From The Horse's Mouth

 Check out all our lovely gobos that would look great for your Valentine events. Pair them up with our romantic gel colors to enhance the atmosphere. Click here to view our Valentine’s Day Flyer!

Apollo’s Holiday / New Year Flyer is now available! Check out the new patterns we have added!

At LDI we introduced a handful of our new 2012 gobo patterns. Some customer favorites were the intricate steel patterns and life like glass patterns. Now everyone can view our new patterns! Click here  to see what the creative artists have designed for 2012.

Packaging is an important part of marketing your product. When the Gobo Green marketing campaign was started we looked at our packaging and how it could be “greener” and be used as a tool for storage. Recently we started looking at some gel pieces laying around and began playing with packaging ideas. With the gel packaging you could re-use the gel sheet we sent the gobo in. Our test gel packaging squares were 6 1/4″.  What are your thoughts on this? Would you re-use the sheets of gel? Do you currently use the plastic sleeves as a storage tool? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Congratulations to our six Design – A – Pattern winners! We had 46 submissions and over 1300 votes! Thank you to all who participated!

Winning Patterns

B. Peterson – Philotic (MS-1999)

D. Hernandez – Hourglass Cross (MS-3113)

D. Higginbotham – Triple Checkers (MS-1998)

D. Seitz – Explosive Fireball (CS-0191)

J. Rossi – Palms (SR-2097)

M. Murphy – Political Mosh Pit (SR-1326)

 Wedding season is here. Apollo has designed many new designs for the bride-to-be. She can choose a gobo that looks like her and her groom-to-be went to a photo shoot in the country or go with some delicate flowers as her gobo choice! Click here  to view all our new designs. Enjoy!

I try to read the Wall Street Journal every day, I feel it gives me some lead time into where economies are going in the world. Because we do work for corporate, entertainment and theater, being able to have a pulse on this seems to help us a little in predicting what lies ahead. Today felt like my lucky Monday since page A12 has a photo showing a  gobo being used. I cannot confirm it is ours but I know we have run this logo in the last 30 days so the chances are good. Maybe things are looking up. I hope everyone had a good Easter.  Welcome back to work:)

Joel

Happy leprechauns or swirling shamrocks can surround and enhance any party you may have to design.  Choose MS-3542 Shamrock Swirl and add AP5900 Cactus Juice Green  to create an affordable color design. 

Inspiring gobos such as Alleluia, Rejoice, or He Is Risen  can help create ambiance at your church gathering for Easter.  Several options for both St. Patrick’s Day and Easter are available. Click here to view the St. Patrick’s Day / Easter gobo flyer.

With romantic gobos from Apollo. Click here to view the many Valentine and love themed gobos we have to offer.

First of all, we will start with the simple basics. A gobo (or pattern) can only be used in an ellipsoidal as well as some moving light fixtures (and some specialty projectors). For this discussion we will talk about properly loading a gobo into an ellipsoidal fixture. I used to tell my students that if the fixture didn’t have shutters, then it wasn’t an ellipsoidal. Most current ellipsoidals have a pattern holder slot that will accommodate a pattern holder. Now this is where it gets a bit confusing, not all pattern holders fit all ellipsoidals! Be sure to check with your local theatre dealer about the proper holder for the fixture that you plan to use. Most dealers also have the pattern holders available for rental. What size should the gobo be? Most of the newer fixtures can project A size patterns BUT the optical quality will fall off and it is difficult to get a sharp focus across the entire image. If you are using a breakup and plan to do a soft focus on it then an A size will work great. If you need a sharp focus on a gobo with letters or a literal image then consider a B size pattern. These are a bit smaller but the image will project better with the optics. Whenever you order or purchase a pattern at most dealers, the pattern will be a B size unless you specify a different size. Now that we have discussed gobo size and holders, let’s talk about placing them in the lights.

The ellipsoidal has an arrangement of reflector and lens where the image is flipped upside down and reversed optically. If you place the gobo in the gate with the image set to what it should project (clouds on top, ground on bottom), it will be upside down and reversed when the light is turned on. The best way to set a gobo up properly in a light is to “become the lamp” and hold the gobo in front of you while standing next to the light that you are focusing. Look at it in the proper orientation that you want it to be in when it is projected and flip it over so the image is upside down and then turn the gobo a half turn to reverse the horizontal image. Place it in the gobo holder and then into the light in that orientation and it will project properly.

If this is how you want the projected gobo to read then ...

this is how the gobo should be oriented in the light as seen by the lamp.

Having the light come on with the gobo upside down and backwards is a rookie mistake and will bring on some chuckles from the veterans. Besides, if you have to pull the gobo out and reorient it, the darn thing gets very hot, very quick and will cause you to play “hot potato” solo. We have a nice video available showing you how to orient your gobo properly.