I need help fello laser mates!(first big show)

I got ya; I thought "savety" meant something different. I was way off. :o

I am still not sure what you are asking for; ideas for equipment set up or actual laser shows to play? Do you already have the songs picked that will be playing? What laser controller software/hardware will you be using?

I think your laser will do ok if you have a fogger right in front of it and maybe slightly below the aperature and maybe another one midway through the room. It may not be the main focus since you will have to have the lights on for people to dance but it will be visible.

@lightspacelily - go away.. please. :mad:

What no one has mentioned to you, is the operations/logistics aspect.

"Armchair Generals think in tactics, real professional warriors think LOGISTICS."

"No Plan survives the first contact of of Combat"

I don't know who said the above two lines, but they are appropriate.

Some QUICK thoughts off the top of my head:

Its a wedding, cords have to be hidden. Wait till you show up and Bridezilla sees bright orange extension cords running everywhere. Your death, if you are allowed to die, will be neither quick nor painless if a single thing is out of place. Your setup needs to be Neat, Elegant, Professional.

Cabling needs to be professional and neat, and no one can trip on it. You ought to see what the single spike of a woman's high heal can do to a decent ILDA cable. I had a cable "spiked" backstage once. I've seen a projector on a tripod pulled down by a person tripping on a cable.

Scaffolding or a STABLE tripod of some sort is a must. It must be draped to look professional, and you may/may not need sandbags at the base.

You need to wear proper attire.

You need to practice IN THE VENUE before the wedding day. FULL TECHNICAL REHEARSAL, with sound, light, lasers, fog.

How do you interface your gear with the sound system? Where is your power coming from? Where is the breaker box? Can you have a second setup just in case the layout is changed?. (ie second set of cords and cables on hand)

Sound ISSUES: Impedence, humbucking, no pops, buzz or splashes/crashes. Have you talked to the DJ?

Weddings are God's creatures, is your content appropriate, will the songs/images insult some one? Watch the whole show twice, before you get there.

How do you dim the lights? DO NOT DARE TO LEAVE YOUR CONTROLLER TO DO THE LIGHTS YOURSELF. YOU NEED A ASSISTANT.

Safety lighting, a small amount of controlled light, is needed in case some girl needs to find the bathroom. Some one will stand up during the show!

SAFETY! Think about human behavior. You cannot predict everything, but you can get darn close, with some practice.

THINK LIKE A WOMAN on this one! If you cannot do that, ie not married, not divorced (We hope!), find a woman who can.

Does "Lovey-Dovey" translate to something in Deutsch?

Can you scroll text? Something like: "Congratulations Lizabeth and Danny on your Happiest Day!"

If you need to, "This Kiss", "Recipe for Love", etc from Pangolin are "CHICK FLICKS" shows.

Black drape the computer, tripod, table, scaffolding with quality black drape. If you do not know what quality means, find a woman and ask her to SHOW you.

My friend on the phone counters,

NO graphics, just things like undulating fans, grating bursts, slow moving beams, so I suggest you determine the tastes of the family.



Steve

I honestly think it would be easiest for you to get some shows from our US friends as they're used to designing overhead displays. I'm sure there is some off the shelf stuff out there programmed by members on here. Essentially what you're wanting is displays to cheesy disco music as that essentially what's usually played at weddings eg Abba.

You've chosen a very difficult thing to attack 1st in a wedding in a small venue as this makes this a difficult task as not only are you essentially restricted to very few cue effects - mostly liquid skies, flat static fans and horizontally moving hot beams but you've also got music with very little in the way of beats and fast firing lyrics. I'd suggest therefore that if you did try to put something together you perhaps key cue changes to key changes in the music rather than trying to do 800 keys with limited effects through keying to the words.

Although, I have to admit I have no experience of doing displays, I think my approach would be to try to get down to the venue in advance of programming any shows to take physical measurements of things like ceiling height, projector mounting height, angle of mounting and maybe even take the projector and set up in situ and set up BAM's.

The reason for this is simple, in QS the ability to adjust position exists for cues but its DISABLED for time line shows, so if you're putting a show together in a restricted venue you need to adjust the cues to fit the space ahead of time by replicating the factors at home as there's no way top adjust on the day this side of adjusting projector position.

If you have limited height you might need to make custom cues for rotational effects because you have to remember that when you rotate a cue it rotates around the axis (usually z).

The problem here is if eg a fan is 20 feet wide by the time it reaches the back of the venue and you rotate it around the z axis, 10 feet of the fan will go below the x axis during the rotation. If your height above the crowd is not greater than 10 feet then what looks like a safe effect at the front of the room can turn into an audience scan at the back.

One way around this is not to rotate effects. Another is to make narrow cues. Another would be to make the cue up of several parts so each rotate around x separately. eg if you set the cue up right as two fans totalling 20 feet wide, then because each 1/2 rotates around its own z axis, immediately the reach down below the x axis is divided by 2 so falls from 10 feet to 5 feet.

BTW on the power point of view, I'm putting a video up at the moment I took of my previous RGY projector at the UKLEM.

The room is very dark but even so 120mw 532 Green looks weak as the fences moves away directly from off the viewing plane. The brightness drops off very rapidly. The green is usable though. The 550mw 650nm Red is barely visible and on some views what should be yellow fences are so weak they look green.

