[ELECTRON] (no subject)

[Andrew Back]

Hi Anna,

On (21:08 20/09/10), Anna Rhodes wrote:
> 
> Hi members,
> I have designed a stage for an exhibition/ festival to take place in October in Edinburgh.  Basically it will be made up of a large 4m x 3m x 0.5m clear perspex or tarpaulin box suspended above the performers heads.  It will be filled with dry ice and lit to resemble sky.The lighting is something I'm struggling with.  I've been considering trying to make some kind of motorised, rotating ring of filters so that the lighting of the stage will change over a period of time.  Or maybe the bulb would move along a strip of filters so that the transition from colour to colour is smoother???  I'll also need a few strong lights to light the box fairly evenly.  The idea for the stage is that the lighting changes as the colour of the sky would over a period of 24 hours but condensed to 1 hour. My knowledge of this kind of technical stuff is very basic so any help would be fantastic.Any help or advice would be massively appreciated.

I guess the obvious answer would be to use an LCD projector and if not
projecting an actual image of sky, using it to just project more simple
colours/shapes. Of course maybe this effect is too obvious or not bright
enough (IIRC very bright video projectors are quite expensive).

I'm pretty sure I've seen theatres use colour wheels with coloured gels
fitted and a geared motor to slowly rotate them. These would attach to
powerful lamps and are likely a stock item from a lighting hire company.
Then of course there are those fancy (expensive) 'moving lights' which are
electronically controlled (using DMX protocol) for position and colour - you
could hire those and a small lighting desk or laptop and USB DMX interface
and some control software. 

If you'd prefer to do something original and/or cheap you could work with
LEDs and I suspect there will be people on the list who have experimented
with mixing colours etc. That said if you want spot light intensity I'd
imagine it will start to get expensive and that incandescent lamps and
mechanically operated filters will be more attractive. You should be able to
do something with rotating disks and different coloured gel windows. Linear
tracking a bulb along strips of gel sounds like it would be harder...
Another option might be to get a glass gobo made (think fancy slide):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobo_(lighting)

Or even just get 35mm slides printed from jpegs. These might start to melt
after spending some time in a projector but if you shop around you can find
places that will do them for a few pounds each. Else you could just use up a
roll of slide film photographing the sky...

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Back
a at smokebelch.org