Lighting Godspell
3 Comments Published by Camron Ware - Visual Worshiper December 16th, 2008 in Lighting DesignThis past week I got to light Godspell put on by Faith Christian School in Grapevine, TX. The director of arts there is also my former youth pastor, Scott Werntz, who also runs a non-profit that serves and ministers to youth around the globe. Scott was able to acquire set piece and costumes from a real Broadway show for this; and he did an incredible job transforming the ‘little black box’ theater into a run-down apartment building in New York.
This was my fourth production with these kids; and they are just a blast. A few guys from the Dallas Summer Musicals showed up one night and were blown away. Such a fun group of kids!
Lighting the show was one of the most fun and interesting yet. There were 9 windows plus a door that all needed to be lit individually, and isolated from the rest of the set. Given the angles and line of sight for the audience, this meant getting creative as to where to put the fixtures. Some of the lights were right above the audience’s heads. Yikes.
We ended up have (8), 8-foot truss towers around the room, each with a Mac 550 moving light. On the stage, 16 Coemar PARLite LEDs for color candy. Add in about 24 Source Four ellipsoidals, and we’ve got a pretty sweet show for the room size.
Oh, and a Hog 3.
Very nice lookin’ ! Good job on the windows and doors, very cool looking in the blue ! Is that blue from a gell or from the Mac color wheel ?
Do you like the Hog 3 ? I got to use a WholeHog 2 in college and it was pretty nice. Never used a 3 though.
As long as you put a safety chain of some sort on the fixtures above the audience . . . it just makes it feel more ‘dangerous’ anyways.
Thanks Ian; it was a blast. The UV color is from the 550’s wheel. I like the Wholehog software; the previous versions (hog2, 1000/500…etc..) were fine, but the Wholehog is pretty easy and fast for what I use it for.
The conventionals were literally within touching distance if you stood up. Like, someone could refocus for me with their head if they weren’t careful.
Low clearance!
well it’s all about audience participation. What’s a show if the people can’t refocus a few lights here and there.
They try to do it here at the church all the time. The youth and kids church is in our gym . . . so I sometimes find lights refocused by dodge balls . . . sometimes I find the dodge balls stuck in the ceiling.