Gel choice for Street Lamps/Lightning

[JD]

Mercury vapor had an almost sick color. A very thin blue spectrum with a few other spikes that filled it out a bit. If you have some R40 strips, then they most likely have medium Edison bases in them. You could pick up one of those super-cheap CFL contractor packs (12 bulbs or so, ~$1 each) at home depot and just switch out the R40 lamps. You would have to park the dimmers at 100% as the cheap CFL's don't like dimmers. Add some additional color boost daylight filters and you should pretty much have what the old MV lamps put out. Just make sure the CFLs are what they call "daylight" (which of course looks nothing like daylight!)

 

[de27192]

I suppose then this depends on whether your priorities are in historical accuracy or in clearly portraying the environment to the audience. For accuracy then you should try to replicate the original colour... for ease of the audience understanding the scene, a sodium look might be better. The trouble as you say is that if the streetlight looks too much like daylight it'll end up looking like a day time thing... hence the sodium might make it easier to clearly portray a night-time scene. This might be something to take to the creatives on the show and not make the executive decision yourself... as the LD it is more about portraying their vision through lighting, so it may be worth checking with them how they'd rather approach it.

Of course there are other things you can do to help portray night time. Shadows, sparse lighting, moonlight passing behind the clouds, starcloth, etc.

 

[Les]

I would tend to lean towards replicating the lighting people are familiar with, rather than what was necessarily period correct (when it comes down to Mercury vs HPS).

I can see your concern about inadvertently replicating sunlight. Maybe if the source is orange enough, it won't read as sunlight. I forgot if it has been mentioned -- if there are windows on this set, that might be a good way to establish time of day as well as maybe a picture/rendering of a streetlight in the back ground.


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[theatricalmatt]

I've been attempting to research but am coming up dry in terms of which specific gel has a good look. I don't want to blow my budget on something that doesn't work. I was hoping for some specific colors that have worked in the past.

A bit of internet research reveals: mercury vapor lamps have their strongest emission lines at 404, 435, 546, and 578 nm, with many modern lamps being coated to convert some ultraviolet into red.

Every gel listed in the Rosco and Lee catalogs -- even the urban effects gels -- create a continuous spectrum; to cut that much of the spectrum out, you'd probably need a dichroic glass filter, or use a mercury vapor source. If you look through the gel catalogs, though, you'll find a couple of gels have peaks in those areas; Rosco 3203, Lee 500 and Lee 712 all come pretty close. Layering multiple gels might eliminate a bit more of the spectrum you don't want.

All that being said, this is theater, and you should keep in mind that your audience's expectations don't always match reality, and that apparent color can shift depending on surroundings and other light sources.

Regarding what does or doesn't work -- I offer this so that you come to understand _how_ it works, and can justify your choice based on that, rather than what Some Guy On the Internet says is the right choice.

 

[JChenault]

It is a very small space. I have 6 K9 Pup LEDs at my disposal and plotted them as top/back light. However, most of the play is a realistic, dreary look. The show is "The Mountaintop." So it is set in the room at the Lorraine, and I want the street lights to be casting in through the window and door when it is opened. The only reason I wanted to steer clear of the Amber spectrum is simply because they'll be burning throughout the play, and I can foresee people saying it is confusing. But if they need to be Amber I'm willing to take the risk. My plan was hanging three sets of R40 strip lights behind the lights to blast through, then Par64s hung behind the doors. I suppose the LEDs could be sacrificed. It would definitely save my dimmers.
In terms of gel I have available: I have a decent budget to get whatever gel I request.

I'm unclear as to why you are planning to use the R40 strips . The light through the window probably wants to cast hard shadows. Using a strip will not give this effect. Now the light through the door might want to seem as if it is bouncing off the walls of a hallway or something, in which case a strip makes sense.

If you want a "Nighttime Blue" in addition to the streetlight, then a strip might make semse

 

[nsprangers]

If you want a "Nighttime Blue" in addition to the streetlight, then a strip might make semse

Has the OP considered this in helping establish the setting? I don't know what the set looks like, but would a nighttime blue shining in through one direction and a dirty orange street light from another work? Different angles and hardness might help too?

