Production Musings

Collide Series Part 1 (2009)

// January 12th, 2010 // Stage Design

Several weeks ago we kicked off the last series of 2009: Collide. Todd and I had been tossing around the idea of doing some slanted floor risers so we thought we’d finish up this year by giving it a shot. As a matter of fact, “give it a shot” became a pretty popular phrase/idea within this last series. We did alot of new things we’d never tried before. We tried new lighting angles with the funky lighting bolt truss idea. We tried the moving lights from stage positions. We tried slanted stage risers. And we also tried Rosco 02, Bastard Amber. It’s not what you think! It’s a popular front light gel to make things a bit warmer. Let’s begin with our original Google Sketchup drawing of the design idea:

I think this may have been the first design that we’ve successfully integrated the Studio Beams from the stage floor. If my memory serves correct, I was a little unsure of the results of using them from this position. I was afraid of losing some flexibility of creative backlighting. Thankfully, Colin and Tim challenged me to give it a shot and looking back I think it’s safe to say that it worked very well. We hung 5 S4Jrs in the grid as backlight in place of the Studio Beams.

The front 3′ of the slanted riser stage right was constructed to be removable for 2 reasons:

1. Lift access to stage

2. Easy exit/entry for groups of people (Baptism service in mind–we also stuck some rope light on a dimmer to aid those unfamiliar with the stage as they exited for that service.)

The truss was provided by Lester Hamrick of Just Right AV in Bedford, VA. We used two CM Loadstar half ton chain motors to lift the assembled truss off the stage and loaded it with 3 ETC SmartBars and 24 par 64 cans. The dimmers and fixtures were not rented or purchased. They were removed from our installed grid. Yes, it was quite a bit of work but now half our grid is clean as ever! Once everything was safetied correctly, we lifted it into placed and attached the final safety cables.

We had never tried positioning lighting fixtures in this space on our stage. The front side produced a very strong backlight on the vocals and looked nice in the haze. The backside was used for front lighting the band and down/side lighting center stage. We lit the truss with 3 different colors to produce separate feels. (Deep purple and fuchsia in addition to the blue I have shown below.)

And then there was Rosco 02, Bastard Amber. For over 5 years, we’ve stuck with cool front light. I personally like cooler color temperature but it was time for a change. We replaced it all with R02 and love it. I think I’d like to try Light Bastard Amber as well in the future.  For sidelight, we left the gel cooler resulting in very nice looking camera images.