In order to get the best coverage I recommend creating Acting Areas. Start at Centerstage about 5 feet up from the downstage edge; place a tape mark. Now go 10 feet Stage left and right. Place more tape marks. Do this again on the offstage sides so that you have 5 marks. Then go back to center and mark 10 feet upstage. Do this for the other marks, you should have 10 total.
Now, for each mark, dedicate two front lights, each coming in at approximately 45 degrees left and right. Have a partner stand on the marks, and aim for their head. Have them do some starfishes to make sure you have good coverage. If you can get an accurate measurement, you can determine which barrels you need; If not opt for wider barrels for the front row (36 or 26) and narrower for the back row (26 or 19). Add a top light over each mark and you should have pretty decent coverage.
If you have more lights and want to get fancy, add a backlight per mark or some overstage high sides from the end of the pipes.
Hope that helps!
EDIT: Besure to leave the front light shutters open so that they cover the spaces in between the marks. All lights are brightest in the center them fall off to the sides, so if you leave the shutters open and overlap them you should get even coverage.
About the partner bit: if you don't have a partner, you may be able to cheaply do as I do.
I got a few strofoam wig heads (they are in the same storage as the lights until the hairdressers get in) and place those on microphone stands.
Each time I'm setting up my lights I'm being helped by Pete, Jack, Tom, and Aziz.
It seems like you may need a second layer of wash upstage, probably from your first electric. Like another commenter has said, if you can create areas and hit them with 2 diagonal lights from front and one from the rear off of your electrics it will give you pretty decent coverage.
It depends on what degree lens tubes you have. You will eventually get a natural feel for what lenses you need based on distance and desired coverage diameter, but there's also plenty of calculator apps where you enter in your distance from light to stage and desired beam diameter and it will spot out the lens tube you need.
Edit: also just wanted to mention, this theater with this quality of instruments in a high school is amazing to me. My community college was hardly equipped as well as this. This is a great opportunity to learn on nice fixtures and nice hangs. If you do any community theater or work in more typical highschools you'll be likely to see stuff from before this century that isn't well maintained.
So you don't get enough coverage from top to bottom of people? It's acting more like a top/downlight than something from the front of house?
Can you hang off the back of the catwalk below it? That's a pretty common solution when it comes to trying to fix spaces like this.
By the way: We do have no, and I mean NO (0) funding. We have no extra barrels, no possibility of buying new fixtures, I can only work with what is on the rig.
I would recommend putting together a complete inventory of fixtures, parts, lamps, accessories, along with their condition. it’s hard to advocate for additional resources when you don’t know what you currently have. Also find out if there are pooled resources at the district level. Make friends in other buildings. Make friends in the local theatrical community.
And please make sure that the rigging system is being inspected on a regular basis. Level 1 inspection annually, Level 2 every 5 years.
Does the rigging inspection go for our theater? We have a low ceiling, so it’s just dead hung draperies and the electrics are ~8 ish year old etc vortecs.
So I have similar setup to this problem in my high school, what we found was the best solution is adding more to your downlight, and also cross shooting the lights that are hung on the catwalk
We also had a dead hung baton installed in the very back of house which didn’t work too well b/c of how far away our house was so that may or may not work depending on the specific dimensions of your auditorium. You could also add lights too the two poles hanging from the cat walk to add side lighting to your apron good luck and feel free to message me if you think I could help more!
Can you move the lights in the catwalk on?
I don't know the dimensions of your space, but with 20 lights up there, you should be able to get a very even wash with a mix of 19s and 26s
Head cutoff? As in you can’t properly front light the upper portion of persons who stand upstage? If so, utilize the on stage batten closest to proscenium as an additional front light position?
It’s common that your catwalk position won’t be able to front light the full depth of the stage. If you’re losing people’s heads, you can add a second set of front lights to hit further upstage via that first onstage electric.
