Sunday, April 17, 2011

Lighting in My Day Job.

Although I am an engineer by training, I currently work in the media production department at a large non-profit university student ministry, InterVarsity. Most of our work is producing videos but a couple times a year we provide the technical support (sound, lighting and video) for large conferences that InterVarsity puts on for staff and students.

Doing these conferences gives guys like me a chance to use my engineering and lighting design skills as we design systems, layout thousands of feet of wiring and work to create a nice environment out of an ugly hotel ballroom.

This year I got to do the lighting design.



Although we have some high-end stage lighting equipment we have to make work with some pretty heavy limitations. I think we do pretty well though and I was happy with how things turned out at this one.

In this case, we were able to have truss hung from the ceiling of the hotel ballroom. However, give the distances we needed for back-fired projection, the truss was only about 2' out in front of the stage--not exactly the 35-45 degrees that you like to have. Given this limitation, I blew the dust off all the old 40 degree Par-56 cans we had laying around the studio (about 16), knowing that I'd need more than our 8 ellipsoidals to adequately cover the stage.

Our 4 wide ellipsoidals were used to light the stage near the vertical screen backdrop (the middle panel was a projection screen, which allowed our graphic designers to create images that conveyed the context of various parts of the conference) so that we could prevent as much spill as possible. Narrow elipsoidals were used to light signage at the backdrop and to kick some light across the stage.

For the backdrop, I modified 7 (I don't know why we have 7, but we do) color changing DJ lights that we have (Martin CX-2) by taking the lenses out (they are normally a focused light with gobo patterns) and replacing them with small pieces of fluorescent prismatic diffusers. I mounted them to a bar on the floor and uplit the background. They made great washes and I was able to do basic color mixing to change things up a bit throughout the conference.

We also had four Martin Mac 250 washes, which we put on the stage floor, allowing us to uplight the ceiling of the ballroom. I could also program movement and color changes to create various moods in the room.

In addition to the Macs, we also have two Coemar Prospots. These are some old, kind of junky, moving lights that we have. They are more of a spot light and they have a few patterns in them. They often are used to make some interesting patterns, etc on the ceiling but I decided to hang them on the truss this time. I was glad I did! They came in really handy for a couple of drama sketches and, at one point, I was able to swing one around to spotlight someone in the audience for a camera shot.

In the photos below, I used the Prospots to create some movement in a drama/music piece. By putting a photo of an abandoned factory (that I took a few years ago) we were able to create the feeling of a place in ruins. I set the Prospots to slowly rotate a fan-shaped gobo on Michael, emulating the effect of an old exhaust fan being pushed by the breeze. The sketch was very striking and moving and I was really happy with how I was able enhance that with the lighting and photography.



It was a lot of fun creating this space with light. Although I always imagine what I could do if I had more and nicer fixtures to work with, I was happy with how this turned out.
Mike


--All photos credit Matt Kirk and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Stage and Backdrop design by InterVarsity's Twentyonehundred Productions. Thanks to Michael Eubanks for allowing me to use his image.

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