VBX 2015

As you may notice on the blog, I've been very plugged into other things recently and have not shared much in the way of designs.  Although I currently don't have time planned to add additional designs, I have a few partially finished blogs I will be posting.  These sadly do not have the great detail I normally try to go into, but I am hopeful what is there might be of help to you.  As always I am more than happy to help if there is any way I can!

Thanks for allowing me to share with you!  ,Steven

For our VBX (vacation bible experience) we were charged with creating a TV gameshow atmosphere.  As you can imagine, It was a blast!





We chose to utilize our Rock Boxes in a different layout, some inner lit truss, some light box signs, and some custom modified fresnels.





As you see, there is pretty much a wall of rock boxes and truss, with the exception of a big gap in the center.  Many of the skits required a center screen and we utilized our roll up screen it that gap.

To add to the authenticity of the game show feel, we create light boxes that read either APPLAUSE or ON AIR.  As you can see in the following pictures, they are pretty basic.  It is a plywood box, with 2- 100w lamps and red coroplast that is painted black to create the verbiage in the void.

Picture of Light Box

Picture of light box

Picture of finished light boxes


Oh, we also built some confetti machines.


Picture of confetti machine


We used carpet fans to force air into a plywood box containing confetti.  Although it worked, we have gotten much much better results with rented CO2 cannons.  That is probably the direction we will go again in the future.


My favorite addition to this set though, is our 5k Fresenls.  We bought 12 used 5k fresnels from our great friends at Lightparts.  They were trying to get rid of them, and we really wanted something that would look like it belonged in a studio but wouldn't kill our low budget for this set.  We lucked out and got these fixtures for $50 each.

Although these came with great working 5,000watt lamps, we choose to remove those lamps.  In place we attached some 200w incandescent mougel base lamps.  We ziptied the lamp bases at the back of the fixture as close to the center of the lense as we could.  While doing this, we saw there was a ton of room inside these large fixtures.  A stroke of genius fell on us.  We covered the interior of a S4 top hat in LED tape, and to our surprise found it looked amazing!

Picture of zip-tied psu and decoder


As you can see we refined the interior a bit.  Total it only cost us about $35 per fixture to add in the LED tape.


video of LED tape?


We also made a few other elements for our set.  The pictures for those are below.  As always, shoot me an e-mail at stevenhallav@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Mountains Album Launch

Happy Thursday!  

As you may notice on the blog, I've been very plugged into other things recently and have not shared much in the way of designs.  Although I currently don't have time planned to add additional designs, I have a few partially finished blogs I will be posting.  These sadly do not have the great detail I normally try to go into, but I am hopeful what is there might be of help to you.  As always I am more than happy to help if there is any way I can!

Thanks for allowing me to share with you!  ,Steven

This design is for our Mountains album release party at Journey.  This album the team put together was truly incredible.  As a technical team, we wanted to put the same intentionality into the first presentation of this album.  With this across all disciplines we planned out each step and rehearsed it.  Video had specific shots planned, audio had scenes setup with specific effects and routing to make the most of the moments we were creating.  We went a bit over the top with preparation on the lighting which is detailed more below.  

The culmination of all this work was incredible.  The atmosphere was perfect and the album release was a moving night of worship that was something we came back to many times after.

The lighting design for this project was one of the best I think I have ever done.  We utilized our base house rig with Mac 700 spots and Mac 301 Washes for many parts of the design, but we really filled in the gaps that were there. 

We used 18" ballroom truss in 5- 30' truss fingers from the upstage lighting position to the downstage edge of the stage.  We hung these trusses on the downstage edge with  a spanner truss that had flexible connections.  On the upstage Truss 1, 3, and 5 where connected to a spanner truss that lifted all 3 together.  Truss 2 and 4 were hung on separate motors to allow them to move independently.

We were able to use the layout of these motors to create an automated movement during 3 specific points of the service.  We had Jason onstage to run motors and oversee automation.

On each truss we spaced out Mac 101s, and Colorblast TRXs.  We layed out the 101s in a way to be able to either use them as individuals or as groupings when at certain trim settings.

In addition to these moving trusses, we had a wall of blinders from a previous set that were all individually controlled.  These rows of blinders also had Pixel led tape lining the edges which made for a cool low res movement around the blinders.  We also utilized 4 VL 2500 spots and some Elation LED pars as side lights.  The incredible gobos in the VLS gave great texture across the side of the stage and helped to create a shadow effect on the side walls.  That being said, I think the only thing holding those VLs together was hope and prayers as after that night we only ever could get 1-2 to work properly at the same time.

To start the night we had all of the trusses in the full trip position (at max height).  After the intro the whole upstage portion of the grid moved down 16' which was designed made the trusses rake to about a 60 degree angle.  This large rake made our short room feel massive.  It also gave the 101s a big splay were they could sweep across the stage for the 2nd very high energy song.

In the middle of the set we did a very low key song that was a piano and vocals only.  During this song we lowered the whole grid to about 10' off the floor.  This created an amazing ceiling and made the room feel very intimate.

The following song the trusses 1,3,and 5 moved to the rake position and trusses 2 and 4 moved to a half rake position which created a great offset look.

We used tie line hanging from the back corner of the trusses with fender washers to know at what height the trusses needed to land for each cue.  Obviously we did not make moves if the area was not clear, but due to our rehearsing we all new what needed to happen when.  We even programmed in cues to ensure the right amount of light for those areas.