I lost this post a couple of days ago, but wanted to try again. We need to have part of the set (for City of Angles) go from b/w to color to b/w almost instantly. A TD friend of mine suggested u/v paint (and makeup and costumes). I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any success, even limited with using u/v materials.
SEARCH!
There was a post quite a while ago, where someone wanted a character to go from one color to another < costume wise that is> There was a very long thread discussing the types of U/V paints etc. For this particular application it sounds like you might want to utilize some of Roscos "Invisible" paints. They have invisible Blue and green I think they have red too. It's a top coat , it goes on milky dries clear, then lights up under U/V. Ship posted an extensive bit on the differences in U/V fixtures as well. < some good reading there>
I answered that it's really expensive. Plus you have some issues if you want quick acting and intense black light. Not many of us have spent too much time playing with that stuff on a grand scale due to the cost. Have you priced the paint? WOW! Find that old thread, it's probably more than a year old but definitely a good read.
Van - I did a search and didn't come up with anything that was applicable to my question. I will dig a little deeper, but mostly just came up with paint threads.
Thanks for the advice, Gaff. U/V paint is expensive, but we aren't looking at a lot of it and we do have a pretty good budget for each show, even more when it's a musical. Nothing close to the $45,000 we had for "Gypsy, but we do all right. I was just more concerned with making the actors look right (they have to go b/w as well) against the set than the cost at the moment. After all, it wouldn't be produced until 2010 or 2011, so at this point, we're more interested in whether we can as opposed to whether we can afford it.
Sorry - I'm better now. Didn't mean to sound off like I did before - mea culpa.
Perhaps the better question would be how to do this without having the change set pieces. We toyed with having periaktois, false fronts to flip down, but my chief goal is to thave the set move easily from b/w to color and back without ruining the flow of the show.
Any thoughts that don't include u/v paint or lights?
I have to agree with the UV options spoken of in the above thread. I recently did a production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros where we had to have the show's rhino logo pop out of a black-painted wall at the end of the show. I did it with Wildfire paint and a couple of my movers. Created a really cool effect. I have, however, also used Rosco "invisible" paints and have been impressed by them. The LED option stated at the end of that thread would work, if you have a truly massive budget. However, I would say that UV would be your best option. Probably Rosco, depending on what colors you are looking for.
Gaff - thanks for the thread - I read it all and did come away with some ideas.
LD - also my thanks for your comments. We've gone the additive and subtractive lighting routes and the u/v paint still seems to offer us the best, if most expensive, option. I'm going to work some figures up based upon what everyone here has suggested and present them to the Board next month.
We discussed this in our artistic committee meeting last night and most of the folks felt the half black/white half color set was the way to go...sigh, so unimaginative, but if that's what it takes to get the muscial on board, that's okay by me. I'll just have to wrangle myself into the set design position for that show...
You can do both.
make sure that you have a black and white base coat for the set then add pastel spatter coats or, washes or what not on top of it. Then make sure that yoru actors are dresssed in neutral and do a down light wash of R-98 or one of it's buddies, along with a low natural light front wash. The medium grey should netrilize the pastels in the set. Instant Black and white.
Or at least that's how the legend goes, ( I was just a grasshopper the last time I saw this done. )I'd try a small mock up of it first with a board and an instruemt or two to see how you like it, but that will work.
City of Angles is the only show I've ever seen r-98 used it, so it hold a special place in my head. Not in my heart.
I've messed around with addititive and subtractive lighitng and paint before, I just wasn't sure I wanted to attack it on a larger scale. your suggestion could work.
You'd have loved my old theater - we had one direction who loved R-98 and R-99 he would literally ask for them for every show, which didn't really make sense in the musicals, but that didn't stop him. We used to always have one ETC loaded with one or the other, so we could tell him that yes, we were shooting it for the show.
