Design Quick Small Rock Concert Primer Request

[jmac]

Having strictly musical theater experience, I need a little basic advice for a little local rock concert I'm helping a friend do... Haven't seen the venue yet, and will bring more details when I do, but I would like to get the thought process going.

Here's what I know so far. It is a "small" black box with about 48 fixtures, "half fresnels and half lekos". The band is bringing two "sidelight booms", each with 5 (par cans presumably), and a hazer, I think. No movers.. Control is Express 24/48.

From my brief basic research so far, backlight is most important, and then some sides, all with saturated colors, and clear front specials for solos...?

Oh, the band is 4-piece, lead guitar and bass out front, keyboard and drummer USL and USR.

Band apparently likes dark blues, purples and red, and "dramatic white spots" for solos. What are good Rosco numbers in those typical rock colors. Use amber too?

So I'll guess at some ideas here, and you can react and straighten me out--

(Save a few lights for house). Say we have about 20 each, L & F to use for the band, plus the two booms. 6 lekos out front for the two leads, 2 each for KB and D (all no color?). 4-5 fresnel backlights each for each of 4 (each different color, or not)? Booms on either side DS, mainly for leads? Maybe use remaining lekos for US sides? (Are sides better up high or lower like the booms?). How am I doing?... Couple left for..?

Ok, now some other questions-

Are backs and sides typically the same colors, or not?

If we're short on dimmers, which lights can be combined?

No clue on when/how to use or not use hazer. Basic rules?

I have 8 Smart Colors with theatrical string, and two I-cues. Are these of any use here?? If so, where? If I need more channels, I could bring my Strand Classic Palette, in lieu of the house Express (which I have never used).

Control-wise, being our first try here, I think we will just try to set up different static mood per song, and bring up solo specials as needed? Is there any primitive busking or effects we might try w/o risking too much? Some basic color blinking or something? Thoughts on Express vs. Palette? How do you normally set up your submasters? (There is also mention the band has some pedal control to control the lights to the music)?? What might that be?

P.S. What are these ACL's I keep seeing mentioned? Audience blinders? Do we need/want them? I have a couple S4 pars and two S4 26/36's I could bring along too, if useful....

All right, that's alot of questions. Hopefully, I've given you enough to respond to. Can you rockies help me out?? (But don't try to take me to SoundLight territory quite yet....!)

 

[len]

Primary colors are good. In most bars, they put the same gel in each of two lights across the back, starting at the outside and working in. Until a gel needs replacing then they just grab whatever they have.

Typically, they're focused on different areas, and the two US pars that are closest to the center are focused on the drum kit.

As for ACL, it's known under various names, but basically AirCraft Landing Light, and it's basically a par with a special, very narrow beam lamp. Usually, made in a set of 4 wired in series. Although you should have individual control of them for chases. Use sparingly.

Hazer, typically turn it on and leave it alone or so. Depends on the venue, the airflow, etc. Just a judgment call.

In rock there's really no "wrong" way, only the way that looks good and is safe.

To expand on what I was trying to get to earlier, the US truss is typically a row of pars with mirrored gels. So if you have 12, it'll be something like
1 & 12 - red
2 & 11 - blue
3 & 10 - amber
4 & 9 - green
5 & 6 - open

although the colors and position are entirely up to you. It's just that most bars don't put a lot of effort into their lighting, so they use whatever gels the local store has in stock, which are usually pretty crappy.

If you can get scrollers on the existing, lucky for you. You'll have a lot more tools to work with.

As for the side lights, depending on the type of music, I'd leave them open and put in the narrowest lamp/lens I could get. Beams are good.

Finally, as for your experience, some of the better shows I've seen have been designed by people with no experience in the millieu. Seeing the same rock looks over and over is boring. Bringing in theatrical and/or corporate people to do something different is probably a good thing.

 

[soundlight]

I'd use the scrollers in pairs, so that you can bring one set up and then move to a different color on the other set. So have 2 lights with scrollers on each person, then group all of the onstage units, and all of the offstage units. This way you'll get maximum amount of colors from those fixtures. Then you can use whatever other saturated backlight colors you want in addition to those scrollers, and some saturated sidelight.

