The big stage riser finally came down!  We struggled with how to best make the transition into this design from the previous and had a few goals in mind for this design as we began the Google Sketchup brainstorming.

• No strong thematic tie-in with the series topic needed
• Keep it simple and clean
• Make it cost effective
• Make it recycle-able

We decided on making several 4′x16′ rectangles made from 1/2″ sheets of pink 4′x8′ foam insulation board (Owens Corning or something similar) with no foil backer.  They were purchased from Home Depot. Sawyer and Sue Scott of Advanced Design Electronics here in Lynchburg assembled two 4′x8′ insulation sheets using a thin strip of metal (Band Iron strap for binding pallets, etc.) down both 16′ sides, trimmed both edges with plastic edging, and glued the middle joint with Quickset Gorilla Glue.  Each rectangle was painted with two coats of flat white paint to absorb the most color from our lights.  Glossy paint tends to reflect more light and although I suppose there’s a situation that calls for glossy, this wasn’t it.  All items were purchased from Home Depot and each rectangle costs less than $25 each to make.

Each panel was hung at an angle and braced at the floor and the lighting grid using the Band Iron metal along the sides.  (We left about a half inch excess at each end of the panel with a hole drilled in the metal.)

The cyc on stage left was made using a 30′x40′ piece of stock spandex
from I.Weiss. We were very fortunate with this piece of fabric.  I.Weiss had one in stock that had been returned from a customer because they didn’t realize it has a seam.  We were happy to accept a generous discount for such a large piece of fabric.  ($350)  We’ll be able to use this for video shoots in the future and many more stage designs we hope.  The frame was again thought of and constructed by Sawyer and Sue Scott.  It was constructed from standard metal conduit and ingeniously bent around a giant water tower to create the bend.  (Simple solution eh?!)  After some welding we we had a 16′x22′ frame safety cabled to the lighting grid.

For lighting, we used the Color Splits to wash the cyc.  An old starry gobo we found from a previous stage design from last year was also used on the cyc.  Each of the panels were lit with an ETC Source Four Jr. Zoom and were uplit with Par64 fixtures.  Additional photos and full size images can be viewed and downloaded at my Flickr.