So just be aware that 500mw isn't a lot albeit if you have 640 you should be a lot brighter. Also stick to patterns with beams rather than fans. You'll see towards the end of the video there are two ribbed cones circling around. Immediately the red is made much more prominent here by means of the beams as opposed to fan effects.


http://www.vimeo.com/24833464

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Originally Posted by White-Light

The reason for this is simple, in QS the ability to adjust position exists for cues but its DISABLED for time line shows, so if you're putting a show together in a restricted venue you need to adjust the cues to fit the space ahead of time by replicating the factors at home as there's no way top adjust on the day this side of adjusting projector position.

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Erm... projection zones???

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Originally Posted by White-Light

The room is very dark but even so 120mw 532 Green looks weak as the fences moves away directly from off the viewing plane. The brightness drops off very rapidly. The green is usable though. The 550mw 650nm Red is barely visible and on some views what should be yellow fences are so weak they look green.

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Video looks a little green heavy. Wonder what Chr**a says? >:)

thanks for the advice people!

i do not need savety lessons that much, i know the people and if i say dont do anything stopid, they wont.

i already know i needa assistant and i know some people who will help me, and yes i talked to the DJ. he can stream the music from my notebook, most likely. else if would be heavily out of sync.

But these people are all kind of family. if i mess up, im the one who will have a bad day. the wedding master said: if it doesnt work out we will just play the music and dance.
its not that they pay me. its something im doing as a favor for them :)

One bit of advice...

Find out who the DJ is, ring him and ask if he's putting truss up for his lights (probably)

Ask if you can hang your laser there too, and (probably) plug into his power already on the bar.

Job done.


I'm also not clear on why you need someone on the lights. Its a disco, people will have been dancing for hours already probably, just ask the DJ to turn his off. I've been to enough weddings to know they don't have the lights on when the disco is running....:rolleyes:


I'm really struggling to see how this has been made to appear so difficult.

Decide which shows to run and make sure they work flawlessly on your hardware/software
Go to venue
Rig laser (see above)
Set up projection area (zones, etc)
Mask aperture for safety (assuming no crowd scanning)
Enjoy the bar
Press 'Fog' button (maybe repeatedly)
Ask DJ to turn off lighting
Press 'play' on software (perhaps even up to 3 times!)
Enjoy the applause and everyone's squinting eyes when they turn the lights back on, and perhaps the realization you just snogged a slightly less than attractive second cousin you never recognized in the dark.

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Originally Posted by danielbriggs

Erm... projection zones???

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Read above again, they do get a mention.

When running 0% zones in the audience you don't really want the entire pattern or nearly the entire pattern suddenly disappearing because it enters that zone. Hence my suggestion of trying to plan the layout so the projection stays mostly in the above head zone.

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Originally Posted by danielbriggs

Video looks a little green heavy. Wonder what Chr**a says? >:)

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It said get a new laser which was why I sold it!

Quote:

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When running 0% zones in the audience you don't really want the entire pattern or nearly the entire pattern suddenly disappearing because it enters that zone. Hence my suggestion of trying to plan the layout so the projection stays mostly in the above head zone.

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Why not just set up the zone above head height correctly?

A 0% BAM has it uses but your example seems to suggest the reasons for doing it are undesirable.

Overall, I'm just a bit confused.



Again, lets not overcomplicate this, there is no/very little 'planning' involved. Simply hang the projector over head height and point it horizontally (roughly, you don't need a spirit level or anything like that) Then turn on the projector and set the zones so the lowest part is over peoples heads. Mask up to make it idiot proof. Make use of bar. Everyone has fun.

@Norty: nail; head.

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Originally Posted by norty303

Why not just set up the zone above head height correctly?

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@White-light:

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Originally Posted by White-Light

Read above again

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by norty303

One bit of advice...

Find out who the DJ is, ring him and ask if he's putting truss up for his lights (probably)

Ask if you can hang your laser there too, and (probably) plug into his power already on the bar.

Job done.


I'm also not clear on why you need someone on the lights. Its a disco, people will have been dancing for hours already probably, just ask the DJ to turn his off. I've been to enough weddings to know they don't have the lights on when the disco is running....:rolleyes:


I'm really struggling to see how this has been made to appear so difficult.

Decide which shows to run and make sure they work flawlessly on your hardware/software
Go to venue
Rig laser (see above)
Set up projection area (zones, etc)
Mask aperture for safety (assuming no crowd scanning)
Enjoy the bar
Press 'Fog' button (maybe repeatedly)
Ask DJ to turn off lighting
Press 'play' on software (perhaps even up to 3 times!)
Enjoy the applause and everyone's squinting eyes when they turn the lights back on, and perhaps the realization you just snogged a slightly less than attractive second cousin you never recognized in the dark.

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Because its not easy. Its not a disco.
My projector cant hang because its a flightcase now, with only a thing to lift it with the hand at the control panel(backside).
And the dj uses the stuff the room has, meaning lights and music - thats it.
He doesnt bring stuff himself, because he doesnt have it. The wedding will consist of several people showing their talent, and im up last for a exploding exit.
Il probaly indeed put the projector on a table perfect just above the heads of the crowd, then scan from up to down to get the angle to play the show.