Armed with nothing but a well worn pair of shoes and four days supply of anti-migraine pills, On Stage Lighting hits Earl’s Court in London for the 2011 assault on the senses that is the PLASA show.

If previous PLASA shows were an indicator of the direction of travel in style, visitors to the PLASA (Promotion of LEDs And Screens Ad nauseum) show 2011 were going to have to steel themselves. At past shows, in order to keep the nausea at bay, you simply had to pace yourself, avoid protracted stints on any stands serving beer and decline the strange coloured cocktails that Avolites might offer.

This year, the unsuspecting punter at Earl’s Court also had to deal with two halls full of exhibitors trying to induce various forms of visually stimulated ill health with their products. Despite being a few stands bit heavy on the sub, it actually seemed quieter this year in audio terms – light was the weapon of choice.

So what was it all about this year? Apart from getting yer retinas frazzled…

LEDs, LEDs, LEDs…Oh, and a fresnel

OK, so LED lighting technology has been developing rapidly in recent years and previous shows have featured an increasing number of LED based products. PLASA 2011 (the Chinese year of the LED, apparently) often seemed about little else. This is especially true when you take into account the fact that designers of digital audio desks are now stuffing them full of colour changing illuminated bits everywhere in an order not to be outdone by the lampies.

Don’t you wish you’d bought those shares in, well, whatever it is that they put in those chips that makes them light up, now?

PLASA shows have seen plenty of LED wash lights, moving LED wash lights, LED arrays and panels and this year was no exception. The improvements in colour rendition, the continuation of development of multi LED colour systems like the ETC Selador and others, the use of warm white, cool white and what the Americans call toonable white, continues.

This has led (ahem) to cutting edge LED driven fixtures being used in all genres of the industry and most notably in television. This is significant because TV lighting is particularly picky when it comes to things like CRI and colour temperature, multi chromatic shadows and the flicker on camera caused by fixtures that dim using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) – as LEDs do.

The adoption of LEDs in the TV industry was demonstrated by the excellent LED Shootout area, organised by Paul Middleton and others from the Society of Television Lighting and Design (STLD) which had demos, seminars and the opportunity to see a choice of over 80 LED fixtures in use. While the title of “shootout” suggests a quest for the ultimate in LED product, the stand followed the STLD ethos of the free exchange of ideas between lighting directors and was more of an opportunity to consider the options, rather than find the killer fixture, and to share best practice. Useful.

The perceived holy grail in LED based fixtures was genuine point light sources, either multi coloured or not, in order to produce an LED based profile spot (lekos, in the US) and also an LED fresnel replacement. PLASA 2011 was where a clutch of these things came to the party and joined the few already in this space such as the Robert Juliat Aledin, and really showed us that LED and high quality optical systems were a reality and a long way from the horrors of El Cheapo units.

In terms of form factor, Coemar and Strong profile offerings seemed familiar in appearance if not quite light output of a 750w HPL loaded Source Four. In the “bright and sharp” stakes, the Prism RevEAL garnered a lot of interest due to it’s extremely punchy output and high quality optics – and not the fact that it’s large size and shape made it look like something that would make your average Ann Summer’s customer eyes water. Prism were showing in the ever expanding White Light Zone, confirming the WL strategy of partnering their way to the top with JB Lighting, iPix, Core, Coemar, W-DMX and Arkaos, with popular MD Bryan Raven smiling down benignly on the hub of activity that is the White Light bar.

Along with the RJ, Philips Selecon and others were displaying LED based fixed washlight / fresnel replacement fixtures either with familiar stepped lenses or not. Everyone had an cannon of LED wash lights, often moving yoke, aimed at a particular market – and more often than not, right in our eyes. Particular thanks go to Clay Paky, Martin and Robe for that, plus an additional shout out to Avolites who had managed to program a flying purple splodge that kept assaulting anyone that dared to try to study the demo screen in their AI media server area.

Anyone playing “Spot the conventional” might have stopped by the ETC stand to look at the Source Four fresnel, the answer to the question of how you mount a lamp designed to be used axially in a base-down fixture design. Like many lanterns past and present, the Achilles heel seemed to be the focus mech, that had only been on the stand a day by the time we tried it and was looking a little awkward in terms of design and snagging – not an issue with just this fixture I might add, but plenty of others from other stables. The overly complex colour runner door latch thingys were also bust by then.

Control and Media

Back at the Avolites stand, an excellent demo-er took me through the new pixel mapping features of their Titan control platform which also gave me an opportunity to see  Avo really getting there after a shaky start on their journey into modern control platforms.

The key to Avolites products is their simplicity, hands on use and visual nature and with Titan they finally seem to have managed to claw back some of the Avo Way while offering the things that a modern LD wants from their controller. Titan now looks more intuitive, complete and attractive (LD attractive, not just shiny graphics) than earlier incarnations and the hardware in the form of a working Sapphire Touch plus Tiger Touches and Pearl Expert were showing off it’s chops, along with Titan Mobile hardware and some posh touchscreens. Their solid dimmers stood stoically by, including the great Power Cube that has been around a little while, even though the mention of RDM induced a coughing fit.

The Avo Life didn’t yet seem to extend to the AI media server which Avolites have bought the rights in a strategic partnership with Immersive Ltd. which looks like a fantastic piece of software for the Aspergic but didn’t have an ounce of Avo ease of use stamped on it. Whether complex projection mapping and rendering is a good fit with the Avo brand isn’t totally clear to me. But it’s early days and in recent years, Avo have demonstrated that while they might falter in early moves, they are cabable of ironing out the wrinkles even though it’s done in public. The carrier bag pushing beauties didn’t seem to outnumber the number of Avo people that actually knew something this year.

In other stories of ever increasing complexity, the wonderfully visual Vista with it’s Bryon release software is beginning to look devilishly complicated to the untrained eye. Seemingly more menus, buttons, screen areas and sub layers to keep up with increasing features and tool sets, one can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be looking elsewhere for inspiration in our interaction surfaces. And keeping it simple.

This theme was touch on by self confessed data junkie Rob Halliday in his seminar on lighting control, who actually simply called for more intelligent use of data within consoles. A small element of this features in my own personal nemesis, the Strand Palette. Given his console history, it’s hardly surprising that Rob is at his most comfortable with a numeric keypad and a spreadsheet on screen and still many of our current forays into the multi touch environment only really augment what are essentially way of presenting data and manipulating it.

On other stands at PLASA, we saw the Emulator DJ software used with a large rear projected touch surface or the rather fun Interactive Visions media projection and interaction on a tabletop or floor. While maybe in lighting all we need is an iPad, the idea of giving the Lighting Designer the tools to create without data manipulation being so intrusive, is an attractive one.

The notion that technology innovation might be driving the design was a theme covered at an ALD seminar on the “The Next 50 Years” in lighting, held in a back room while out on the show floor that technology continued to assault the senses.

Future gazing and self contemplation was a feature which ever side of the fence you were on, certain quarters hankering for the good old days of Patt 264s (What???? They were horrible and everyone said so at the time!!!!). Certainly everyone was looking forward, whether vying to have the brightest, modernist LED fixture or discussing the Quality of Light. During a lull in the reminiscing and misty eyed eulogies for the Pattern 23, it was back to the floor to look at what the kit makers had brought us for “Going Back To School” in lighting control.

