Under Water

[kevinz]

My high school will soon be embarking on a production of the play "Eurydice", and in our production, there will be a river (probably about two feet wide and 6 inches deep) that runs along the front of the set. I would very much like to put lights under the water but I would prefer not to ask our producer to buy water proof lights. I've been trying to come up with ideas to Jerry rig a non-water proof light to run under water but I have yet to come up with anything besides simply building a sealed plexi-glass box around some sort of lamp, which is a bit dumb and probably wouldn't end up working. So if anyone has an idea on how to obtain the effect I'm looking for, your help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-Kevin Z

 

[BillESC]

LED or neon rope lights are waterproof and at less than an inch in diameter would probably work well for your application.

 

[lighttechie5948]

I would recommend asking a landscaper or garden designer. They might be more up-to-date on how to do this. There might be cheaper alternatives if you use a fixture meant for backyard ponds or pools or such. It's worth a try to ask.

Other than that I don't have any other ideas.

Best,
Joe

 

[lighttechie5948]

LED or neon rope lights are waterproof and at less than an inch in diameter would probably work well for your application.

I actually I like BillESC's idea better! Go with that!

 

[JD]

What type of effect are you going for? Rope lights are good for low level light. If you need some power behind the lights, you may want to lay mirrors at the bottom of the water and hit them with lights off of an overhead S4. That way, the wires and the water would never meet.

 

[MPowers]

Kevin.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but this is NOT an area to go cheap. If you want light from under the water you have two choices. Transparent bottom of water container, or commercial grade, water proof lights, cable, connectors etc. Anything less is a violation of everything a good theatre technician should stand for. You might as well hand them a plugged in hair dryer and tell them to jump in the bath.

The issue here is not that you couldn't find a way to do it, but could you find a way to do it that did not seriously endanger your own life and that of your fellow theatre family, actors and technicians alike. As a Theatre Technician we have a responsibility to make magic happen with no money and few resources. We have a duty to protect those who may not have the knowledge, common sense or ability to protect themselves. Talent has a job to do and it is not to know or understand exactly what we do, it is to trust us to make the magic and make them safe. If we tell them something is safe, they trust us. We fly them, light fires under them, give them pointy weapons and things that go bang. We can hand a loaded gun to one of them and tell them it is safe and they'll point it at themselves or another actor and trustingly pull the trigger. They trust us and we are honor bound and duty bound to honor that trust.

The point here is, to try to jerry rig under water electricity is akin to handing them that loaded gun when you know full well the round in the chamber is live and real.

I've worked in this business for more than a week end, I've flown talent 60' over an ice arena, blown 55 gallon barrels of gasoline into the sky with 10lb bags of black powder. I've made rain on stage and 20' water falls and ten foot tall pillars of flame within 5' of a performer. I would NEVER think of trying to do what you have described without commercial grade, UL listed, purpose designed equipment. It's just not worth the risk.

I admire you for wanting to find a way to make it happen and understanding the financial restrictions that dictate the reality of the situation. Knowing the reality of $$ is a thing many of us never learn. And we have to always remember, they call it show "business".

Now, take that knowledge of how the business end works, use the brains you obviously have and figure out how to make the gimmick work without putting you or them , literally on the hot seat.

 

[lightman02]

I think the LED rope light is a great idea however they can get costly depending how much you would need to get the effect you want. However are you sure the light will be seen properly up on a stage?? You want to make sure your efforts are worth it and the audience will actually be able to see your hard work.

 

[seanandkate]

Gotta agree with Michael. (Water + electricity) + high school administration = bad. You don't want to go there. If you light the river using backlight cut tight to the edge of the "river" and light the actors with low sides (hey -- it's Hades. All bets are off naturalistic lighting), you will get close to the idea you are looking for. Remember that in reality, you're not really lighting the water. That's the transparent stuff (specular reflection off the ripples aside). Your actually lighting what's holding the water in place. So use the lightest light liner you can, and it will reflect all that nice light for you safely.

