Moving heads for school talent show?

[Chubbs the Techie]

Wooh I leave for a couple of hours and....

 

Anyway, mrcog: thanks for that! I'll give you the photobucket link anyway linkage

I've put the power sockets where I think they are (I'm not 100% certain I'll confirm tomorow) It's a bit messy I'm sorry.

 

We will be controlling everything (sound,light and video) from about 2 metres in front of the stage to the left. This only means about 15 less seats for audience members.

 

Yes it's a rear projector, and we've tried laserish effects before with haze and it looks good. The silhouette idea is a good'un. thanks for that! An element of mystery and suspense is always fun! I've added the control point to the photo.

 

Unfortunately, I don't really know where I'm putting lights yet or where they are at the mo, because this venue hasn't been used for a time and all the lights have dissapeared to other places. I am back at school tomorow so I will probs post a list of fixtures we have and then I'll decide what we need to hire.

 

thanks mbthegreat. Schools just don't offer the proffesional experience so I may try that (obviously I'm not trying to say that I'm a proffesional ;))

 

Anyway, to give you all a rough idea:

 

Currently we have about 8 very old flood light things, about 10 or 11 fresnels, some 650W some 500W. We have (I think I was wrong before) 8 long nose 64's and 2 floor 64's. 4 Small profiles and I think 2 Source 4 profiles.

I think we only have 12 channels of dimmers however we may have 18. the system is analogue but we are going to borrow a jester 24 and an DMX-analogue converter for the dimmers.

With the hire money, so far, I think probably some more par cans and a 6 channel dimmer. A high quality haze machine, a strobe, a mirrorball maybe with some par 36's and probs then some more profiles and maybe one or more animation wheels for them or our existing profiles.

 

My other question is: where should I put the mirror ball?

 

Edit: fixed link

Edit 2: Missed the mirrorball...

[Guest]

How high up are the lighting bars? Do you not have any 1k fresnels?

 

Alex.

[niall]

Well if you dont have any spares, you could always hire in a couple of par 36s, stick them on some trussing and point them at the mirror ball. It depends where you plan on placing it. Also, yes, blinders would be better for that. A couple of powerful well placed blinders behind the bands equipment, fill the stage with haze and switch on the blinders. Band walk on in front of the blinders, creating a nice powerful effect.

 

linky, yes its small, but the best example I could quickly find

 

something like this:

 

http://photos.rawxing.org/d/11039-3/IMG_0797.JPG

 

(thats 24 650W Par 36 (I think, can't remember the type exactly, deff 24 bulbs though!), and 6 250W floods)

[Guest]

Well if you dont have any spares, you could always hire in a couple of par 36s, stick them on some trussing and point them at the mirror ball. It depends where you plan on placing it. Also, yes, blinders would be better for that. A couple of powerful well placed blinders behind the bands equipment, fill the stage with haze and switch on the blinders. Band walk on in front of the blinders, creating a nice powerful effect.

 

linky, yes its small, but the best example I could quickly find

 

something like this:

 

http://photos.rawxing.org/d/11039-3/IMG_0797.JPG

 

(thats 24 650W Par 36 (I think, can't remember exactly!), and 6 250W floods)

 

Yeh, something along those lines excpet I'd have more on the floor or rigged on slightly lower trussing.

[Chubbs the Techie]

Ooh yeh thats the effect. I like! ;)

 

The lighting bars at the side are about 10 metres high (I'm really bad with measurements) and the ones above the stage: I don't know! sorry. And no we have no 1k fresnels as I say the rig is in serious need of renewal as when we can't use the DMX controller and converter we're stuck with a very broken analogue board that's fixed in place backstage out of view of the stage!

[niall]

Yeh, something along those lines excpet I'd have more on the floor or rigged on slightly lower trussing.

 

yeh, given more time I would have done the same, but it wasn't a large crowd so it was mainly facing down towards about 10 m from the front of the stage. I suppose it's all down to the crowd, and the height of the stage. You can achieve a similar effect, or what seems like a similar effect to the audience, by having some blinder at stage level, assuming the audience is sitting on the level and not on a rake.

