Beautiful Day

Heres a video from a recent event we lit, the song is Beautiful Day, by U2

http://www.youtube.com/user/Gpslighting#p/u/2/ZX_VoeG6A0c

Gabriel

‘Lighting for the Stage’ – a Free Article

Lighting for the stage

The following article is intended to give you an overview on how to approach a design when Lighting for The Stage with an assumption that you already have a basic idea of how to light a show. To do this, I will look at common mistakes that a lot of Lighting Designers make and then discuss the solution to this – thus showing you how to use light in the correct way to then create a great lighting design for the stage.

Over the article, we’ll look at 3 different parts.

1. Misuse of Colour
2. Timing
3. Misuse of Fixtures

Part 1 – Misuse of Colour

Over a number of years when seeing and researching other people’s designs for the stage, I have found one of the biggest mistakes a Lighting Designer can make is their choice and use of colour.

When designing and planning your show the use of colour can influence the audience in ways you wouldn’t believe. But when used wrongly, it can make your lighting have no effect on the audience, or worse, the opposite effect.

Rather than going into the technical aspect of what colour is, and how the eye sees it, I’m going to keep it simple and firstly, take time to look at our surroundings. For example, what colour makes you feel calm and perhaps even happy? Would that be a light blue? Perhaps the colour of the sky on a warm and pleasant summer’s day? What makes you feel anxious and dramatic in life – the sight of blood perhaps?  Quite often, these colours are affecting you without you even thinking about it.

Now how about the idea that you, as a lighting designer, could make an audience feel comfortable or anxious? That’s what colour can do when used correctly in any staged piece.

Use colour to influence feeling.

Changing Intensity

Here’s something else to think about: take your standard fixture in your rig to 100% of its brightness. What colour is it? White?

Now dim it to 30% of its brightness – what colour is it now? Certainly not white.

So what’s happening to your colours when you dim your lights down?

They are changing colour.

This can be used to your advantage. For instance, one of my favourite colours is L202(manufactured by Lee Filters), a common colour used in theatre lighting, but its properties change drastically when dimmed down. So much so, that you can light warm scenes with the fixture at 50% and cooler scenes with the fixture at full. Imagine what’s happening to your magenta, or blue, or red, when you dim your lights down.

It’s very hard to predict what intensity your lamps will be at every stage of the show, and even harder to sample every gel colour at every level of intensity, but if you keep this in mind, you will start seeing results.

Play with the intensity of light to create different colours.

Colouring Surfaces

Something else to consider is the lighting of surfaces and how they are manipulated by colour. Colour reflects off surfaces, and our eyes see that reflection. However, red light will only reflect off the red tints or sections of the surface. And it’s the same with the other primary colours in light, Green and Blue.

If you take your Red surface and shine a Blue light onto it, what happens? Your surface doesn’t light up, it stays dark.

Now take a surface with a mixed colour, like Orange for example. That surface has a lot of Green in it, and a lot of Red, that’s what makes the mixture. So shining a blue light onto it won’t illuminate the surface.

Now let’s look at a human face. What colour is it? For the moment, I’ll use a white male as an example -the colour is a warm shade, a light orange perhaps. What light would create most effect on the face? A good mixture of Red and Green right? Not a blue, or a Green on its own.

Personally, when designing my events, I don’t like to light the face in anything that plays with the colour spectrum too much, as one starts picking out the green and red from the face, and it doesn’t light a performer in the best possible way. It would be my choice to use more open colours – such as an L442 for a warm frontlight, or an L203 for a cooler frontlight.

It’s the same with Costumes – if you have done some research, then take a look at the colours of the costumes before planning your colours to get the most reflection out of the costumes. You are aiming to highlight the colours in the costumes, but not reflect the colours in the face. A tricky job, but it comes with making mistakes and then correcting them.

Use the right colours for reflecting the surfaces.

A colourful confrontation

Have a look HERE at the Lee Filters colour picker for some more ideas on colour.

