Design Uplighting for cyc

[CanYouHearMeNow]

My high school was built just 5 years ago so most of our theatre equipment is comparatively new. One thing that I am pushing for is improving our cyc. We had too many overhead strip lights that lit more of the wings then the stage so we took them down. I decided to bring up the idea of using the extra strip lights to mirror the cyc lights we have. Currently the color fades from a strong blue, red, or green to nothing if any lights are on. It lights about half of the cyc which looks..well..like a high school theatre. I would like to improve this majorly.

I would like to take the extra strip lights and aim them up the cyc to complement the lights already hung. For this I have just a few questions.

1) What is the best way to set this so that the color goes the as far as it can up the cyc.

2) We have 2 backstage electric boxes connected to the dimmer system. They are stage pin connectors and that have 3 different circuits, but are the same on each side. (so on SL they are dimmers 69,70,71 and on SR they are again dimmers 69,70,71) Instead of having to run 24 or so stage pin extensions, how can I run it cleanly.

3) What is the best way to have the gels not burn out so fast on the strip lighting below.

Thanks everybody for your tips!

 

[LXPlot]

Okay, I'm not really an expert on the subject but I do have some experience in the subject of weird striplighting combinations so...

1) Depending on how many extra strip lights you have, you could set up some on a boom to each side and use it to cover a larger amount of area.

3) Some strip lights have glass filters which don't seem to burn out unless used huge amounts of time, otherwise, my advice is to use something like Apollo's Gel shield to increase the life of them

Good luck.

 

[Call911]

The high school I work for is about 15 years old, and we did the same thing about 5 years. Here's my experiences with it:

1. To get a nice wash, you'd want the ground cycs quite a bit away from the cyc. The problem is directors and actors don't like you cutting down their stage space. What we did was we set ours even with the next closest legs (downstage of the cyc). I'll get more on this later, but it's about 5' away from the cyc. Pretty good spread, if you look you can see the shadows where they don't overlap, and it looks a little worse on video, but much better then just the down cycs.

2. On my stage we have floor boxes stage left and stage right, each side having 9 circuits for a total of 18 circuits. We already use six of these for boom side lighting, so that left the 12 mid-to-up-stage circuits for use on the floor boxes. We also have 3 circuits on our US wall for a total of 15 circuits. We use 10 3-cell fixtures, each cell being 1000w. Our dimmers are 2.4kw, so we can plug two cells into each dimmer (via twofers). This made us only needing 15 circuits, which worked our perfectly. Luckly we have a bunch of extra stagepin extension cables that were ordered when we bought our floor cycs, so it worked out for us. We just run the wires very nicely and together, and it's not that much of a hassle. Because the downstage floor boxes are used for boom lighting, we only use the mid-to-up-stage boxes, which means noone really entering/exiting the stage there. We still gaff the wires securely, and mark it with spike tape. Uses about a roll of gaff and half a roll of spike, but safety first!

Other options would be to see how many of your down cycs you can twofer together, then drop down cables from your cyc electric down to the floor cycs (through the wings, not down the middle of the stage obviously)

Just make sure you watch your load limits on your dimmers, and use the proper cable. You can't run 2 1000w lights through a standard extension cord, and definitely not through lamp cord. Only use proper stagepin extensions.

3. As for burning through gels, ours get real hot and smokey, but thats what gel does. Our biggest issue wasn't the gel burning through, but wrinkling up due to the heat and "bubbling". What we did to solve this was put a mesh-frame in the fixture instead of the regular gel frame holder. We have a mesh frame on both sides (the lamp side and the out side) and it greatly helps prevent the gel from wrinkling up and bubbling.

4. One helpful hint: white light will leak out of the fixture through the vents. You never notice it with the down cycs because they're masked by borders. When we first used the floor cycs we found the light leaking through the vents very distracting. What we did to solve the problem was to build a mini-wall that goes directly downstage of the fixtures. This is also why we line up the fixtures with the leg, it allows the mini-wall to disappear offstage seamlessly behind the leg. It's literally a wall that's about two feet tall out of plywood, painted flat-black, and has legs to support it. It's in 5 sections to make it easy to move, and the legs fold up against it to make it easy to store. Hides the light, makes everyone happy, and most people don't even notice the small-wall hiding all the lights.


Hope this helps you out! Just my experience with ground-cycs.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Some questions:

1) What are the size (wattage) of the dimmers that control circuits 69, 70 and 71?

2) What brand strip lights do you have?

3) What model and what are they lamped at?

4) 3 circuit or 4 circuit?

When you know what your dimmers can handle, and you know what wattage lamps are in your fixtures, you can then figure out how many strip light circuits you can put on a dimmer.

Floor trunnion s also should be available for these strip lights, depending on the manufacturer. As has been said, coverage will have to be determined in your space by playing with angle and distance from cyc. In general, the position that gives the best spread and results will also be in direct conflict with the directors wishes.

 

[derekleffew]

...When we first used the floor cycs we found the light leaking through the vents very distracting. What we did to solve the problem was to build a mini-wall that goes directly downstage of the fixtures. This is also why we line up the fixtures with the leg, it allows the mini-wall to disappear offstage seamlessly behind the leg. It's literally a wall that's about two feet tall out of plywood, painted flat-black, and has legs to support it. It's in 5 sections to make it easy to move, and the legs fold up against it to make it easy to store. Hides the light, makes everyone happy, and most people don't even notice the small-wall hiding all the lights.

Otherwise known as a ground row. To distinguish one from the other, the "scenic groundrow" goes DS of the "electrics groundrow."

 

[CanYouHearMeNow]

Some questions:

1) What are the size (wattage) of the dimmers that control circuits 69, 70 and 71?

2) What brand strip lights do you have?

3) What model and what are they lamped at?

4) 3 circuit or 4 circuit?

When you know what your dimmers can handle, and you know what wattage lamps are in your fixtures, you can then figure out how many strip light circuits you can put on a dimmer.

Floor trunnion s also should be available for these strip lights, depending on the manufacturer. As has been said, coverage will have to be determined in your space by playing with angle and distance from cyc. In general, the position that gives the best spread and results will also be in direct conflict with the directors wishes.

1) the circuits for the entire system are 3000 watts. (Each circuit has a dimmer rated at 3000 watts)

2) I am not sure of the brand. I believe they are Altman but I can't remember and it is not clearly marked.

3) Each individual strip has 4 lamps per circuit for a total of 12 total lamps per strip.
Each lamp is 250w for a total of 1000w per strip per "color" in my case.

4) 3 circuits per strip

Also, on my cyc now, we have 6 different fixtures but each of them is grouped with another so we have 2 SL, 2 CS, and 2 SR. It would be nice to be able to match that pattern on the ground. Not a necessity though.