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cyc lighting
The Cyclorama (or Cyc) is the focal point for many theatrical lighting designs. As such, there is a huge variety in lighting fixtures available to provide color for this scenic element. These specially designed wash fixtures are also appropriate to light other types of soft goods, such as scrim, painted drops and translucent drops.
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strip lights
BorderlightsCalled "Borderlights" because they were often hung on battens above the stage between the borders, these multi cell units are commonly used to light cycs. A single fixture usually has three or four circuits with multiple lamps. Each circuit has a single color. For example, the top picture above is a 12-cell/three-circuit fixture. The 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th cells are all on a single circuit, and all come up at the same time. As can be seen in the picture, these cells are all colored green. Likewise for the blue and red circuits.
The glass 'gels' seen in this photo are called roundels. These come in Red, Blue and Green, because theoretically all colors can be mixed from these primary colors. In reality, these old-style instruments are rarely bright enough to get any kind of intensity on a cyc. Back when people still smoked cigarettes, roundels seemed to be used as ashtrays more than as color media. Now they just sit in old cardboard boxes. Borderlights can also be colored with traditional gel media. The ETC MultiPAR fixture shown below the R40 is a more modern fixture. It works essentially the same way, but is much brighter- it is effectively twelve closely hung ETC PAR fixtures built into a single 3 or 4 circuit fixture. These do not use roundels; they accept framed color gel. R40 Image from Control Booth |
MR16 StriplightsThese fixtures are very similar to the borderlights described at left. The difference is in the lamps that are used: the zip strip accepts pairs of MR-16 lamp/reflector assemblies. They also come in 3 and 4 circuit striplight fixtures. The fixture uses traditional gel media. It is a big money-saver compared to other cyc instruments because each cell is only about 2"x3".
Because the MR-16 lamp comes with different types of reflectors, it is possible to lamp the unit with wider or narrower beam spreads. Therefore a designer might 'double-stack' striplights, one to light the part of the cyc nearest to the instrument (with a wider beam spread) and one to light the further half (with a narrower beam spread). There is more information about the MR-16 lamp on the lamps page. |
LED Strip LightsAs in other areas of lighting equipment, LEDs are also prevalent in strip lighting. The colored LEDs mix in similar ways as ERS and Wash fixtures.
One advantage that many LED strip lights have over traditional strip lights is flexibility of control. Depending on how the designer specifies control, the whole strip light (which might be anywhere from 2' to 6' long) can either be controlled as a whole unit, or as individual cells. For example, the two examples in the Chauvet photo above are 12 cell and 8 cell units. The top unit is currently acting like 12 separate lighting instruments, each assigned to a different color. The bottom unit is programmed to be a 2-unit, one blue and one red. |
Cyc Cells
Cyc cells act more like individual instruments than do strip lights. Each is individually colored and controlled. Because the purpose is the same, (giving an even color wash across the cyc), they are usually set in arrays of two, three or four colors.
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