Gel Storage Upgrade

[techieman33]

@techieman33 I'll admit to being SO ANAL as to be able to keep the various sizes stacked in order from smallest at the front to largest at the rear without any additional folders within the hangers. I'd even take large cuts with severe burns and save them for smaller sized 1/2 and 1/4 splits. Pesonally, I'm loving @JohnD 's query Re: the use of splits with gobos in LED ellipsoidals. I can hardly wait, this oughta be fun.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Nothing wrong with that, individual folders just make it a lot easier for me to say hey new guy go grab me a 6.25" cut of R132 and know that they'll bring the right thing back, and be more likely to put it back in the correct spot.

 

[Dionysus]

At one of my typical venues (McManus Stage, Grand Theatre, London Ontario) we actually use a joint storage system.

We keep Stapled cardboard framed gel in one section of file cabinets, depending on the dimentions of the cabinet you can have two 7.5" side by side. So they are in two rows so say R01 to R20 then R21 to R30 or whatever depending on what you keep around. We use cardboard separators, cut so the labels stick up above the gels.

We also keep loose cut gel in hanging file folders, with stick up tabs so finding things is quick. I agree, individual folders is great as you can grab the whole folder, or leave it in place depending.
Full sheets are kept on top of the filing cabinet (we don't keep much for sheet stock as we have an awesome stock of sheets on the Spriet Stage [read Main Stage, but we aren't supposed to call it that any more] anyways).

We tend to have pretty short periods to do turn around, so there is little time to pull color and stick in frames, so all of our common stuff is stapled into labeled cardboard frames. Grab and go. Once its burnt we put it off to the side to be replenished when we have the time.

 

[Randy Storms]

I also struggle with gel storage. We have a metric ton of conventional fixtures in addition to our LEDs and won't be going gel-free any time soon. The larger question for me is, "How is it possible that nobody makes hanging file folders for 11x17?" Our 10x10 PAR cuts won't fit in a standard hanging folders and get destroyed when the drawer opens and closes. I have found 12x12 hanging files intended for scrapbooking, but they are *ridiculously* expensive and apparently sold only in 3-packs. Oh, and when you google "11x17 hanging files" you get a ton of hits, but none of them are actually for 11x17.

 

[derekleffew]

Seems like the time to repost the attached article, written in 2003. The advent of solid state lighting sources has made the concept slightly obsolete, but still, Rosco (GAM), Lee, and Apollo, are you listening?

Like with actual gelatin, there are probably students today (designers of tomorrow) who have never used plastic color media. The idea of describing color by calling out numbers of an obsolete line is foreign to them. Brigham 28 anyone? (Looking at youse, @JonCarter @microstar @RonHebbard et al.)

 

[Mark Harris]

Dealer's can choose whatever they want, but it's an undisputed fact that people who sort rosco numericly are the worst kind of people,

I have a friend who has designed for years in community theatre. He is very particular about this practice and I asked him one day "Why are you such a pain in the butt about filing the gels? The blues go there and the reds go there, et cetera." He smiled paternally at me, shrugged and said, "I'm colour blind. I go by the numbers. Which is why I get you to file the cuts as soon as you've made them. So I can find them again." And I have to point out that he used to do some of the most delicately coloured designs I have ever seen. He knew the theory, knew what colours were supposed to do and so designed by the book and got someone (like me) to critique the end result. These days, I not only file numerically, I make sure each cut is numbered with a chinagraph pencil.

 

[RonHebbard]

Just wondering, has anyone tried split gel tricks with gobos in color mixing LED ERS.

@JohnD @derekleffew @Amiers Bumping this up for another pass as I thought it a very interesting question and was hoping to hear a few serious replies and spark a little discussion.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[Amiers]

Never touched an LED ERS but weve dropped in multi colored gels into a S4 with a breakup pattern to give it a stain glass effect. It doesn’t trump a glass gobo by any means but it worked for what we needed it for.

 

[JonCarter]

Seems like the time to repost the attached article, written in 2003. The advent of solid state lighting sources has made the concept slightly obsolete, but still, Rosco (GAM), Lee, and Apollo, are you listening?

Like with actual gelatin, there are probably students today (designers of tomorrow) who have never used plastic color media. The idea of describing color by calling out numbers of an obsolete line is foreign to them. Brigham 28 anyone? (Looking at youse, @JonCarter @microstar @RonHebbard et al.)

OK, Derek, two questions: Let's say we have LED instruments that supposedly can blend any color under the sun. How does a LD (who knows the look s/he wants) specify to the programmer who's inputting the numbers what s/he wants? I for one can't tell someone the RGB #s, ranging, say, from 0 to 100 or 0 to 1024 or 0 to anything else, what "Cinabex 51" is. Do I show him my swatch book? And second, is the visual effect on skin, costumes, scene paint, etc., of a tint of light made up various monochromatic (or near monochromatic) primaries the same as a continuous spectrum of light having the same visual effect?

 

[RonHebbard]

Never touched an LED ERS but we've dropped in multi colored gels into an S4 with a breakup pattern to give it a stain glass effect. It doesn’t trump a glass gobo by any means but it worked for what we needed it for.

@Amiers I've used green and yellow splits with medium and fine generic breakup gobos for a sunlight back lighting through trees look and also for the look of an exterior scene being lit by sunlight streaming down through leaves in a forest. It's often worked well for me. I was tempted to add a motion wheel but that was more resources than I had. Thanks for your post.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[SteveB]

OK, Derek, two questions: Let's say we have LED instruments that supposedly can blend any color under the sun. How does a LD (who knows the look s/he wants) specify to the programmer who's inputting the numbers what s/he wants? I for one can't tell someone the RGB #s, ranging, say, from 0 to 100 or 0 to 1024 or 0 to anything else, what "Cinabex 51" is. Do I show him my swatch book? And second, is the visual effect on skin, costumes, scene paint, etc., of a tint of light made up various monochromatic (or near monochromatic) primaries the same as a continuous spectrum of light having the same visual effect?

On the ETC Eos consoles, you can call up a color by asking for “Color, @, 5/02”. The console has existing swatch book numbers stored, with Lee as the 3rd group, Rosco the 5th, etc.... so 5/02 equals R02.

Obviously different fixtures will be better at matching, some suck. I’ve found the ETC Color Source engine to be particularly good at matching to incandescent with Gel.

You can then tweak with hue/saturation to whatever you like, then save as a color palette.