If you use the 2 I-Cues, put them on some fairly narrow (26 or whatever's closest) ellipsoidals, and use these to pick out band members for specials from the top/back. No color in these, or R02 or even R08 or R09 - experiment with what works best.

4 Source Four Pars with VNSP lenses in a fan upstage pointing towards the downstage edge of the stage would be a good proxy for a rack of ACLs.

You could use gobos for something - think about the band and how gobos from lekos would work in to the a design somehow.

As for what ACLs are, as Len said - an AirCraft Landing light lamp, produces a pencil-thin beam from a PAR46 or PAR64 fixture, wired in series because the lamps are actually 28 volts - so 28*4=112, which is around the required 115/120v.

 

[shiben]

I typically use gobos extensively, mainly for their effects in the air projected onto haze. fanning them out from the back tends to work well, or several angles over the band, to make it look sort of like you have some intelligent lights even though you dont... If you have birdies, you can do some cool effects from inside the band, or screw them into a footlight position. Lots of saturated colors, and I like making use of the bump buttons all the time.

 

[jmac]

I typically use gobos extensively, mainly for their effects in the air projected onto haze. fanning them out from the back tends to work well, or several angles over the band, to make it look sort of like you have some intelligent lights even though you dont... If you have birdies, you can do some cool effects from inside the band, or screw them into a footlight position. Lots of saturated colors, and I like making use of the bump buttons all the time.

We might be able to come up with 2-4 gobos, not sure what patterns, I have 2 in a basic leafy breakup. I do have six 100W birdies (mini spots). What would you do with them?? Thanks.

 

[jmac]

Other Questions:

What is best/typical angle for the back lights, and are they usually associated with and aimed at each band member, or set up just for a general wash of the stage?

How many colors typically in use simultaneously, on say a band member? The scrollers will add some color flexibility, but isn't it typical to be using two or three colors at the same time? So it's not like you can cut back much on number of fixtures....?

 

[soundlight]

If the band members are fairly tethered to something (be that a drum set, keyboard, microphone stand and pedal board, etc), and won't be jumping around the stage a lot, I like to aim for the band members - but I try to cover most of the downstage area where the band might be during the show. Some bands move around a lot more than others - it's all about trying to figure this out before hand, and then planning for the worst. Narrower beams pick up better with haze, but sometimes you need to flood things out just a little bit to cover the 10' radius where someone moves during the show. Or sometimes you just need a whole bunch of fixtures downstage to cover the bands that jump around a lot.

This depends entirely on the type of music, but for some bands, uplighting the band members with birdies can be cool - one on either side of the mic stand pointing up at their face. Creates a rather spooky look. Or, with a bright frontlight spot as a base, this can fill out frontlight on the face to reduce shadows.

 

[mstaylor]

Remeber the front truss will do little visually except light the act. Any color changes, movement of color etc is done from the back or sides. If you are limited in stage coverage then drop the side lights and add back and front accordingly. Unless it is a tribute/throwback band i would stay away from green. Some guys love it but it usually looks bad and covers little.

 

[jmac]

So for solo spots, are they usually handled with both, say clear front spots, plus a change in the backlight colors?

 

[mstaylor]

To be honest, R&R lighting most only use one leko to cover the solo unless you want to give him space to move a little. If you use the Express, I would put groups of colors together on a sub. Keep your specials as a single handle then if you want to bump colors you don't accidently grap a leko in the mix.

 

[jmac]

To be honest, R&R lighting most only use one leko to cover the solo unless you want to give him space to move a little. If you use the Express, I would put groups of colors together on a sub. Keep your specials as a single handle then if you want to bump colors you don't accidently grap a leko in the mix.

Yes- I don't know how much they will be moving around. OK, so if the leads get blue backlights, the others do too?

 

[mstaylor]

The front lekos are usually white, NC whatever you call it. If you want color the add additional lights but when highlighting a solo make it white. If you are going to have followspots then you can forego the specials.