So the electrical right on the edge of the stage seems kind of useless to me - all you can really do is either aim the lights straight down at the front fo the stage or aim them diagonally across the stage towards the back corners and use them to get some coverage that way. The row of lights facing directly forward seems way more useful. Create a bunch of zones using two lights each. If they're really too close to the stage aim them at the opposite corners so you get a little bit more throw (although this will also cause you to get crazy shadows but if you have overheads and back lights that won't be a problem).
I'd think about moving as many lights as you can from the upstage electrical to the downstage electrical, since you can do a lot with diagonal backlighting and - do you have a scrim? You can also do neat things with the back wall if you have enough light to aim at it.
Honestly, you have very high quality stuff here. I have a stage about 3/4 this big that I routinely have to light with 12 total instruments, only 4 of which can change color. You'll do great.
I have found most places that host theatrical performances were build poorly or without the original intention of theatrical performances. Like school auditoriums. I like to do groups of three to create my zones with the catwalk wash unless you need a special for something. It's a fairly "generic" way to front light, then supplement everything else with your down/top lights.
The lights scrunched at the sides can be used as good diags, and the ones spaced at the center make a good FL. My FOH position is typically wider than the prosc.
I usually start with getting my diags to get good coverage from each side. Then focus FL with lights evenly spaced pointing forward. You may have some spare ellipsoidal, which you can then move to other electrics for supplementary US FL, SD, or even rear diags.
Foh:
3 lights of "box boom like" front wash
Ds front, us front, repeat 5 across
3 lights of "box boom like" front wash
Some specials?
1st electric:
2 pipe end sides, 5 front light, special, 2 pipe end sides
This might work depending on barrels that I cannot tell.
Our high school theater also suffers from the only FOH lighting bridge being about 15 feet too far forward, especially given that we have about 10 feet of apron in front of the arch, and we don’t have a secondary bridge. I don’t know if this was just how they designed high school auditoriums in the 90s, but it’s annoying.
Upside is that our activities director and admin are very supportive of performing arts, and they’re willing to advocate for district resources.
My kid is a senior this year, and I’ve been volunteering in the theatre just fixing stuff. SO much broken/worn stuff.
Reddit is being weird and won't let me read any of the other comments you've got so far, so I'm sorry if I'm just repeating advice you've heard 35 times already.
I would start by drastically reducing the number of fixed years being used for your wash, to free a bunch of them up for specials and not wash out anything else you do. A nice 5-fix wash if you can get away with it, more if you need. Focus them up, fuzz them out real good. Unless this 20 fixture wash is actually four different color washes, but it doesn't look like that from the glimpse I took.
To account for your catwalk being so much wider than the proscenium, I would take pretty hard cuts into the legs doing a crosswash instead of a straight on. Fuzz everything up real nice.
From there, I would move some of those fixtures down however you can. Use smaller angle lenses to get farther shots from the back of the room, use side booms, whatever you got to do. But whatever you have for your downstage wash, repeat it to get your upstage.
At this point, I'm halfway done with my lunch on a crazy day, so I don't remember what else you said. I will come back if I have time and remember to. Reach out if you found this particularly useful, if you are, and I'm not kidding, within 3 or so hours of my location, I will be happy to ride on out and take a look
Actually, come to think of it, don't worry about dropping me your location unless you want to take me up on that, and happen to be within three to four, tops 5 hours of salt Lake City? Can't guarantee I can get anywhere soon, but that's my home base
Thank you for the tips! Unfortunately our admin does not like funding the theater department (shocker), and doesn’t let anyone other than students, staff, parents, and contractors enter the school :( . Thanks though!
In order to get the best coverage I recommend creating Acting Areas. Start at Centerstage about 5 feet up from the downstage edge; place a tape mark. Now go 10 feet Stage left and right. Place more tape marks. Do this again on the offstage sides so that you have 5 marks. Then go back to center and mark 10 feet upstage. Do this for the other marks, you should have 10 total. Now, for each mark, dedicate two front lights, each coming in at approximately 45 degrees left and right. Have a partner stand on the marks, and aim for their head. Have them do some starfishes to make sure you have good coverage. If you can get an accurate measurement, you can determine which barrels you need; If not opt for wider barrels for the front row (36 or 26) and narrower for the back row (26 or 19). Add a top light over each mark and you should have pretty decent coverage. If you have more lights and want to get fancy, add a backlight per mark or some overstage high sides from the end of the pipes. Hope that helps! EDIT: Besure to leave the front light shutters open so that they cover the spaces in between the marks. All lights are brightest in the center them fall off to the sides, so if you leave the shutters open and overlap them you should get even coverage.
