Design Please HELP...light up my life!

[jacobawarren]

We are mounting a production of "The Producers" and for the rooftop/pigeon scene the designer has spec'd a “skylight unit” to be rolled on along with the pigeon coop. The unit will be about 6 feet wide and about 8 or 10 feet long and ride relatively low to the deck. The idea is that the stage deck is the roof level and the rolling skylight (along with a rooftop entry door unit) help to set the scene. This scene does take place during the day, but we do want the skylight to light up, partly for effect and partly because the skylight does need to be opaque. We don’t have a trap room so having the skylight window panes be transparent is not an option. We will use either mus. or smoked plex, backlit to create the effect. Since this unit needs to be rolled on and off, and we don’t have traps or outlets in the middle of the stage, I believe whatever lighting is happening in there needs to be battery powered. I am looking to spend not to much more than $500 on this one unit. I am the only paid technical staff at our medium sized community theatre and my background and strengths lie primarily in scenic construction and engineering. I know enough about lighting to know that what we are trying to do is very doable but not enough to know how to safely and efficiently achieve it. My head immediately went to car batteries but I know I need to match them with the appropriate fixtures and transformers and so on to make that idea work. Please help control booth!

 

[wolf825]

Since the stage set piece rolls on--have you considered using mylar behind the glass to reflect any stage light focused from the top back up at an angle? Otherwise you could be looking at some type of LED's effect in the set piece--which can be battery powered..but the lighting folks may have issues on wanting to control its intensity and on/off..

Of course if the set change allows for this to be done in the dark--a ground circuit can be run out and quickly connected upstage of the piece so the cables are not seen...or run offstage if the set piece or some element (i.e. a planter box or wall or even a small runner at floor level) carries to the wings far enough to mask the cable--and then its simple to put a few inky's in it or a 6inch fresnel connected to a dimmer and be done..


Can you give any more info that may help others help you better?

-w

 

[ajb]

When it comes to illuminating shallow light boxes (which is what it sounds like you want--I'm imagining something like this), I'd recommend silver bowl light bulbs. Paint the interior of the box white or line it with foil, and you only need a couple inches from the tips of the bulbs to your front material to get a nice even illumination. However, I'm not sure you'll be able to find any low voltage varieties, which makes running them from battery tricky--unless you just want on/off control, in which case a simple inverter will do. Or you could make your own silver bowls with low-voltage globe lamps and aluminum foil. . .

 

[rochem]

I would definitely recommend staying away from using battery power. Just mount a few units (a couple 3" inkys could do the trick, depending on the size of the skylight) to the underside of the skylight and cable them into one circuit, then just have a cable drop far upstage to power the instruments through a dimmer. Trying to do this on battery power would probably be more work than it's worth, and you would have no way to dim the skylight through the lighting console. Im not sure how the skylight will be oriented in relation to the pigeon coop, but I wouldn't think it would be too hard to run a cable upstage from the skylight to hide behind the pigeon coop. If the large cable was a problem, you could theoretically mount a small shoebox dimmer inside the skylight as well, andthen just run a DMX cable out instead of a full 12/3 power cable. If you REALLY wanted to avoid any kinds of cable runs, you could look into a wireless DMX option - but that would probably fall well outside your budget.

 

[jacobawarren]

Right now the change is not happening in a blackout and we don't want to see a chord running to the thing but I will purpose the idea of hiding the cable with scenery. I think the problem with that would be that this needs to be a very quick change and adding more elements to it will further complicate the change. In addition, there are many, many locations in this show and in turn a lot of scenic elements, limiting out backstage space significantly. We don't have any outlets in the deck and our stage is not something that we can hide a cable in. I like the idea of reflective surfaces…simple! I don’t know if I can sell the designer on it but I will try. Thanks guys!

 

[jacobawarren]

Also, this can be an on-off solution. No dimming is necessary.

 

[wolf825]

Right now the change is not happening in a blackout and we don't want to see a chord running to the thing but I will purpose the idea of hiding the cable with scenery. I think the problem with that would be that this needs to be a very quick change and adding more elements to it will further complicate the change. In addition, there are many, many locations in this show and in turn a lot of scenic elements, limiting out backstage space significantly. We don't have any outlets in the deck and our stage is not something that we can hide a cable in. I like the idea of reflective surfaces…simple! I don’t know if I can sell the designer on it but I will try. Thanks guys!

The key drawback with reflective surfaces is you don't know always 'where' the reflection is going to end up on (i.e. cyc or other scenic elements which will then just look like a bad reflection that is distracting or unnatural) and that can be hard to predetermine, or if the effect is what is desired or acceptable.. Its the most tricky to do and play around with... A fixture as mentioned before by myself and others is always the better choice--but you know your space and its limitations best to achieve what is desired and possible for budget etc--when in doubt come up with a couple of small scale mock ups at the most to see if they work before you discount everything or dump all your time into one idea which you or the designers do not know the end result over.. Folks will always have these issues until they come up with that "wireless dimmer power anywhere you want" thing we all hope for..

good luck!
-w

 

[icewolf08]

As i have done The Producers and done the rooftop scene with battery lighting....

