Design Optimal position for Lighting a Cyclorama with MR16 strips

[Sony]

Searched around and couldn't easily find my answer plus I think it would be great to have this information easily accessible. I have lit quite a few Cyclorama's and I'm pretty sure I have the technique down pretty well but as always in an effort to improve my techniques I am wondering if other people have different or better techniques. So I pose this question, in my inventory I have 12 L&E 8'4" 4-Circuit MR16 Ministrips with 75w EYC lamps enough for a complete sky row and ground row on my 50'w x 22'h cyclorama. What, I ask, do you consider the most optimal Trim Height and distance from the cyclorama that these units should be placed for the brightest and most even wash over the entire cyclorama. Currently these units are set up in an RGBA configuration with Rosco Cyc Silk's.

This may be a good QOTD for our students out there.

 

[rochem]

I'll give this a shot. I've looked around in the past for any kind of definitive or authoritative word on the subject, but even the specs from the manufacturer don't really provide the greatest information for steep angle throws. With that in mind, here's what I would do, based on limited past experience and from learning from others' mistakes.

For both the electric and the ground row, I would locate the strips pretty close to the cyc, between 6" and 12" from the cyc. And although this kind of goes without saying, I would space the strips close together with just a fist's space between each. For the electric, I would trim the bottom of the units about 4' above the highest visible part of the cyc that needed to be lit. For the ground row, I'd ideally like to recess the strips into the deck by about 12" or more, but assuming that's not possible, I'd obviously locate them directly on the deck. If I was lighting the cyc directly (not as a bounce) and it was essential for the bottom-most extreme of the cyc to be well-lit, I would add a bounce or find some way to recess the strips into the deck. Thoughts?

(Someone I know actually rigged something up involving a very long mirror laid flat on the deck with the strips focused on the mirror, then bouncing up onto the cyc, which seems like a really interesting idea. Anyone done something like this before?)

 

[Footer]

Easy answer though you are not really going to like. Take the strips, put the heaviest frost in possible, and place them at the end of your stage as footlights. Unfortunately, zip strips are often sold as cyc units by many of the lighting companies out there. They must get a pretty high return on them. I have yet to use a cyc with zip strips lighting it that I like. The lamps are simply to hot spotty and there is not enough output to really cover a cyc properly. You will never get the perfect wash that you want with these lights. I know your in a new building, if you can get rid of them... do. Buy some proper cyc lights. Apollo has a new light that I demoed and worked well. Altman has the old stand by Sky-Cyc. Strand/Selecon has some great stuff as well as L&E. We all know that R40 strips also make horrible cyc lights. They work, but its not real cyc lighting. The zip strip is the same deal. They are a good fixture, just don't use them for that.

Now, there is a simple rule of thumb out there for hanging real (Sky-Cyc type) units. I know it is here on CB. Who can find it?

 

[techno89]

I would split 6 from the top and 6 on the ground. I agree with your choice of the Rosco cyc silks. I have altman mr-16 zip strips and I get an amazing wash out of them. Just put the ones that are hanging a few inchs behind but level with the cyc. Same thing for the ones on the ground. I think you'll fiind that you get a good looking wash.

Hope this helps,
Scott

 

[metti]

Easy answer though you are not really going to like. Take the strips, put the heaviest frost in possible, and place them at the end of your stage as footlights. Unfortunately, zip strips are often sold as cyc units by many of the lighting companies out there. They must get a pretty high return on them. I have yet to use a cyc with zip strips lighting it that I like. The lamps are simply to hot spotty and there is not enough output to really cover a cyc properly. You will never get the perfect wash that you want with these lights. I know your in a new building, if you can get rid of them... do. Buy some proper cyc lights. Apollo has a new light that I demoed and worked well. Altman has the old stand by Sky-Cyc. Strand/Selecon has some great stuff as well as L&E. We all know that R40 strips also make horrible cyc lights. They work, but its not real cyc lighting. The zip strip is the same deal. They are a good fixture, just don't use them for that.

Now, there is a simple rule of thumb out there for hanging real (Sky-Cyc type) units. I know it is here on CB. Who can find it?

While I tend to agree with this for larger cycs, his is only 22' tall which I think is definitely doable with top/bottom zipstrips. While it won't be completely even like it would be with actual cyc lights, the OP should be able to get sufficient saturation and, IMO, the texture isn't even necessarily a terrible thing although it obviously is undesirable at times.

