Design R 51 front light?

noahf

Member
Hi,

I am doing the lighting design for a production of Hair at my school, and I am wanting to use R51 as the color for the front wash.

is this a stupid thing to do? any suggestions or comments?

thanks
 
No, not if it gives you the look you are trying to acheive. Put some cuts in and see if you like it. I have seen it used in fronts before. The beauty of lighting is there is no wrong color or instrument if it gets the right look. There are rules of thumb, but nothing that can't be tried to achieves you vision.
 
What Michael said. Depending on your other systems, a neutral like R51 can give you some flexibility: if you fill with a cool, it will look warm; if you fill with a warm, it will look cool. Do you have other colour systems coming in from the front, or is R51 your only front light?
 
Should I add a secondary front wash or something?

I am limited by 9 circuits in the FOH

Looks like a fun color, but I wouldn't want it to be the only color from the front. :p

I personally would add another color, just to get a broader range of options.

Rosco suggests that R4215 goes well with 51.
 
Looks like a fun color, but I wouldn't want it to be the only color from the front. :p

I personally would add another color, just to get a broader range of options.

Rosco suggests that R4215 goes well with 51.

Once again, this is another show that is laced with drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Does not exactly scream no color pink and no color blue.

Not telling you how to do your job... and none of us will either. However, go back to the script and look what you actually want to do with the stage. Hair is a very fun show that will allow you to break nearly every lighting rule there is. Who cares what rosco says, they just make color. Who cares what some old dead guy says. It does not matter. Do what YOU want. Its the 60's man, join the tribe and go for it. Hell, pants aren't even required for the show, who says good front light is? I'm sure the band that I had on stage tonight that played Woodstock would say the same thing!
 
Sure, 51 is a lovely facelight color. I've used it a bazillion times (though not much recently, but that's another matter).

In the right circumstances, R87 could also be a lovely front color. Well, not so much "lovely" as "appropriate". Depends on the show.

Like Kyle said, what's right for Show A and what's right for Show B are very different, often mutually exclusive. I did one a couple of years ago that keyed very heavily from top with something like 363, which would probably be very wrong for something like Seussical.

Read the existing "theories" (e.g., McCandless) to understand why they prescribe what they do. Then discard the prescriptions. Use the principles you learn to develop your own Methods For Lighting The Stage, which will naturally evolve with time and look different on the surface from show to show.

Hint: The space I most frequently light only has 6 circuits out front. You can do a lot with a small number of circuits, but you have to be intentional about it. You have 9, so that's 9 things you can do from that position. With a small number like that, I wouldn't be driven to put up a second color of frontwash unless I really needed it.
 
Do you have lots of circuits over the stage? If you do, you can always color in your scenes with lots of color there. If that color makes the look you want, then thats the color you need, and you really dont need to worry about it being a stupid color choice. I lit Hamlet in Pink, Green and Blue for front light recently. Thats not really a "Shakespeare" combination by any stretch of the imagination, but it worked for the show. In my opinion, the only reason some guy came up with rules is so we can come along and break them in creative ways...
 
Yeah, I would echo a lot of what is said here. It is HAIR, it is a Musical, go wild. But I tend to go wild with tops, backs, sides, patterns, high fronts, etc. R51 is a nice front light color. I tend to always want at least one very lightly tinted front wash just for clarity on the faces of the actors. The (excellent) remount of HAIR I saw a few months ago had wonderful color and effects, but also had a very nice wash for the faces of the actors.

I hate shows where the entire show is lit in saturate colors.

But that is just me.
 
Yeah, I would echo a lot of what is said here. It is HAIR, it is a Musical, go wild. But I tend to go wild with tops, backs, sides, patterns, high fronts, etc. R51 is a nice front light color. I tend to always want at least one very lightly tinted front wash just for clarity on the faces of the actors. The (excellent) remount of HAIR I saw a few months ago had wonderful color and effects, but also had a very nice wash for the faces of the actors.

I hate shows where the entire show is lit in saturate colors.

But that is just me.

I hate that as well, because then I cant tell who is talking. Its one thing to have a "we are now lost in the dark" scene happen in dark blues but to have the whole show, I get confused.
 
When I'm teaching beginning lighting designers I always start them out with one of two color combinations.

For fun happy shows I have them use
R51 Front, R33 and R60 Left/Right

OR
For serious shows I have them use
R99 Front, R03 and R 60 Left/Right

These are not amazingly creative and you won't win any awards with them. But they work every time and they are a great starting point to teach the basic principles of multi-color mixing and design.
 
I hate that as well, because then I cant tell who is talking. Its one thing to have a "we are now lost in the dark" scene happen in dark blues but to have the whole show, I get confused.

No doubt. I once lit the rape scene in Titus Andronicus with 1 6" fresnel in R80 at 20% and 1 360Q 6x9 with a forest breakup in a near primary green at 25% (of course it was in a house of 150 with a 20'x20' stage). But it was one scene (a very gory one) with 2 or 3 lines in total.
 
Looks like a fun color, but I wouldn't want it to be the only color from the front. :p

I personally would add another color, just to get a broader range of options.

Rosco suggests that R4215 goes well with 51.

Funny if I only get one FL color I usually pick R51 or something similar. The nice thing about Lav's is yoiu can push them warm or cool depending on what else you have in the air and how you cue .
 
I've used R51 as front or front fill a few times now, I've only decided to change it before opening once because it didn't work for me. Like Grog said, Lav goes both ways well if you do it right.
 

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