Metal Concert 2-17-2012

 Last month we hosted a Heavy Metal Rock show.  It was intensely amazing.

We used the Mega Lite leds we bought for Christmas.  George was kind enough to construct an amazing frame system which made setup for a breeze.  Each frame has 8 leds with 16 pixels each.  It is great, we use them like a low res LED wall.  We control them with Madrix.  It is one of the coolest LED programs I have ever seen.

Anthony ran the console for part of the show too.  He did an awesome job.

We did some pretty cool things.  We controlled the Madrix computer VIA a dmx in from the MA.  So all my intensities and color mastsers were controlled from handles on the MA.  We also had an audio input into the Madrix computer.  Our amazing audio friend Zach set us up with a Mackie mixer with the stereo mix, guitars, and kick drum.  We then un-muted what we wanted and fed it into the Madrix.  The madrix, then gave us some amazing EQ effects based on the Audio input.  Below you can see the crowded lighting setup.

We also added 6 Mac 2ks on the floor for the show (you cant have a good metal show without some good blinding).  It was a fun show.  Enjoy.

Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we really challenged ourselves to do something great.  Instead of spending a large amount of money on rentals, we committed to spending that money on purchasing something we could use far into the future.  We landed on purchasing some LEDs, and renting a few Clay Paky Sharpys

For the past few years we have been trying to recreate the look of Versa Tubes.  We have used PVC with some success, but have not been able to get quite the dynamic.  In our research for something like the Versa tube, we came across the Mega Light Bright Stripe.  It is a 4' LED tube with 16 segments of LEDs.  The coolest thing about them, is that they don't need anything external.  They take a 3pin DMX input and can daisy chain power.
















We used a Madrix basic system to control them. Madrix is designed as a pixel mapping and content building tool for LED systems. We built all of our content in Madrix in a very short amount of time.

We built a massive structure to support the LEDS.  The structure used gas pipe, uni strut, and various connectors.  We then clamped the LEDs to the pipe.  The structure was built in 10 sections, each of which had its own DMX Universe.  There were 10 universes of LEDs ran from Madrix.

We also rented a circle truss (covered in garland and Christmas lights) and 16 Clay Paky Sharpys.  We really strive to make each service an environment for worship.  I think we really did a great job with this one.

Central Florida Community Arts Christmas Show 2011

This past Christmas season (which was crazy busy!), we hosted the Central Florida Community Arts Orchestra and Chior.  They put together an amazing show that went through the different ways Christmas is celebrated around the world and the meaning of Christmas.  There was a 100+ person chior, 60 person Orchestra, 12 dancers, and 6 actors.

The scale of this show was massive.  We had 22 songs to program (3 of which were medleys.)  Total there was about 350 cues for this 1.5 hour show.  We hung 2 60' White Cyc's along the back of the stage in the Sanctuary.  It made for an amazing canvas to paint with light and it was very simple and quick to hang.  Along the bottom of the Cyc we lined up 12 CB12s, 6 Mac 2000 profiles, and 6 Mac 250 Washes.  We also added some Mac 2000 Washes (4) on 1st Electric to side light the chior and cyc.  It worked out amazing.

I experimented with a few looks and came up with some new ideas of programming, that I have really found quite beautiful.

The first is gradients.  I made the below look with ambers, red, magenta, and uv.

Since then I have tried it with greens, blues; pastels, and even opposing colors like NC and Red.  It works out amazing.  It has become a standard in my programming bag of tricks.

I also recreated a look I used a lot in rock and roll  It made for a nice energetic look for one of the Jackson 5 songs (I told you it was eclectic).

This was an amazingly fun show.  It had lots of diverse music and some theatrical acting.  Below are a few more pictures.  Enjoy!

Heart Set 2012

This set is our newest one in the Rink.  I am Third (youth services at Northland)  have restructured into a house church model.  The 1st week of the month is a large gathering at the church and the following weeks of the month are at houses spread across Central Florida.  It is a great plan, that we are all super excited for.

To launch our first I-3 gathering.  We built a heart set.  The set is comprised of 3' x 3' spandex panels covered with a black paper mask.  These panels are the same ones we used for Battle of the Bands in 2010.  We simply covered them with black craft paper that we pre-cut with hearts.  

They worked out amazing for the cheesy cupid skit and were very fitting for worship.  Surprisingly, when lit they looked like a reasonable set for any "...of the heart" type sermon.  If you are interested below are some of the pictures of how we built this set.

 Before

   After

 

Youth Christmas 2008

This is very simple set, that looks amazing.  George showed me this one.

The set is just a bunch of light bulbs hung at random heights.  Simple but very effective.  We built them from lamp cord, ada-tap connectors, and lamp bases to make ours and wire them (see links below).

You can zip tie up the slack to get the desired height.  We put ours on dimmers so that you could either have a nice black background, or the star like effect you see in the pictures.

Here are the links for the items needed:

lamp cord (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202206458/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)

ada-taps male (http://www.filmtools.com/quicmaledplu.html)
female (http://www.filmtools.com/ad26ac29.html)

lamp bases (http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fans-Indoor-Lighting-Indoor-Lighting-Accessories-Lamp-Parts-Accessories/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbvmp/R-100356874/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)

Ice Cave!

As many of you may know, Sara and I had our first baby at the beginning of the month.  Dorian James Hall, arrived a week ago today.  God has really blessed us with such an amazing little guy.

Dorian's Baby Stats!: 9lbs 3oz. , 21" long , 41 weeks cooking, arrival at 8:18pm on 11/9

  We are so glad he is here!  Sara did an amazing job, she was in labor 63 hours.  She is healing well and doing good.  Below are a few pictures of the little guy.

Sara and I both thought, what better way to celebrate our baby, then to make him an awesome room.  So below is my latest set design :)

The Ice Cave!

Sara and I set out to make Dorian's new room an Arctic Wonderland.  He has Penguins, Orca Whales, and Ice burgs on his walls.  Sara did a great job coming up with all the scenes and painting them all.  She did pretty much all of the painting except for the cave.  The whales and penguins look so realistic.  I don't think the photos do them justice.

Since, my part was mostly the cave, I will delve into that.  To start I made an arc with 2 layers of 1x2 lumber cut at angles.  It is shown below.

   I added 2x4 studs that ran down at various lengths to make the vertical structure.  You can see them in the photos to the side and the plot above too.  To give the cave some rigidity, I put spacers at the bottom of the studs.  I had to cut these to match the angles the studs were at.

Lastly I covered it all in chicken wire for the next step.

For the next step, I covered the entire structure in paper mache.  Paper mache is very easy to make, just rip newspaper into strips and cover it in a glue (I used a mix of 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup water).  After letting this initial layer dry, I put on a second coat.  This made a decent structure for the cave, but it was obviously paper mache.  

To make it look more realistic I added a few layers of paper mache glue and drywall mud.  It retrospect, I would have only  used drywall mud.  It is much easier to work with and dries better.  Below are some pictures of this part of the build.  This part took the longest, probably 50 hours.

I sponged on some grey and white paint to give it a bit more texture.  Above you can see the final product.

As with any good set, it is only as good as the lighting that accompanies it.  Having this wonderful knowledge, we decided to get I cove LEDs for Dorian's cave.  Here are some pictures of me learning how to set them up and what they look like.

I wired the system up to a wireless network too, so know you can control the LEDs from any computer via Color Kinetics QuickPlay Pro.

Well that is all.  Best of wishes from our family.  I am looking forward to a very busy Christmas, but will update my blog when I can.