Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mark Cadwallader]

I vote for grey.  Maybe darker than you think.
There are many situations where you want a black background.
There's nothing quite like a solo spot on the performer with a fully dark background.
If you are lighting curtains, look into non-vertical beams.
I much prefer an angled light beam, which hits all the high folds of the curtain, giving a nice 3D effect.
My general opinion is to light the show, not the back wall.

But this is a dance studio, and I assume there will be relatively few solos. To the extent the OP can use side lighting (from SL and SR booms), there will be more sculpting of the dancer's body than if only using front lighting.  Without a pair of follow spots (and good operators) keeping a solo dancer well lit against a black background and dark stage is pretty tough, IMO.

[Earl Teigrob]

I vote for grey.  Maybe darker than you think.
There are many situations where you want a black background.
There's nothing quite like a solo spot on the performer with a fully dark background.
If you are lighting curtains, look into non-vertical beams.
I much prefer an angled light beam, which hits all the high folds of the curtain, giving a nice 3D effect.
My general opinion is to light the show, not the back wall.

Thanks Dave,

This is for a dance studio as background lighting for a group dance. No spotlighting. I simply want beautiful walls that make the place come alive. I'm trying to create mode and environment. My studio can cover one wall with back velour and based on a you tube I saw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIVYua4weE

this can look quite nice. My only concern is that to get the colors to really look bright on the black I might have to turn the brightness up so much the that the white ceiling will reflect too much light into the room??? Or perhaps I can tilt the lights into the black to prevent so much spill onto the ceiling? Or maybe this is a complete nonissue?

My next step is to go the the studio with different colored curtains and test them all out.

Earl

[Earl Teigrob]

But this is a dance studio, and I assume there will be relatively few solos. To the extent the OP can use side lighting (from SL and SR booms), there will be more sculpting of the dancer's body than if only using front lighting.  Without a pair of follow spots (and good operators) keeping a solo dancer well lit against a black background and dark stage is pretty tough, IMO.

Mark, you are correct, a dance studio with relatively few solos. In fact, I have some warm white pars for spotlights but right now I am just trying to focus on the mode of the studio itself. In our West Coast Swing dance have have rarely used any type of lighting except house lights. We don't want light in peoples eyes because it is a very technical dance (It doesn't look like it however:) ) and the dancers need to be able to focus on the dance without interference. I'm going to test off-white, charcoal grey and black. I want the keep the dance room fairly dim so I can't have an environment where lighting the walls causes the room to be a brighten up too much. The black velour I linked to in my other post looks stunning but may have other drawbacks. Testing this will be interesting !!!

[Dave Garoutte]

My bad.
But do try angling the cans across the curtain folds.
I really like the look.

[Earl Teigrob]

My bad.
But do try angling the cans across the curtain folds.
I really like the look.

Thank you, I will definitely try the cross angle affect. I might try to have variations of the lights for every dance. Keep it interesting...

[ProSoundWeb Community]