Gel ideas

[BlackBelt]

The singer in my band and myself are really white skinned, and have absolutely no tan whatsoever. We don't look like Marilyn Manson exactly, but we are almost that pale. What color gels should we use to make us look better, or at least not dead? I've always liked blues and reds, but greens make us look sickly.

What colors do you guys use the most?

[Skinah]

You can get skin color tone gels which are desinged for this reason. With Par cans you dont need those gels most of the time since they are yellowish and not pure white. With TV and Video you some times add colour correction gels to lights to correct the color temp for par cans. Does anyone know much on this topic ?

 

Also higher end lights that use discharge lamps are extrememly white and make people look pale when you use par cans for back fill and side fill. Making all your lights look uniform is certainly a technique when using different fixtures and lamps.

[Rimmer]

Colour correction gels are usually known as CT 'something'. There are many CT gels around and most are for correcting certain lamp types to daylight or there abouts. You might find a CT gel that will warm you up but you might be better off going with a light amber or a rosey skin tone gel. Amber is quite flattering and warm.

 

You can add a CT gel like LEE 202 or 201 to a par can and it will correct it to daylight. You lose light this way and the gel may change colour or burn out if in front of the lamp to long and are therefore unreliable in front of some lights if used for a while.. (like any gel I suppose, but CT is usually more important as it's often going to film or still photography).

 

Rimmer