Pictures of the front lights. In the gelled pictures, the halogens have R3204 in them as well as the other gel for color correction.
Plexi-Words
This design hasn’t been executed yet, but I wanted show this to give some inspiration.
In looking at designs of other people, I’ve noticed a trend. A lot of them revolve around columns of light. What I wanted to do with this design was to break free from the trend and venture into something that, in my mind, was new.
I figure there are many problems with this design, as it hasn’t gone through the building, or realization, process. Many problems come out of the wood work during that time, sometimes crippling a design. This may very well be crippled, but it’s interesting and more for inspiration. So, here we go:
Keep in mind this is the final draft of the design. I’ll show you more pictures outlining the progress.
Here is a little bit of the thought process that went into this. First I didn’t want columns of light. Second our paster wanted to use typography. I knew I wanted the words to appear to be floating in a sense, but didn’t want to hang 3D letters from the ceiling. First thought came to Plexi-glass. Maybe not the best material for the job, but something rigid and clear.
My plan was to hang the plexi-glass using fishing line (very strong fishing line mind you) from the ceiling. The letters on the plexi-glass are white vinyl. I chose vinyl because it was readily available to me, as my mother has an industrial vinyl cutter for her business(convenient, eh? Yeah).
Originally, all the sheets were hung vertically as you can see in this picture:
However, our stage is quite crowded (obviously). So I made some adjustments there.
Also, in the first draft the sheets were hung without the angle in them. However, it was pointed out to me this would reflect some light out into the audience. So, I angled the sheets down to try and reflect the light to the floor instead. Keeping the light on stage. This could probably even be used strategically to cover some shadows or something.
In order to hang the sheets at an angle like that, I would drill four small holes in each of the corners. Tie the line in the two top holes and hang the sheet from the ceiling. Then tie some line in the bottom holes and, in attaching them to the ceiling, lift up the bottom edge of the sheet. I hope that makes sense.
Here’s a pretty picture without everyone on stage, and with the first draft:
And here are some more pictures of the original design:
So. This was just a way to break from the traditional columns of light design so many people use. I’m not saying it’s bad, because there are some very innovative designs out there utilizing this technique. Also, it’s a great last minute design, or backup design, to use when you don’t want to budget so much time into the look of the stage (if you catch where I’m going).
A word on the risers real quick, because their role is not seen in the pictures. The risers are covered on the sides by white fabric (spandex, lycra, something along those lines). Inside the riser, LED lights would be housed. This was stolen from an awesome design which you can find here:
http://productionmusings.com/2009/02/20/2009-stage-design-2-part-1/
Just another aspect to the design.
All the pictures in this post were modeled in Google SketchUp, and the pretty looking ones were rendered in Kerkythea. Google them. Both great pieces of software. Free software as well!
And here is a pic of our stage in real life. Not really a design, but a reference.
Hope you enjoyed this!
-Tyler Herron
