Uplights in the room: putting color on the walls
Uplights stand on the floor and light the walls. They give the room its base color and often stay on when everything else goes dark. That makes them the foundation of every show.
Placing them
- Distance from the wall: stand the lamps a little way off the wall, so the light fans out upward.
- Even spacing: a bit over 2.5 m from lamp to lamp is a good start. Even gaps look calmer than lots of lamps in one spot.
- Symmetrical to the booth: left and right should look the same. A chase then starts cleanly at the center or the booth.
- Pillars and posts: these are rewarding surfaces. One lamp at the foot is enough.
- Keep openings clear: doors, floor-length windows and walkways stay free.
Color
Choose a color that suits the occasion, such as the wedding decor or a company color. During dinner one color is enough, and it stays still. Less is usually more here.
For dance music a split works well: one color on the left, another on the right. On the drop the sides swap or merge into one color. More in Colors that work together.
Movement on the wall
Uplights can join in too. The direction sets the feel:
- Left to right, on every beat: suits a normal groove.
- Center outward: suits build-ups and drops.
- Ping-pong, every two beats: suits calmer songs.
- Random with lots of colors: quickly looks cheap.
In a build-up, raise the brightness over four to eight bars. In a breakdown it drops a long way, and 20 to 40 % is a good starting value.
Don't let uplights go completely dark while guests are moving around. Someone crossing the dance floor with a glass in hand needs a bit of light. Even in the dark moment before a drop, a dimmed uplight can stay on.
Step by step
- Open “Distribute uplights” in the visualizer and take the value under “Suggested for this room”, or enter your own number of lamps.
- Pick a pattern. “Chase” and “Gradient” show how it looks in action.
- Under “Plan from above”, tap wall sections that should stay free, then click “Distribute”. More in Distribute uplights.
- Raise the “Base light” slider in the Studio if it should never get fully dark.
- If one group should stay lit throughout, set Always on or Never darker than under Limits in the show rules.
- For single requests, use Just say it, for example “left uplights blue”.
Questions
That depends on the room. Droplit works out a suggestion from the free wall length, plus one lamp per post.
A group is one DMX address. All lamps on it show the same light. Planning groups is covered in Planning DMX addresses.
Start with Mirrored 1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1. Pairs 11-22-33-44 gives calmer areas of color, One group per wall gives each wall its own color.
More from “Lighting know-how”
- Colors that work togetherGood shows get by with few colors. Two main colors plus white as an accent cover most of a song. What matters is which two you pick and where they land.free to read
- Why variety mattersA show works through contrast. If every light runs all the time, everything ends up looking the same and the big moment gets lost. Dark, calm stretches are what make a peak feel big.free to read
- Building a song show: from intro to dropA good song show retells the song: it starts small, opens up in the chorus, takes a breath in the middle and saves the brightest moment for the end. Droplit builds this arc by itself. Once you know how it works, you can fix things with more purpose.free to read
- Lead your moving heads, don't just wave themMoving heads get noticed right away. If they circle all the time, the show looks restless. Well-led heads often stand still, change position with purpose and move when the music calls for it.free to read
- Using gobos, rotation and prism wellA gobo is a small stencil inside a moving head that shapes the beam into a pattern. Add rotation and a prism and one head can give you many different pictures, as long as you use the three tools on purpose.free to read