ETC were showing their new Gio console, the one that is more portable than the EOS but bigger than the Ion. It’s common for touring theatre shows to program on an EOS and tour with an Ion, gone are the days when the show just schlepped about the UK with a Strand 500 series show disk. The Gio looked attractive with a sensible desk footprint and is nicely made to stay together while touring. I can think of a few smaller theatres that would perhaps prefer something a little more than their recently purchased Ion, maybe ETC should run a buyback scheme!

If small was your thing, the Cham Sys M60 filled in the gap between their PC wings and a full size MagicQ console, with a familiar set of hardware including a smaller touchscreen that looked nice. Ham fisted programmers might see the benefit of the old fashioned “Hog Ops Pencil” (a pencil with an eraser at both ends) to help them with their prodding.

Along with the visual barrage from the waggly LED wash light brigade, more eyeball battering came from the large number of hi resolution module LED based screens – more than ever before. In the past, large walls of lower res stuff have provided colourful displays but PLASA 2011 was increasing about quality content rendering on panels made up of clip together modules.

The LED craze in screens too meant that the fashion for projected things waned, apart from a few small pockets where the media server guys showed off their projection mapping capabilities. If forced to predict something that would be a whole lot more evident next year, it would be the area of 3D projection mapping and larger scale displays of this. Along with the usual Hippotizer, Pandora’s Box and the aforementioned Avo AI servers, Earls Court 2 saw the commercial version of the well regarded D3 system used on many shows including running the central LED screen on U2s 360 tour.

Anything Interesting?

On Stage Lighting spent four days asking this very question of everyone, from some of the biggest luminaries in lighting to young BTEC students coming for a day out. For all the square footage of shiny toys, no single item or trend was cited as floating the boat of the punters, despite the leaps in technology and showing of “new” things such as a profile spot, albeit an LED based fixture. Perhaps PLASA goers will have to wait until next year for that life changing new thing.

That isn’t to damn the show as a waste of time, as there was plenty of opportunity for networking and future gazing which leads to the shaping of our industry. And hey, it’s fun once you’ve found a quiet corner away from the strobing to recover and just talk to good friends. A lot of those friends were wondering what the future in performance lighting might look like, and despite the stands telling us that they were it, many didn’t seem that sure.

Others talked of disconnect between manufacturers and users, even between the needs of distinct genres and the production of fixtures that are supposed to please every market. TV seemed happy with their LEDs in the studio, the Rock and Roll guys will be loving the new iPix colour mixing LED ACL bars while many theatre users just seem to wish it would all go away and stop making so much noise so they can dust off the 264s. That doesn’t include the RSC, who have embraced the modern lighting world and even invented a solution to their specific problem – the RSC LightLock, which was there again.

A particularly big trend that is interesting to me, following on from PLASA last year, is the use of batteries and wireless DMX. Initially what I would call the “Plonk and Play” wall washers from GDS, Core LED, iPix et al, the totally portable market is growing to integrate push up stands (GDS again) and features that make a wireless way of life more possible. The start of a trend for modular (different heads, same power base), “come to pieces” kit that allows for the light source to be sited separately from it’s normally attached power and control station, give the LED/Battery/Wireless DMX solution a load more flexibility.

Add this to the fact that, despite it’s challenges, all the major players in Wireless DMX solutions (W-DMX, City Theatrical and Lumen Radio) seem to have cracked the timing issues associated with sending RDM DMX over a wireless system – it’s all very interesting in the truly portable market. Perhaps our shows will be a lot less wire heavy in the future, particularly at ground level where cable management can be an issue.

Once the brochures had been put in the recycling and the last motor had been boxed in Earl’s Court, the key take away from PLASA 2011 was how tiring the show is becoming to attend on a sensory level. I’m sure exhibitors found it more tiring than ever, I certainly did. It’s worth the exhibitors remembering that the kind of lighting, sound and media that you reserve for a few hours of spectacle during a single show is not a good environment to do business in over four days.

Next year, I’ll certainly be planning more quiet time, seminars and spend more time exploring the darker corners that West London might have to offer, possibly from under the duvet of the hotel. If there is anything interesting to see, I’m sure someone will tweet me

Did you attend PLASA 2011? Got anything you’d like to add, stuff you liked or hated? Comments in the box as usual, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

• PLASA 2010 – Show Report
• PLASA 2007 – Was It Worth It?
• PLASA London 2009

Looking at the Samoiloff effect, an old stage lighting trick using the physics of reflected colour, On Stage Lighting brings together the old with some new technologies in the form of colour mixing LED fixtures.

In our article on Reflected Colour in Lighting we looked at how using saturated colours, particularly the primary light colours (Red, Green and Blue), can dramatically effect the way a coloured object looks to the eye. In a practical example, it meant that my blue LED keyring torch was pretty useless when it came to hunting for cables marked with either green or red PVC tape because the two marking became a dirty brown colour. It also told us something useful about lighting scenery and costumes with saturated light colours. If you haven’t already, check out the article.

Adrian V. Samoiloff – Lighting Magician

In the 1920s “electro technician” Adrian V. Samoiloff developed the use of this colour phenomenon to dramatically change a stage picture in the theatre, costume and sets using simple lighting changes. An article on one particular show in the New York Times describes a scene and then states:

“Then behind the scenes, somebody does something and everything is altered in a flash. The grim mountains become a Hindu temple, the frowning rocks melt into sands and palms and the tall, slender young woman becomes a stout Indian maiden.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40C13FC3B5A1B7A93C2AA178BD95F458285F9

The “something” that somebody had done was to change the colour of the light on stage, having carefully used reflected colour theory to hide and reveal different elements in full view of the audience. A lighting magic trick.

Samoiloff apparently took the basic effect further by analysing the chemical make up of dyes and how they reflected different parts of the spectrum. Reports of these experiments suggest the use of minute differences between dyes that under white light look similar, but react to saturated colour in different ways. Samoiloff also stated that he used these effects along with “dazzle”, a camouflage technique. With regard to the science of dyes and their reflection properties, I am not sure how much of the dye analysis part of the story is puffed by the reports but either way, the basic magic trick still works!

Old Tricks, New Technology

With the advent of different forms of colour mixing fixtures, we have an even greater opportunity to use many different saturated colours on stage – and change them in an instant. Samoiloff made use the development of the “compartment batten” flood lighting system that became known as “Sammies”, a version of which can still be found as S63 battens in a few schools halls. Today we have Subtractive CMY and Additive RBG colour mixing in our moving lights and Red, Green and Blue in LED based fixtures such as cheap LED PARs.

As part of a colour theory lecture I take, we look at how different coloured light reflects on different fabrics of a costume. Using combinations of the light primary colours (Red, Green, Blue ) and secondary ones (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow), experimentation shows that sometimes a costume colour reflects well, sometimes not, depending on the spectral makeup of the light shining on it.

