Just Some Bloke Posted February 28, 2005 Share Posted February 28, 2005 Would you advise me to include a follow spot or even better two follow spots (if I am going to have a follow spot in my design I might as well have two) in my design? Thanks,<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Now, follow spots are one of those things that take a lot of thought for a designer! One of the main problems with them, which you've picked up on I notice, is that they are often "expected" in musicals and pantomimes. I sometimes get a Chief LX asking if I'm going to be using a follow spot for a show which I haven't seen rehearsed yet (he wants to do his rotas, I suppose): it's like asking "are you going to use a Source 4 26 degree?" - I don't know till I've seen a run through. Just as I may watch rehearsals and think some birdies might be useful, that's how I decide on follow spot or no follow spot. I lit 2 pro pantos this year - one used follow spot, the other didn't. In fact in this case it was partly down to the equipment available at each venue and partly to the way different directors work. My trademark seems to be to have follow spots but to use them a lot less than other LDs, so the operators can often go for their interval break 20 minutes before the end of act one as they've finished all their cues! In fact, I've got a show coming up which uses a follow spot which only has two cues in the whole show (and there are three acts!). I also like them to be either soft focussed or frosted so they are more subtle. Grease? I'd say it can be done with or without. All depends on if you've got enough kit to have a few specials, and if the director has gone for story or pizzaz! If you need more specials than you can do with the fixed rig, or you need to get that "look this guy's in a follow spot!" look then go for broke and have as many as you can get! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.henderson Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Don't know where you are but this might intrest your set designer: http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?show...t=0entry52760 Sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonChambers Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 I am only young but we did the Blues Brothers a couple of years back and we used Moving Heads for that. 1. The show looked great and the Moving Heads worked great and looked great. 2. The actors have a habit of not always being in the same place every night ! We had some actors half in the light and half not! In the end we got a desk with a joystick so we could re-position the moving head to go where the actor was - this could have been avoided with using a Follow Spot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3guk Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Just an idea for the stage. Paint it bright pink !! and then splatter it with various colours greys silvers blues ect. Looks really effective !! Ill see if I can dig out some pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickb12345 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Our Collage did Grease at the end of last year and the LD used Rope Light glued to a Plywood back to outline the word 'GREASE' which was painted on I think. I never saw the effect switched on so cant comment on how good ot looked, but Steve has started to roam this forum latley so he may well let you know himself... (thats your cue steve) Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwell2004 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Not very relevent to actually desinging Grease but, went to see grease tonight on the pro tour and I havent seen it for a few years, just wondering if anyone can tell me when they got rid of the lazer's.Just wondering as I felt the swap between old and new cars was untidy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Pink washes, lavender washes, reds and oranges with some open white = warm washes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SceneMaster Posted June 8, 2006 Author Share Posted June 8, 2006 This topic been brought back up… I did use loads of warm washes in the end and the show turned out quite well. I have never seen the pro show but lasers being fairly modern in my opinion don’t seem to fit in with the era of the show (what do people thing about this)? How were they done originally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwell2004 Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 They were used in the transition between the old grease lightining to the new one and a laser made car would appear of the front of the stage and divert the attention from the cars being changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lampie Posted June 13, 2006 Share Posted June 13, 2006 comming back to your question about other grease designs. The light design was done by Nick Richings on the european grease tour (not to be mistaken with the UK version).We used 10 Cyberlights, 12 StudioColours and 6 Techno Beams on the moving side. Conventional lighting was DS, MS and US 3 way split in warm and cold colours. If you have a chance try to use side light, but get them above head hight. In my experience the most important lighting issue is to get the seperation between the boys and the girls right. we also used two follow spots, but sometimes I wished I had three. In my opinion they are the easiest option to highlight the lead characters in a scene with lots of other actors dancing around..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 As far as followspots are concerned - I've always thought that they look really corny. Which can work very well for shows like Grease - if the production is aiming at a cheesefest. If it's aiming for a more serious angle, then maybe they aren't such a great idea. If you do use them - make sure you have good spot operators.Followspot errors are probably the most obvious and visible mistakes in lighting - bouncing, picking up the wrong actor etc - make sure your ops are confident with their cues and have really steady hands! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nat_Keiller Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 As far as followspots are concerned - I've always thought that they look really corny. Perhaps it is not followspots but more the way that the designer chooses to use them, which makes them look corny...? A soft 1/2 body shot, coloured appropriately, highlighting the face and reducing unnecessary FOH lighting gives a very different effect to a full body, open white + hard edged shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 I am only young but we did the Blues Brothers a couple of years back and we used Moving Heads for that. 1. The show looked great and the Moving Heads worked great and looked great. 2. The actors have a habit of not always being in the same place every night ! We had some actors half in the light and half not! In the end we got a desk with a joystick so we could re-position the moving head to go where the actor was - this could have been avoided with using a Follow Spot! er, haven't you just contradicted yourself? The moving heads looked great, but missed the actors? Follow spots for anything unpredictable - as in actors!Movers for things that a physically reliably located. Movers used live with a joystick look totally awful to me - one because they are lacking hysteresis - a human op can follow the actor as they speed up, slow down, change direction - but a mover, worked by a joystick is rarely capable of this. The usual result is overshoot, or undershoot, great difficulty in tracking diagonally, and worst of all, real followspots need to open and close the iris to maintain a constant beam size as the talent moves up and down stage, and I've never found a good way to do this. We have followspots based on goldenscan mechanics - nice panel at the back with faders - but the delay and lack of tactile feedback makes iris adjustment more difficult than a manual spot. If remote control of followspots was a good move, why don't people make them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick S Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Having been in the unfortunate position where I was forced to use a mover to spot cast (Chicago, it's one of those shows where you really do need a spot for a couple of numbers) due to a bad theatre design, I decided never again. Luckily for me the scene was blocked within an inch of its life, or I dont know what I'd have done :o Perhaps it is not followspots but more the way that the designer chooses to use them, which makes them look corny...? A soft 1/2 body shot, coloured appropriately, highlighting the face and reducing unnecessary FOH lighting gives a very different effect to a full body, open white + hard edged shot. Off the top of my head, I think Mary Poppins does that extremely well - a gobo FOH wash with a soft upper body spot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonChambers Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 er, haven't you just contradicted yourself? The moving heads looked great, but missed the actors? Follow spots for anything unpredictable - as in actors!Movers for things that a physically reliably located. The scenes where the movers were used for general effect looked great but the parts where the techs were following the actors didnt work in the tech rehearsal so they changed it. :o - quote of entire lengthy post edited down to something manageable. Please read and digest this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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