Luke-Woods Posted February 28, 2009 Author Share Posted February 28, 2009 . Would I be a bad LD if I ignored the fact that it was an 80's show and did what I want to do which is Macs and LED pars, probably :) I would say yes you were a bad LD if the Brief was an 80's Look.. Talk to the Producer/director about your ideas using Photos etc. Then do the design They will also have ideas about look and style etc To be fair the brief was not to be an 80's look, I have taken it on myself to try and keep it as 80's as possible, They have said I can do what I want with regards to the Lighting. Thanks for all your help, The gig isn't until April so there's still time to help ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 I've posted this link agood few times on BR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPsl7RXUDOQ This one from 1992 though still shows that even with the Golden Scan's, the clubs still used the 80's gear: Very staple diet of a 80's rig: harvesters, neon, pinspots, pars, cosmos balls, Atrodiscos, helicoptors... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 I don't see too much difference from any other theatrical production - we're not talking recreating just a music event, are we? So you should approach it in the usual scene by scene style. If the 'concert' is just one part, then the scale could be smaller. If you really want to be specific. Lighting of the period was very scale specific. The Queen example is a pretty good one - there is area lighting, so the punters can see them, then there are lights for effect. If you watch the video you will see rows of PARS that group up to make one pattern with the smoke - another huge quantity do another, and so on. Some repeat in colours, or change colour and change pattern. So where nowadays we'd programme stuff with movers and hit record as one step in a sequence, in the 80s, with big budgets, you focussed PARs for each step, and just had bags of them. However, smaller venues, with smaller distances, you'd focus all the PARs and then make the coverage as even as you could - mainly just trying to avoid dark spots. One venue I worked at in the 80s still had battens, and for music events, people saw the turns lit with FOH light, and the best you could do was flash red, green and blue overhead. As I mentioned before - the 80s could mean 60s kit which was very 'theatre' compared to 80s kit that had started to get cleverer! Solar 250s are great fun - but they are disco - Apart from the acid bands and weird ones, they weren't really mainstream - and of course, are quite dim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csg Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 If you do need any discotheque type kit, I can offer harvesters, cosmos balls, astrodisco 3's and scanner banks. Optikinetics superslaves, solar 250's, white lightnings etc are also in stock, as is a number of vari*lite vl2c's feel free to pm me if I can help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_hughes Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOR_OttxqNA this is something my old boss showed me, he reckoned this was super 80's. Those mushroom light things, and flower projectors!!! and bubble machines!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbm Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 And if all else fails, Queen's "Live at Wembley" and Iron Maiden's "Live After Death" DVDs should give you an insight. As somebody so old that I was at the (1986) gig featured on Queen's "Live At Wembley" gig, and at an Iron Maiden gig on the tour that produced the "Live After Death" DVD, I can vouch for the fact that it was indeed all about Pars, Pars and more Pars, all with CP60 bulbs, and in a delightful range of colours that would be laughed these days- lime green, pink and yellow, all at the same time, anybody?. And of course ACLs, as well as blinders, strobes and profiles. Smoke, not haze, and billowing dry ice during the moody numbers. Multiple backdrops. Pyro. 'Scuse me, I'll have to finish now, I seem to have something stuck in my eye... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jram Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 As somebody so old that I was at ... an Iron Maiden gig on the tour that produced the "Live After Death" DVDI went to see Uriah Heep a few years ago (supported by Nazareth - youngest person there by a clear 20 years), as I was leaving to get my bus some guy came up to me, having spotted the World Slavery Tour patch on my jacket. "Iron Maiden - World Slavery Tour, Edinburgh Playhouse, 1984 - I was there!" he proudly slurred at me. "I was three" I said, and had to leave... Then when Maiden finally returned to the Egyptian-themed theatrics, that I'd wanted all my life to see live, they didn't play Scotland and my interest had waned sufficiently that I couldn't be doing with the hassle of getting to Twickenham. Doh. Guess I'll just have to wait for ANOTHER live dvd/album...(since they've released more than anyone else) When they played Reading a few years ago, on their "Early Years" tour, it looked (from what little was televised) like the rig was once again full of pars, in keeping with them playing a setlist culled entirely from the first four albums/first half of the 80s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbm Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 As somebody so old that I was at ... an Iron Maiden gig on the tour that produced the "Live After Death" DVDI went to see Uriah Heep a few years ago (supported by Nazareth - youngest person there by a clear 20 years), as I was leaving to get my bus some guy came up to me, having spotted the World Slavery Tour patch on my jacket. "Iron Maiden - World Slavery Tour, Edinburgh Playhouse, 1984 - I was there!" he proudly slurred at me. "I was three" I said, and had to leave... Then when Maiden finally returned to the Egyptian-themed theatrics, that I'd wanted all my life to see live, they didn't play Scotland and my interest had waned sufficiently that I couldn't be doing with the hassle of getting to Twickenham. Doh. Guess I'll just have to wait for ANOTHER live dvd/album...(since they've released more than anyone else) When they played Reading a few years ago, on their "Early Years" tour, it looked (from what little was televised) like the rig was once again full of pars, in keeping with them playing a setlist culled entirely from the first four albums/first half of the 80s. I was at the Reading festie gig too, the festival being almost in my back garden, it was 2005. Although there was a whole load of Pars, there was also a concession to the intervening twenty years of progress with a bunch of moving lights, although of course it was a festival rig, so not entirely their own lighting system. And if they're up there, you might as well use them... And yes, the World Slavery Tour, 1984, Southampton Gaumont, I was there... I fear this thread has drifted off topic and should be moved to a "misty-eyed nostalgia" thread... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trunker Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 . Would I be a bad LD if I ignored the fact that it was an 80's show and did what I want to do which is Macs and LED pars, probably :** laughs out loud **: I would say yes you were a bad LD if the Brief was an 80's Look.. Talk to the Producer/director about your ideas using Photos etc. Then do the design They will also have ideas about look and style etc Queen actually used moving lights on their 1986 MAGIC tour, so I would say moving heads would be fine. Keep it to a maximum of 4 to make life easier for yourself. I prefer ROBE to Martin Macs, but its your shout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 They did use some VL1s on that tour, yes - but they were one of only a very few bands doing so at the time, moving lights were still beyond the reach of all but the very largest of acts back then and were definitely not a typical component of a concert rig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 As someone who was there - the look of the 80s disco was the infinity mirror! Other than that, puny (by todays standards) strobes, and scanners, pinspots, and boxes and bars of PAR38s. In more expensive venues, PAR56 quite common, and rolling light curtains, helicopters and multi-axis scanners, and neon and fluoro. An important part of the look was that every effect had its own three of four channel controller, so nothing was syncronised, it was just a mess. Certainly in the area I lived in back then, the disco a mate and I rewired with the then new Zero88 Micro 4 was the first installation that had one big controller and zone switching. Rock and roll lighting was literally all parcans. I cant recall ever seeing an oilwheel at a disco, though they were definitely around, the optinkinetics solar-soomething 250 if memory serves... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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