Production Musings

2008 – A Year in Stage Design and Lighting

// January 12th, 2009 // Stage Design

2008 was a year of many things for us at Blue Ridge and it was also a year of intentional stage designs.  Todd Foster and I spent a large portion of time tweaking the process of taking a series topic to a concept for stage and lighting design.  The process isn’t finished.  We still have places to improve.  Currently the process is as follows:  Teaching Team gives us the direction for the series – Todd, Colin Harman and myself brainstorm design concepts – Stage Design team begins work once design is finalized – Once the design is together, the Lighting Team brings the design to life.

Our lighting system comprises approximately 102 fixtures (ETC Source Fours, Source Four Jrs, Par64 cans, High End Studio Beams, and AC Lighting Color Split LEDs)  Here are a few photos from 2008 Stage Designs (minus the last series…Christmas was busy and I forgot to document the design!  I’ll try to lift it off the video perhaps!):

Series: Origins :: A look at creation. Created w/ a team of 7. Leaves are wooden cutouts suspended by wooden dowels, painted by hand by artist and lit w/ single Source 4 Jr. Zoom and a homemade gobo from pie pan. 2 Jr Zooms used for blue back ground of ORIGINS and a custom Apollo gel for the word itself. We used hay bales stacked and burlap to build the dirt pile. For the dirt we used peat moss.

Series:  Text :: On Scripture. Details: 13 36″ fluorescent work lights, 2 24″ fluorescent work lights mounted behind cutouts. Each letter was made from a translucent material I’ve forgotten the name of. All color was from front lighting from 2 Color Split LED fixtures and 2 High End Studio Beam fixtures. We controlled the fluorescents with a dimming channel from our lighting console and discovered that we could take them down to about 60% before they began to flicker. (We always had to start from 100%) Also, at 70% the cameras began to pick up several lights cycling between white and yellow – not noticeable to our eyes.

Series: Pure :: A series on Galatians. Spandex lit by the Studio Beams.  Stage Design team painted the stage to spice it up!

And another look:

Series: The “S Word” :: A series on serving or “Schwords for 1,000 Alex.” Color Splits used to wash spandex on back, Rosco cityscape gobos, faux brick finish.  Todd Foster, Steve Jordan, Laura Eagle, Daniel Cyrus, Janelle Glover, Steve Mesanko, Colin Harman, Jeremy Wilkinson, Andrew Hunt

Series:  Happily Ever After ::  One of the early 2008 designs!  Giant silhouette cutout, poor planning: our rigging to hold silhouette looked more like a noose after lighting…ouch.  We learned from this!