1310 "Dulling Spray" McMaster Carr sells it under the not well supported description but it is the above product. Look for dulling spray, and or reply back and I'll search up it's part number. Yey!! I found a favorate product again.
Otherwise hair spray is a noted alternative - though probably not the same operating temperature for dulling.
Given this spray, find I think a catalogue page in say "House and Gardens" or "Architectural Digest" ETC that most matches your set in look. Believe in lighting design there is some kind of look research done... been like 20 years since I made a photo morgue. It's already properly lit in the photo so use the dulling spray to neutralize the gloss of the page some won't other than make it able to be lit more realistically by you in what effects it. Get out your swatch book and halogen/quartz Mag Light - yes not a LED upgraded one as it won't work in accurate color rendering.
Thinking that a de-glossed page in a magizine will work in concept in you going thru your swatch book in colors and seeing what Mag Light does to them in leafing thru the gels while shining on the image.
Just an idea, might work or not.
Mean a "Hudson Sprayer"? Agree on crushing in not against but really curious about the concept of a crushed dichroic gobo for further explination.
Defocused and diffused, a crushed dichroic is going smear amorphous blobs of coloured light on the wall yielding a mottled look when it reflects, not a stained glass look. Whether it looks any good or yields the desired result is certainly debatable. Samoiloff effect can yield some pretty interesting results but it takes either a lot of science, or lot of trial and error to make it work. Personally, I wouldn't try to do it with light if it can be avoided since adding light never makes something look grubby.
shiben
Well-Known Member
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One of these. A hudson sprayer might get gummed up, but I assume one would work as well. This technique is effective at replicating drips of corrosion and various liquids in an industrial or older pipe installation, or on old boilers or metallic inserts into concrete or masonry walls. The crushed dichro is the lighting gobo type, not an add to the scene paint. Although you could do some larger chunks of colored bottles on top of a wall... Technique used in Africa and other parts of the world as a substitute for razor wire might make a fairly cool effect...
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