Production Musings

Unabridged Series Design

// October 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Stage Design

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.

K-1 System Installation

// March 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Audio, Stage Design

Much of my attention this past week has been directed towards installing a small audio visual system in our K-1 room.  Our kid’s ministry recently restructured in order to combine Kindergarten and 1st graders.  Along with this came the need for a small system to support a mini production that will be fairly video heavy and include several actors. I wanted to share this install because I know many churches are looking for DIY methods to support their various services.  This is a documentation of the route I chose.

Note:  I am not a certified system designer.  I do not use software such as Ease for precision.  There may very well be a more professional install for this room and as always, I’m open to critique.

Here’s what we chose.

Audio:  JBL Control 28 Speakers w/ SB2 Sub.  I chose these because of their cost, coverage (90ºx90º), weight (12 lbs), and ease of hanging.  3 Control 28s arranged as a center cluster provides the 180º of coverage needed.  The challenge was how to hang from drop ceiling.  Our solution: the Chief CMA-455.  It’s a 2×2 mounting plate that can be flown above the drop ceiling.  We flew this from the purlins, used 4 turnbuckles to level, anchored the mount to the drop ceiling grid and we were ready to hang.  The mount was also safety cabled back up to the purlin…just in case.  The JBL MTC-28/25CM ceiling mount arms were used to hang each speaker.  Each Control 28 is safety cabled to the mount.  The SB2 sub was mounted about 3″ from the ceiling on the back wall, stage right.  A Draper screen will be installed next week in front of the sub.  Allen&Heath ZED14, Sennheiser wireless systems, QSC amplification and DBX DriverackPA for system management.

Media:  We love Renewed Vision‘s presentation software, ProPresenter.  With our site license it just made sense to stick with this software.  I’m very confident with it’s stability especially when it comes to handling a lot of video.  A 20″ iMac w/ good size hard drive — we were granted permission to rip the curriculum DVDs to the local hard drive for more reliable playback.

Lighting:  Available power was an issue in this room.  I know LED lighting has a way to go but in this case it was hard to resist.  I chose Irradiant’s LEDPro64 Short fixtures.  They were very cost effective.  Since they are RGB LED mixing, the fixtures don’t produce the best white but for K1 children they’ll work just fine.  When we tested them today the different colors produced some great effects on the stage paint…completely changing the look.  I may post a video later on of this.

I must give a shout to my friends at Point Source Audio for all of their help with this project.  I wish every production team had a group of professionals they could trust like my friends at PSA!

I like photos….so here’s the progress thus far: