speciaL effects for powerfuL productions
professionAl equipMent CAn Help CreAte MeMorAble
CHristMAs produCtions And yeAr-round stAge events
It’s the time of the year to consider making angels fly across the stage, helping snow fall magically on the audience, and lighting the birth of baby Jesus. Tech teams and churches large and small can find the right products to make it happen, no matter what the production calls for, with a little planning and creativity.
Let There Be Light
Every good stage production, including church Christmas pageants and shows, rely on professional lighting. How do you step it up a notch from the ordinary to create an onstage drama that’s worthy of the Christmas season?
Joan Bolen, marketing coordinator with Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Wybron Inc., manufacturer of lighting fixtures, color changers and other effects, says colored light is the special effect that puts the special in Christmas productions.
“Color is one of the easiest and most flexible special effects available,” Bolen reports. “Used skillfully, lighting – especially colored light – is the most powerful design tool.” Color changers enable standard theatrical fixtures to project numerous colors, with the lighting designer being able to pick the color they want from the lighting console. Color changers are available that use standard color filters (or gels), or use dichroic glass to affect the color.
Another of Bolen’s favorite color additions for Christmas productions helps churches fill needs for star backdrops. “We have a new CMY color mixing fiber optic illuminator (so new it’s yet to have a formal product name) that produces fantastic brightness and beautiful color choices,” she says. “If a star cloth is done with half white light and half in a steel blue, the effect is unbelievable. The eyes can’t focus on the blue, so it gives enormous depth.”
Michael Carattini, president of Robe America of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a stage lighting manufacturer that offers theatrical and architectural lights, moving lights, lighting effects and control systems, also believes lighting solutions can help churches add professional special effects to Christmas productions and to events and services year-round.
“Churches should consider the tremendous advantages of complimenting or replacing traditional lighting systems with moving light systems,” Carattini advises. “Concert lighting and sound systems draw the audience into the performance and can be as cost effective as conventional systems when you consider all the costs associated with each type of product. Today’s audiences want more show, and moving lights give it to them.”
When followspots are used to trace angels or other actors flown across the stage, Bolen says to be careful that this special flying effect is professionally tracked with lighting. Good training for your followspot operators or an automated followspot system help eliminate error and make movements smooth and consistent.
If churches are smaller, or simply shopping for bang for the buck, Bolen again stresses color for onstage enhancement. “Almost any church can afford a couple of color changers for their existing fixtures,” she states.
Video and Audio Alternatives
For productions that call for unusual special effects, Audio Ethics of Charlotte, North Carolina, offers some goods outside the usual lighting/video/audio and design/ build services it’s known for. President Donnie Haulk says the company has a new high-end robotic projection system that lets churches with large production budgets take advantage of the latest in moving head light technology. The technology allows a video projector to be placed on the head of a moving light as opposed to on the light fixture itself. “This is a great new tool that can be used to create a very dynamic program,” Haulk says.
For smaller churches and budgets, Haulk suggests a standard digital effects processor with audio pitch correction options as an effective tool for drama. “This can provide a very unusual or intimidating sounding voice for use in dramas and plays,” he adds.
When it comes to projecting patterns of light, Alan Kibbe, sales manager for Stamford, Connecticut-based Rosco, says Rosco offers a tool called iPro that allows for projection of scenic backgrounds and seasonal images. “iPro allows users to create … custom color ‘gobo’ projections with an ink jet printer. Typically a custom color glass gobo costs more than $400. An iPro slide can be produced for less than $40 and with a typical life of 50 hours, [it] is sufficient for most seasonal production runs,” he says.
Let it Snow?
Evaporative snow, bubbles, foam and fog are fun effects that don’t usually find their ways into Sunday services. Snowmasters of Anderson, Alabama, offers these special effects for any sized production, as well as haze effects that gradually turn into a snowfall.
“Depending on the area the production team would like covered, we can do just the stage with a snowfall or we can allow the entire audience to experience a magical snowfall,” says Mike Giles, in sales with Snowmasters. Giles says prices may range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands depending on the number of snow machines necessary to do the job.
Aside from snow at Christmastime, Giles says his company is sometimes called upon to create a sublime and mystical haze for church productions. “A haze or fogging effect can often enhance the act [that] is being created, such as Christ arising from the tomb,” he explains.
First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, puts on a magnificent annual Christmas pageant using Snowmasters equipment, according to Giles. “The snow machines add a magical effect to some of their Christmas songs,” he says.
Rosco also offers haze and fog for churches to use in creative ways during Christmas and for various onstage productions. Other Rosco effects include seasonal gobos, gobo rotators, custom image projection, projection screens, colored lighting gels, scenic paint, and electric candles.
Kibbe says haze can be used to create a mood onstage, as well as to enhance visibility of light beams, “particularly the familiar moving shafts and patterns produced by moving lights.”
Thanks to this year’s fabulous technology, from the smallest sanctuary to the grandest great hall, a little planning can help ensure that audiences remain riveted to Christmas productions.
Staff writer/editor Carol Badaracco Padgett resides in Kennesaw, Georgia. She can be reached at cpadgett@worshipfacilities.com.