 

[STEVETERRY]

My high school will soon be embarking on a production of the play "Eurydice", and in our production, there will be a river (probably about two feet wide and 6 inches deep) that runs along the front of the set. I would very much like to put lights under the water but I would prefer not to ask our producer to buy water proof lights. I've been trying to come up with ideas to Jerry rig a non-water proof light to run under water but I have yet to come up with anything besides simply building a sealed plexi-glass box around some sort of lamp, which is a bit dumb and probably wouldn't end up working. So if anyone has an idea on how to obtain the effect I'm looking for, your help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

-Kevin Z

Whatever you do, if it's over 15 volts AC, you will need GFCI protection. Because that can be complex, I recommend that you use a low voltage solution below 15 VAC. Also, if there are any 120V outlets in the "Wet Zone" of the water (you should use the article 680 NEC distance requirements), you should use GFCI's on those circuits. If there are any outlets where people can plug extension cords and use power tools in the wet zone, you should GFCI-protect those. Is there a pump circulating the water? You need to GFCI-protect that circuit.

And, remember that you cannot use standard GFCI breakers on dimmers.

Bottom line: there are a lot of electrical safety details to cover when a material amount of water is on stage. If you are not comfortable or experienced with the NEC rules, seek expert help.

ST

 

[MNicolai]

Rosco makes some nifty Litepad LED panels that are waterproof. They usually install them in counter tops or make signs with them. You may want to look into those. They come in just about any size you want up to a 4'x8' sheet, but cost a small fortune.

What I did for Metamorphoses was created the pool, water-proofed it by having a professional roofer install EPDM rubber roofing, and then he created compression fittings over two Plexiglas porthole windows in the side of the pool (below the water line). Shining into the pool from each porthole was an 11" Selador Vivid-R fixture, and some distance away the fixtures were powered from a portable GFI on a standard 20A receptacle.

I'd suggest going with a external light source shining into the water, but with appropriate safety measures should that source become wet. My electrician liked the idea of using Colorblast 12's in some areas of the set and on stage because going to them they only had 24VDC instead of the 120VAC you have to deliver to most other fixtures. Then the power supplies for the CB12's were far from the water but still were hooked up to a portable GFI.

Before everyone completely writes off the OP's idea, I should point out that I constructed a 1400 gallon pool from lumber and roofing materials, with audience members seated just a couple feet away from the pool, had LED fixtures directly next to the pool, and went through the whole water filtration process and had a large number of Source Four's within spitting distance of the pool -- at a high school -- with the buildings and grounds staff, district electrician (also a state-certified master electrician/electrical inspector), and the local fire marshal all signing off on it. It required several meetings, the right people contributing the right services, and most importantly, keeping everyone in the loop about what's going on. By the time we opened, I had the fire department in there to inspect at least 4 times, with our district electrician looking at it several more times than that.

Regardless of what you do, if you go to open and haven't received approval from the appropriate people including AHJ, you're in for a world of hurt. If they don't know what you're up to and just show up to find a bunch of light fixtures near a body of water, they can and will shut you down until such time that you can prove your design is safe and you have taken all of the appropriate measures to prevent injuries, fatalities, and fires. This could likely include an electrician having to perform Lock-Out/Tag-Out on any ground level circuits near the water.

If water is too difficult to work with or setup, you can also resort to using a trough containing cold fog, which is much easier to light, contain, and maintain a safe environment with, but is also a very different effect from that of real water.

 

[kevinz]

-Michael
Thanks for the advise. Trust me I would never dare put any sort of live electrical cable into a river of water and confidently allow an actor to plunge their head inside. I am very aware of my duties as a technician and my influence on the less competent actors. Just to clarify, my first comment/ question was not trying to alert anyone that if I didn't come up with anything better I would throw high voltage electricity into a pool of water and allow people to swim in it. I was just searching for a more creative means of achieving an effect than simply throwing a source 4 into a river and praying it doesn't short circuit or kill anyone (again never a plan of mine). I appreciate your acknowledgment of my issue, and I am glad that this web site is home to people of your intelligence and isn't filled with silly college freshman, who have less experience than me, yet still think they're master electricians who know everything about anything... ever. I have taken your comments very seriously, and although even without them I probably would not have killed or injured anyone, what you have said has really spelled out for me what exactly my role as an electrician and a light designer is and I am so much more aware of my (almost disturbingly high) level of influence over the unbelievably trusting community of actors, and for that I thank you. Sorry if this was too long and annoying, but this is just an attempt to sort of "defend" myself, simply because I take my job very seriously and I would feel bad if someone lost trust in my abilities and assumed I was a murderer handing out wet hair dryers and loaded guns.

 

[chausman]

One of my friends does lighting and staging rental as well as designing and they designed a glass staircase that would light up with some S4s. They found if they were to light it from the side onto the supports the entire piece of glass would light up. You might be able to try something like that? That keeps the light out if the water?

