I love doing shows with no moving lights on occasion. Nowadays it seems like such a rarity that I get to do this.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with moving lights, but I have to think a lot more about how to utilize a light rig when there are just conventional fixtures. It makes me utilize the real skills LD’s acquire over the years.
Sometimes I will light musical acts of mine using whatever is available in house. I try not to have to move anything around on the rig if I can get away with it. But one must always have enough key lights downstage. This means I have at least one off white light, preferably a leko, on every musician on stage. I prefer to put some bastard amberish earth tone color in these fixtures. R02 or R04 work OK for this. I like to keep each one of these fixtures on a separate handle in order to highlight them on solos. Of course I can use spots for this, but sometimes I just prefer this.
Then I must choose some basic color washes. I will try and put 6-8 par cans per color. I try and use primary colors when lighting rock music, pastels when doing jazz or mellow acts. A trick I like to use is putting different shades of the same color on the front, rear and side lighting. For instance if I am picking out amber gels, I will use a rich Orange (R22) from the rear. But I will use medium amber (L135) from the sides and lighter amber (L105) from the front. I am not sure why I do this, having never been taught this, but I think it makes the scenes look sexier.
Besides the washes, I need some rear specials as well. Always good to have just 1-2k of any color back lighting primary musicians during solos. Nothing brings a bigger applause then when I turn off all the lights and just leave one rear special on a singer during a special moment. No front light, just a silhouette. If the act consists of just one main artist with his backup band, I will try and have several different colored rear specials so I can repeat this gag a few times during the show.
One also needs a few “bump” specials. For upbeat songs or dramatic “stop” cues where the tempo halts for a second before the music starts again.
These can be a few ACL bars. I try and use white and yellow in ACL bars.
Floor pars make great lights for this application as well.
Side lighting is so often overlooked, yet so important. One of the coolest things to do with side lighting is to light performers with 2 different colors from each side. It makes each side of the artist look different and again, sexy. Magenta from one side and amber from another is great. Lavender and light blue works well too.
Once I have gelled and focused the fixtures I write some basic cues. The more faders I have, the better show I can make. I load about 8 faders up with basic color washes that include all the lights of similar colors. Then I mix some different palettes of colors into cues. For instance I may front light the band in red, but rear light them in congo blue in one fader. Next to that, I will do the opposite; front light them in a light lav and rear light them in red. Switching between those two faders will make for one complete song.
Another dramatic thing I do is just use either front or rear or side light for a song. For the verse I may just rear light everyone in blue. Keeping a lone key light on the singer while everyone else appears faceless. Then for the chorus, I kill the rear and bring up the front wash so everyone can see the band. When I get to a bridge or solo, I use the side lighting only. This pretty much follows the theory that “less is more”.