 

[metti]

(Someone I know actually rigged something up involving a very long mirror laid flat on the deck with the strips focused on the mirror, then bouncing up onto the cyc, which seems like a really interesting idea. Anyone done something like this before?)

First of all, a 22' cyc shouldn't need a bounce to fill in the middle but, as a matter of academics, Mark Stanley and the NYCB have something like this. I forget the actual height but their cyc is pretty tall so they bounce light from groundrows behind the cyc off of the white painted rear wall of the theatre to fill in the middle. I think that they have probably had this setup for a decade+ at this point so all of the luminaires a positioned really perfectly. This gets them a ridiculously even wash when combined with the top/bottom cyc lights. It does mean that nobody can cross over between side stages without walking down a flight of stair, under the stage and back up again though since you would see a moving dark spot in the middle of the cyc.

 

[Grog12]

I'll give this a shot. I've looked around in the past for any kind of definitive or authoritative word on the subject, but even the specs from the manufacturer don't really provide the greatest information for steep angle throws. With that in mind, here's what I would do, based on limited past experience and from learning from others' mistakes.

I completly disagree with this statement. The specs from the manufacturer give you exactly the information you need for throws of all angles. It just requires a little math.

 

[SteveB]

Where you place your cyc lights depends on whether your using a double ended (T3) type fixture (Altman Ground Cyc and Sky Cyc as example) or a unit using MR16 lamps, with a note that recent LED type strips - Selador, Chroma-Q etc.. function somewhat like MR16's. Typical MR16 strips are the Lighting & Electronics MR16 strips and the Altman Zip Strip and come in a varied selection using MR16 as well as MR11 lamps. Strand made MR16 units at one point but has since discontinued them. Older methods of lighting cyc's and backdrops have seen PAR56 and 64 strips, as well as "borderlights" using A lamps and PAR38 or R40 type lamps. IMO, neither PAR56 nor borderlights are good choices to light a cyc.

The T3 type fixtures work best when you have distance from the cyc or whatever you choose to light. IMO, a white cyc is the toughest to light well, as the surface reflects all the imperfections in the fixtures chosen, in terms of distance between lamps/cells that cause poor blending and poor color transitions, as well as showing difficulties in the spread of the light, common to MR16 strip type fixtures. A glance at the Altman website shows the cut sheet for the ground cyc and clearly shows the coverage of the fixture as well as general illumination from a 1000w lamp. T3's provide the best coverage IMO, as long as you get the fixture placed far enough away from the cyc to allow for proper spread and coverage. 6-8 ft. is desirable, with the closer you get, the worse the vertical coverage.

MR16's using 75w, 12v lamps, were invented (EDIT: From my memory) by L&E for a Jules Fisher requirement (Dancin' ?, Will Rodgers Follies ? if memory serves- it was early 80's) on a tour for a show with a lot of flying backdrops needing to be lit. The MR16 fit the bill as it was significantly smaller then the typical PAR56 strip that might have been used in that application. PAR56 & PAR64 strips seem to be no longer manufactured by either Altman nor L&E, as a BTW. In any event the MR16 used a lot less space as well as less power.

In my experience, T3/double ended units provide for the most even coverage with the smoothest field, but are often not used well due to insufficient throw to the cyc. Thus poor vertical coverage is the result, with a center horizontal band of drop off in light intensity that going to a higher wattage lamp doesn't solve. T3's also are huge energy hogs.

MR16's make very good cyc lights when the throw distance is limited. The attached photo (which won't upload - I 'll tray again as an edit) shows a 30' high x 50' wide white cyc lit with 12 L&E MR16 strips, 6 tops with MR16, 75w flood lamps, 6 lower strips with 75w spot lamps. The color is Rosco R124 diffusion, but similar results can be obtained using R104 or Lee 228. The distance of the MR16's to the cyc in this case is 3ft-8in. Total power is 27,000 watts for a 3 color wash. The strip electric is approx. +32 to +33ft above deck. There's also a black sharkstooh scrim DS of cyc and lights.

When needing a ground row on the cyc, I stay away from MR16's as they have poor coverage for the first 3 vertical feet or so, even when using diffusion. The choice at that point is a T3 typ fixture and I just recently specified for purchase a complete set of Altman Econo-Cyc fixtures as ground rows.

P.S. Repeated attempt to upload a 807kb .jpg photo, fails. Not sure why.

