Re: Don't buy Martin!

On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:11:07 -0700 (PDT), Michael Neff
<poetsoldier@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>On May 14, 9:32 pm, "Peter Herman" <rpe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> <noooo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>> news:6e4l241ha97pee82dt459glb1janq2i1k0@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> > On 14 May 2008 23:16:50 +1200, "Smoking Causes Lung Cancer (SCLC)"
>> > <S...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]>
>> > Yet you have all jumped to the assumption that it's for no
>> > valid reason.
>> [snip]>
>> > It was intended as a warning. Now that I see the reaction, if I ever
>> > want to warn about a lame company it would probably be best to
>> > say they are fantastic, so people like yourselves will jump to the
>> > conclusion that they must be lame. From the "logic" of this group
>> > and yourself included I should jump to the conclusion that you
>> > disbelieve smoking causes cancer...etc...
>>
>> I don't think that most of us would object to the use of a pen name IF
the
>> post had contained some information on WHY you were slamming Martin.
 For
>> the most part, we don't need a pseudonym when we complain.  I told our
>> Strand Sales Rep right to his face that I liked his product (he was
trying
>> to sell me a 300 series console) but that I would never buy one until
their
>> service in our area got a whole lot better than it was.  I am living
proof
>> that Strand didn't put out a contract on me as a result of my lack of
tact!
>>
>> As a group of technically inclined folks, we want to know what exactly
is
>> wrong.  Are lamps blowing for no reasons? Are the optics inconsistent
from
>> unit to unit? Are the shutters failing to index? Is the service rep
unable
>> to fix a problem?  As they say in the National Inquirer ads, "Inquiring
>> minds want to know, we want to know!"  With information we can compare
your
>> experiences with ours and perhaps even suggest a fix.
>>
>> Peter
>
>I would like to purchase one light, Parcam size, small spot maybe,
>which could be used remotely to follow an actor. The High School
>theater has little funding and no room for large normal spotlights to
>follow moving actors, nor do we have enough instruments to fill all
>the holes as they wander during a song. Could someone give me some
>ideas- companies, prices? dependable is im****tant but price is key.

It's very likely that your front lights are too close to the stage, if not
directly over the front of it. That is a very very common problem. 
You can try solving it by using floods or diffusion filters, but that
makes them too dim imo. The best solution I've found for that sort of
problem is to use NSP par lamps and move them back far enough
that they can wash the whole stage. Then you might not have to
buy any more lights, but you probably would have to buy some 
more power chord and whatever else it takes to get them there.
You can't fill an entire video screen if the projector is too close
and the same is true with lighting a stage, but for some reason(s)
people much too often don't seem able to figure that one out. 
When I was doing lights for a band that was playing different bars
every week I eventually learnd that lesson, and how to overcome
it. I bought some cheap galvanised tubing (for the top of chain link
fences) at places like Lowe's and always kept it on hand. When
the house's downstage light bar was too close--which was most
if not all of the time--I'd hang my own where it needed to be. If I
thought we'd be going back a few times, I left it there. Another 
light guy I was sort of friends with started doing the same thing
too, so it was good for lots of people over the years. One place
in particular I asked the owner if I could leave what I put up, 
and he said: 'No because one else would use it.' I went ahead
and left it there anyway. In the five or six or however many years
that followed, every band I saw in there used the bar I left and 
none of them ever used the original one that was still there (and
much prettier btw) except for one band that had more lights than
they could get on the one I left (the one I left was also several
feet longer than the original).