An extension of this is using three banners that are specially designed to demonstrate the principle behind the Samoiloff effect. The banners are each a pair of complimentary colours. The pairs are:

• Red / Cyan
• Green / Magenta
• Yellow / Blue

One colour in the banner reflects one part of the spectrum (eg. Red), the other complimentary reflects the other two light primaries (eg. Cyan = Blue and Green). This gives us the biggest opportunity for shift in reflected colour. Using an LED PAR shining at the first banner, outputting white (well, white for a cheap LED PAR) the colour appear to be Red and Cyan. Changing the LED to output only Red, the banner seems to be Red and Black but then changing the LED to Cyan, the pattern reverses to negative in Black and Cyan. Your eye almost assumes that the Cyan portion is, in fact, white fabric with a Cyan light on it. This large shift from +ve to -ve is startling and it doesn’t take long before you can see a whole host of magical reveals and possibilities using the Samoiloff effect.

Taking this demo further, using a colour mixing fixture (or simply gelled conventional fixtures in Red, Green and Blue) we blend light colours on all three banners and adjust, moving through parts of the spectrum where all colours look quite similar, before then snapping out to a dramatic change when they suddenly become different. The interesting thing about LED light sources is that they are quite “spiky” in different parts of their spectral output, throwing a whole extra dimension to this old theatrical effect. Subtle fades between levels of Red, Green and Blue creates major shifts in the reflected colour.

Create Your Own Samoiloff Effect

You will need:

• A piece of white paper
• Marker Pens – Primary Red and Primary Green
• Torch
• Gel Filter Swatchbook
• A dark place to be

Physics teachers use this technique to demonstrate how reflected light works. Take your paper and write “Red” using the red marker pen. Underneath it using the green pen, write “Green”. Finding some primary red and green gels in your swatch book (Lee 106 or Lee 026 and Lee 139 are good), turn all other lights off and fire your torch at the paper. Using no gel, you see both words written on the paper.

Adding a red gel to the torch, the word “Red” gets fainter and, if you are lucky, disappears. Moving onto the green gel, the opposite happens, hiding your word “Green” while making the “Red” writing appear black. Once again, reflected colour theory doesn’t fail us and the magic trick is proven to still be good in 2011…

If you want to move further onto more complex effects, you can try not only the primary filters; L106, L139 and L132 (or L079 or L119); but also some versions of the secondaries in the form of:

• Lee 116 Medium Blue-Green
• Lee 126 Mauve
• Lee 101 Yellow

These are just one take on the secondary colours, there are other gels which fall within the secondary ranges, there are others that you might like to look at such as L172 Lagoon Blue, L128 Bright Pink and Lee 104 Deep Amber. They all produce slightly differing results.

The Magic of Light

But all this is a pretty crude demonstration and highlights the extremes of the Samoiloff effect. Using complex coloured fabrics and patterns on stage, it’s not hard to see what a massive influence we as lighting designers have on how colours are seen, or not, by an audience.

We can create magic on stage using light and colour. We can also really mess things up.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

• Reflected Colour in Stage Lighting Design
• Colour Temperature
• Colour Correction Filters – More Stage Lighting Gels

Fed up? Do you find that you spend too much time on things that go wrong? Does your time on shows seem to be a series of fire fighting opportunities rather than “higher lighting” (?!) opportunities?

Why do things go wrong so often? Why is equipment always letting  you down? Best laid lighting plans going to wrack and ruin while you find your self on a seat-of-the-pants rollercoaster yet again.

Is it your kit? Your crew? Your Director?

Read on and On Stage Lighting will reveal all.

Let’s get one thing straight. In the end, when the audience are seated, shows pretty much always happen. Good, bad or indifferent, they happen. But it might not always seem like that 1 hour before doors …

It’s All Going Wrong, Grommit

One thing that I have noticed, having spent a career putting on professional shows as well as with some experience of amateur and student shows, is that there is often a lot more fire fighting on the latter. Things happen, go wrong, take people by surprise, come back and bite ya on the arse… Shit happens.

You might think that this is because of the pro shows have top kit, top crew and endless supplies of good coffee and Eat To The Beat puddings. We have already busted the Good Kit Myth, but yes, these guys are much more adept at putting on shows – it’s their job. And their job often involves throwing stuff on with little in the way of preparation and apparently without turning a hair. That’s what they get paid for.

However, in an ideal world, no one would have to spin a show from nothing at a moments notice. And this is where the difference becomes apparent, an element often missing from those fire fighting shows:

Process. Production Process.

Every side of the production industry, whether it be theatre, concerts or live events, has it’s own take on process. These processes have been adopted because they work and are used to ensure that, no matter how last minute or difficult things get, the process gives a stable base to underpin even the most difficult of situations.

What do I mean by  production process?

Production process is taught in Universities and Drama Schools, and theatre textbooks, and is practiced in professional show business. It is the use of conventional work systems to stage a show, often originating in some way from traditional theatre practice.

In lighting, it is how you plan a lighting design, communicate with others, prepare equipment, deal with problems, rehearse and tweak and arrive at the first performance with your best work.

Fail To Prepare..

Process and it’s success is often about preparation and readiness, using structured planning tools to think of everything and leave nothing to chance. In planning, stage lighting process consists of:

• Allocation of roles and responsibilities
• Cue synopsis and other show specific information
• Venue specification and data from site visits
• Equipment inventories and accessory lists
• Electrical, rigging and photometric calculations
• Accurate scale drawings, plans and sections
• Lighting circuit and control information
• Network and data planning
• Content creation
• Preparation of control systems, sometimes including pre programming
• Communication between departments

All of these, and perhaps more, fit into the process in different ways. Allocation of roles is vital for the team to understand their duties and what is expected of them – in theatre this is often as simple as a job title such as Chief Electrician, the duties of that role are broadly understood by all on the show.
Other lists, data and planning tools such as CAD all play a vital part – miss one of these out and you better have that fire extinguisher handy…

Along with the paper planning process is the preparation of equipment and technical systems before the load in.

Checking, maintaining and just counting the bloomin’ stuff in the workshop is the easiest way to make sure you mitigate the nasty surprises later on during the final stages of production week.

How were you going to get power to that fixture? Do you even have one of those in stock? How many have we got? Do they all work? Do we have spares?

Check it, check it, check it.

… Prepare to Fail!

In the heat of the battle, it seems like the equipment is against you, the Director is being unreasonable or your crew are next to useless.

Some of those things may be true in part. Kit breaks, it happens all the time. Directors change their mind even when you gave them all the information you could on a given effect. And not everyone in your team is a master of their craft like you

The trouble with fire is that once it breaks out, it spreads. By the time you have put the first one out, you’ve lost valuable “doing” time and another three have sprung up to take it’s place. While you are busy rushing to get the next two out, in a panic,you accidentally start another one. Before long you and your team are doing nothing but fighting a cascade of fires.

When it seems like there aren’t enough fire extinguishers in the world to get this show on, try to look at why you seem to be clinging on by your fingertips.

When the show has eventually happened, it’s all been a “success”, take a break from congratulating yourself on the fact that you pulled it outta the bag in the end, and reflect on why it was such hard work.

Be Honest

I know, this broke, then that broke. You ran out of lamps for those and out of cable and had to use X. Then the Director wanted such and such and the work experience kid couldn’t fix the last scroller in time …

I’ve seen some pretty major equipment failures at some crucial moments, usually just moments before they were required (you forget the ones that failed and were sorted in good time, it’s part of the job). A few of them were rare and unexpected, the professional technicians used all their skill to come up with innovative solutions, the show went on and the audience were none the wiser.

