Lighting FAQ
Here are the questions asked:
1. Different lights available for use at each Mars Hill campus
2. Typical usage for each style of light
3. Different light boards at each Mars Hill campus
4. How to perform typical programming tasks on each light board?
5. How do you get a light to work (each style from installation to patch/programming)?
6. Where are the dimmer breakers at each Mars Hill campus?
7. How do I install and program color commands?
8. How do I install and program movable lights?
9. How should I light a band at Mars Hill at each campus?
10. What are Mars Hill limitations for lighting a band? What color combinations can be used at Mars Hill?
11. How do I change a light bulb?
12. What safety items are associated with being a lighting team member?
13. What Mars Hill corporate resources are available for a lighting team member?
14. How can a lighting team member improve their basic theatrical skills?
15. How do I light live preaching?
16. How do I light video preaching?
17. What are phone numbers I can call for lighting emergencies?
18. What lighting capabilities are available for special events?
19. Glossary of basic lighting terms
What are the different lights available for use at each Mars Hill campus?
Each campus has different needs and abilities. Here is a short list of the lighting you may find in each location:
|
Campus |
Lights |
| Ballard | DL.2 Digital Light Martin MAC 250 10″ Fresnels ETC SourceFour Zoom ETC SourceFour Ellipsoidals with colorscrollers and iCues Altman Zip Strips Altman Cyc Lights PixelRange PixelLine LED lights |
| Downtown Seattle | 4″ Fresnels ETC ParNels |
| Lake City | 6″ Fresnels |
| West Seattle | ETC SourceFour Ellipsoidals ETC ParNels Par20s HighEnd ColorCommands |
| Bellevue | ETC SourceFour Ellipsoidals |
| Shoreline | Altman Zip Strips Miscellaneous other pars, fresnels, and ellipsoidals |
Typical usage for each style of light
Each light has a different function and can be used in a variety of ways. Generally there are few wrong uses of a light, although there are often best uses for each space and purpose. The two macro groups of lights are conventionals and intelligent lights. Conventional lights are basic lamps and lenses that require an external dimmer to light up. They are often fairly simple and can’t do more than turn on or off. Intelligent lights, in the broadest sense of the term, are any lights with more controls than just on or off. Intelligent lights often can change colors, positions, focus, and even project images with the DMX data they are given from the light board.
More information on each type of light can be found on its page within the production.marshillchurch.org website.
Conventionals
Par – A par light is the most simple light out there. Akin to a car headlamp, it does little more than blast light in a direction. Par lights are best used for putting color on a stage, often is a rock concert setting.
Fresnel – A fresnel light is characterized by the lens which gives it an even dispersion. Fresnels are best used for lighting a stage for spoken word or broadcast situations.
Ellipsoidal – An ellipsoidal light has the most capabilities of the conventional lights. Ellipsoidal lights can focus, shutter cut, and often project gobos.
Zip Strip – A zip strip is a line of very small lights which together produce a wall of light for curtains or walls.
Intelligent lights
Martin MAC 250 – A moving light with a color wheel, two gobo wheels, and focus controls via DMX. This is a great unit for bringing color emphasis to a stage and providing the flexibility to change the look on the stage with a setting in the console.
HighEnd DL.2 – A moving projector and media server with massive capabilities to project and process images through a show. Often used for backdrops in Ballard, it can also project video, image map, and act as a light in some situations.
HighEnd ColorCommand – This is a fixed instrument with full CMY color mixing via DMX. The beam is similar to a par, but the colors are endless. Best used to create a color
PixelRange PixelLine LED -
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What are the different light boards at each Mars Hill campus?
As we continue to grow as a church the Production Technology Department is working towards standardizing light lighting consoles at each campus. In the near future each campus will be running some version of the Whole Hog platform developed by High End Systems. Most campuses run the Hog 3PC software on a PC computer with a DMX dongle while others have a control surface.
The internal software is similar in each location, which allows ease of repair/replacement, ease of training, and assists with communication between campuses. Once all the campuses are on the same platform the lighting teams can troubleshoot with each other and grow as one church in many locations.
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How to perform typical programming tasks on each light board?
Typical programming on the Hog III software goes in three phases:
Patch
Program
Cuelist
First, once the lights are hung and cabled, you need to patch the lights into DMX channels. On the Hog III system you are able to give it a specific instrument and location within the DMX universe(s) you have available. Start by opening the Fixture schedule and adding your fixtures to the list. They will appear with no patch, then click the fixture name in the top right, hit Patch @ and then type the number of the DMX you want the instrument to start at. If the instrument requires more than one DMX channel, the Hog III will automatically assign it all the DMX it needs. Continue doing this until every instrument you have is in the system. After the DMX you can also assign specific channel numbers and names on this page.
