Design Footlights! I beg of you! Footlights!

[RichardTheSecond]

Just about every production I've ever seen in the last 20 years, big or small, features big dark shadows in the actor's eye sockets. It's like watching a play put on by raccoons. Do audiences not care anymore about seeing the actor's eyes?
I come from a stills and video background where eye lights are everything, or I may be just an overly sensitive crazy person.
Is this a universal problem since footlights fell out of fashion? Is it a style of lighting? Is it because the grids are too high to get a consistent 45° lighting angle?
Thanks for your answers.

 

[DavidJones]

I feel 45 degrees is still too steep for Key light. In Video I like it closer to 30. Sometimes that is not practical. I still use footlights, but I don't do much proper theater anymore. Footlights as the main lighting source is often not palatable as a design choice, just as many other extreme angles are only useful for particular effects.
The other issue with foot light is that it is only effective for a few feet at the DS edge of the stage, if your actors spend most of their time farther upstage, footlights are a waste.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Balcony rail will get light into eyes and under chins and generally be much more flattering to people of age. Or, referencing another thread, as Tom Skelton said, rail is best. It was to your exact point - light in the eyes. I think to many have become a slave to Stanley McCandless's A Method of Lighting the Stage .

 

[RichardTheSecond]

Fascinating. I assumed footlights were just there as a supplemental fill light for eye sockets and to soften the wrinkles on actors of a certain age. But of course they wouldn't work farther upstage, would they.
That's interesting about McCandless. I've read a little about his technique online, but I'll have to get his book.
For video, yes, lower keys are great, anything to get light bouncing on the iris like it was a trampoline.

 

[RonHebbard]

Fascinating. I assumed footlights were just there as a supplemental fill light for eye sockets and to soften the wrinkles on actors of a certain age. But of course they wouldn't work farther upstage, would they.
That's interesting about McCandless. I've read a little about his technique online, but I'll have to get his book.
For video, yes, lower keys are great, anything to get light bouncing on the iris like it was a trampoline.

@RichardTheSecond When a performer is further up stage, front, cross and down lights bounce off the deck and upwards into the eye sockets whereas if you're at the extreme down stage edge you've only light coming up from the musician's stands IF you have musicians and a pit, otherwise not so much.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[TNasty]

I've noticed this problem a lot too. Things look alright from the booth, but in the house and on video you can see the raccoon effect. Blech.

While 45 degrees is "ideal", I've noticed that most people don't realize how steep 45 really is until they see it in person. Using lights to the sides with wider/softer beams as a fill light around 6-7 feet up seems to have worked nicely for me in the past. Just make sure you balance it unless you're going for a Twoface villain effect.

Little addition after posting: I'm asking my friend who's heavily involved in CG and film, but I'm pretty certain one main reason for those free-standing lights they use in film and TV is to offer that "fill" that's hard to get from above.

 

[Old School 512]

IMHO footlights like rows of MR16 strips I would use on an industrial shows have for a time faded into history for many shows. Now that those MR16 strips are gone I have had a chance to use the new LED bars such as the GLP Impression X4 20 and
the Chroma Q Colorforce II 48". The difference being that the Chroma Q are stationary and the GLP give me 120% of movement from the console. Along with being able to control down to the individual pixel, pixel mapping and built in macros with RDM capability.
The only setbacks are price ($ 3800.00 Chroma Q vs $ 5000 for the GLP Impression X4 20) and a console that can bring all the functions to life. My little MA2 on PC Command Wing works great with both my preference are the GLP fixtures with movement.
I am still fond of footlights built into the stage mostly just sentimental reasons or pre or post show glow.

 

[RonHebbard]

IMHO footlights like rows of MR16 strips I would use on an industrial shows have for a time faded into history for many shows. Now that those MR16 strips are gone I have had a chance to use the new LED bars such as the GLP Impression X4 20 and
the Chroma Q Colorforce II 48". The difference being that the Chroma Q are stationary and the GLP give me 120% of movement from the console. Along with being able to control down to the individual pixel, pixel mapping and built in macros with RDM capability.
The only setbacks are price ($ 3800.00 Chroma Q vs $ 5000 for the GLP Impression X4 20) and a console that can bring all the functions to life. My little MA2 on PC Command Wing works great with both my preference are the GLP fixtures with movement.
I am still fond of footlights built into the stage mostly just sentimental reasons or pre or post show glow.

@Old School 512 We had old-fangled 120 Volt incandescent MR16's for footlights on The Who's rock opera Tommy each of the three times our shop built it. Mechanical vibration through the floor was a serious filament killer. We NEVER made it through a performance with all 8 lamps still lit by the finale, NEVER. It got worse when we went to Offenbach / Frankfurt. There were no 230 / 240 volt equivalents. We suggested to the Germans that we'd provide 120 Volt lamps wired in series connected pairs but, no, they preferred to dial down their dimmers until average reading volt meters read 120 Volts and record their cues. This was a DISASTER! The lamps died partway through the first act from being hammered to death by the leading edges of what remained of their horribly chopped sine waves.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[DavidJones]

@Old School 512 We had old-fangled 120 Volt incandescent MR16's for footlights on The Who's rock opera Tommy each of the three times our shop built it. Mechanical vibration through the floor was a serious filament killer. We NEVER made it through a performance with all 8 lamps still lit by the finale, NEVER. It got worse when we went to Offenbach / Frankfurt. There were no 230 / 240 volt equivalents. We suggested to the Germans that we'd provide 120 Volt lamps wired in series connected pairs but, no, they preferred to dial down their dimmers until average reading volt meters read 120 Volts and record their cues. This was a DISASTER! The lamps died partway through the first act from being hammered to death by the leading edges of what remained of their horribly chopped sine waves.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Wouldn't be a problem today; you could just download an oscilloscope ap on your phone and check the quality of those dimmers waveforms, lol.

 

[n1ist]

If you use a scope (or scope app), make sure you use a differential probe or isolation transformer for safety. The ground clip on a scope probe is connected to AC line ground.

 

[DavidJones]

If you use a scope (or scope app), make sure you use a differential probe or isolation transformer for safety. The ground clip on a scope probe is connected to AC line ground.

Yes, though I was mostly joking.

I did use an Oscilloscope recently to look at the waveform of an Elation single channel dimmer when used in "Switch pack mode." There is actually not "switch" or relay, it just sets the dimmer to 100%. Very clean sine wave with just a hint of crossover distortion. Acceptable to me for running a hazer, though I'm probably screwed if anyone starts changing things on the menu.