Hey Esoteric. I'm just trying to have a friendly debate here of my "Gafftaper Method". You've become quite the all-star new CB member this month with a lot of great new thoughts added to the community.
Please don't take this as a personal attack. I come in peace.
My theory applies
only to schools and straight theater operations. Not
road houses, clubs, concert halls, or other large rental venues where music is the primary focus. I am talking about places that don't have touring musical acts come through that require moving head lights. If you are doing concerts you need to be looking at moving heads, ignore my theory. However if you are a typical high school, college theater, or straight theater operation. These venues have very little need for moving heads... they won't need them for Shakespeare and you can't use them for Our Town. There is a big regional rep theater here in town. Light plots for their main
stage shows often include up to 600 or 700 instruments. They own NO moving head or moving mirror fixtures. They own no Seachangers. The just in the last few years purchased their first scrollers and I-cues. They do use movers sometimes but when they do they rent. Their feeling is it's far less expensive to rent on the rare occasion they need it than it is to buy and maintain on their own. Most theaters don't need to OWN intelligent gear. (I have a friend who takes this a step further and insists that no high school should own a rotator. They are only needed about once every other year, are very expensive, touchy to work with, and easy to break. But that's another topic all together.)
Let's take your example of Studio Colors for $7500 each. We'll say I'm a college that got a grant to upgrade the lighting
system and has a little money to burn. I've got good infrastructure and a complete
conventional package. First off I can't just buy one Studio Color I need to buy several to not look stupid (wow... that show had one moving head light and a
conventional wash). So lets say we squeeze $30k to buy four Studio colors. Now those are going to look cool yes. How often am I going to use them? There's the spring musical, if the music department gets their act together we may have a concert or two, and the student union may pull off a talent show... but I won't have time to program for that. So I may really use them 2 or 3 times a year. They might get used as quick specials in other shows... but those are usually effects that can be created by using other components (
dmx Iris, rotators, scrollers
etc...). So in the end I say you are spending a lot of money on equipment that will be rarely used which is foolish.
Instead of buying four Studio Colors, what could I buy for $30k? Well how about 18 Seachangers, 6 rotators and 6 I-cues. The 18 Seachangers will revolutionize the way I design shows with infinite color possibilities at my finger tips. EVERY design I do will begin with the Seachangers. Because they do any color they now free up a huge portion of my inventory to do other tasks. When the musical or Jazz night comes along,
throw a rotator and
I-cue on a
Seachanger and I've got 6 poor man's Studio Colors and still have 12 solo Seachangers left over. The Audience won't know the difference. Instead of only being used a few times a year, my $30k is at the heart of every design.
In your conclusion you said you feel cheated if you spend $15,000 and don't get moving heads or infrastructure. Well for $15,000 you are going to get two cool instruments that will look a little silly on their own. I'm going to get 10 Seachangers and have money left over. That's 10 lights that I never have to buy
gel for, I can say to the person using the theater, "do you like a
stage wash that looks like this... or this?". They get used in every show.
My method is not sexy but it's
practical. I wish we could all have lots of moving head
CMY gear. But we can't, so I say make sure you have a full
conventional inventory then focus on cool tools that you will use the most. Again, I mean no disrespect in this post and look forward to your response... debating is fun!