Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

[ScaredOfHeightsLD]

Hey everyone!
I hope this message finds everyone well and no massive lighting disasters have occured. Anyway, I am working on Joesph in a few weeks and am looking for some fun ideas. Particularly for Go Go GO Joseph If anyone has done the show before or if you are farmiliar with it your imput would be greatly appreciated.

FYI the Lighting Rig is as Follows if it helps: Thanks in advance mainly I'm just looking for any fun concert like effects you may have used before.

FOH Positions
-15-20 Source Fours 36 and 50 degree
four with color scrollers.
3 with Starry Night Gobos

Side Lighting
Source Four PAR WIde and Medium.

Specials
4- 19 degree S4's
Assorted Breakup gobos
Palm Tree gobos (Benjamin Calypso???)




Thanks,
Berger

 

[BNBSound]

Tryin to think... Last time I did this one (Three times last year.. yeesh) There was a disco ball, confetti cannons, and I think that was the one with the scrolling rope lights around the set pieces and the data flashers. I know none of that's on your list, but maybe that gives you some ideas. Maybe you could rent or borrow some cheesy DJ lighting effects. That particular production that I mentioned had a drum loop and we really pounded the bass for that club remix feel, maybe you could go in that direction.

 

[zac850]

I don't know the show at all, but a few well placed bump cues with your top or side positions are always nice. I've found (through experience) that FOH is a bad place to try to chase lights from and change color. IMHO it is best to keep a dim FOH wash and chase top, or, even better would be a backlight position.

Have fun with positions. Maybe start the song with harsh side light and bleed into front light. As I said, I don't know the show or the song, but just some ideas. If all else fails, program a few groups into subs and mess around with the bump buttons one night and see what looks cool.

 

[ScaredOfHeightsLD]

Maybe you could rent or borrow some cheesy DJ lighting effects.

Funny you should mention that, I happen to own a Part Time Mobile DJ business and that equipment is sitting right in my garage. Hey who would of thunk it that some great effects could be found well, right in your own garage.
Thanks for the tip

 

[lightingkid87]

Joseph ATATDC

Hey, Our school just did Joseph atatdc and I was ld/td for it. I don't know if you have a budget or not, but the suggestion of dj effects is a good one. I had a lagre budget but i stayed way under it buy renting dj equipment for effects. Some equipment I suggest is the Abyss II (Chauvet) which is a liquid/flame effect, or even some cheaper moving heads I used some minimac profiles ( which by the way are a pain in the butt ).. but some dj moving heads would simply do. Good luck.

 

[AVGuyAndy]

Joseph, what a fun play that was "Hey Hey Hey Joseph you know what they say..." Our lighting is pretty old,(and we have no budget) so we didn;t have much in terms of effects. One cool thing we did was for the Jail scene. The stage was all blue lighting with a followspot on Joseph. And it we had 2 fresnels backlighting the set. It was cool because it really fit well with the music, and you see the shadows on the ceiling of the auditorium. I figure you could do some really fast, color-changing effects for the fast songs.

One cool thing thing we did for sound (unrelated to lighting tho) For when (Elvis)Pharoah comes out at the begginning of Act 2, instead of giving the Pharoah any old bodypack, our sound guy rigged a bodypack to a stand and connected to an original Shure SS5H(or whatever the elvis mic is) The cool thing was that Elvius actually used the same exact mic at the New Haven Colliseum, where the mic was purchased from. A bit of reverb was also added to the mic. Very Cool.

 

[LDSFX]

I did that show two years ago in a theater in the round, boy was that fun Anyways here are some fun ideas I used in the production and that I have since-then thought of.

Opening: I was just looking through my gobo catalogs today for another show Im designing and I came across the "Egypt" section of the Apollo catalog. (4110, 4137, 4108, 4107, 4118) There are some great patterns there that would be great for a pre-show curtain or proscenium arch wash.

Potiphar: Depnding on the scenic and costuming designs, a nice triangle breakup wash is cool. If it is done in mainly black and whites it looks cool and is a great contrast to the isolation of "Close Every Door".

Go Go Go Joe: Make a slow, yet significant shift at athe conlusion of "Close Every Door" as the baker and butler start to bring Josph's hopes back. Then, when the chorus begins the "go go joe, go go joe.." Pull out some stops and chases fit well here along with a balyhoo on the last chorus if possible. But rememeber not to pull out ALL of the stops because you have to save something special for the MegMix (if you are doing that part)

Canaan Days: This should be a really harsh contrast from "Pharoah's Dream" I lit it very "dancy" with lots of sudden bumps and harsh pools to accompnay the tango.

Finale: If Joseph is entering on a chariot, backlight the hell out of it, accompanied with lots of fog. If the chariot is shiny, this looks really sweet.

Mega Mix: Have Fun! Try to make a different chase for each segment. I think this sequence had about 50 cues when I last lit it. This is also a time to hint at each of the lighting looks you have done previously in the show (in their respective song snippets). Towards the end of the mega mix, there is a really fast, really crazy a capella part, this is where I have found a new effect to use here. Begin with a general chase wash, then bump to a really fast scroller change, then bump to a really high intenstity strobe sequence for 1 or 2 seconds (depending on the moment in the music) then immediately restore to the full stage chase wash. This a really cool, disorienting effect that looks great on the dancers if they are doing a crazy bit of choreography. Of course, a confetti cannon or two accompnay the ending very well.

Hope all that blabbering helped.

-Nick

 

[AVGuyAndy]

What would be super-cool is flashing the stage with the color of light when they sing "And Orange, And red, and green, and blue, etc." in the opening when they are singing about his coat. There's alot that can be done with Joseph.

But you should be warned, the star of the play's ego will increase signifigantly, and he will walk around backstage with the dreamcoat on, even if he doesn't have to be wearing it.

 

[SketchyCroftPpl]

Hey are you right around Clinton / worcester Mass? I'm in sterling and I was getting a donut this morning and saw a poster / add for joseph. If you are I'll try to come and see it.

~Nick

 

[smeggie]

if you want to do the colour flashes as described earlier, you will probably need to stack up a pair [at least] of gel streams in the positions you use - then when the change sequence comes, you can line up the next colour as one is one. with some loud music, it can be done pretty quickly and with minimal kit. [may take a little time to program in properly though]

as for the jail scene, a few bars gobos with a load of smoke from high up, i.e. downlight the scene using the bars from the top of the wings, and light the stage in a very low level blue wash.

for the kings entrance, haze is great, and add some dry ice to really give the reveal great effect - i did it with red white and blue ACL's at the rear pointing to the floor . these were hung from just down of the gauze focussing incident on the gauze at the finale.


also, one thing that looked great for the prision scene was to have a bars gobo projected through the gauze from behind focussed onto jo where he sits. with the haze, it looks really good as there is an image of bars in the air and one on Jo.
have a play with it in short - some things that seem like they won't work can end up pointing you somewhere that gives a great effect.