Summary: In this week’s episode, we dive into the Mailbag for the Free Q & A Tuesday! This is where I take questions from listeners and walk them through my through my thought process.<br> If you’re new here, I have a Quiz that will help me send you a customized Guide on getting started with Lighting: FREE Guide @ <a href="http://LearnStageLighting.com/quiz">LearnStageLighting.com/quiz</a>.<br> Mailbag! (2:00)<br> Rika (2:07) I’m looking for a special school at Canada that teaches about stage lighting. Do you know any schools?<br> I currently am not familiar with any schools that do this in Canada. When it comes to learning about this industry I’ve met two different types of people. They either get into this business by starting as a stagehand or volunteer. Or they went to college but it was for an unrelated education.<br> My recommendation to you is to find local production companies that you can start working for or volunteer with local crews, such as churches who are always looking for helping hands. This way you can start gaining on hand experience and see if this industry is a good fit for you.<br> Gregory Hall (5:50) There are many more complex lights out there now and I’m not seeing a lot on how to use and how to program. Seeing more pixel mapped led fixtures (both bars w/ rows of lights and wash w/ combo of elements w/ various mapping.) And then really interesting/crazy stuff like the <a href="https://amzn.to/2OC7urb">Elation ZCl bars w/ moving yoke</a>, variable beam, mapped \”heads\”, etc. (or even the small individual heads…showing up now used fairly cheap, maybe from tours w./ multiple units in play, but not generic enough to keep in inventory. See many 1/2 price or less.) Specifically, have seen stuff on using effects across fixtures, but not much on effects “within” a fixture. (may be stuck w/ manual chases, etc.?) These special situations may be too variable to talk about as a group, but if there are any themes, might be an interesting topic.<br> There are a few ways to handle this. The first method is to run your pixels as video. The way you can do this is to hook up ENTTEC’s ELM, Resolume, or MadMapper which is a Pixel Mapping Program. It will allow you to play videos and then arrange your lights. Based on your console and equipment there are a few ways you will be able to set this up.<br> The second method would be inside of the unit. There are built in Chases and Effects. When you get into these fixtures that have a lot of parameters and effects. Once you get to know the program and different features you can set up an amazing show.<br> The last method you can patch them into your console as a regular DMX Fixture. But the downside to this is that building chases can take up a lot of your time.<br> Rags (9:58) I’m a solo acoustic performer and play twice a week on a stage at a local pub. There are two lighting strips on the ceiling with floods that put out very little light. I’d like to add some front lighting to make my appearance stand out more and be more appealing. I perform during the day, so the place overall is very light, but I want some differentiation on the stage and have never worked with lighting before. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.<br> To get you started I want to direct you to <a href="https://www.learnstagelighting.com/">Learn Stage Lighting</a> and select Band Lighting. This will send you a Free Guide on how to get started with lighting for your needs.<br> This will walk you through a few things and ideas to get you set up. For bands, I like to recommend a couple of Front Lights and the software to control it is DMXis. You can run it from a foot pedal or run it from a DAW.<br> For your particular set up, I would recommend getting just a few of LED Par Fixtures or LED Strip Lights on the floor or around your stage to add some highlight to your stage.