Part 2 – Timing.

You’re watching a hero die as part of a hard hitting drama. The colours are all correct, making you feel uneasy, the lighting has homed in on the scene taking place centre stage, and you are mesmerized by what’s going to happen next. Hooked.

Suddenly a light pops up somewhere else on the stage as someone enters and walks down to the scene. This light came up so quickly that it distracted you from the intimate scene you are watching, therefore killing the suspense.

Timing is a very important tool a designer can have to make an audience feel a certain way.

Have you ever noticed that you directly affect the audience’s applause with lighting?

What happens to their applause when you turn off the houselights? They stop.

And what about after a hard-hitting scene? A very slow fade would stop them from applauding or perhaps even laughing.

You directly affect the audience in ways you may not have realised, and timing is part of that.

Now consider a gobo, rotating at a fast speed in a moving-head fixture, during a scene that’s quite subdued. Does that fit best? Perhaps, but consider timing with gobo rotation and water and fire effects, it really makes a difference.

Use timing to influence mood.

Musical timing for concerts can be slightly different. For instance, one can accentuate a song that’s particularly dragged out or epic at the end. Perhaps a fast moving or flashy state followed by a snap to black. Or static state for that last moment when the performer lands back on the stage after he or she jumped, or the drummer hits that last drum.

This can create a startling snap effect that really excited an audience.

Use timing with music to accentuate.

Huge flash on the last note of big number

Part 3 - Misuse of fixtures

Each fixture or lantern, when it was created was designed for a specific purpose. A Cyclorama Wash light was designed to light a Cyclorama, and a Fresnel was originally designed to light the performers on the stage.

What happens when you automate a profile light, or make a Moving Light? You double the uses for its original intention. Not only can the profile light output be positioned in a different place on the stage, but also change colour, shape, beam, and intensity.

So how useful is a light that can do all of that, in a one-man poetry reading? Not very useful at all. But if you put that Moving Light on a musical stage, where you need several specials throughout the performance and need to light the set in particular colours, then it’s incredibly useful.

Use the correct light for the correct application.

Using Mac700 and AlphaBeam Moving Lights as Backlight

So many designers use the latest technologies in ways that don’t do the light justice. This is, in my opinion, one of the most common mistakes a lighting designer can make. Make your design first, and then choose what fixtures will create this design most efficiently.

I hope you enjoyed this article, check back for more like this on Sound and Video.

Please forward this to a friend if you think they could benefit from the information here.

Much light,

Gabriel

Hire Offers – this month

February Offer
any lantern – half price!
(yes, that’s 50% off per hire.)

Best offer - Martin Minimac Profile

Week Rate now only £20.00 inc. VAT

As well as the Minimac Profile, the following lanterns are all half price this month. Please see our hire site for futher details, or click on each lantern listed below:-

Thomas Par64 Parcan

Cantata 11° > 26° Profile

Cantata 26° > 44° Profile

Cantata PC 10° > 45 °

Prelude PC 7.5° – 55°

Par16 Birdie

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Of course, don’t forget, for new account openings across all our range of equipment, we offer a 20% discount.

So don’t hesitate to get in touch and make the most of this generous offer!

Thanks, the GPSLighting team.

3D Projector – Barco launches compact 3D events projector

Hello all!

So I saw this,

http://www.lsionline.co.uk/news/story/Barco-launches-compact-3D-events-projector/-WI7OFS

And it made me really think, how affordable will this be for the end-user?

Ok, it makes 3D video accessible for every event, but it seems only the truly top end budget events are going to be able to afford it, so whats the alternative?

We are providing lighting, sound and video for an event in March called Soldier. We are projecting onto a screen that’s something crazy big by something crazy big, and audiences are still wowed by it, so why move on?

It’s a step in one direction, but tell me, is it forward, backwards, or something im totally missing?!