 

[MNicolai]

Defending yourself is a big piece of the puzzle. I had parents, AHJ, building and grounds staff, the electrician, and a ton of other people telling me I was crazy when I did Metamorphoses. Even if I got the pool to hold water, surely the porthole windows would leak. The rule from AHJ was splashing was okay, but if anything leaked, they'd have to pull the plug -- literally.

The more I had people tell me I was crazy, the more I wanted to prove them wrong. Everything said and done, it was one of the most successful shows the school has ever done, and community members said that in the last 15 years they'd not seen a more interesting production from the high school.

While a lot of schools get by using cold fog for the effect, there's something to be said about that bone chilling final scene where Midas runs into the water with the golden jump rope his daughter was using when she was turned to gold, splashes around engulfed in darkness, and then his daughter appears on the shoreline, at which point he climbs out of the pool, hugs her and begins to cry tears of joy as the lights go dark.

We actually trained Narcissus to stare into the water at his reflection for the entirety of the intermission, nearly half an hour on some nights before we got Act II rolling.

Another priceless moment was Apollo's sun Phaeton running into the theatre to the tune of Violent Femmes' Blister in the Sun, and after he ran past the front row of the audience, giving everyone high fives, he hopped into the pool and jumped on his inflatable dolphin. The audience loved it, and didn't even really mind getting splashed here and there.

There's an elegance to real water that you can't find in other effects. There's also a lot more hassle, but I know after the director and I got everything to work with water, we never would've had it any either way.

I've got photos of the set here and here that you might find interesting. Go to the second link if you want to see the pool before we filled it with water.

As a designer, I went into that show wanting to avoid water so I was pushing initially to use cold fog, but we decided water was more genuine and gave us more the effect we wanted. I know now having done it with water that I don't think I could ever, in good faith, design Metamorphoses without real water -- the effect just isn't the same.

 

[MPowers]

................ Sorry if this was too long and annoying, but this is just an attempt to sort of "defend" myself, simply because I take my job very seriously ...........

Kevin,

Definitely not too long or annoying. And you have no reason to defend yourself. As I said your intelligence and concern showed through the OP. The reason I had to post was that even the best and smartest of us are tempted at times to "prove we can come through", it's in our blood and we pride ourselves in delivering the goods in spite of money, time, adversity and having to invent a new wheel to make it happen. Your Jerry rig statement

I've been trying to come up with ideas to Jerry rig a non-water proof light to run under water

said you were being tempted, so I had to stick my nose in and remind you to stay strong. I knew you'd do it!

One thing I have to point out here, Talent (actors) trusts us, not because they are dumb, stupid or mentally impaired. We both have a job to do to create the thing we call art. They do theirs and trust us to do ours.

Theirs is to make us believe in the world we have all created, no matter how implausible. They may have had a fight with their significant other, been the victim of road rage on the way to the theatre, banged their shin in the dressing room and then go out on stage without a limp and smile as though the universe was their friend and all is right with the world. Oh, and in their spare time, remember a few hundred lines, songs, dance steps and where they are supposed to be at any given moment.

Ours is to be technical masters of the universe. If a door knob sticks in real life, enhhh, oh well. If it sticks on stage it might blow the whole surprise in a murder mystery or prevent the "discovery" of the treasure before the villain. We make the rolling wagon and the light cue happen on the same note of the music, every night, on the beat, so when the dancer steps from the door, the step is there and waiting, every time, every night, even if a wheel sticks or the other actor was a shade late getting off. We still make it happen, on time, every time, safely. When Peter jumps off the ship's mast or Elphaba defies gravity, they don't have time to worry about shackles or clips or hydraulic hoses, that's our part of the job.

It's a rather strange marriage. Two vastly different personality types working together to create a common goal. To entertain, to amaze, to transport the audience to another realm. What we do have in common is a belief in magic, the magic of theatre. And remember, the magic of theatre is the work of many magicians and that's what we all are. I'm very proud to be in this brotherhood of magicians.

 

[meatpopsicle]

And, remember that you cannot use standard GFCI breakers on dimmers.


ST

In the motion picture business we rent large GFCI, up to 400a 3ph, though they come in 100a as well with a standard bates plug. I've had whole dimming systems installed on these. They were very effective on Sorcerer's Apprentice. All had a settable threshold, which we usually kept at its max of 20ma. Obviously these aren't standard but they are GFCI ;they could provide the protection that is required in this kind of environment.

Will these pass your muster? In what way are they different than the household available GFCI, besides current capacity?

Still, I think the "mirror in the pool" is the most effective solution here.