Hazers and Actors
Wed, 28 Jan 2009, 09:23 amkarlae20 posts in thread
Hazers and Actors
Wed, 28 Jan 2009, 09:23 amSo I'm doing a small musical theatre concert.
Got a few lights, nice cavenous black box space with a few wings either side, no set what so ever and no cyc, so not much to really work with.
Figured some haze would give a nice atmosphere and help to give the space some more depth and intrigue.
This is not an uncommon circumstance I find myself in as most of the venues I have worked in as a lighting designer have been like this and I generally always use a bit of haze.
I see it used in professional theatre, dance, television, most areas of performance really, but in the amateur musical theatre scene, I always get the same response from the actors.
"It's making me cough!".."It's affecting my singing!".."I have a dry throat".. etc etc.
So initially I was concerned that maybe the use of haze really does affect performers respiratory system, but then I've been told by many other people (techs, actors, directors, average joes) that it is purely a psychological thing and that simply seeing the haze makes a person feel as if they are slightly asfixiated.
The fluid doesn't not emit a toxic haze and unless you have a severe allegy to whatever is in the fluid, then it should not affect you.
What are your thoughts, as either a performer, director or tech?
A few key points from the
Wed, 11 Feb 2009, 08:08 amA few key points from the website Labrug suggested.
Key Points
• About one in 4000 individuals has photosensitive epilepsy. Repetitive flashing lights
may induce seizures in these individuals. The flash frequency of concern is from 5 Hz to
70 Hz, with most individuals only susceptible in the range of 15 Hz to 20 Hz.
• A flashing strobe (or a close combination of multiple strobes sequenced together) must
not be programmed to flash in the 5 Hz to 70 Hz frequency range.
• Slower flash rates, and randomly flashing lights are not known to be a cause of
photosensitive epilepsy.
• Point sources of light are much less likely to induce seizures than a diffuse source of light
which covers a large part of a person's field of vision.
• To induce a seizure the light must be present in the center of the field of vision as
opposed to the periphery.
• Reducing brightness or increasing distance between a photosensitive viewer and the light
source is effective for preventing photosensitive epileptic seizures.
• Lights flashing in the distance, even in the frequency range of concern, are not known to
cause seizures when in the presence of other lights of a more natural or chaotic nature.
• The probability of inducing a seizure is greatly increased (by up to a factor of ten) if the
light source is arranged in a regular pattern, such as a raster scan image. (This would be
far more difficult to accomplish with the DMX Multi-Strobe Brik than with say, a
television image.) Stated