Help with light placement

[chester]

Hello everyone. New member here. I'm a professional magician and I'm opening my own magic theater. While I am a tech geek when it comes to some electronics (audio, guitars, amps, prop controllers, etc.), lighting is not my forte. I'm working on a limited budget but so far I've picked up 2 fresnels, 2 ellipsoidals (one warm, one cool), and several par RGB lights.

I mounted unistrut to steel beams on the theater ceiling and am using City Theatrical moving light hangers to hang schedule 40 pipe across both sides of the stage. I just got that mounted this past weekend. There's a long HVAC duct that runs longways right through the middle of the theater so I had to do two seperate pipes on each side of the duct. I'm working on the McCandless method of having a warm and cool light 45 degrees to each side, and 45 degrees up from the performer.

My question is, should the ellipsoidal lights be toward the inside and the fresnels on the outside of those. My understanding is fresnel is more of a wash whereas ellipsoidal is a more defined area so my thought process was ellipsoidal can be on the inner ends of the pipe and the fresnels toward the outer, with one RGBW+UV light on each bar for general color washes. Then my others pars would be behind and above me for back and downlighting.

Am I missing anything? Should fresnels set narrower and ellipsoidals on the outer ends?

 

[chester]

If it helps, the theatre is very small. Stage is 10' deep and 20' wide. Edge of down stage to back wall is 27'. 60 seats total (6 rows of 9 and a row of 6).

 

[kenact]

Both an Ellipsoidal and Fresnel can be focused, though the Ellipsoidal typically has more focusing control.

You also have to take into account the beam angle of the lens' along with the distance from the stage. That will determine the coverage area of any given fixture, as well as the amount if light (the greater the distance, the less focused the light will be) which will tend to dictate the hanging position of any given fixture.

The Ellipsoidal will also give you the ability to create sharp edges, where that's nearly impossible with a Fresnel or a Par (hence the "wash" designation).

 

[chester]

So it sounds like its irrelevant which one is on the inner or outer end of the light bar, as long as the beam angles are correct for the distance. Thanks!

 

[jglodeklights]

I need to point out that the way you're rigging this doesn't seem to be how one should go about it. The City Theatrical ML hangers aren't really intended for this application and I'm curious how you're using them/modifying the hardware installation to make it work.

ETA: Also, in what way did you "mount" the unistrut to the steel beams?

 

[chester]

I misspoke. It's the City Theatrical Track Tamer with aluminum split couple (model # 523). I have the uni-strut channels bolted to the C shaped purlins with 1/2" hex bolts, using grade 5 fender washers, then a regular nut with a nylon lock nut on top of that. The 10ft unistrat is mounted perpendicular across 3 purlins so it has a bolt in 3 separate purlins to distribute load. Two uni-struts run parallel to each other with a track tamer on each and a 5ft section of schedule 40 running between them.

The lights I have are very light b/c it's a small venue. Have safety cables for each one and there will be 3 lights on each section of schedule 40 pipe for a total weight of 20.35 lbs (not counting the weight of 5 foot of schedule 40).