wemeck said:
What I want to do is have a series of small
power cables, small then width of a standard mic cable. At the end of the cable I want a mag-lite or mini mag-lite lamp. Those little suckers get bright! I want the diffusion of the
cyc to help make the "stars" distant looking. Hope that helps.
AHHH...ok..now I see what you wanna do. ok--well here is the concern that I see that you may wish to look into. Mini-mag type lights can get bright--very bright, and very hot. Check your
cyc to make sure its flameproofing is still in tact, or you can burn or scorch your expensive
cyc. Cause to get the stars to appear ANY where close to looking like stars, instead of dim blobs, you are going to need the lights to be in close proximity to the
cyc (at least 6"). Additionally--if you want to do this type of
effect you do NOT want your
cyc lights behind the cyc--or you will just reflect shadows from the cables onto the
cyc that will be visable. Its like doing shadow puppets. Do the
cyc lights from the front or regular position in a nice deep blue or something, and leave it dark behind the
cyc except for the stars. You are going to be doing a LOT of soldering to get this
effect, and especially random...however I have done something similar behind taffeta liners of tents that is safer AND gives a nice star
effect, by using simple christmas light strands hung or draped. Best way is pick a
batten behind the cyc--and hang a few runs straight down, drape a few runs in curves
etc. And get the kind of lights that allow you to pull out lamps and not kill the whole string. That way you can pull out a few if they get too much to be
in one area--thin out the stars. Twinkle lights today have "auto-faders" and microchip programs for all sorts of neat effects. There is one that I KNOW does "twinkle" where the strands have random lights that slowly
fade or twinkle. Very cool. Get them in white--and yes you can find them in regular and VERY bright
intensity. I have yet to see a town that does not have a "christmas store" or an arts supply store like Micheals or something nearby and these folks tend to
stock this stuff year round almost. That would be my suggestion so you don't risk burning down your
cyc<g>. Mini-mag lights are designed to be in enclosures--they get super hot. Xmas lights will get hot but not crazy hot like a mini-mag light will. Plus-0-you can get the x-mas lights so the
wire is white--less visable.
Any reason why you don't try this with a
gobo front projected on from a few units? The
gobo's can be overlapped using at the least two units--throw the
bench focus off so its to one area on one
unit, and another area on another
unit to make one area brighter or whatnot, add some
clear heatshield with a few 1/2" strips of R-03 or CT blue in it, and then you set a slow
crossfade between the two units, or just use a
gobo rotator on a DC
cell motor with a cross-hair ( reverse
image "+")
gobo to just ever so slightly make the stars twinkle as it rotates and the cross inturrups the stars. Just curious....
hope that first
bit of info helps ya think more on your project...
-wolf