The next step is to build palettes. Once you have all your fixtures patched where you want you can assign palettes of any quality to this starting page. Group, Color, Position, and Beam pages are the standard starting point. Instruments can be grouped together however you want within these pages. If there is a specific look where half the instruments are one color and half are another you can set a Color directory to recall that look with a single push of a button. Just grab the instruments you want and hit Record -> [Color, beam, intensity, group, etc] and then the number of the block you want it in.
The console is able to do most of the thinking for you, so if you want to set all the lights to red you only have to grab all the lights and set them to red, even though that data is different for different types of lights.
The last step in the process is to combine these individual looks into a cuelist. Much like building the palettes the goal is to create the final look for the show and record it into cues. Simply put the lights where you want them with intensity, color, beam, and any other settings and hit Record -> Cue -> number. From there you will build a cuelist on a fader where you can edit the timing and details of how the cue changes. When running the show you simply have to hit the Play button to move through the cues leaving little to chance or error in a live situation.
How do you get a light to work (each style from installation to patch/programming)?
As stated before, there are two major types of lights and once again they differ in how they work.
Conventional lights require an external dimmer to take a power source and make it dimmable based on the DMX data from the lighting console. There is a 1:1 relationship between dimmers and DMX channels because the only information that can be sent is the level of the dimmer. That data is sent back out in the form of electricity to the light.
Intelligent lights generally do not use dimmers that are external to the lighting unit. Some intelligent lights use an iris to dim or cut off the light while others have dimmers onboard. No matter how they do their dimming, all intelligent lights require direct power and DMX into the unit. As stated before, each DMX channel to the unit only controls one specific function, so while there may be an intensity channel, there will also be pan, tilt, color and other functions of the light through the DMX data.
Where are the dimmer breakers at each Mars Hill campus?
|
Campus |
Dimmer Location |
| Ballard | Telco closet backstage [House Left side] |
| Downtown Seattle | FOH booth and hanging from light bars (LWD 2400 rack) (LDS-610 stick) |
| Lake City | Downstairs telco closet (LWD 2400 rack) |
| West Seattle | Upstairs dimmer room behind balcony |
| Bellevue | Hanging from light bars (LDS-610 stick) |
| Shoreline | Hanging from light bars (ND4600 box) |
How do I install and program color commands?
The HighEnd ColorCommand lights are a hybrid concept between intelligent lights and conventional lights. They require a dimmer like a conventional, but they also require DMX data like an intelligent. They have no motion control other than beam angle, so to start you want to hang the lights and focus them where you want them to hit.
After hanging and focusing the lights, the next step is getting data to them. They use a central DMX power unit to get power to the moving color mixers, so the standard DMX goes into the ColorPower unit first and is sent out over 4-wire DMX+48v power cables.
For programming ColorCommands, simply add the unit into the patch in the Hog III software and it will understand the color profile of the fixture. Since the dimming control comes from the circuit the unit is in you may want to create a group for all the controls of the light since all the DMX channels won’t be next to each other. The unit will have one channel on the dimmer and four in the color & beam control. Once you have grouped all these DMX channels in a palette it should allow you to pick the colors you want from a color wheel in the software.
How do I install and program movable lights?
Each movable light is different, but the general principle from the previous question about installation is a good one to follow. Most movable lights require their own direct non-dimmed power and a DMX data feed. Be careful not to overload circuits when adding movable lights, they can require large amounts of power for each instrument, up to 18a each for some of the larger ones.
While installation is simple, programming can be more complex. Luckily the Hog III takes care of most of the difficult work. Instead of having to read a reference manual to figure out what each of the 20-150 DMX channels going into the unit are doing, the Hog III lists them out for you. All you have to do is add the correct fixture into the patch and then once you have selected it it will give you options based on what that instrument can do.
For example, the MAC 250 has 16 channels of DMX which control the color wheel, gobos, lamp and position. Instead of having to read that a DMX value of 110 on channel 4 will give you an orange color you only have to grab the instrument and tell it to go to orange – the console does the rest.
How should I light a band at Mars Hill at each campus?
The stage show at a Mars Hill service is intended to feel more like a rock show that someone might go to on a Friday night than just a church experience. There is no hard and fast rule about how to do this, but there are some good ideas out there to get you going.