Much light,

Gabriel

Providing Radio Mics at a high-profile summit

This week saw GPS provide several radio microphones and assist with all things technical for a summit held by the one of the hi-tech industry’s leading ‘angel’ investor groups - Seedcamp, at TechHub, a new and exciting space in London for start-up tech companies, in Old Street, Central London.

We were approached by TechHub, who were hosting the event, to specify some of our high-quality equipment - Yamaha 03D Digital Mixing Console and Trantec S5000 Radio Microphones as well as a FastFold 8′ x 6′ Projector Screen various presentations. It was important that the feedback, speeches and discussions could be heard across the room and so the use of radio microphones with flexibility for everybody to be audibly heard was imperative. An early morning set up was also required with an 8.30am registration time – and so getting the equipment ready and working was paramount, but of course GPS was able to do this thus leaving a very happy client.

The day was attended by an international scope of angel investor’s looking for the next big thing in digital technology, launching both Web and Mobile Apps to the a global market. The morning opened with a short talk from Mark Prisk MP - Minister of State for Business and Enterprise, and moved onto an open discussion about how to improve government policies on investment and growth, investor relationships, opportunities and general feedback.

The afternoon saw a number of entrepreneurs pitching to potential investors hoping to win backing for their business – Dragon’s Den style. Some were established market players and others were just about to launch – all hoping for their slice of the dot.com money spinning wheel.

All-in-all, a high-profile event with some extremely influential attendees went off without a hitch – hopefully we’ll see the next big thing on the web and it was initially communicated via us.

 

Some future plans…

Hi everyone!

Gabriel here this time, I wanted to share with you some exciting plans for the next few months that all of us here at GPS are working hard towards.

How about our hire stock? I’m not sure if you saw our recent updates on our hire site for our packages, but they really come in under all our competitors making us the most cost effective decision you’re going to make this year! Check them out, I think you’d be surprised how well they might fit into your event plans and budgets.

We are always looking to expand our hire stock, and love it when you suggest a piece of equipment that you would like us to provide, so let us know.

New Office!

We’re moving to a new Office and Warehouse space in Crawley next month! We are planning on celebrating this with an enormous party that everyone’s invited to. As soon as we pin down the date, we will advertise it freely, see you there!

Technical Articles

We have plans to release basic tutorials and training articles in the next few months to keep with the GPS way of educating alongside providing. We have found that everyone can learn something new, whether it’s a simple basic item that was never fully understood, or more complex items, everything will be in these articles.

We will cover:

• How to light the stage

• A Beginner’s Guide to Live Sound Application

• The Basics of Video

Keep your eyes open for these in-depth articles that will be published on our weekly newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber yet, don’t worry! there are many ways you can subscribe, go HERE , or our facebook page to start!

Here’s to my first post on the GPS Blog, and to many more!

Gabriel

ps. heres a photo from a recent event!

Refer us to a friend!

Do you know anybody looking for technical services for their next event? Then please, refer us to a friend! We’re really proud of the relationships we’ve setup with our current clients and we want to improve on this with new clients. We’re always taking on more clients and looking to help improve the quality of anything we take on with our services.

Need to tell them what we do? The following is a non-exhaustive list:-

Lighting – Design and Production – Stage, Moving, Conventional, Architectural, Stands, Control Consoles, Portable Dimming…

Sound – Design and Production – Microphones – wired and wireless, Speakers, Stands, Sound Desks – Analogue and Digital…

Video – Design and Production, Projectors, FastFold Screens…

Rigging – Stands, Trussing, Scaffold…

Distribution – Power and Ancillary Control and Installation, Distribution, Cable…

Crew – Designer, Engineer, Technician, Manager, Rigger, Operator…

We believe that there are no limits to what a technical service company should provide – if you need any of the above, and more, then we’re the right company for you.

We want to make their event a success, just like you intended. So take a look at our website - www.gpslighting.com – or give us a call – 0208 123 0409 – or email – enquiries@gpslighting.com and we’ll be sure to get in touch promptly.