But tell me something that went wrong for you during the lighting of your show and I bet you 99% of the time, I can point to a part of the lighting process you misunderstood, rushed or just plain didn’t do.

Shit happens But not that often.

Image by Alyssa L. Miller on Flickr

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

• Focus Stage Lighting – Turn Your Back On It!
• Stage Lighting Education – What You Need To Get A Job

To bring you a PLASA Show round up for 2010, On Stage Lighting braved the crowds and sensory assault that is two exhibition halls stuffed with the brightest and most efficient light sources in show business.

If you’ve been reading OSL for more than a year, you’ll know that part of the publishing calendar is our popular report from the UK’s biggest industry get together, the PLASA show. Four days of techie talk, shiny new kit and no doubt a certain amount of alcohol, PLASA is more than just an opportunity for the black t-shirted inhabitants of the underworld to emerge into the light. Apart from the opportunity to collect swag and run into people, PLASA is also at the heart of the industry in this country, where kit makers and users all converge, deals are done and contacts made.

Recent developments in my own career, added to the usual motive of getting down and dirty with those that service the entertainment industry, I attended PLASA this year wearing more than one hat. Four days of product demos, seminars and walking miles around Earl’s Court 1 and 2 takes it toll but it does give the OSL readers the inside track on what’s happening in the world of stage lighting.

Is it easy being green?

Sorry, Kermit, apparently it’s easier than you seem to suggest so long as you can at least tell everyone how green you are. Wandering among the exhibits, there was definitely a green theme to the show this year.

Aside from a number of seminars focussing on the industry and how we can reduce our impact on the environment, it seemed like every other stand had something to tell you about their product’s green credentials. And it is a genuine issue that we need to address, not least because of new carbon emission legislation and targets on the road ahead.

With the ever developing LED market, plus other lamp and optical improvements, many exhibitors seemed to want to emphasise their green streak. After last year’s success with an award winning Robin plasma lamped fixture, Robe were showing a range of super efficient moving head fixtures with more conventional discharge lamp technology. Their claim on the green tick was that the new fixtures were similar in brightness to older heads that previously required twice the power consumption, saving not only power but weight, space and materials use. A fashionable spin on the time old “well, this year, we made it brighter” trade show line but there is no doubt that kit makers always find a way to make things chuck more light out.

The furious rate that LED technology is evolving, with not only brighter sources and better optical quality but also better colour rendition, it seems like everyone has a green story to tell. The Phillips family (Selecon, Strand, Varilite et al) were showing non moving light units with light sources using the Varilite VLX engine with decent colour mixing, rendition and beam quality. iPix also showed improved LED fixtures, ETC brought their ever expanding Selador range, Wybron had a new LED wash light, everyone wanted to tell you about the latest gen of their coloury splat lighting. Evidence of real LED improvement was everywhere.

Speaking of Phillips Selecon, I had to check out the new SPX profile spot. The fixture that it’s creators hope will provide serious competition for the ETC Source Four ranges that are still making up a large part of the industry inventory. Reports of a shoot out between the spot and it’s competitors were apparently favourable and interestingly the fixture incorporates a number of parts made from a polymer rather than the traditional metal, similar to other Selecon fixtures. Features included interchangeable lens assemblies (both zoom and fixed), easy access for cleaning and a shutter lock off and the familiar 3 way Selecon lamp adjustment which, let’s face it, is a lot easier to deal with than the traditional S4 setup. The fixture seemed to tick a lot of boxes and perhaps could gain some traction in venues, despite being a newcomer in a worldwide hire stock rammed full of the famous ETC lantern. Wasn’t completely convinced by the SPX tilt lock off but…

As usual, there were new/improved lighting fixtures from manufacturers too numerous to mention, but PLASA this year seemed very much about light sources, with a return to the importance of traditional lighting values, such as colour rendition, along with the whizzy techno stuff. Several stands had mannequins dressed in colourful clothing, in order to demonstrate the capabilities of their fixtures, something can be forgotten : we spend a lot of time lighting people on stage, not just produce waggly light pollution and squirting media clips in every direction.

The second big theme at the PLASA show 2010 seemed to be something less obvious to the average audience member…

Control and Infrastructure

While some years, the industry seems to be producing endless shiny new fixtures or announcing flagship consoles, PLASA 2010 was much more about integrating systems and control progress.

A special RDM stand, featuring manufacturers dedicated to that implementation of bi-directional lighting communication, was just one part of a whole show floor full of networked this and integrated that.

The Lumen Radio and W-DMX wireless systems took the cable out of control signals, computer based lighting control platforms such as Cuelux and Trace Lighting’s LimeLight had their own take on controlling lighting systems. Several USB – DMX output devices were displayed as well as neat RDM hardware and software from James Embedded Systems Engineering.

GDS showed us that it is possible to network almost anything with their new cueing system of prompt desk, nodes and cue light outstations all with centralised control and the ability to program and manage a cue stack of Standbys and Gos. A one-off underwater cue light unit design with standby acknowledgement plunger (for a show using divers) reminded us that GDS are at their best designing solutions to unusual problems.

Every media server prided itself in the various systems of integration and compatibility with control surfaces (and improved mapping and image tools) while the pre release Byron build of the Jands Vista software (apparently really nearly ready this year) boasted even better “stage picture” building using it’s single point of contact with both lighting and media with their interface, which could be said to be extremely well suited to shows of the future.

Other companies decided to pull together disparate control systems, such as the Midiator surface which aims to provide a single cueing point for a range of other controls such as lighting, media and motion.

Cast Lighting offered a software solution to the integration problem with it’s Black Box engine that takes data from a number of other manufacturers controls and in turn instructs different elements to create complex, coherent shows with 3D motion control, lighting, media and IR tracking.

In the traditional lighting desk space, probably the biggest shift for any one manufacturer was the roll out of a whole range of touchscreen versions of their most popular consoles after the first glimpse of the Tiger Touch last year – all based on their Titan platform. Even though plenty of older Avo fans have still not quite got over the early versions of their Titan, the stand was crawling with eager button pressers all trying get themselves an Avolife. Apparently the latest Titan releases are much more coherent and stable and I know plenty of LDs who are pleased with the result of Avo looking to find their way over the brick wall that their great classic hardware was creating in the new world.

In the last few years, I have found it hard to engage with the Avo stand despite being a regular user of their products. In days gone by, you could quiz Steve or Richard about their latest offerings and get some informed opinion, bounce ideas around while learning more about what they were trying to achieve with their controls. These days, if you can face the bun fight of fan boys and carrier bag hander outters, you might get lucky and get a demo from a teenager who seems to know a whole lot less about lighting programming than you do. This year was no exception and at the first mildy challenging question relating a console to former products (which they had obviously no experience of), the poor guy struggled and I started to lose interest in the fact that you could draw a picture on the touchscreen. I also spoke to a pretty big name in the moving light world who was pretty shocked when he asked during a demo at Avo about RDM and the poor unfortunate could only say “What’s that?”. Anyway, I think that there is something to be said for having demos from people with a lot more experience than two weeks in the warehouse with the latest product.

Coolux were showing a great interactive tool for screen media, alongside their very good media server. Called AirTouch, a scanning head recognises gestures in front of a screen for interactive displays. Because the system is based on motion sensing rather than touch screen technology, it has the advantage of being able to scale to pretty much any size and use either projected media, led panels or plasma screen arrays. The stand had an interesting combination of panels with a single plasma screen in the centre.

