HELP, info needed: LED star backdrop (scrim material)

[Razzy]

Hi there, I just finished sitting down with our designer for our show of Transit of Venus, in a black box space. One of her ideas is to have small lights giving a star effect, behind a sharktooth scrim material (there are several rectangular frames, which she wants to do this to). The main purpose of using the sharktooth scrim material is to be able to see a hanging sky boarder behind the box frames.

Now for my questions.

1: Is there any starlight led setups out there that currently use black sharktooth scrim or other black scrim fabric as its material instead of a heavy wool clothe.

2: If not, is there any decent twinkling led lights, that use a smaller gauge wire (as to not take away from the backdrop behind it)?

Thank you for your help!

Razzy,

also see you all at LDI first vacation in 5 years, and first airplane ride, and first trip outside of Canada.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I have not seen any LED scrim back drops, but I don't think it will give as clean an effect as your are looking for. My suggestion would be to make/rent a fiber optic sky drop and put the scrim downstage of that if you are really intent on that. Fiber optic will look better in my opinion as the sources of light as less christmas lighty than LEDS.

just my 2cents.

 

[derekleffew]

See also this thread: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/special-f-x/4570-star-curtains.html .

 

[Raktor]

Not sure how on the money I am about what you're after... but the starcloths I've seen are pretty messy on the back; wires going everywhere, control boxes etc.

So a transparent one wouldn't look that brilliant.

 

[cdub260]

For the effect you're looking for, I would recommend that you use an old school, low tech method. Get a bunch of clear plastic, faceted beads and some monofilament. Hang the beads on the monofilament, and light them with some tightly shuttered lekos from the side, top or bottom. This method is very labor intensive, so be prepared to spend a couple of days working on it, but if you are fairly creative in how you hang the beads, you'll end up with a reliable, random twinkling star effect.

 

[CavezziMagnum]

Razzy,

I work with LEDs frequently. I recommend getting Christmas Lights. Yes, they make LED versions of these sexy devices in various lengths. They come in multi-color, white, and the "true white" (the blidning kind).

If you want something more precise, I would also suggest using Zip cord, and using add-a-taps to then plug in tiny sockets, where you can install mini-bulbs.

 

[mbandgeek]

I too recommend christmas lights. We used some for a show we did. We taped every second and third bulb. after that, we placed them in a random pattern garden net and binder clipped them to the net.

Worked really well, and it looked awesome. The best thing is that it is cheap. Couple more tips. if you do get a transparent star drop, make sure you put a black curtain behind it. (not sure if this is possible your black box.) We found that if we didn't have something behind it, you could see the individual strands of lights.

 

[Footer]

The electrics dept at the last theatre I was at built a transparent star drop out of opera netting. They used fibers, about 4-5 ends per square foot. They built it on a paint frame, it turned out pretty well. It was not too easy to move around, but it did work. Basically, they built the bundles and then attached them with zip ties to the netting. They used a good number of ties. When lit it was not visible, though when running the cyc at full I believe that they flew it out.