[Chubbs the Techie]

Do blinders need any special power supply? Also, how many do you think I would need to create the desired effect, baring in mind the audience is usually about 300-350 strong (hall is bigger than that but health and safety apparently)??? I Imagine I'd put some behind the band at the back of the stage, and some at the front of the stage? I'm sorry if I'm asking so many questions.

[the kid]

Jumping on to the topic, I think it mainly depends on how wide the stage is, we have about 8m and Could easily cover with 4 p64's, or in theory 2 molefay's.

 

Remember that to blind they don't need to be on for long as they eyes need to adjust to the BRIGHT then back to the dark. Try it out. Also remember colour blinding with red will give green, green will give red, I forgotten the other colour opposites.

[Chubbs the Techie]

I've just realised that some time ago, my local hire place started to specialize in PA and video walls, meaning that they have probably rid themselves of most of their lighting. I'm hoping not, but in the offchance they have, can anybody recommend a good hire place in yorkshire or close to york? I've already had a couple of suggestions...

 

Sounds like you have a local hire place anyway, but I'm in Leeds which isn't too far away and can reccomend ZigZag lighting and 3d productions as good places to start.

 

Edit: Bad spellings

[iamchristuffin]

What's 'your hire place' called? Maybe someone on here will be able to tell you if they've got rid of their lighting kit

[themadhippy]

Currently we have about 8 very old flood light things, about 10 or 11 fresnels, some 650W some 500W. We have (I think I was wrong before) 8 long nose 64's and 2 floor 64's. 4 Small profiles and I think 2 Source 4 profiles

About the same amount of kit I lit my first show at my current venue,a deep purple tribute band.Ok we do have a few more dimmers(and lanterns now),however with that stock 8 pars as back light,fressys as sides ,source 4's with some sort of breakups on the floor at the back,small profiles as specials and the floods as your blinders,if your using a drum riser try putting the mirrror ball under it,and use the remaining budget for crew beer

[Chubbs the Techie]

It's Yorkshire sound and light. Unfortunately they have no website ;). I went there a few weeks ago to hire some disco lighting and I could see plasma screens and trussing galore but I couldn't see much lighting... It would be good if someone actually knew though...

 

Thanks in advance

 

Edit: Crew beer indeed... :** laughs out loud **:

[Shez]

Do you know what sort of capacity of electrical supply is available to the hall?

Blinders tend to be quite power hungry and you're talking about hiring in extra dimmers too. Apologies if you already know that there's sufficient there but thought I'd just check - no point planning these things then finding you've got nowhere to plug it all in...

[niclights]

DWE 'Blinders' come in all sorts of flavours and so can vary in power requirements. Each lamp is 650W, so you can work out power and loading from that and number of cells. However, it may not be the same, but I don't see anything wrong with your idea to use 500W bucket floods - no harm in experimenting when on a budget!

 

Going back a bit with a few thoughts:

 

1 mover - pointless except for educational purpose. As in Andrews points the easiest one is to mention how much the lamps cost.

 

Basic hazer - experiment with position and fan. I would be surprised if it didn't do the job. I doubt you really need to waste money hiring another.

 

Floors - absolutely, yes! Having light coming from different directions is the key to getting a 'full' look. Much more effective than anything you'd get from 2 movers.

 

Strobes - no, to agree with others. They're not pleasant and certainly won't work as a reveal. On a similar note running blinders at full can also be very unpleasant. A quick hit at the end of a song into blackout with their natural glow is one of my favourites but for a walk-on I recommend you try your floors from behind through smoke for the silhouette.

 

Use your pars from behind with time spent on a good symmetrical focus & use fresnels for front. Profiles could either be used as spots or gobo projection.

 

 

Looking at all this I would just hire more pars and another dimmer if necessary (assuming you have power). The more you have, the more colours/lamps per colour and thus more flexibility.

[MattR]

Hey,

 

Been paying particular interest to this thread as I had a similar situation when I was at school. We used Yorkshire Sound and Light for a school production a few years ago, and like you say I'm pretty certain that they don't do much in the way of lighting now as most of the kit came from another hire company.

 

Try Innovation Productions in Huddersfield, I've used them quite a bit and are really helpful. They will deliver everything for you as well for a small fee. Other place might be Tega in Hull, they do a lot of school type hires generally with good discounts.

 

If you need any contact details etc just PM me

 

Hope this helps,

 

Matt