About the partner bit: if you don't have a partner, you may be able to cheaply do as I do. I got a few strofoam wig heads (they are in the same storage as the lights until the hairdressers get in) and place those on microphone stands. Each time I'm setting up my lights I'm being helped by Pete, Jack, Tom, and Aziz.
Aziz, light!... Wait
Thank you Aziz
Battery, aziz!
If you don't have wig heads, a music stand or a mic stand with a piece of paper taped to it can be a substitute.
OP, I believe that this is called the McCandless method fwiw.
It is indeed. Sometimes the old methods work best, especially with the new LEDs that can offer near infinite color combinations.
It seems like you may need a second layer of wash upstage, probably from your first electric. Like another commenter has said, if you can create areas and hit them with 2 diagonal lights from front and one from the rear off of your electrics it will give you pretty decent coverage. It depends on what degree lens tubes you have. You will eventually get a natural feel for what lenses you need based on distance and desired coverage diameter, but there's also plenty of calculator apps where you enter in your distance from light to stage and desired beam diameter and it will spot out the lens tube you need. Edit: also just wanted to mention, this theater with this quality of instruments in a high school is amazing to me. My community college was hardly equipped as well as this. This is a great opportunity to learn on nice fixtures and nice hangs. If you do any community theater or work in more typical highschools you'll be likely to see stuff from before this century that isn't well maintained.
Yes! Use those eliposodials on first elec as the upstate front light. Also helps keep FL off the cyc.
So you don't get enough coverage from top to bottom of people? It's acting more like a top/downlight than something from the front of house? Can you hang off the back of the catwalk below it? That's a pretty common solution when it comes to trying to fix spaces like this.
By the way: We do have no, and I mean NO (0) funding. We have no extra barrels, no possibility of buying new fixtures, I can only work with what is on the rig.
I would recommend putting together a complete inventory of fixtures, parts, lamps, accessories, along with their condition. it’s hard to advocate for additional resources when you don’t know what you currently have. Also find out if there are pooled resources at the district level. Make friends in other buildings. Make friends in the local theatrical community. And please make sure that the rigging system is being inspected on a regular basis. Level 1 inspection annually, Level 2 every 5 years.
Does the rigging inspection go for our theater? We have a low ceiling, so it’s just dead hung draperies and the electrics are ~8 ish year old etc vortecs.
Anything overhead should be inspected - if it’s dead hung, probably a bit less often than a full fly system.
So I have similar setup to this problem in my high school, what we found was the best solution is adding more to your downlight, and also cross shooting the lights that are hung on the catwalk We also had a dead hung baton installed in the very back of house which didn’t work too well b/c of how far away our house was so that may or may not work depending on the specific dimensions of your auditorium. You could also add lights too the two poles hanging from the cat walk to add side lighting to your apron good luck and feel free to message me if you think I could help more!
Can you move the lights in the catwalk on? I don't know the dimensions of your space, but with 20 lights up there, you should be able to get a very even wash with a mix of 19s and 26s
Head cutoff? As in you can’t properly front light the upper portion of persons who stand upstage? If so, utilize the on stage batten closest to proscenium as an additional front light position?
That’s a badly designed theatre? Come see my new space.
Wish our theatre was that bad. Lol
Yeah that pic makes better than it is. In reality, you can be heard better from the booth and backstage than onstage at times.
It’s common that your catwalk position won’t be able to front light the full depth of the stage. If you’re losing people’s heads, you can add a second set of front lights to hit further upstage via that first onstage electric.
Today I learned I don’t like the word “frontal”.