Sooooo much more…

Away from the shiny products, the PLASA show continues to grow as a centre of industry knowledge and education. It’s National Rigging Certifcate training, rigging and AV conferences as well as some great seminars and masterclasses, particularly from InfoComm this year, make attending for all four days even more of a must. This year the new Skills and Qualifications Zone housed a handful of the UK’s most popular theatre production courses and many interested parties from the world of education and employment came together to discuss the future of industry training at a seminar hosted by the National Skills Academy.

As the PLASA show continues to evolve in other directions aside from providing a large space to flog shiny toys, it will also continue to become ever more important in our business calendar.

If you looked past the banks of waggly LED washlights and big screens, PLASA 2010 was crawling with little widgets and wires that made shows happen, education and training, industry discourse and deliberation alonside innovation and recognition.

Oh, and everyone had an iphone app…

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Many On Stage Lighting readers are young aspiring lighting designers, keen to get into the industry and begin their journey to the top of their chosen profession. In this guest article, Lighting Designer, Author and all round stage lighting guru Richard Cadena tells it like it is.

How do I get to be a top lighting designer, then?

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How can I get into the lighting industry as a top lighting designer?” or something similar. It always reminds me of the punch line, “I don’t have to outrun the lion; I only have to outrun you.” (Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that joke.  OK,  it’s at the bottom of this page)

But in this industry it’s not a lion that’s chasing us; rather, we’re chasing the lion and we have to outrun everyone else in the industry if we’re going to catch the prized position. If you want to be the one that chases down the king of all lighting positions, you’ve got to be prepared to put in some extra effort to prepare for a long chase. Here are some of the things you need to know.

You’re young and don’t know any better

That’s good because most people I know in this industry who are over 30 years old are trying to figure out how to come home off the road without giving up the salary to which they have become accustomed. And most people I know under 30 who want to be in this industry are trying to figure out how to go on the road and earn the kind of salary to which those over 30 have become accustomed. It’s a cruel trick of nature but it’s for your own good. If you knew what you were in for you might not be so anxious to go on the road. I won’t bother to tell you about all the missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays, first baby steps, new teeth, broken arms, tonsillitis, first days of spring, report cards, quiet nights home with the family, not-so-quiet nights home with the family, graduations, and beautiful sunsets because you won’t listen anyway.

You don’t know how good you have it

Back in the day, there was no such thing as off-line editors, visualizers, the internet, social networking sites, smart phone apps, online user manuals, specialized books on stagecraft, lighting design software, or computers, for that matter. Nor was there Starbucks, Red Bull, cell phones, iPods, MP3s, or noise-cancelling headphones. We were lucky to have airplane travel and land lines. But here’s the reason I bring this up. There are lots and lots of resources to help you make your way up the industry ladder. All you have to do is put down your Wii, Nintendo, television remote control, and your texting down long enough to put the ladder against the wall and start climbing. Spend some quality time putting your brain in overdrive and learn the stuff. But don’t expect it to happen overnight. I hate to be the one to break it to you but it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to master the fine art of being a master.

It takes more than automated lighting and a console, and less money than you think to create compelling lighting

Just because you can lay out dozens of automated lights, call them up on a console and record a scene in a console doesn’t necessarily make you a good lighting designer. The best lighting designers are the ones who can make a piece of wire, some gaff tape, and three sheets of gels sing like a songbird without resorting to the use of an effects engine. How do you think the great masters did it before the days of automated lighting? I’m not talking about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, I’m talking about Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt. They did it all with shadow, light, and color. No effects engine required.

It’s easier than you think to be a part of this industry

Half the job is knowing how to get along with people, half is showing up on time, and the other half is bringing a great attitude. You don’t even have to know much math.

There are times when it’s okay to take chances and there are times when it’s not

The times when it’s okay to take chances include: moving to a different city to be close to production centers like London, New York, Paris, Chicago, Dallas, Munich, Los Angeles; taking on a project that requires you to stretch your skills and imagination; peppering the industry with resumes; asking a local production company if you can train on their console in exchange for sweeping the floors. The times when it’s not okay to take chances are when someone can get hurt: climbing without a harness on and clipped in; lifting a safety ground in an electrical system; rigging heavy objects over people’s heads if you’re inexperienced… You get the drift.

Have fun

If you really enjoy what you’re doing it shows and it’s contagious. Then people want to be around you and they’ll call you back again when they’re putting together their next crew list. You’ll be even happier when that happens and it turns into a vicious (but happy) cycle. If you don’t really enjoy this business then do us all a favor and get out. Chances are you won’t be making a terrible financial decision.

Read Rob’s On Stage Lighting blog

There, I said it. Now do it.

Richard Cadena has been in the lighting industry since the time of the bag phone.

He is the author of Electricity for the Entertainment Electrician & Technician (which is also available at in the US at Amazon.com ) and Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light in Theatre, Live Performance, Broadcast, and Entertainment
(now in its 2nd edition) (Also available in the US at Amazon.com).

As an ETCP Certified Entertainment Electrician and an ETCP Recognized Trainer he conducts seminars about electricity, power distribution, and controls. He is also the editor of PLSN magazine and he has missed his share of weddings and funerals due to circumstances beyond his lighting control.

The Lion Joke

Two guys on a photo safari in South Africa far from their vehicle or shelter with no means of protection. All of a sudden they realize that a lioness has crept up behind them unexpectedly and that they are in grave danger of being attacked. One of them immediately takes off his safari boots and starts to put on some trainers.  The other says  “Are you crazy? That’s just a waste of time – you’ll never outrun a lion.”

The guy replies “I don’t have to outrun the lion, I only have to outrun you….”

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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In the stage lighting calendar, the Christmas season is awash with choirs and orchestras, carol concerts and recitals. On Stage Lighting considers how to light a classical concert ,an orchestra or choir (while keeping conductors and musicians happy) including a simple rig design without overstage rigging postions.

Such musical events might not call for a huge light show of Wobbli Buckettes a-dancing about the place but lighting an orchestra isn’t a walk in the park. Despite what everyone else around you might think, lighting is integral to a successful concert.

In the world of orchestral musicians, “show” lighting is unimportant. Music is all about sound so you can pretty much wave goodbye to any of this “we are all here for the common good” guff – as far classical musos are concerned, you are of no consequence to them. Classical musicians don’t become top class instrumentalists with their ability to see the bigger picture, sometimes leaving you wondering if they would rather even the audience weren’t there.

However, they will know if they can’t see their music in the gloom and are not ones for keeping their troubles to themselves.

The audience, on the other hand, didn’t pay good money just to sit and listen to the CD while not being able to hit “pause” and pop off to the toilet. While not all of the audience delight in watching their favourites warbling or scratching away, seeing the performers is important to the rest and to the management.

Your goal as “person lighting this show” is help the show by making it possible to read dots, not to p**s any musicians off and to light the gig to the satisfaction of the players, concert manager and audience. In the controlled lighting space like a theatre venue or church, there is little ambient light so you are in charge of every bit of light needed.

Lighting The Music

A lot of tiny dots all bunched together – musicians cannot play properly without well lit music. While pit orchestras in theatre use Rat stands (music stands with a built in light), most classical players need a more “comfortable” dot reading environment. Your primary lighting concern should be to enable the musos to read their music easily but you can’t just issue the entire choir with Petzl headtorches – it’d be too expensive for a start.

