Les Miserables; Cost

[bigbear]

Hi Simon,

The production is coming along... OK. The mic plot would be very useful, thanks. At the moment, I plan to run all our radio mics into a sub mixer and run the output of this into two channels of the main music mix. I can then keep an overall level on the vox with one hand. The orchestra intend using electronic drums, so the loudest instrument acoustically will be a saxophone. The stage size is increasing exponentially, as the director wants a 6 foot apron, two curved walkways into the audience and cast access to all aisles and gangways. This means that lighting will have to be hall-wide and very tightly contained to avoid a blanket light over the audience.

Can anybody suggest a workable - for that read simple! - lighting scheme for this scenario, please? I want to extend the design colour palette to the whole area, but have never lit in-audience performance before. Short of bringing up the house lights, (LOL), I am not sure of the best way to proceed.

Otherwise, the 130 strong chorus are practising constantly and we have our first full technical production meeting today - 2 months to opening night!

 

[gafftaper]

Lighting cast in the house is tricky. The easiest thing to do is give up on sidelight (as that will spill on the audience) and position lighting instruments so that they shoot right up and down the aisles giving you front and back light. Keep them really tightly cut with shutters so that you are only lighting aisles. Depending on how large your auditorium is it can be impossible to light everyone. In that case just light the lower aisle sections where the entire audience can see the cast. Let the actors roaming the back of the theater wander in the dark. In some school productions I've seen the house lights brought up just a bit (20% or so) in order to help everyone see the actors wandering about. Finally, you might want to consider using followspots to light the actors in the audience. This can look great, but if the angles are wrong you will blind people so be REALLY careful about this choice.

 

[lutonbod]

Hi Simon,

Just seen this post.. I'm doing les mis and using exactly that number of mics. Any way you could email me your mic plot? I would be eternally greatful... [email protected]

Regards

Matt

 

[simoneves]

Hi Simon,

Just seen this post.. I'm doing les mis and using exactly that number of mics. Any way you could email me your mic plot? I would be eternally greatful... [email protected]

Regards

Matt

Did you get my email?

 

[bigbear]

Did you get my email?

Hi!
Yes, apologies for delay in replying, I've sent you an email with details attached.
Yours,
JP

 

[bigbear]

Sorry guys, I got totally confused by the above! I sent lutonbod a copy of our plot too. oops, must concentrate!

 

[kweary]

Simon,

Would you mind sending me your mic plot? That would great! [email protected]

Hey bigbear,

I just found this thread and I'm interested to know how your production is coming along. I did sound for a local student group production of Les Mis last summer so I'd be happy to advise if you still have any unknowns there. For the record, we used 28 wireless (Sennheiser EW100 G2 & G3) into a Behringer X32 with a Yamaha 01V as a band pre-mixer. We also automated the vocal mutes from QLab using OSC and a custom Python script. Lots of vocal mixing so your proposal of running the entire show from an iPad sounds terrifying.

I'd be happy to send you the mic plot we used for 28. We had planned for 24 but it was just too tight. Even 26 wasn't great, but 28 worked fine. We didn't have any interference issues, and iPad/laptop remote of the X32 over 2.4GHz WiFi was also reliable (but we mixed from the consoles).

Simon Eves