- Go to concerts, see what they are doing there. There’s no better place to see how people worship than at a concert. If we are trying create a worship experience for the audience that gets them involved in the music, then using lighting techniques that people are familiar with will help.
- Read magazines and websites. One more step towards figuring out what you want to do in your space is figuring out what you can do. There are a number of good magazines and websites with ideas for lighting. Often they will tell you to use a specific unit to accomplish the desired look, but it still makes a good place to find ideas for lighting.
- Use your imagination. You have a certain amount of lights, dimmers, channels, and space. Think of it as a sandbox and feel free to play around with it. Take some time to play with the equipment you have and see what it can do.
- Talk with other volunteers at other campuses and churches. Even though each space is different, its good to talk with other people who are facing the same challenges as you are. Since all of Mars Hill will be on the Hog III platform other volunteers will be helpful with programming ideas. Other churches may not have the same theology of worship as we do, but there are still lessons to be learned there from what they are doing with their lights.
As a good friend says, “without lights, its just radio.” The lights create the live experience and define what most people will remember about it.
What are Mars Hill limitations for lighting a band? What color combinations can be used at Mars Hill?
There used to be limitations and a style guide for lighting at Mars Hill, but as we grew and learned we discovered that every rule had an exception. There was a rule about not using the color pink, but then the Song of Solomon sermon series had that in its colors and it worked. Instead of having defined right and wrong limitations of lighting, let’s instead look at some of the general lessons that have been learned over the years:
- Too much movement or change during a service can be distracting.
- Too many colors on stage comes off as disorganized.
- Too little light means people can’t see what’s going on.
- If its lit, it should be doing something. Lighting a piano that no one is playing leads the audience to expect that it should be played and they end up disappointed.
- Certain colors look like a good idea on paper and end up looking nasty in reality. Don’t be afraid to change your plans.
All this said, simply playing with the equipment you have is the best way to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Experience is the best teacher for designing lights for a band.
How do I change a light bulb?
First and foremost, if you aren’t comfortable changing a lamp ask someone who is. Have them teach you so you can do it next time.
When you see that bright flash that means a lamp has gone out the first step toward fixing it is to figure out when type of lamp it uses. Check out this page to figure out which kind of lamp you need. If you have any questions, feel free to email avlsupport@marshillchurch.org to figure out more.
If a lamp is out you first want to make sure that the light is disconnected from power. If possible bring the lamp down to the ground and create a workspace for opening it up. If the lamp was recently used give it a few hours to cool down before considering opening the instrument up. Due to the high wattages of the lamps that are used, some of them can literally blow up so be on the lookout for broken glass when changing lamps.
Once you have the instrument on the ground, look for the lamp access. Most instruments have thumb screws that will let you in to the back to get the lamp out. Go ahead and carefully remove the burned out lamp. Check to make sure that it is blown. Sometimes it will be obvious with a bubble on the glass and burning inside and other times you may have to look closely at the filament to make sure it is disconnected. Take note of the wattage and type of the lamp you are pulling out to make sure it matches the lamp you are putting in.
Caution: when installing the new lamp you will want to be extra careful not to touch the glass with bare skin or anything that could deposit oils on it. Even the slightest touch will turn a 2000 hour lamp into a 50 hour lamp because the oils from skin will cause the glass to not heat evenly and blow the lamp. Many theatres use simple cloth gloves for changing lamps.
Carefully insert the lamp into the holder, making sure there is a secure connection. Close up the unit and test it on the ground before hanging it again. If it works go ahead and hang it.
What safety items are associated with being a lighting team member?
If you do not feel safe, you probably aren’t. In any situation when working with lights if you do not feel safe doing the work step back to a safe location to assess the situation, starting with asking someone who feels comfortable doing the work to check and make sure there are safe conditions. Once a safe condition has been established, then a plan forward can be made again.
If you are working at any height a 5-point harness is critical. With the truss system in West Seattle almost all of the work needs to be done by climbing the truss and using a 5-point harness.
Also when working at any height, tying off any tools you are working with is essential. Any wrenches, drills, gaff tape rolls, and other tools should be tied to the lighting member with tie line or a safety cable. If the tool slips from your hand it will only fall a foot or so and not fall all the way to the unsuspecting victim on the ground.
All instruments hanging more than one inch above the stage should be secured with a safety cable. Although typically lights don’t fall on their own, they should not have a chance to get any farther from the beam they are on.
Once again, each campus is different and there will be different safety measures for each location. These safety procedures should be outlined in the campus manual and understood by the production manager, so please start by working with the production manager to understand the necessary safe working conditions for your campus.