So here's a Flikr link http://www.flickr.com/photos/54042690@N02/5267097219/

 

[shiben]

Easy answer though you are not really going to like. Take the strips, put the heaviest frost in possible, and place them at the end of your stage as footlights. Unfortunately, zip strips are often sold as cyc units by many of the lighting companies out there. They must get a pretty high return on them. I have yet to use a cyc with zip strips lighting it that I like. The lamps are simply to hot spotty and there is not enough output to really cover a cyc properly. You will never get the perfect wash that you want with these lights. I know your in a new building, if you can get rid of them... do. Buy some proper cyc lights. Apollo has a new light that I demoed and worked well. Altman has the old stand by Sky-Cyc. Strand/Selecon has some great stuff as well as L&E. We all know that R40 strips also make horrible cyc lights. They work, but its not real cyc lighting. The zip strip is the same deal. They are a good fixture, just don't use them for that.

As to the statement that zip strips or striplights just dont work for cycs, ETC makes striplights that are used for this a lot, and I have seen multiple professional shows make great use of them in nice, even washes on the cyc. The best cyc I have ever seen lit was lit using 24 zip strips, 12 on top and 12 on bottom, hung on what might be a custom bracket that pointed one set of 6 at the upper edge of the cyc and 6 lower on the cyc, same on the bottom. Looked amazing, but apparently swapping gels was a nightmare.

Now, there is a simple rule of thumb out there for hanging real (Sky-Cyc type) units. I know it is here on CB. Who can find it?

If I recall correctly, the spacing between units should be the same as the distance from the cyc to the instrument, so if you need to cover a 50' drop with 10 units, they should be on 5' centers and 5' off the drop. Obviously, if you only had 5 units, they would move to 10' centers 10' off the drop.

Now, for the striplights in the OP's situation, you have more than enough lights to make a solid line under and over the drop, which would give you 8'3" centers. I would put them at most 2' (probably closer to 1') off the cyc, with some diffusion in addition to the silk. One thing to consider is you will probably (unless you have a trench for the lights to go into) want to build a 12" - 24" tall masking flat of some sort the entire length of the cyc, and perhaps place your last border and leg sets DS of the cyc LX pipe, and having all 4 masking pieces in place, make your cyc look a bit smaller. Obviously the black on the ground is not ideal, but otherwise you can see the lights, which a lot of directors dont like either. Trenches are the better option for this, or just always building platforms in the back. Anyhow, with that first little bit taken care of, you ought not need to worry too much about a very even cyc, because careful focusing and proper diffusion should take care of the rest.

 

[calkew5]

I have to agree that I have never done a cyc with MR-16 strips that I was happy with. You "scrape" up from the top or bottom and your coverage dies off before you get to the center. You try to get some distance between strips and cyc and you get hot spots that look kind of okay during the run but make your portfolio shots almost unnacceptably bad. When I find myself in the situation where I have nothing but strips, I usually put them on the ground, as close as possible to the cyc, and point them almost straight up. This creates a gradient of brightness from bottom to top that isn't a wall of color like you want from a cyc, but at least doesn't make you look like a bad lighting designer.

 

[kicknargel]

I remember learning, but am not sure if it's actually true, that mini strips used for cyc lighting have (or should have) a spot and flood pair in each cell, to help throw more light to the far end of the cyc. Anyone heard of this? Am I making it up?

 

[SteveB]

I remember learning, but am not sure if it's actually true, that mini strips used for cyc lighting have (or should have) a spot and flood pair in each cell, to help throw more light to the far end of the cyc. Anyone heard of this? Am I making it up?

I have never seen nor heard of this and can't imagine it helping the coverage. It's certainly possible to mix and match lamp types, but that would leave a very spotty image. The photo I put on the Flikr page, has (as noted) 6 units with flood lamps focused on the top of the cyc, and 6 units with spot lamps focused on the middle to bottom of the cyc. The units hang on a double trunion hanger, what L&E now calls a double strip-pair, piggyback. One key to the smooth coverage is the use of the linear diffusion that spreads the coverage vertically to provide better blending between the flood and spot fixtures. We spend some time getting the focus correct and then lock the hell out of the T handles.

 

[tjrobb]

We had good success (IMO) with our last show. Be aware, the whole setup was covered for the bottom 2' with platforming so a lot of the scalloping was hidden. We used Selecon's Aurora units from above & in front, only 4' away at 1kW per cell, and the (75W flood) MR16's from L&E from behind and below at ~12" away (our cyc was floating off the deck for unrelated reasons and was thus swinging mildly). With a minimum of tilt, and no diffusion, the coverage on the ~22' cyc was quite lovely, but it took a bit of tweaking to make the bottom look smooth.