This is really a simple battery driven device, especially since no dimming is required. I would suggest that you hit up grainger for a high capacity 12V Sealed Lead-Acid Battery, this is the kind of thing that goes in UPSs and emergency lighting. I know they have one that is like a 33A/hr battery for about $150 and if you need less capacity there is a 20A/hr battery for like $85 ish.

Then I would pick up some 12V MR-16 lamps of a WFL variety or possibly some RV/Marine A-lamps like those found here and mounting them inside the set piece. Wire them all up in parallel and stick a switch on the upstage side of the unit, simple.

Depending on the size and the surface (you mentioned smoke plexi), you may have to try out different arrangements of lamps. If you are just going for a glow, a cluster of frosted A-lamps is probably the simplest solution. You may even be able to find a couple low voltage fluorescent lamps like those used in camping lanterns that could give you a nice soft glow. You could also try hitting up the garden lighting section of home depot or Lowes, they often have interesting fixtures that can be cannibalized for projects like this!

 

[jacobawarren]

Hey thanks! I have a bunch of frosted A lamps and bases, we make light boxes often enough. I think, like you say a cluster of those would be the simplest solution since we do only need a glow. So am I to understand that this is as simple as wiring the lamps in parallel and then connecting them to the battery through a switch? Aren't A lamps meant for standard 120v power? Would they work coming of a 12v battery? Do only need a battery, switch, lamps, bases, and wiring? No there gadgets? How many could I hook up to a battery at a time?

 

[icewolf08]

Hey thanks! I have a bunch of frosted A lamps and bases, we make light boxes often enough. I think, like you say a cluster of those would be the simplest solution since we do only need a glow. So am I to understand that this is as simple as wiring the lamps in parallel and then connecting them to the battery through a switch? Aren't A lamps meant for standard 120v power? Would they work coming of a 12v battery? Do only need a battery, switch, lamps, bases, and wiring? No there gadgets? How many could I hook up to a battery at a time?

No, you can't use standard A lamps. You need to buy low voltage A-lamps like in the link I posted above and here. Low voltage A-lamps are very common in the Marine and RV market since they are designed to run on batteries or an alternator.

Yes, all you need to do is wire the lamps up in parallel and wire in the lamp and the switch. How many can you put on one battery? That depends on the size of the battery and the wattage of the lamps. On the 33A/hr battery you can run 33 amps at 12V for one hour. You could also run 66 amps for 30 minutes. So all you have to do is figure out how many lamps you need and you can figure out how much "burn" time you will get depending on the size of battery you use.

 

[ptero]

Hey thanks!

So am I to understand that this is as simple as wiring the lamps in parallel and then connecting them to the battery through a switch? Aren't A lamps meant for standard 120v power? Would they work coming of a 12v battery?

He was referring to A lamps made for marine/rv use. They are made to work on 12v. They look like household lamps and use the same medium base.

You can use the regular porcelain bases, wiring and switches AS IF you were going to run it at 120 - but load the bases w/the rv 12v lamps and run off a 12v battery. I have done his a bunch of times. Home Depot has 12V lamps in a 25w size. Two of them on a set piece would last a 20 minute scene for 4 or 5 shows before needing charging. This was with a used motorcycle battery, which isn't really optimal - though it worked for us.

6 or 8 of these would likely work for a night scene. Not so sure if they'd have the kick to read in a day scene. I like the 12v MR16 idea.


Alex slipped. What he said!

 

[kiwitechgirl]

I would definitely recommend staying away from using battery power.

Why? We run all sorts of things off battery power - including two keyboards for an 11-week run of Guys and Dolls where the band was on trucks and moved all over the stage - and very rarely have any issues (although oddly enough The Producers is our only recent musical which we haven't used battery power on!). Icewolf's solution is definitely the way to go; if you do end up wanting to use 120v lamps then you'll need an inverter to convert 12v to 120v - they're fairly common although being in New Zealand I have no idea where to suggest getting one!

 

[rochem]

Why? We run all sorts of things off battery power...

Not saying there's anything inherently wrong with battery power - it's a great solution to eliminate loose cables running all over the deck. However, as a LD, I would want to be able to control that source through the console. Does the piece need to enter/exit in black? Does the director want the intensity of the skylight piece to change during the scene? From the perspective of a ME, I would completely agree and say that battery power was the way to go. However, putting on the LD hat for a moment, I would much rather keep total control of the source through the console and live with an annoying cable run. But that's just me.

EDIT: just noticed this thread is almost a week old - I've been busy on a show for the past week and haven't had time to keep up with CB. My apologies for bringing it back.

 

[icewolf08]

Not saying there's anything inherently wrong with battery power - it's a great solution to eliminate loose cables running all over the deck. However, as a LD, I would want to be able to control that source through the console. Does the piece need to enter/exit in black? Does the director want the intensity of the skylight piece to change during the scene? From the perspective of a ME, I would completely agree and say that battery power was the way to go. However, putting on the LD hat for a moment, I would much rather keep total control of the source through the console and live with an annoying cable run. But that's just me.

If you are willing to spend the money, there are great wireless dimming solutions available for low voltage applications. I have been using the RC4 Magic wireless dimmers from theatrewireless.com for years with no issues. They are small and effective.