Answer a question for me... I've always been told not to use blue costumes on stage. And I never have done.

But can anybody tell me where this comes from?

Many thanks

Janie

I've seen hundreds of blue costumes on stage....

They looks... Well blue....

Seems a bit silly. Unless there's a lighting reason...

Pales the skin? *shrug*

I know that under the artificial lights any "purple" comes out blue on my Digital Camera... Weird..

Could it be anything to do with Cobalt Blue not being visible by (TV and Cine) cameras? Perhaps it comes from that.

I must admit, this is a new one on me so I can't answer the original question Janie. However, I can comment on the answers so far.

Eeyore. I suspect you are thinking about the chroma effect (or Colour Separation Overlay as the BBC prefers to call it!) where weather forecasters cannot wear blue else the map will appear on their clothes. However, the camera does see blue and it's the electronics that does the wizardry. If chroma is off, you will not have a problem. Alternatively, you may be going back to the early days of colour TV where the tubes and electronics in early camera's (and domestic TV sets) struggled to work at the top end of the frequency spectrum. It was quite common to see the sea or sky in a nice shade of turquise-green!

Incidentally, the chroma effect can be set on any flat colour. It's normally blue but is often green. Interesting effects can be seen on a heavily colour textured or multi-colour background. This technology has been around since the early days of colour TV. I'm not familiar enough with film to know if it works the same way but I guess the separation it could be done with colour filtering. I can't imagine how you would overlay the other image with film though.

George, many digital still camera's and camcorders of any ilk have difficulty with correctly representing deep blue's into indigo and also with deep red's at the other end of the spectrum. Triple CCD camera's tend to be much better with this as the camera is only having to decode roughly one third of the visible spectrum but they are correspondingly more expensive! The mis-interpretation is worse under artificial light. Does your camera let you set white balance manually? If so, do it when you get to the indoor location and this should improve the colour interpretation. (Put a sheet of white card in your camera case set the white with).

Like George, I've seen, and lit many blue costumes. I have to say that it can often be the colour that gives the most pleasing effect to the eye. Blue costumes, lit with multiple hues including indigo, can seem to come alive almost in the same way as using UV. I've always assumed it's because you are approaching UV frequencies and lights at that colour must set up harmonics in the UV range. I may be about to have that assumption challenged. It's just something else to be aware of when providing the right 'balance' of lighting for all the costumes and sets on stage.

Martin. Do you know any more?

Robin

Well this is a new one on me..

To answer Janie's question - I think you've been sold up the river on an old wives tale. When lighting a production I meet with the wardrobe mistress and do the colour thing, basically so I know what I have to deal with in each scene and try to avoid colour clashes. For instance if the production wanted to use blue costumes for a night scene then I might have to rethink my standard night scene colour pallet

Frankly it's pretty easy to deal with any colour as long as there is some difference between costumes and set etc.

My main concern currently is with skin tones - The colour of different types of light (by that I mean the light in "open white") causes nasty clashes and some experimentation in make up. For instance I'm using normal tungsten lamps which have a warm white, next to discharge lamps in moving lights which produce a harsh white and for effect throw in a couple of HMI light which produce a blueish white, and frankly I'm b*ggered!!
I wonder what colour the new ceramics will produce??

hmmm this topic is closest to the question/advice i need

I was asked by our director & costumes yesterday if there was a problem with using a light green material for a dress, as they had heard it would not appear that colour on stage (get washed out by the warm/cold lighting)

anyone heard of this happening with light green costumes ?

Roy.

It's no more difficult than any light pastel shade. Yes if you put a hot hue on it, it will 'wash it out' but the same is true for light peach, lemon yellow, pale blue, and pale pink. You will just have to change the colour pallette according to what ultimate effect you want. Just be a bit careful with green light. If you can get a vivid green on it but wash the face with white, it can look stunning. It you get too much green spill on the face, and can't whiten it, the actress will look ill.

IMHO green fabric's do not take red or mauve/purple light well, anything from an orange though golds up to a light blue are all generally fine. It does though depend on the particular fabric, so it's worth getting a swatch of the fabic and trying different colour options with it if its important.

When I did a scene with a lovely light green flared dress for a 'princess'. The fabric was a satin so had a good sheen. I top lit one area with a really bright emerald green. As the young lass made her entrance she was picked up by a FS, and as she took up her position, she walked under the 'green' and the dress came alive.

Robin

Just a thought on how this myth may have came about?
Might not this blue costume thing, be a throw back from the days of when the ?Limes? [Drummond lights] follow spots [Domes] were used.
Because it gave off a more yellowish tint florescence, of the burning Lime block.
With other colour costumes, the Limes would tended to enrich. Where as with blue, it was probably considered too much of a dramatic colour hue change! Which may have made it difficult to compensate, with the make up of the time, to counter the greenish reflected tinge to the skin.

I was once told that blue costumes looked brown on stage, never known it to be true tho . .



As an amusing aside, (and firmly proving my geek credentials) when they started filming the original star trek series pilot 'The Cage' (actually pilot 2, but thats another geeky story) It called for the actress Susan Oliver to play an Orion, which meant full body green makeup. Gene Rodenberrry thus arrived for her to be covered in green gloop (and Theiss costumes being what they were it was mainly skin) filmed a test and sent it of to be developed. The shots came back the next day showing her with normal pink skin. He (and the makeup dept) spent the next few days trying different types of green gloop, but test reels kep coming back all pink and normal. Eventually, giving up, he enquired of the production people about the possibility of using lights to turn her green . . . . . . it then transpired that the ever so helpful post production people, not used to sci-fi had assumed that no one would actually want a green actress, and that it must be a lighting error, so had been colour correcting the green to pink every time

x

I do tend to keep a wash of deep red, blue, pink and yellow/amber in a rig to bring out strong colours in costumes. Adding these to a standard pastel wash makes thing more vibrant. I usually use PARs for these deeper colours as they only add punch and don't have to be too accurate.

Dave