What Mars Hill corporate resources are available for a lighting team member?
The first corporate resource available to lighting volunteers is the production.marshillchurch.org website. This website exists as a resource to equip volunteers at the various MHC campuses by providing full system design documentation, functional training, answers to frequently asked questions, a system specific troubleshooting guide, and a collection of foundational training materials to help encourage growth in the basics of a specific technology. At the same time this website also aims to serve the greater Church by giving a window into our systems, history, past and current project, and equipment decisions.
For normal operations of the lighting system, refer to your campus manual. Each lighting system is different and one common set of resources may not cover your question. In addition to the website, each campus has a specific manual written to their system design. For lighting this should break down each type of light you will find at the campus, the control software, any specific decisions made during the installation, a quick-start guide to the system, and a short troubleshooting section based on the equipment at the campus.
The goal is that by this point you should be able to answer your own question, but if not we have one more step for you. The avlsupport@marshillchurch.org email address was designed to answer the questions and problems of Mars Hill volunteers. If there are questions outside of the normal operations of the lighting system the ticket system will get the question answered by the right person in short time.
How can a lighting team member improve their basic theatrical skills?
Similar to the question about how to light a band, there are a number of resources out there for you to improve your theatrical skills.
- Practice practice practice. Its cliché, but true. Getting into as many theatrical areas as possible and helping out with multiple shows is great practice and will teach you lots about how thing are done. One place to start is to show up at a small local theatre and ask to help with lighting hang & focus. Usually its 1-3 six hour evenings to hang the lights and focus them with a designer, but it is great training under the supervision of a full-time theatrical professional and often a couple comp tickets.
- Go to plays/shows. One of the best way to get new ideas can be to build off the ideas of other people. Maybe the idea gets squirreled away for years and then at the right moment during a special event you get the chance to pull out that trick you saw. The more live events you attend the more ideas will sit around to help put together that perfect show.
- Meet people. Networking with other theatrically oriented people can be a huge help in building theatrical skills. Inside and outside the church there is a wealth of knowledge and ideas which people can share. Connecting with other theatrical people inside the church provides a great area to share ideas which are all pointed at a common goal – the glory of God. Outside the church the purpose may not be the same, but the knowledge is that much more valuable to see what and how people worship so that we can emulate that in services.
- Read manuals. Possibly one of the more boring ways to learn, but often quite critical towards perfecting the craft of lighting. Knowing the limitations and capabilities of each piece of equipment and software in your system will help you to work with that equipment on a daily basis as well as plan the future uses of the space.
- Play with your toys. Sometimes it helps to just grab a light, plug it in, point it at a wall, and see what all the knobs and shutters do. What color will that gel produce? How do I set a focus? What happens when the shutters are all the way in? Also, with intelligent lights taking some time to see how they change colors, gobos, and direction will help you work with them in the future. Just a reminder – make sure to do this during some free time with plenty of time to re-set everything.
- Evaluate everything. After a while it should become second nature to evaluate everything in terms of lighting, shadows, and space. While watching a television show you might notice an extra light in the background. Do you like that effect? Maybe you go out to a bar and the walls are painted with light. How did they do that?
How do I light live preaching?
After long lists of how to get ideas for lighting a band, live preaching is a quite different situation. Here there are rules and defined ways of lighting a person. The end goal of live spoken-word lighting is to have the focus on the stage while maintaining a natural color on the speaker.
How you light live preaching will greatly depend on your room, but there are a few key principles to lighting live preaching that can be followed.
- Use only natural colors, preferably no gels or gobos. If the speaker is lit with harsh blues or reds the effect will detract from what he is trying to say. The colors that hit the speaker are a distraction and cannot add to the message.
- Get rid of shadows or dim spots. Light at least two angles from the front and use as much coverage as you need for the speaker to move around. A big factor that can distract from the message are shadows. The more points of light that hit a speaker will cover up the shadows that normally form around the eyes and nose. The goal is to have an even distribution of light so that there are no gaps between lights and that all shadows are covered.
- Add key lighting from behind. If the front is the only part lit, the back side of the speaker will get lost in shadow, which makes your three-dimensional stage look like its two-dimensional. Key lighting can be as simple as two points of light which hit the back left and right of the speaker, or a complex system for even coverage, depending on your needs.
- Give something else to look at. Just lighting the speaker well is part of it, but if there is an empty black stage behind him then the whole picture is skewed. If only putting a color on a back curtain, it adds a depth to the stage which will help the speaker look more at place on the stage.
