I want the impossible, please.

[No1_Moose]

Evening all,

 

I am programming a school play with a Fat Frog using a load of generics, 2 Mac 500's and 2 600's. The director is utterly averse to blackouts.

I have one scene where both 500s are being used as narrow green spots on either side of the stage (two people on the phone to each other). After they have finished talking the director wants the Macs to swing up onto the Gauze with a spinning triple white triangle gobo thing. Is it at all possible to get the Macs to move across there without cycling through numerous colours and gobos? I have tried setting the Mov Speed to 255 so they blackout while they move but unfortunatly they cycle through the Gobos before they start to move and hence look rubbish (and the Dir. doesn't like the 1/2 second blackout!!!)

 

Any ideas?

Have I explained that properly?

 

BTW Anybody out there in Southern England who wouldn't mind me following them around for a day to see what proper lighting work is like as I may be interested in getting some Qualifications during my Gap year.

[Kirkup_xp]

Set the Beam action to Snap for the particular cue you want, and the gobo will change as soon as you press Go. It might also be worth going through the menus on the Mac500s and setting the Effect Shortcuts to 'On'. This will alow the Macs to take the quickest route to each gobo, instead of always going around in the clockwise order.

[ice]

Change the column B to 'S' as Kirkup_xp explained, that will snap the gobo.

 

And if scrolling the gobo's isn't fast enough for you, you're only option is the blackout. You could program 2 memories; first one begins with the new position (leave beamshape as it was) and the second one, trigged automatically after a few milliseconds changes beamshape. That should give the fixure enought time to start the movement, close the shutter and then scroll the gobo.

 

And a thourough explanation of what can and can't be done with moving lights to your director may be a good idea. If he wasn't this effect without the beam moving just use some generics with goborotators!

[No1_Moose]

Thanks very much for the quick replies. I agree that the Director needs erm,,,well,,,yes, but he is one of my teachers!

 

I will have a play tomorrow with the "snap" idea. I should have said that I have set the Macs to SCEU or whatever setting it is that makes them take the shortest route to the next colour.

[Haytech]

Hi,

If the snap thing isn´t fast enough you can try to change the phisical positions of your colors / gobos.

Put the triangle gobo next to the open gobo (gobo1) position on gobo wheel

Put your green to the color1 position of your colorwheel.

 

This trick to get very fast gobo/color exchange - I did it for theater productions.

[ice]

That's of course the fastest solution! Didn't even think of that one

[Laubfrosch]

Yepp, Haytech is a clever one!!!!

[sp]

You're very lucky using 500s and 600s at your school. I can't even get a couple of scrollers. I'm very envious... :twisted:

 

sp

[No1_Moose]

Thanks again everybody, all ideas were exhausted and the problem was solved by fiddling around with the scene before and using some more generics for the spots to free up the Macs a bit more.

 

sp, yes we are very lucky, I'll send you one just a pity about all the stupid health and safety rubbish that is slowly eroding our freedom in the Theatre.

[Haytech]

Thanks again everybody, all ideas were exhausted and the problem was solved by fiddling around with the scene before and using some more generics for the spots to free up the Macs a bit more.

nothing is impossible though.

carry on happy frogging:mrgreen:

@Laubfrosch

Thank you very much... I´ll do my very best.