Lighting the Conductor

The Maestro needs to be lit so the ensemble can see the frantic arm waving that makes sure everyone gets to the end of the tune at the same time. Being able to see music and conductor comfortably is pretty much 90% job done. You might also consider front lighting the maestro for the curtain call, so bows can be taken and flowers received.

Lighting for the Audience

Unlike theatre, intelligibilty of the spoken word is not a big issue but the audience have paid good money to see the show so it would be nice to be able to actually see their favourite artistes at it, a bit of low intensity front light “filling in” helps.. You can also push up the frontlight when it comes to bows and flowers time.

Arty/Mood Lighting. While some Musical Directors will request different colours, moods or textures, we won’t be going into how to achieve this today. The arty stuff comes down to whatever suits the performance which with 90% of these gigs is “Open white and leave it alone” to be honest

Lighting an Orchestra – Know Your Enemies

No, I don’t mean musicians – lighting enemies. The things that are most likely cause members of the ensemble to raise their hand are shadows and glare. Shadows on the page make it harder to read the score – the contrast between the white page and the black notes should be good. Uneven contrast on the page makes the eye work hard and if shadows move (like a violinists bowing arm or a percussionist arms), even harder.

Note about shadows: A light source and an object on stage create a shadow. There is a myth that adding more light sources cuts down on shadows, in fact they just increase. More light sources can mitigate the contrast effect of shadows but can also make them more complex to control. And controlling shadows is our goal, we’ll look into that further on.

Glare in the eyes of the players or conductor is a potential problem. While having lights shone in your face is uncomfortable it also effects the iris of the eye, making it smaller and harder to read music on the page.

We know some potential problems are and how they are caused, so avoid them from the start. Otherwise you will spend your time fielding complaints about the lighting and others will lose confidence in your lighting abilities. Once that happens, the world finds problems even where none exist.

Let’s look look at the practicalities.

Lighting The Scores

To light a choir and orchestra so that they can read their scores with minimal shadow or spill, you would like to use height. Putting your lanterns high up overhead and pointing them straight down means no light in anyone’s eyes, audience or orchestra. It also gives you the smallest, most controllable shadows (if you stand under an overhead light in your house and look down at your feet, you’ll see what I mean). The lower the angle of a light source, nearer horizontal like a sunset, the longer and more unmanagable the shadows become and the longer a shadow is on stage, the more performers it troubles.

The downside of heavy “toplight” is that it can make your ensemble look like they’re being beamed down from an alien spacecraft. A lot of harsh hotspots on the tops of heads and scary gaunt faces. It is also not always possible, quite a lot of concerts setups don’t have the overstage lighting positions required for these angles.

Your options are to bring the toplight a) slightly forward or b) slightly backward. Steep frontside top light can still seem pretty harsh from the audience, especially at levels that light up the music well. Steep backlight can light music while avoiding the hollow faces and foreheads that are too “hot”.

The trouble with steep backlight (directly from straight on upstage) is that, particularly for standing choirs, each persons head throws a shadow directly onto their score. For seated musicians, this is less of a problem. Lighting choirs, this can be eased by moving the steep backlight to one side and adding another backlight from the opposing angle – effectively lighting over each singers shoulder. Any shadow caused by a choir members neighbour is mitigated by the light from the other side.

Lighting the conductor is pretty uncomplicated, the orchestra needs enough to be able to see the stick and any facial expressions used to drive the piece. Light could come from upstage ish but mustn’t fly off into the eyes of the front row. Again, bring the angle steeper (more overhead) or from the side as an alternative. If there are no rigging positions overstage to light the conductor, see if you can find a cross light angle that is not going to bother the audience or the players.

Ok we’ve looked at ways of lighting musicians scores and the man with the stick, what about seeing them from the stalls? To be seen from “out front” we need to add some lighting from somewhere in front of the target (muso, singer, harpist etc). This could be from good old fashioned theatre style front light 45 degrees up and 45 degrees apart, but there are other positions that fill in here. The important thing to remember is that our biggest problem here is going to be “lights in the eyes” of players facing the conductor. This often makes the 45 degree angle less than attractive – a cello player sat in the front row will be guaranteed a front light in the face while trying to see the baton.

A more front/side or side light position fills in faces and is less of a nuisance for the majority. In a horseshoe setup, the players most likely to have the sidelight in their faces are sat either side of the conductor, facing the sidelight position. Just bear this in mind when focussing and cut off top edges at chest height on the opposite side to mitigate glare for the those facing.

The principle with this front light, is that that unlike a traditional theatre method for lighting a stage, the front light is Fill lighting that will be used at a lower intensity. If you are lighting the scores with positions from both sides of the stage, the sidelight provides most of the brightness required to see the orchestra from the back row of the audience.

Looking at the image, you can see lighting angles that are useful marked in green while red ones are going to cause problems. The arrows are not fixture positions but indicate direction with stubby ones being steeper (from over stage). As the graphic shows, any lighting angle that travels straight into the face of a player, particluarly via the conductor, is to be avoided. The angles that travel from upstage to down vary according to venue design, just make sure that audience members are not in the firing line when shooting from lower rigging positions.

Lighting a Concert in Reality

Many church recitals and school carol concerts are in venues that aren’t “the ideal world”. So, having looked at how we would really like to light our concert, let’s look at a common setup. Makeshift concert spaces often have no facility for rigging overhead, making wind-up lighting stands the only option.

We don’t have option to use high fixture positions overhead to light our orchestra – we need to be clever and even more aware of our angles, shadow and spill. Common wind-up stands go to a maximum height of 3-4 metres, a lot of our lighting angles are going to be shallower than we might prefer.

The benefit to portable stands is that we can place them pretty much where we like around the perfomance area – within reason. The other key to success is using a decent number of focussable fixtures with barndoors. 650W or 1000w fresnels are fine, depending on the size/throw of the venue ( 750w Source Four PARs/ PARnels are common in my world). The final piece of the puzzle is to use a number of stand positions to get “localised” light around the stage.

The first example here is scaled down version of a setup I have used regularly to light a choir and orchestra. The actual rig version uses double the number of fixtures to cover a larger area, but here we’ll use 12 fresnels for simplicity of demo and to allow for the smallest of budgets. We will pretend that the choir is also stood on one level. Tiered staging is often a feature of professional choir setups. Ideally, each lantern should be individually dimmed to allow for the maximum intensity control. Pairing two fresnels on each stand, while convenient, can cause intesity problems expecially as often the fixtures are working on different tasks and throw distances.

Looking at the diagram, one the lights on one side are numbered (the opposite partner of each lantern performs the a mirror task).

• Light 1 provides some front face lighting and a bit of light for the conductors stand. This is the danger angle that you probably won’t want to use too much apart from the walk-on and calls.
• Light 2 provides music sidelighting for the DS ensemble members facing across stage, lighting their music AND creating friendly front light for the players on that side of stage.
• Light 3 does slightly back lighting for the next US set of musicians. It also lights the conductor for the players.
• Light 4 side lights along the next row and a bit of front fill for the opposite side choir ranks.
• Light 5 creates front fill across the back ranks and is at an angle that troubles no one.
• Light 6 cross lights the rear rows of the choir ranks, far side. Music light, enough for 2 or 3 rows if you’re lucky.

