A cloth or hard wall, usually white, pale gray or sky blue, stretched taut at the back of the stage or built as a smooth, jointless curve in film studios. Cyc lights at the top and groundrows at the bottom wash it evenly in mixed colors to create skies, moods and infinite backgrounds. Even cyc wash is a test of good fixture placement, and wrinkles or hot spots show immediately.
Cyc's getting hot spots near the top, raise the cyc lights a foot or pull them further downstage.
Also heard as
- cyclorama
- sky cloth
- infinity cove
Related terms
Wash
Broad, even light covering a whole stage area or surface, built from overlapping soft-edged fixtures.
Hot spot
A distractingly bright patch in a beam or on a lit surface, brighter than its surroundings.
Gel
A sheet of colored or diffusing plastic film placed in front of a lighting fixture to change its color or quality.
Uniformity
How evenly light is spread over an area, expressed as a ratio such as minimum to average or maximum to minimum.