How to place light correctly on a stage

[encuentro]

Hi,

My name is Michael I am currently doing the video recording in the church.
In the church we have a set of lights as you can see in these pictures but we don't really have a lightning designer or somebody that know a little bit of how to place lights. so we just placed the lights... but can someone tell me whats the best way to place the lights? we also have a controller for the lights everything works fine but its just annoying that sometimes we can't record good cause the lights are too weak and if we put them brighter then the preacher gets blind:P is there someone who can help?

Thnx,

Grtz Mike BLESSS

[petereit]

Everything I know about lighting:

http://www3.northern.edu/wild/th241/sc12c.htm

[KeckCreative]

Hey, that was a great link. I think it just covered a 1st semester lighting design class in a single paper.

Lighting for recording and lighting for audience sometimes don't work well together. If the camera you are shooting with has manual adjustments for exposure level, you may experiment with the camera instead of the lighting intensity.

[encuentro]

allright then, thanks this information is very usefull

Grtz Mike

[waynehoskins]

The thing that jumps out at me from the pictures is the downstage frontlight is coming in at far too flat an angle (see shadows of the 2nd truss on the wall). Ideally you want your light coming from about 45 degrees above head level. The steeper the frontlight angle, the less painful it is, no more deer-in-headlights.

Judging by the sizes things seem to be, it looks like you want your front truss about 6 feet downstage of the lip of the stage. Maybe 8 or 10, no more.

[jthtiger]

Why are there 8 cans pointing into the audience? It seems like those could be used more effectively for other things.

My church would scream if I pointed lights at them. I'm having enough trouble getting back lighting as it is.

You could take maybe four of those cans and put them on the front truss out in the audience. Take out the color and point them towards either side of the stage. That will give you some more brightness on the sides.

As far as the preacher goes, BLIND HIM! Gosh, I have a lot of light on our pastor, and it is quite blinding. He's gotten used to it though. :P

If you're preacher can get over it, then you shouldn't have any problem getting the stage bright enough for the camera. You've got enough light there. You could probably even take some of those cans and do some effect lighting. Maybe.

Thoughts everyone?

-Tyler Herron

[petereit]

Originally Posted by jthtiger

Why are there 8 cans pointing into the audience? It seems like those could be used more effectively for other things.

You could take maybe four of those cans and put them on the front truss out in the audience. Take out the color and point them towards either side of the stage. That will give you some more brightness on the sides.

Great point! I agree.

Originally Posted by jthtiger

As far as the preacher goes, BLIND HIM! Gosh, I have a lot of light on our pastor, and it is quite blinding. He's gotten used to it though. :P

LOL! Well, if you follow the guidance of the McCandless Method documented in the first link I posted, you'll set your lights up 45 degrees and left and right 45 degrees, which would light your pastor quite brilliantly without blinding him.

[jthtiger]

Originally Posted by petereit

LOL! Well, if you follow the guidance of the McCandless Method documented in the first link I posted, you'll set your lights up 45 degrees and left and right 45 degrees, which would light your pastor quite brilliantly without blinding him.

Boy, what I'd give for the perfect rigging points to pull this off

[petereit]

Originally Posted by jthtiger

Boy, what I'd give for the perfect rigging points to pull this off

LOL! Me too! But we're getting ready to pull down all our ceiling tile and going with bare trusses, so we'll get there!

Then all we'll need to do is raise the roof 20 feet and push the back wall back 30 feet...

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by petereit

LOL! Me too! But we're getting ready to pull down all our ceiling tile and going with bare trusses, so we'll get there!

Then all we'll need to do is raise the roof 20 feet and push the back wall back 30 feet...

You would not believe how often I hear this from churches! This goes back to the the three different system argument.

In the end it is well worth the money to bring in experienced audio, video, AND lighting consultants when you (as a church) are looking to buy/build a new building. Get those consultants in from the first day and have them at every meeting with the architect/contractors.

Mike

[Esoteric]

How is that truss rigged? Is it at or near its maximum load? How far is it from the front truss to the midstage truss?

Mike

[petereit]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

In the end it is well worth the money to bring in experienced audio, video, AND lighting consultants when you (as a church) are looking to buy/build a new building. Get those consultants in from the first day and have them at every meeting with the architect/contractors.

Ooh, I'm sure some day we'll build a new building. When we do I'm sure we'll bring in architects, contractors and professional media designers.

But in the mean time, we'll just continue having fun tearing up the building we have, throwing random tech together and pulling all-nighters figuring out how it all works. Right now, I wouldn't have it any other way.