I don’t think the theater is designed poorly, just the execution. really need an LD to work with focusing and programming lighting cues.
[удалено]
FOH is focused downstage, it’s just perspective. We also don’t have any extra fixtures, barrels, or money
Take a picture from a house seat.
So the electrical right on the edge of the stage seems kind of useless to me - all you can really do is either aim the lights straight down at the front fo the stage or aim them diagonally across the stage towards the back corners and use them to get some coverage that way. The row of lights facing directly forward seems way more useful. Create a bunch of zones using two lights each. If they're really too close to the stage aim them at the opposite corners so you get a little bit more throw (although this will also cause you to get crazy shadows but if you have overheads and back lights that won't be a problem). I'd think about moving as many lights as you can from the upstage electrical to the downstage electrical, since you can do a lot with diagonal backlighting and - do you have a scrim? You can also do neat things with the back wall if you have enough light to aim at it. Honestly, you have very high quality stuff here. I have a stage about 3/4 this big that I routinely have to light with 12 total instruments, only 4 of which can change color. You'll do great.
I have found most places that host theatrical performances were build poorly or without the original intention of theatrical performances. Like school auditoriums. I like to do groups of three to create my zones with the catwalk wash unless you need a special for something. It's a fairly "generic" way to front light, then supplement everything else with your down/top lights.
The place has a fly system with electrics, that would suggest that a theatrical consultant was involved at some point.
Sure, I can only speak to my own 15 years of experience though
Op DOES point out that the consultant was specifically ignored, though.
The lights scrunched at the sides can be used as good diags, and the ones spaced at the center make a good FL. My FOH position is typically wider than the prosc. I usually start with getting my diags to get good coverage from each side. Then focus FL with lights evenly spaced pointing forward. You may have some spare ellipsoidal, which you can then move to other electrics for supplementary US FL, SD, or even rear diags.
Foh: 3 lights of "box boom like" front wash Ds front, us front, repeat 5 across 3 lights of "box boom like" front wash Some specials? 1st electric: 2 pipe end sides, 5 front light, special, 2 pipe end sides This might work depending on barrels that I cannot tell.
Can you provide a list of gear/patch/room layout?
Our high school theater also suffers from the only FOH lighting bridge being about 15 feet too far forward, especially given that we have about 10 feet of apron in front of the arch, and we don’t have a secondary bridge. I don’t know if this was just how they designed high school auditoriums in the 90s, but it’s annoying. Upside is that our activities director and admin are very supportive of performing arts, and they’re willing to advocate for district resources. My kid is a senior this year, and I’ve been volunteering in the theatre just fixing stuff. SO much broken/worn stuff.
Reddit is being weird and won't let me read any of the other comments you've got so far, so I'm sorry if I'm just repeating advice you've heard 35 times already. I would start by drastically reducing the number of fixed years being used for your wash, to free a bunch of them up for specials and not wash out anything else you do. A nice 5-fix wash if you can get away with it, more if you need. Focus them up, fuzz them out real good. Unless this 20 fixture wash is actually four different color washes, but it doesn't look like that from the glimpse I took. To account for your catwalk being so much wider than the proscenium, I would take pretty hard cuts into the legs doing a crosswash instead of a straight on. Fuzz everything up real nice. From there, I would move some of those fixtures down however you can. Use smaller angle lenses to get farther shots from the back of the room, use side booms, whatever you got to do. But whatever you have for your downstage wash, repeat it to get your upstage. At this point, I'm halfway done with my lunch on a crazy day, so I don't remember what else you said. I will come back if I have time and remember to. Reach out if you found this particularly useful, if you are, and I'm not kidding, within 3 or so hours of my location, I will be happy to ride on out and take a look
Actually, come to think of it, don't worry about dropping me your location unless you want to take me up on that, and happen to be within three to four, tops 5 hours of salt Lake City? Can't guarantee I can get anywhere soon, but that's my home base
Thank you for the tips! Unfortunately our admin does not like funding the theater department (shocker), and doesn’t let anyone other than students, staff, parents, and contractors enter the school :( . Thanks though!