Simulating Incandescent Lightbulbs?

Qroxxy

Member
Hi! I'm new here and fairly new to lighting design too, but I have a question that I hope someone can help with.

I am currently in the process of designing American Buffalo and I'm using either regular incandescent lightbulbs or R-40 flood lights hanging from the ceiling as my practicals. I'm going with a basic wash and a few specials. My teacher is concerned about the light in my wash simulating the color of the light that the practicals give off as closely as possible. Originally I was just going to throw L003 in there, but I don't think that this produces the color I'm looking for. Suggestions?
 
I don't have my lee swatchbook on me so I have no idea what color you are talking about. However, on a shoe-string budget, if you chuck some R02 into the fixtures, it takes the 'harshness' out of the light. Its kinda your basic warm color that everyone I know chucks into their plot.

That being said, if you have the fixtures/dimmers/power, I would concider giving yourself at least a warm wash/cool wash to work with. Personally, I am a fan of R02 from the front warm, G830 or G870 from the front cool, R17 from the top/back warm and either G870 or a medium blue, like R68.

If you still have more fixtures avaliable, then you can start loading up with some real color, some dark blues, reds, oranges, whatever artistally works for your show.

I am writing this all without having any idea what your show is about, so take all of this with a grain of salt, however if the show is a basic drama, a warm/cool wash could help.

If you only have two extra lights, just chuck something in the blue range as a wash of the stage in addition to an R02 frontwash, so you can keep some sort of warm/cool balance, and for different scenes get different moods.


Hope this helps
 
What wattage incandescent bulb and what lamps are in the fixtures to be gelled? If you can produce those two pieces of information, you should be able find the correct CTO filter to match color temps.

I'm guessing your incandescents are approximately 2700K, and your stage lights are probably either 3050K (Long Lifes) or 3200K (High Outputs). Now this next part is a little complicated, but you should be able to get the gist of it at least. The easiest way I have found to determine the correct correction is to use Mireds. It is all simple math, anyone who passed elementary school should be able to handle, it, or anyone with a calculator and the capacity to use it. To find Mireds you divide 1,000,000 by the color temp. in degrees Kelvin. So your 2700K incandescents are (1,000,000 ÷ 2,700) or 370 Mireds, and your (let's go with) 3200K stage lamps are (1,000,000 ÷ 3,200) or 313 Mireds. Now to find the CC you need, just subtract the starting temp from the target temp (370 - 313) and you find that you need a filter that produces a shift of +57 Mireds. So the closest Lee filter would be a L206 1/4 CTO at +64 Mireds. This information is all available on this handy reference I found (which just happens to be by Lee) as well.
 
Wow, I totally misread the orrginal question. That shows me for trying to post here in my first day off in 7 weeks...
 

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