Discovery Lights, 17-18 March 2007
Challenges for this week: The set has been the same for over a month, so I had to come up with something to distinguish it from previous weeks. In addition, a couple of weeks ago our four Trackspots were transferred to another venue, leaving us with two Studiospots as the only intelligent lights. We have two more that have been backstage awaiting repairs for months. I’d like to see them back up and running, but we are a church, and if we’re using our budget to help poor people instead of fixing our lights, I’m okay with that. The first look is the one I used before the band went onstage. The next look was used when the band started playing an instrumental intro to the first song. The center screen showed an eye-candy video while the side screen showed announcements. Both Studiospots were set to white, with open gobo and a random effect so that their beams moved around the front of stage. Here they are shown hitting the drummer and guitar player. 
The first song was a continuation of the intro, so I used the same colors but brought up the front lights. I used the red lights on the backdrop, and blue lights on the truss, to provide transitions in this song. I was saving the movers for a later song… 
I used a totally different color to distinguish the next song, with two different looks. It was a cool day outside, so the air conditioner wasn’t running much and the haze hung in the air beautifully. 
I used the Lava gobo with a very slow rotation in the two Studiospots for this song. To provide transitions within the song, I moved the lights from the lead singer, to the backdrop, to the guitarist/drummer for a solo, and back to the singer. It doesn’t show up that well in the photos, but it was a nice effect. For the finale, I lit up the truss in the back. 
I used two basic looks (with the fixed lights) for the final song. The band continued to play an instrumental version while the audience greeted one another, so I dimmed the front lights for the third look. It doesn’t show up in the pictures, but I used the studiospots to hit the white draped fabric with a subtle rotating gobo effect. I like using the gobos on irregular surfaces where you can’t tell that it has a cheesy shape. 
Announcements and message. For the announcements, I pointed the studiospots across the stage to illuminate the backdrop with a deep blue/purple gobo. During most of the service, the stage is too brightly lit to achieve these highly saturated colors. 
