I have been shooting a variety of Theater shows of late and have always struggled with a proper white balance.

Theater shows have a variety of light sources and colored gels being used.

So I am just wonder what others do to get a good white balance for the show?

Do you ask the light person just to throw up all lights used in the show and place a white card in the center of this and take the White Balance from this?

Any suggestions comments would be most appreciated.

Thanks

I shoot all our archive performance tapes here at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. My experience is that it isn't worth the effort of attempting custom white balance, so I just use the builtin incandescent preset.

For awhile I used custom balance but it was problematic for the reasons you mention, and it's much easier to just use the generic setting while producing results just as good IMO. If you want to do manual white balance I think your best bet is to have the electrician put on just one clear (eg: no gel) stagelight and use a grey or white card.

Have you seen our list of threads about shooting live perfomances here? Lots of discussion of this as well as other issues: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=60275

I have the answer to perfect white balance every time!
http://www.expodisc.com/products/product_detail.php?prodid=6&productname=ExpoDisc_Video
I use one in my still photography and videography and love it! There are videos on the site to show you what it is about so enjoy and hope it helps!

Jeff