The Team March 1, 2009
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Lighting and Sound, General 2commentsI have now completed my time at Katikati College and am now studying at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School for a Diploma in Entertainment Technology in Wellington.
The Diploma in Entertainment Technology is a practical based course that focuses on the technical aspects of performance.
What we teach at this school will assist you to hone your craft as well as your hunger to create. At Toi Whakaari we provide a range of challenges and skills to engage you to achieve your dreams.
We aim to:
- Equip our students with the skills and mindset to enable them to forge and sustain a career in the performing arts
- Empower students to drive the performing arts culture in New Zealand beyond their wildest dreams
- Celebrate diversity in skills, teaching, methodology and ambition
- Encourage connection between performers, production team and audience
- Ignite the passion to tell the stories of Aotearoa and beyond
All technical duties at the PAC have been left in the capable hands of Oscar, Lockie, Angus and Brin. They will be running all things technical that happen in the PAC: The Ball, Talent Quest, Lip Sync, YR11, 12 & 13 Productions, assemblies, prizegivings and Community events held in and out of the College.
Oscar and Lockie will be attending NYDS - National Youth Drama School in April this year to further their capabilities in and knowledge of theatre technology this time in the Advanced Technical course. Hopefully I will get a chance to catch up with them there.
Luminaire Types :: Part 1 - PC and Fresnel February 25, 2008
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Lighting and Sound add a commentThis is the first post in many that will cover the different types of lights used in a theatre situation. The first two I will cover is the Fresnel, and the PC which maybe the most common types of lights used in a theatre situation.
The Fresnel and the PC are the workhorses of the theatre, they provide most of the overhead and backlight washing the stage in colour and giving depth to the performance. Fresnels and PCs use a parabolic reflector at the back of the lamp housing to reflect light emitted from the lamp back towards the lens. These lights can be ’spotted’ or ‘flooded’ by moving the reflector and lamp in relation to the lens, and is what is moved towards the lens to ‘flood’ the beam and moved away from the lens to ’spot’ it. In Selecon Fresnels and PCs there are focus knobs at the bottom right of the light that are fixed to the lamp housing and are loosened to focus the light, also the beam angle produced by the light depends on the size of the lens present.
The light output from a Fresnel or PC cannot be controlled by shutters like profiles, and instead barndoorsare used. These are rotatable metal flaps that are fitted to the front of the light. Barndoors shape and control the spill of the light, stopping unwanted-light from lighting pieces of of set and shining in audiences eyes. The barndoor has four that can be used to introduce up to four straight soft edges into the beam.
When the lenses are inspected closely and the beams produced are shone on a wall it becomes appartent that similarities stop and the differences become clear.
Fresnel Fresnels have a ‘Fresnel’ lens which is ribbed with concentric circles. This dissipates the light more and provides a soft, smooth beam. The amount of light in the middle of the beam is 100% and darkens evenly to 50% at the edges. This makes is very easy to blend Fresnels together because the 50% at the edges add together to make 100% giving an even wash of light and colour.
PC PC’s have a ‘Plano convex’ lens (sometimes called pebble convex because of the convex edge being ‘pebbled’ or frosted). PC’s differ from Fresnels in that they produce a crisper light that has a more defined edge that results in less light scatter. PC’s are therefore not as good at blending colours and providing even coverage as a Fresnel. The narrow beam produced by the PC when it is spotted back can be very effective at providing dramatic highlights. The wide angle focus is good at lighting a large amount of stage at a short throw distance. The beam produces can also be modified with a frost (diffuser) so that it takes on the characteristics of a Fresnel beam, which can be useful when a Fresnel is needed but none are available.
Thanks to Selecon for the images.
For more infomation on PCs and Fresnels click here.
KKC PAC 2008 February 13, 2008
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Bookings, Lighting and Sound, Events, General add a commentI hope everyone had an excellent holiday, is rested up and took advantage of this wonderful weather!
I have finally updated the photos of all of last years productions and our drama trip to London and I will add more photos of the productions and shows that are put on throughout the year.
