Thom Combe
Member
Hey guys,
First time posting on control booth, I’ve had a look around at the other forum threads and I can’t quite find the sort of thing I’m looking for, so here goes with a new question. This is a very long question, but I wanted to give as much detail as I could to allow people to feel like they can give useful advice.
My sister runs a children’s drama school with several spaces for rehearsals and performances. I’m helping her sort out a very simple, but decent enough lighting rig for her largest performance space so that she can do most of her shows there, rather than always hiring out theatres.
My brother-in-law is going to be building a stage 6.25m wide by 3.75m deep , and a wall/backdrop at the back of the stage(I have attached an image from the sketchup file of the space to give you an idea of the layout. The front lighting bar will be about 2.7m out from the front of the stage, and about 3.6m above stage height, meaning that the distance from the centre of the lighting bar to the centre of the stage would be 5.1m.
The majority of performances will be children’s plays which often include a few high energy musical dance numbers.
I’m only looking to do something basic, and it all has to be pretty clean and tidy in terms of light positioning etc so that there are no trip hazards for young kids.
My basic plan was to have 4 lights across the lighting bar out the front of the stage to provide wash/spot lights for visibility of the children’s faces. Then I was thinking of 4 lights mounted at the top or near the top of the back blue wall to provide colour. It’s probably more of a small music venue type plan than a theatre plan, but as I said almost every performance will have dance numbers in it so a little bit of that club type look won’t be a bad thing.
Here’s the bit where many of you will probably say “ugh”. I want/need to go all LED for this setup. We actually still have a couple of OK traditional fresnels still installed in the old venue (the school is about to move to this venue) running on a 4 channel dimmer with DMX. However the new venue has limited power options, (no 3 phase) and they are going to be installing some air conditioning on 1 of the existing circuits, so it really needs to be able to run on one domestic style circuit (though it may be 15 or 20amps rather than 10).
My plan, as it stands is to use 4 fairly basic LED pars at the back (quad or hex with the colour mixing inside each LED as the audience will be able to see the face of these), and as for front lighting, the two options I’ve found which fit in the budget are a Chauvet SlimPar Pro VW. Thinking about this because it just has cool white and warm white LEDs to set the desired colour temperature of the white light ir produces. Thought this would be good to, obviously get as natural looking light as possible, but also help make filming (which often happens) look nice. These claim to have 2,930 lux @ 2m and 21deg beam angle. Obviously these won’t have a particularly defined edge to the beam, but do you think they’ll have enough power (4 of them) to wash a stage that size? Also a bit worried about the separate cool and warm white LEDs creating weird shadowing. This light is currently $400 AUD.
Next up I looked at Chauvet LFS-75DMX. This is obviously directed more at the mobile DJ projecting gobos, but it kind of seemed like it could achieve what I’m trying to do to. These zoom from 14-22 deg, I’ll probably need to have them at 22, and at that zoom the fixture claims 3,660 lux @2m. I thought if I softened the focus on them a little a could use them as a wash, and then tighten them up for specials. Bit worried that the white colour will be too cold or LEDish. This light is currently $500 AUD.
Perhaps 2 of each of these lights would be a better way to go? Or perhaps some completely different LEDs could give a better result? The prices above reflect the type of budget we're working within. I'm by no means committed to picking Chauvet lights, they just happened to have options (that are available here in Australia) that best fitted my idea of what might work.
Demoing these lights myself would obviously be ideal but I'm helping out from a different city, and demoing could be slightly tricky. Getting an idea from the collective experience here whether this is COULD be a workable solution would be great, and knowing whether this would most likely look terrible would also be good.
For those who made it this far, thank you, I know I could probably get more brightness and better colour temperature out of tungsten lights but I just don’t think they’re going to be an option with regards to power. Any and all advice is welcome, even if just to say that I’m totally on the wrong track. Thanks from the Gold Coast in Australia.
Thom
First time posting on control booth, I’ve had a look around at the other forum threads and I can’t quite find the sort of thing I’m looking for, so here goes with a new question. This is a very long question, but I wanted to give as much detail as I could to allow people to feel like they can give useful advice.
My sister runs a children’s drama school with several spaces for rehearsals and performances. I’m helping her sort out a very simple, but decent enough lighting rig for her largest performance space so that she can do most of her shows there, rather than always hiring out theatres.
My brother-in-law is going to be building a stage 6.25m wide by 3.75m deep , and a wall/backdrop at the back of the stage(I have attached an image from the sketchup file of the space to give you an idea of the layout. The front lighting bar will be about 2.7m out from the front of the stage, and about 3.6m above stage height, meaning that the distance from the centre of the lighting bar to the centre of the stage would be 5.1m.
The majority of performances will be children’s plays which often include a few high energy musical dance numbers.
I’m only looking to do something basic, and it all has to be pretty clean and tidy in terms of light positioning etc so that there are no trip hazards for young kids.
My basic plan was to have 4 lights across the lighting bar out the front of the stage to provide wash/spot lights for visibility of the children’s faces. Then I was thinking of 4 lights mounted at the top or near the top of the back blue wall to provide colour. It’s probably more of a small music venue type plan than a theatre plan, but as I said almost every performance will have dance numbers in it so a little bit of that club type look won’t be a bad thing.
Here’s the bit where many of you will probably say “ugh”. I want/need to go all LED for this setup. We actually still have a couple of OK traditional fresnels still installed in the old venue (the school is about to move to this venue) running on a 4 channel dimmer with DMX. However the new venue has limited power options, (no 3 phase) and they are going to be installing some air conditioning on 1 of the existing circuits, so it really needs to be able to run on one domestic style circuit (though it may be 15 or 20amps rather than 10).
My plan, as it stands is to use 4 fairly basic LED pars at the back (quad or hex with the colour mixing inside each LED as the audience will be able to see the face of these), and as for front lighting, the two options I’ve found which fit in the budget are a Chauvet SlimPar Pro VW. Thinking about this because it just has cool white and warm white LEDs to set the desired colour temperature of the white light ir produces. Thought this would be good to, obviously get as natural looking light as possible, but also help make filming (which often happens) look nice. These claim to have 2,930 lux @ 2m and 21deg beam angle. Obviously these won’t have a particularly defined edge to the beam, but do you think they’ll have enough power (4 of them) to wash a stage that size? Also a bit worried about the separate cool and warm white LEDs creating weird shadowing. This light is currently $400 AUD.
Next up I looked at Chauvet LFS-75DMX. This is obviously directed more at the mobile DJ projecting gobos, but it kind of seemed like it could achieve what I’m trying to do to. These zoom from 14-22 deg, I’ll probably need to have them at 22, and at that zoom the fixture claims 3,660 lux @2m. I thought if I softened the focus on them a little a could use them as a wash, and then tighten them up for specials. Bit worried that the white colour will be too cold or LEDish. This light is currently $500 AUD.
Perhaps 2 of each of these lights would be a better way to go? Or perhaps some completely different LEDs could give a better result? The prices above reflect the type of budget we're working within. I'm by no means committed to picking Chauvet lights, they just happened to have options (that are available here in Australia) that best fitted my idea of what might work.
Demoing these lights myself would obviously be ideal but I'm helping out from a different city, and demoing could be slightly tricky. Getting an idea from the collective experience here whether this is COULD be a workable solution would be great, and knowing whether this would most likely look terrible would also be good.
For those who made it this far, thank you, I know I could probably get more brightness and better colour temperature out of tungsten lights but I just don’t think they’re going to be an option with regards to power. Any and all advice is welcome, even if just to say that I’m totally on the wrong track. Thanks from the Gold Coast in Australia.
Thom
