We had a previous thread on labelling gobos, but as the new season is starting, how are others labelling
gobo holders and accessories as they typically change what they are labelled as.
Currently, I'm using
board tape and a
sharpie. Looking at some chalk labels and a chalk pen for my accessories, but I'm out of ideas on labelling the
gobo holders.
@BlackoutGo In my Stratford Festival repertory days, we had two similar approaches; One in the ceiling coves at the Festival main
stage thrust venue and the other in the Avon
proscenium space.
The similarities and the differences.
Every
gobo lived in its own dedicated holder for each season. A
gobo'd be placed in a metal holder to suit a specific
fixture and the holder would be lightly crimped to keep the
gobo in place. The handle of each holder would be color coded with
spike tape as to which production(s) it was to be used in and
identified with a
Sharpy (Magic marker) as to which specific
fixture it belonged in. In the case of the Festival's 7 x 220 degree ceiling coves, the
gobo holders sat behind their respective fixtures.
In the case of the Avon's
FOH box booms, all
gobo holders dangled from their respective fixtures with
flat black cotton
twill tape so they were always close to
hand as you scampered up and down the attached vertical ladders. Each crew member had their own habits but most of us changed
gobo holders on our way up and exchanged
gel frames on our way back down. The Avon's booms typically had three fixtures at each elevation with the
gobo holders dangling from their tie lines and
gel frames stored in "mail-box" like holders all the way up the booms.
Bonus Info': My time in Stratford was back in the 1970's, 80's and nineties when we were still doing lighting plots by
hand and had our own in-house blue-printing machines for producing D and E size copies.
We conjured our own in
house methods to create
gobo's in lieu of specific
shutter cuts for specific fixtures for specific productions within the rep's.
Initially fixtures were focused and shuttered for each production by
hand.
This was time consuming and meant each light had to be dealt with individually while each specific set was on
stage and under reduced work lighting.
Once a design was "locked", we'd have a
gobo creation
call which worked as follows:
Gobo holders were pre-prepared with photo sensitive blue print paper inserted where a metal
gobo would eventually go.
The photo sensitive holders were stored in rugged black, light-tight envelopes.
You'd start at the top of a
boom.
Insert a
gobo holder into a
fixture.
Shine a hand-held R40-300
Watt flood lamp in the
fixture's lense for 30 seconds taking, in
effect, a photo of the fixtures shutters as set for a specific set.
All of the exposed, and labelled,
gobo holders went to the lighting design office where an assistant LD would carefully cut the exposed blue print paper to mimic the
shutter cuts. Next came aluminum or brass blank gobos coated with a photo resist intended for creating home-brew printed
circuit boards. A dedicated assistant LD then burnt his lungs out bathing the metal
gobo blanks in chemical baths which would
dissolve the non-chemically protected metals and produce custom gobos. Once fabricated and chemically washed, the custom gobos were crimped into their labelled holders and served as
shutter cuts for the entire season.
This was a MAJOR time and labor saver as it was now possible to focus lamps for specific sets in full work lighting, without having to illuminate the lamps and without having to have the set on
stage. This allowed box booms to be refocused without the lamps having to be lit and while the deckhands were striking the
current set from the
stage.
Much joy all around with the only displeased person being the one who burned their lungs out etching gobos.
It was a great technique and I believe we pioneered it right there in Stratford, Ontario.
If I've skipped over the details a little quick, don't hesitate to bombard me with queries.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
