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Hi Reitan ---

Was just noticing your lighting question and, depending on the level of nerdiness and geek-dom that you might aspire to, highly sophisticated answers may be just a stone's throw away. The Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY is the world’s leading university-based research and education center devoted to lighting – from technologies to applications and energy use, from design to health and vision. They regularly do outreach programs featuring courses, seminars, workshops and online programs for practicing professionals and others interested in lighting. They as well have online education for building, design, and facility management professionals who want to learn more about light and lighting.

Professor Russ Leslie started the lighting program there in 1988 and continues to chair it. Contact information for him is Email: leslir@rpi.edu; Telephone: 518-687-7100. Another very capable and helpful person there is Asst Professor Mariana Figueiro. Contact information for her is Email: figuem@rpi.edu; Telephone: 518-687-7142. Email address IS case sensitive.

Both are easy to talk with; can be straight-forward and simple, yet also unbelievably complex; both are solution-oriented. They do consultations all the time, and if they themselves couldn't avail you of the solutions you need, they could easily put you in touch with people who could. This doesn't sound like it's too difficult to do and could indeed be a thrilling slant on Encounters. Hope this gets you a little bit of mileage.

Bob1062 wrote:He also played 2 different tubas, 3 different trombones (ATB), and 2 different baritones (on other songs!)!

But how were his false tones!?

Hi Reitan!

Just thought I'd butt in here with a little opinion of my own. You don't have to take my advice, I just thought I'd share it.

Definitely sounds like a project the Rikskonsertene would go for, I have a little experience with them in the dark murky past... I see your point about using light for Encounters. I have played the piece many times before myself, and I have always thought of doing something 'extra' to add to the piece but the opportunity has never materialised. In my personal opinion though I think the piece is very theatrical and there is something lacking in a performance with just a tuba player on stage - gets a little too static for the music. Many times i have thought of perhaps creating a little action with it, perhaps a little dance or something to accompany the piece. To me, it's too technically challenging to get up and do much action myself whilst playing it but if you have a dancer or something - perhaps a pantomime going on around you on the stage.

If you are going to use lighting I personally would find it very odd using th elights to create an even more static performance. If anything I would use it to create more action. Let the lights reflect the rapidly changing moods of the music, perhaps. There are plenty of other pieces that would work wonderfully with such a static type of performance. Of course you don't have to agree with this, I just thought I'd give you my thoughts...

Ola

Wow...never thought I'd get to use my degree on this board...

What you are dealing with is an issue of trying to make threatrical lights do something that they really don't like to do. Theatrical lighting is based on incandescance. If you look at black lights, they are based on a flourescent tube - 2 different means of producing light.

Now, compare the quality of light produced by your average light bulb with that of a flourescent tube. The light from the flourescent tube is a colder light than that of an in candescent bulb. That is the effect of color temperature.

Now hang with...

Color theory when working with light is a subtractive process. This differs from other media, which are additive. Unfiltered, all light is "white." That is; all visible wavelengths are present. In order to achieve a desired hue, a filter is placed in front of the light source that SUBTRACTS all wavelengths except the wavelength(s) of the desired hue.

In order to produce the glowing effect you want, you have to place a filter in front of the light source that subtracts ALL of the visible wavelengths except the very low end, known as ultraviolet. This is where the different types of light source come into play.

As stated, the flourescent tube emits a colder light than an incandescent bulb. Ultraviolet is on the "cold" end of the color temperature scale. That makes the ultraviolet emitted by a flourescent more accessible than the UV emitted by an incandescent because there is more UV present in the light emitted by the flourescent to begin with.

With that in mind, to your question.

Theatrical lighting is incandescent for a couple of reasons. First, the quality of incandescent light is better and it is more easily manipulated in most situations. UV is the most prominent of those situations where it is not. The second reason is purely technical: you can't put a flourescent tube on a dimmer, and theatrical lighting runs through dimmers.

On stage, a partially successful UV effect can be achieved using strip lights (AKA cyc or cyclorama lights) with a specific gel medium in front of the light source. But, since these are incandescent, you can't filter out ALL of the other wavelengths, meaning that while the glove would glow, you would still be visible. Even with a flourescent black light tube, there is some spill over into the visible spectrum. Making the tuba glow is also problematic. The idea of using a black light in concert (NPI) with a spot will not work. The unfiltered spot will completely cancel the effect of the black light simply by throwing all of the visible light that you filtered with the black light, back into the scene.

If you are doing this in a room and not on a stage, you could probably get the black light to work. You would need to be in relatively close proximity to the light source because the further you are from the source, the more space the visible wavelengths have to propagte, and the more visible you will be.

There is another issue that comes up with this type of lighting effect, and it catches even the most experienced lighting and costume designers. Assuming you would be wearing black to achieve this effect, you need to know that fabric dyes are rarely truly black. They are a super-saturated version of a color, most often a deep red. Sometimes blue. But you need to know that under a super-saturated light, like UV, often those dyes will reflect an unexpected and undesired color. IOW, your black shirt might turn a deep rusty red under a UV light.

That brings me to the final point (at last, yes I know...). Lighting is an element that effects all others. And everything within the domain of that light is effected by the light. The clothing, the chair, the floor, bits of schmutz and stuff on the floor, eyeglasses, an exposed pate, dust in the air, and anything else will be magnified by orders of magnitude under UV light. The scotch tape holding pages of music together glows white-hot under UV light.

So be aware that there are a million little things that can negatively effect the drama you are wanting to create, and the only way to identify those things is through trial and error. Message being, give yourself plenty of time (at least a week) to iron out the wrinkles, because there will be some.

You will likely be able to achieve a partial success with getting the glove to glow. But if you're wanting the unattached hand floating over the valves, that's not something that is likely achieveable on a modest budget. Like many things, the execution of a very simple idea is often the most complex of undertakings.