Focus Notes:

Like most lighting, it’s all in the focus.

The FOH face lights are the worst offenders for “in the eyes lighting” of the opposite musos. Don’t forget to run them at a low intensity during the show, you can whack them up for the curtain calls.

Any light going downstage of the conductor must be cut off the front row of seating at chest height. Barndoor off to suit .  Although the conductors face is important to the players, you can cheat this by top dooring lower. There is often enough bounce from the score to see him grimacing.

Downstage crosslight/conductor sidelight – watch the DS b/door and long door off the audience seated.

Far cross lighting along the singers should be top doored off to just above head height on the other side of stage. This sidelight is going to be lighting faces as well as music.

Near lighting fresnels will need to be as wide as poss. Spot the far lighting ones down a touch to get a bit more oomph out of them.

You can let all US back/side lights light as far downstage as they go unless you think that their shadows are going to be a nuisance. Look out for the eyes of any front row audience and the two most downstage musicians.

Keep all barndoors tidy– every door should be in to at least the start of the visible beam.

Check light levels on stage by holding your hands out, squatting down and generally doing things that approximate where the scores and seated players will be. You can’t predict where every shadow will come from when a stageful of players appear, but you know you’re on the right track.

While the basic 12 light version of lighting an orchestra is simple, it’s a pretty blunt instrument that will only really cut it on a smaller orchestra and a handful of singers. A larger ensemble and some tiered risers for the choir mean you could do with some more fresnels (18-20) and a some larger wind-up stands or extensions that lift our rig higher , 4 – 5 meters should give the additional height to accommodate the rear riser lift. But the principle remains that same.

What next? Orchestra Rehearsals

Having set up the kit and a rough focus (often known as the focus in these situations) you await the influx of odd shaped intrument carriers, the rustle of scores and the sharpening of the conductors baton – the orchestra arriving for rehearsals. With any luck you have done your job so well that, after ascertaining that everything is good for them, you can slink off for a cup of tea. But how do you know if your lighting is to the choirs satisfaction?

Although you’d probably like the world to know that you are lighting the show, it is better not to make yourself to obvious and keep a safe distance, while watching players unpack and set up their music. You can easily tell if someone is uncomfortable or having trouble with the light levels on their scores. Often, musicians will adjust their chair position or rearrange their stands to get rid of unwanted bow shadows and you should let them get on with it. Only get involved at the behest of the conductor when there is something that only you can solve.

There is a rule amongst technicians that you never ask a musician if they are OK – they feel the need to find something to give you as an answer which is likely to result in pointless work on your part. Avoid direct questions like that. I usually prowl around the ensemble for a few minutes early in the rehearsal to see for myself if I would be happy with the light levels on each music score.

On a recent show, during this prowl I noticed that the organist had moved the organ into a position that meant no significant direct light was lighting his music. I quietly approached him in a break to see if he needed an Anglepoise or to move his intrument. We discussed the possibilities and he decided in the end that he didn’t want an Anglepoise for fear of knocking it overe during the show, and was happy to live with the light levels as they were. The guy was amazed that someone cared about his personal comfort that, despite my stupidity of breaking the golden rule, it was resolved by his rare “make-do” attitude.

If anything really needs adjusting, you obviously can’t clatter around with ladders during rehearsals so it must wait until rehearsals are over unless the problem is too intrusive to continue. For now, the orchestra and conductor just need space to get on with their bit.

After rehearsal, you can get on with whatever jobs you have left to do. But there is one more person you have to consider, now the orchestra have gone: The Tuner. There are two things that make their life harder – a lot of noise and working in the dark. If you have stuff to do, leave a light for the tuner to work by and keep the clatter of ladders to a mininum. They’ll finish much quicker.

All Done

Hang on Rob, what about the show?

As an On Stage Lighting reader, I am sure you have the show under control. The thing about lighting an orchestra or choir concert is that the rehearsals are the break point. A successful gig in this case is getting to the end of rehearsals with no questions about dimly lit music, glare or your focus.

After that, the show is just the thing between you and the load out.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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This week we look at attribute inversions in intelligent lighting control, the use of Pan or Tilt Invert in particular. So what is attribute inversion, why would a console programmer use it and when is an invert most useful? On Stage Lighting turns your world upside down.

What is attribute inversion?

If you have some understanding of intelligent lighting, you might know that the word “attributes” refers to distinct fixture parameters such as Intensity, Pan, Tilt, Gobo Wheel 1 etc. Each attribute channel is controlled by a value between 0 and 255, in the case of Intensity 0 being 0% dimmer output, 255 being FULL. Pan, Tilt and other gradually controlled attributes such Cyan change on a similar sliding scale.

Attribute inversion is the practice of reversing the behaviour of the parameter relative to it’s control channel value – in the case of Intensity, a zero value would result in the dimmer output of FULL. An inversion of the Intensity attribute.

While it maybe possible to invert the behaviour of any fixture attribute, in practice the most common inversion is that of the Pan or Tilt parameter of a moving head or mirror. The end result of an invert of either a Pan or Tilt attribute is that it makes the control channel behave “back to front”.  Instead of panning left, the fixture moves right. Instead of tilting up, it goes down.

Reasons for inverting a Position channel could be to either fix a rigging error or create any easier environment for programming moving lights.

Fixing an error – If the crew happen to have rigged a moving spot the “wrong” way round (180 degrees to the rest of the fixtures) then selecting a whole bunch of fixtures and moving them all together doesn’t work. The misplaced fixture moves in the opposite direction and pre programmed effects also run backwards during playback. Rather than bring the rig in and rehang the spot, the programmer can simply invert the Pan/Tilt channels at the console and order is restored.

Another common error is that many moving lights allow the user to invert channels at the fixture itself, using the on board menu or switch settings. This might be left over from a previous show, the heads not having been reset to factory settings during a hire prep.

Making programming easier – This is a positive move to speeding up position programming and fixture behaviour in some circumstances. Inverting the Tilt attribute of fixtures on the deck (sat on their bases) means that they move in the same direction as those hung in the air from clamps. Selecting all the heads and tilting them, all move upstage and downstage together.

Inverting the Pan attribute fixtures on one side of the centre line creates mirrored movement, where opposite pairs move toward centre together. This can speed up programming certain rig layouts and can even be used to rough-in a full rig of positions with only half the fixtures working. If you think this sounds pretty far fetched, it isn’t – I’ve done it. This workaround requires that at least one of every fixture “buddy” is running. More about these buddies later.

Another product of Pan inversion is that movement effects generated within the console, and moves from one position to another, happen symmetrically across stage.

Where to invert fixture attributes

There are two choices to setting a parameter inversion – at the fixture or within the lighting console. The worst situation is some inversions at the fixture, some set within the desk and know one knows what’s going on.

The preferred choice, given professional level equipment, is at the lighting desk. Knowing that all your heads are physically set up the same and leaving patch editing functions in the programmers hands is reassuringly structured. Inverting a channel at the console is usually part of advanced patching, setup or fixture editing control functions.