 

[e.clarkson]

I suppose then this depends on whether your priorities are in historical accuracy or in clearly portraying the environment to the audience. For accuracy then you should try to replicate the original colour... for ease of the audience understanding the scene, a sodium look might be better. The trouble as you say is that if the streetlight looks too much like daylight it'll end up looking like a day time thing... hence the sodium might make it easier to clearly portray a night-time scene. This might be something to take to the creatives on the show and not make the executive decision yourself... as the LD it is more about portraying their vision through lighting, so it may be worth checking with them how they'd rather approach it.

Of course there are other things you can do to help portray night time. Shadows, sparse lighting, moonlight passing behind the clouds, starcloth, etc.

I agree it should be about audience recognition. I am definitely leaning towards the Lee you suggested as it seems to be my best option.

 

[e.clarkson]

I'm unclear as to why you are planning to use the R40 strips . The light through the window probably wants to cast hard shadows. Using a strip will not give this effect. Now the light through the door might want to seem as if it is bouncing off the walls of a hallway or something, in which case a strip makes sense.

If you want a "Nighttime Blue" in addition to the streetlight, then a strip might make semse

I am using the R40s as I do want the color to shift with minimal dimmer use. I also want to flood the large (hotel style) windows. As the room in question is on the second floor I envision the light being more diluted as opposed to being able to see the specific source. There is also a moment where a character reveals herself to be an angel and I was hoping for the R40s to produce a spectacular brightness through the window.

 

[JD]

There is also a moment where a character reveals herself to be an angel and I was hoping for the R40s to produce a spectacular brightness through the window.

For heavenly moments where you need a ton of light that has a good deal of beam candlepower, nothing (short of Beam Projectors) beats a couple of good old cheap PAR64 cans with FFN lamps in them (1000 watt / Very Narrow Spot.) Add a touch of daylight correction (Rosco # 3202 or Lee # 201) to get rid of that "incandescent" look.

 

[icewolf08]

The entire play is one night, one location. I've also just done some research on the history of street lamps (because I'm determined to be accurate and I'm much too excited about this show) and it seems that in the 1960s they used Mercury Vapor street lamps and in the 60s they started coating the lamps which made them emit a white blue color...Not what I was hoping for.

research and accuracy is great, but unless your patrons either know or have done the same research, it matters little. You have to consider that even today there are still many types of street lamps in use, even gas lamps. So, in the 1960s there may have began a shift in technology, but that doesn't mean that is happened overnight everywhere. Don't worry too much about the reality of it, worry more about the feeling you are trying to create.

Just remember that street lamps are generally very steep angle, very directional, and very harsh light. I have a sodium lamp outside my bedroom window, it makes very sharp, crisp shadows, but it comes in at a pretty good angle so it doesn't light up the whole room. I would think that you will want to go with the sodium lamp style look, as most other looks won't read street lamp to most people. Blues will just reed as night, and whites and warms will read as day.

 

[kicknargel]

Setting aside the specific color of the streetlight for a second, I find that it helps to sell the idea of night to have a general blue or cool wash, then some warm light from specific, limited angles. The warm suggests light from lamps inside the room, and the blue fills in the shadows and suggests night. In the next post someone will point out that nighttime light isn't blue. This is true, but it reads so in a stylized, theatrical way. If you do that, I think night will be established, and you can use what color makes sense to represent the streetlights, as long as it's from a distinct angle from the other two colors. You want to perceive all three colors on different surfaces of the set and bodies on stage.

This is art, which means we get to have our own tastes. That's mine. Check out the windows in a Kubric movie sometime.

 

[facethewolf]

I absolutely agree with kicknargel. In theater perception and visual cues are accepted over accuracy. Remember that on stage, for me at least, my stage lights are amber, aND the audience's eyes white balance to this. Streetlights are oranger than white, which means they can't just be amber. There is a nice artistic effects of having someone step in out of the orange streetlight into the "interior" light.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

The color doesn't come from a coating. Both mercury vapor street lighting and high pressure sodium street lighting are nearly monochromatic since the gases in question emit in nearly a single color line.

The problem with using an actual street light fixture which, as noted above, isn't all that hard to come by, is that they tend to want 277 V AC power, one leg of a 480 three phase service. That's kind of difficult to come by on a stage.