# Lightning and Lighting



## Acererak (Jun 1, 2011)

Hi all,

I will be buying a Firefly lightning simulator to add to my haunt this year, but I have a question: do the lightning effects generated by the simulator interfere with the regular floodlights I have running continuously throughout my yard? I have numerous blue and red floods in my graveyard and I was wondering if they will clash or otherwise get washed out from the lightning effects. The only video demos I've seen just show lightning effects against an unlit scene.

Thanks for any and all help!


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## R. Lamb (Oct 11, 2011)

I use a firefly501 in my yard haunt and so I have some insight here. The short answere is yes, the lightning will wash out the blue and red floods. Depending on how you focus the lightning strobes the white light will overwhelm any other light in the haunt. However, I believe, that is one of the reasons that the lighning is so effective. This also depends on the type of lights you are using. I use the lighning to flash on the entire haunt including all the props in the yard. If you would like to light up just a portion of a haunt it is a simple matter of moving the strobes and focusing them at a specific area. For instance, if I only wanted to light the house without messing with the lighting of the props or graveyard in my haunt I could move the stobes close to the house (even hang them off the eves) So that they where only focused on the house and not the props. By placing the stobes upstage of the other props You create layers of light in which the lightning doesnt affect the lighting scheme down stage. I hope that all made sense and helps in some way.


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## Acererak (Jun 1, 2011)

Thanks for the response R. Lamb. Yes, it made perfect sense and confirmed what I suspected.This wont affect my decision to buy the Firefly, just wanted to know what I'm in store for. Lighting is something I still struggle with but seem to get a little better each year, my hope is (as you said) to layer the lighting with the lightning effects and not have them clash with each other. I suppose if the delay between lightning flashes is infrequent enough (and not going off every 5 or 10 seconds) that would also help from washing out my other flood lights.


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