Hello all

[MB_ED]

Hi all, my name is Ed. I hail from Bethesda Md and have checked out this forum in the past so I decided I should join so that maybe even with my limited experience I may be able to help someone else sometime. I have a couple of questions but I'll hold off on those until I have done more looking around to see if I can find the answer elsewhere within the many threads here.

I've been interested in acting/theatre for many years. I've mainly acted in small shows at my church but have performed a couple of community theatre shows as well. Most questions I may have will pertain to what I do with church equipment. I've gotten into the tech side with lighting (obviously) with a desire to provide the best lighting I can with. I've not had any complaints even though I haven't been completely satisfied with how the lighting looked. I figured if the director is happy then I'll have to be.
A brief list of what we have:
Leviton MC 6300 16 channel light board
Leviton dimmer packs ND4600
Eliminator dimmer pack
16 Par 56 300watt lights
4 Par 64 300watt lights
Luminator follow spot

I'm pretty much self taught so that should give you an idea of my skill level......not very high. I hope to change that with the aid of information I can find here.

Ed

 

[Dionysus]

Hi there Ed, Welcome to The Booth. I have to admire your realistic humility, we all start somewhere and its great that you've taken an interest in the community and the field. I think striving to make yourself better and more skilled is a great thing that should be encouraged. This is a field where we are all always learning and have room for improvement, even the seasoned pros and experts. Unfortunately I've met a few people at the entry level who think they are be-all-and-end-all experts, they will never become great. Am I blunt? oh yes, perhaps woefully so.

I started out in a highschool with no more than what you have to work with right now. Limitations can be a great learning experience, forcing you to think out-of-the-box to find solutions that fit the budget.

This is a great community full of ideas, solutions and people full of amazing suggestions from every skill and budget level.
Just combing our WIKI you can learn volumes, and watching threads in your area of interest can be quite enlightening. You might just see the solution to a problem before you ever have it yourself.

Cheers.

 

[robartsd]

Hi Ed,
I have done lighting for church productions with a similar level of equipment (a half dozen elipsoidals, a dozen fresnels, and a 12 dimmer pack on a 2 scened preset 0-10v board). As my church does not use this type of equipment for regular worship services, I'm lucky to have this much equipment availible. Our shows are typically religous pagents or contemporary plays with religous themes and do not follow any regular schedule, but it would be very rare to do more than two shows in a year. We used to use the theatrical lighting equipment to create mood lighting for socail dances several times a year, but haven't done that for quite a while. There are a few other units of my church in the area that have similar levels of equipment, but as of yet, I have not been able to make the appropriate contacts to borrow equipment from them (and don't have the infrastructure to utilize much more anyway). I've learned a lot about safety and codes from CB. I hope you enjoy participating in this community as much as I do.

 

[MB_ED]

Thank you for the welcome!!
Dionysus, I'll gladly take the WIKI suggestion for sure. I've had to think out-of-the box quite a few times as sometimes, conventional methods just don't quite get it done. Thank you, I'm always looking to learn something. If I knew everything, I wouldn't be here now would I? I never understood how involved lighting was when I was in front of them, now I know. When I come in to a tech week, I always tell the actors I'll do my very best to make them look wonderful.

robartsd, It's refreshing to see others that do the "church" production. We have branched somewhat as I also use our equipment for a synagogue that does an annual "low budget" show. We have a couple of troupes that utilize our facility for rehearsals and a show or I'll light for a weekend show. We have a few very active theatre types that have been adding to the amount of shows. We just did a Dinner Theatre with two one acts that was a huge success. I see more of this in our future which again, brings me here to see what I can do with what we have and what I can upgrade to on my small budget. I've been told I have some budget money to spend before I lose it so I need to do some research