Metal Ribbons

Jonathan Dennison and Jac’line Weisgerber from Anona United Methodist Church in Largo, FL, share the innovative design of their stage chart.

Jonathan: “I like to call it the Metal Ribbons design. The goal was to create a forced-perspective effect with giant ribbons that appear to ripple in and out, though the actual depth of these ripples is only a few inches—just enough to catch the light. We purchased large rolls of ‘bright’ aluminum screening from Amazon for about $11 per roll. After a ‘crush and stretch’ process, we laid the material over full-size paper patterns of the ribbon shapes. We built 1×2 wood frames to hold the ribbons, using horizontal drop-ceiling hanger wire at three points along the height of the frame. Two of these points use stand-offs in front of or behind the frame to hold the ribbons at varying depths. The frames rest on the floor and are kept upright by more drop-ceiling wire tied to Unistrut above the stage. We painted the wood frames and wire black to blend in with the curtains.

For illumination, we used existing lights in our inventory: Chauvet RGBW pars pointing down on the ribbons and RGBA ADJ Megabars on the floor pointing up. This was the first phase, installed during Advent.

In the second phase, introduced at Easter, we added ‘work light blinders.’ These are simple work lights with metal reflectors and mirror-finished light bulbs, available from 1000bulbs.com. We controlled these with three 4-channel dimmer packs, allowing individual control and various animation effects. Though we rarely used them at full intensity as blinders, they looked stunning when simmering at 20-30 percent.

The complete design included a complement of Rogue R1 Washes, Rogue R1 Spots, and Elation pars for backlighting, giving us a dynamic design with a broad range of options. We also introduced four 2ft hanging brackets for some of our R1 Washes, allowing for more dynamic height positioning.

This is, by far, my favorite design due to the variety of looks we could produce. I’ve included photos taken just before striking the set, showcasing the different looks achieved by using one type of fixture at a time.”