The course I attended, put on by AUT and The Edge in Auckland was excellent. The content covered was relevant to the NZ theatre industry and topic discussed included: rigging systems, projection techniques, 3 phase power, signal flow, health and safety, light types, paperwork management and heap more. A wide range of people attended from secondary school pupils like me to people that help out in their local churches and communities. As I mentioned before I was also deciding on what courses our junior team should go on and this will be a definite as it is a good basic-intermediate level course that in addition the the NYDS courses will help the team and Ms Kelly when I leave next year.
I have decided to make a few changes to our setup this year, the first being a change in the way our grid is patched into the lighting desk. At the moment we patch each light into the dimmer pack separately, this can be confusing and time consuming as each patch cable has to be run and plugged in separately. What I am planning to do is semi-permanently hard-patch each wayline into is corresponding dimmer number and then soft-patch the light to a channel. This allows more flexible grouping and ordering options and allows more time to be spent on run-throughs and plotting sessions.
I also plan to setup a ArtNet DMX node in the control room that will allow us to operate the lights from a laptop over the schools wireless network, this will eliminate the need to run cables and will let us rig and focus lights from the stage which will make it faster as we will not have to run to and from the control room to bring a light up.
Hopefully everything will go to plan.
This year we have:
- Tuesday 15th April - ‘Our Town’ - Yr 13 IA
- Tuesday 27th May - Lip Sync Competition
- Monday 30th June - ‘Midsummer’ - Yr 11 IA
- Wednesday 13th/Thursday 14th August - Talent Quest
- Tuesday 19th August - ‘Secret Garden’ - Yr 12 IA
As you can see it is already very busy. No doubt there will be additions to this list as well as date changes, so this is just an outline of the year. I will post more about ‘Our Town’ and what it is about. If you would like to book the PAC for your event please contact the office for details.
Introduction to Entertainment Technology, AUT November 28, 2007
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Lighting and Sound, General add a commentNext week I will be attending a AUT Short Course based at AUT and The Edge. This course is two weeks and will add more experience and knowledge to the KKC technical team.
Many of the things that I will learn will be taught and shared with the junior team and Ms Kelly. The course starts on the 3rd Dec and finishes on the 14th. I am intending to compare this course with the ones available through the National Youth Drama School and decide which advanced course to send our future techies to in the coming years.
For more information in the “INTRODUCTION TO ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY” course offered by AUT click these links.
AUT Website, Information PDF
Santa in the Park November 28, 2007
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Lighting and Sound, Events, General add a commentOn the 15th dec the Katikati Lions club is holding their annual Santa Parade. This will start at about 11 and will finish up at Moore park where there will be entertainment, music, food, rides and a lot of fun.
Previous years it has rained, so bring a brolly or a raincoat just in case, by the looks of the weather we are having now. Rain should be the last of our problems.
The sound and music will be provided and run by KKC’s junior technicians Lockie and Oscar.
I look forward to seeing Katikati there!
Selecon Lighting NZ November 3, 2007
Posted by Kees Fransen in : Lighting and Sound add a commentSelecon Lighting is a New Zealand lighting company that manufactures luminaries (lights) and exports them around the world. Most of our lights in the PAC are made by Selecon as well as our lighting rig implementation which they designed and helped install.
Selecon has produced “SWITCHED ON” which are a set of guides on how to light the stage and the actors.
To encourage and guide you in your exploration of stage lighting SELECON has developed a range of support material and exercises relating to the topics covered in the original six Switched On posters. Here
The use of the equipment and light, that supports this work, falls into a few easily understood categories:
- Angle
- Shape
- Colour
- Movement
- Composition
These are the main areas that the Switched On series will be addressing, but it is worth noting as a starting point that the first three of these are descriptive of the light itself as all light sources have angle, shape and colour. Whereas the second two – movement and composition - are about how we use light and how we make good pictures with it.
The vast amount of information is too much to publish on this site but it is very worthwhile for anybody thinking of hiring the PAC or putting on any type of production. For the more intermediate or advanced readers the are also notes on cues rigging and plotting, which can come in very helpful.
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and over the next few months I will post little snippets of the many different types of lights and how they are used.
The site is here