How do I light video preaching?
Video preaching is based on the principles outlined for live preaching, but all of the variables must be more precise. Any little shadows, off-colors, or dark spots will be extra-apparent on a video screen. Take some time to look at the preview monitor of the video to see how smooth the light looks and if the light behind the person is bright enough. Often on video the scenery lighting will disappear because of how much light is on the speaker, which is a situation worth being aware of.
What are phone numbers I can call for lighting emergencies?
Start by calling your production manager, who will have the cell phone number for the Production Team person on call. In most situations the campus production manager should be able to answer the question and he will know when to pass the emergency up to someone else.
What lighting capabilities are available for special events?
Often for special events we can set up lighting rentals from local vendors. From local vendors all sorts of moving lights, LED fixtures, gobos, hazers/foggers, and other neat tools can be rented for one-off special events.
Glossary of basic lighting terms
|
Term |
Definition |
| Circuit | Any single breakered output of electricity to a location. Circuits can be dimmable or non-dimmable. |
| Console | The piece of hardware which controls the lights. A console can be anything from a few faders to a fully programmable computer-hardware system. |
| Conventional | Conventional lights are basic lamps and lenses that require an external dimmer to light up. |
| Dimmer | Dimmers are devices used to vary the brightness of a light. By decreasing or increasing the RMS voltage and hence the mean power to the lamp it is possible to vary the intensity of the light output. Although variable-voltage devices are used for various purposes, the term dimmer is generally reserved for those intended to control lighting. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimmer) |
| DMX | DMX stands for digial-multi-cross and is the protocol which controls lights. DMX data is required to run a dimmer or an intelligent fixture. |
| Ellipsoidal | A light made up of a reflected lamp and a tube with lenses to create a distinct beam of light which can be focused and often goboed and adjusted with shutters. |
| Fixture | The general term for any single lighting piece of equipment. |
| Focus | The sharpness of the shape of the light. Most lights are circular naturally, so an in-focus light would look like a solid circle while an out-of-focus light would look like a blurry area of light. |
| Fresnel | A specific type of lens with a cut surface (see #1) which gives an even dispersion of light instead of leaving a hot spot in the center (as #2 would) |
| Gel | A thin sheet of transluscent material that is put in front of a light to change the color of the light. Gel can have as little effect as turning the white light slightly amber or as great effect as a deep purple that appears like a blacklight. |
| Gobo | Originally gobos were only small metal cutouts that produced an image with shadows when inserted in an ellipsoidal light. Now gobos can be made of plastic or glass and produce full-color images. |
| Hazer/fogger | Hazers produce a thin mist throughout a room so that the beams of the light can be seen as well as the source. Foggers produce a thicker mist more designed for the effect of the mist, not to be seen though. Both serve to add a type of mist to the room. |
| Hot Spot | Most lights have an area of their beam which is brighter than others. This is called the hot spot and the goal is to not let it be apparent during focus. |
| Incandescent light | |
| Intelligent fixture | An intelligent fixture is any light that needs data along with the electricity to do its job. Everything from a color change or moving mirror to a full multi-function media management projection system is considered intelligent if it is part of the lighting system. |
| Lamp | The lamp is the specific piece of a light that produces light when electricity passes through it. Since most “lights” used in theatre or concerts have more parts that just lighting up, it is important to differentiate the lamp from the rest of those parts. In most situations if you ask for a “light bulb” people will look at you funny. |
| LED | Light Emitting Diode – A direct-current light which ranges from tiny indicator lights on equipment to large theatrical lights on stage. Most LEDs are more efficient than incandescent lights, although they are rarely as bright. They are best used for effect lighting while the technology improves. |
| Lens | A curved piece of glass used to adjust the size and/or focus of an instrument. |
| Light | Light can mean almost anything, so be careful using this word. Light can mean the source, or instrument, while also meaning the beam of light coming out of the instrument and also the light hitting the stage. In its most direct definition it is “the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible” (source: dictionary) |
| Par | Parabolic Aluminized Reflector – Most like a headlight, this light simply has a lamp with a curved reflector around it which directs the output of the lamp down the tube of the instrument |
| Patch | A patch is the term for when a dimmer is assigned to a specific channel. There may be dimmers 1-48, but you want them organized when looking at them on a channel. Through patching you can organize all the dimmers without needing to re-wire the building to do it.
Other times there may be more instruments than dimmers or more dimmers than channels and a patch is required to make everything that needs to work do so. |