Setting an invert within the function menu of the fixture itself is usually reserved for situations where you are using control equipment that doesn’t provide the facility to perform inverts. Controllers with less than full functionality can often be quicker and easier to use if these local inverts are set. Something to think about when you are next running 4 scanners with a 12 channel, 2 preset desk.

Which ever way you decide to set an attribute invert, the most important thing to remember is that it must be done BEFORE any position programming takes place. Setting inverts will ruin any position work you have already committed to the desk.

The Downside to Inverts

The negative side to setting Pan inverts is that they make some fixtures move in the opposite direction. OK, you say, that’s what we wanted right? Having some fixtures pulling when others are pushing can be good or bad depending on rig layout and your aims as an LD/programmer. You might have a rear truss loaded with 16 moving spots and planning to use Fan effects on the desk to create some awesome looks. You may want to create some offset Pan sweeps, creating a horizontal wave effect from one end to the other. Modern lighting consoles have tools to speed up the programming of this kind of sequence but the effects are harder to achieve without all the heads moving the same way by default.

So you choose your poison.

Rigs for Pan inversion

The type of rig that can benefit from a few Pan inversions could be a concert or dance rig that requires quick position programming and symmetrical effects. Fixtures that have an “other side of stage buddy” are ideal candidates for pairing with one of the heads having an inverted Pan channel. Far Stage Left and Far Stage Right, Drum Riser Left and Drum Riser Right etc. Having these buddies working symmetrically means fine tuning your positions is often a matter of selecting a pair and moving them in one hit.

Top OSL Tip – You might find that you need to move both buddies in one direction, maybe to centre them up on stage. The quick method for moving both these guys, toward stage right for example, is to use the Fan tool. As one fixture has a Pan invert set, they actually move in the same direction.

Obviously, you might have some fixture positions that would be prime candidates for some inversions plus others that aren’t, like our rear truss spots.

Part of the rig could have inverted buddies, other banks of fixtures might work together. Some say that you should use fixture orientation and Pan/Tilt inverts to make sure that every fixture moves in the direction that you would expect uniformly across the whole rig eg. Wheeling the Pan encoder clockwise results in every fixture moving to Stage Left. This is dogmatic simplification that misses a host of programming and playback possibilities and can make certain looks a whole lot harder to create. If you are working in a 360 degree environment like a large night club, the idea of a “correct” way for a fixture to pan is plain silly anyway. Perhaps this is why such invert techniques are more likely to be found in the work of club or concert programmers, rather than theatre ops.

Tilt Invert

As we are talking about the nature of the rig helping to choose invert tactics, we come back to tilt inversion. Although Tilt invert is commonly used to align fixtures sitting on their bases with those hanging down from a structure, it can be used for other purposes. Perhaps the fixtures are laid out in both forward and rear positions and you wish to be able to wheel the entire rig either toward the stage area or away in one motion.

Once again, the choice depends on not only your preferences for programming but also the resulting playback of pre-designated effects.

Pan and Tilt Swap

A setting that does what it says on the tin: Swaps the Pan control with the Tilt control channel. This used for fixtures that are rigged on their sides, such as the side of an upright truss, that makes their pan/tilt movement apparently “wrong” in relation to the stage. Swapping the Pan and Tilt doesn’t allow us to reap any other programming benefits unless you’d just like to confuse the next person to use your console.

Inverting other attributes

There are occasions where it might be necessary to invert other attributes apart from Pan and Tilt. This sometimes applies to other linear parameters like Intensity and CMY or RGB colour mixing and can be done at the console or within a personality file. This kind of invert is a more unusual kind of housekeeping required when the fixture personality file is incorrect and the fixtures do not behave as expected. The inverting of other attributes is not usually employed to create a useful programming or playback tool.

Turn Your Life Around

We’ve taken a quick look the practice of fixture position attribute inversion, the different methods of doing it and some advantages for the moving light programmer. As setting inverts is something that should be done before any programming begins, it’s important to think about the pros and cons early on. Trying out position invert tactics on a small set up of around four moving lights should give you an idea of what they can do. If your control won’t do it, even the most basic scanners have some on board setting. When you are comfortable, you can unleash the power of “back to front” on your next monster rig.

Let us know how you get on.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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A guest post from Lucas Krech, a Lighting Designer with a passion for lighting dance performance. An great introduction to dance lighting that looks at some history, theory and the use of side light in particular.

Dancers live in light as fish live in water. The stage space in which they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within translucent walls and above the stage floor, the lighting supports their flashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies. The dance is fluid and never static. Designing for the dance has been my most constant love. I have designed the decor as well as the lighting for a good many ballets and I have installed the basic systems with which I have worked in dance repertory. If I leave anything to posterity, it will be, I think, most importantly in the field of dance lighting. My extraordinary good fortune was that I came along at a point in time when Martha Graham was creating and when Lincoln Kirstein was backing George Balanchine to create new and fresh uses of the ballet form. ~~Jean Rosenthal, The Magic of Light

Lighting the Dance

These first few sentences are perhaps all one needs to understand the dance. The rest is style and historical aesthetics. “Dancers live in light as fish live in water.” If you have ever seen a truly first rate dancer glide across the stage effortlessly and with infinite grace, you know what this means. The relationship between a dancer and their light, between a choreographer and their lighting designer, is unique among artistic collaborations. Perhaps the closest analogy would be the relationship of the composer to their conductor. So much of dance, even when dealing with classical story ballet, comes down to the lighting that one must almost unlearn everything you know about lighting in order to learn how to light for the dance.

Dance lighting is unique among performance disciplines in large part because dance is concerned first and foremost with movement. While in all performance mediums our focus is on bodies in space, it is the dance where we focus on where and how that body moves. Perhaps there is a large sweeping arc of an entrance that spirals to center for a pirouette where our dancer is joined by a partner who then jaunts about the stage with her. In short, we are concerned with the whole stage and the quality of movement rather than where someone is standing for such and such a monologue.

My background and training as a designer is in modern ballet and post-modern dance. The following essay is written primarily from the perspective of designing for modern dance forms. While many of these principals can be applied to classical ballet and some post-modern styles, those forms are not the focus as they demand their own unique approach.

For the purposes of this essay I am assuming the use of a conventional modern dance space. This typical dance space has several wings, perhaps four per side, with a boom placed in the center of each just out of sitelines. Sidelights are hung on the booms and point straight across stage. These low hung units allow for color changes between pieces in repertory and allows the entire stage space to be filled, with very few lights. The wings and dance floor are black and there is often a white cyc in the background. Should the cyc not be used for a particular piece, there is a black curtain immediately downstage of the Cyc.

The Angles of Dance

Because our interest in dance is based first on movement, the lighting must be grounded in an approach that seeks out interesting ways to reveal that moving body. While in a play, where our concern is dialogue and plot, we focus on faces through the use of frontlighting. In dance, to show off the musculature and movement, we rely primarily on sidelight positions.

While sidelight is a primary tool in dance lighting, at a more basic level the use of different angles in dance is often treated in a more minimalist or poetic manner than one finds in a play or musical or television. While in a play or television, you might have a key light that is brighter than the myriad other lights used in the scene, for a dance, you might only have that one light or a very few lights from a tightly controlled palette of angles.

Sidelighting

The sidelighting conventions for dance developed out of the twin needs of a body’s movement in a kinesthetically focused art form and a touring repertory. As such this system was devised to achieve the maximum variety in lighting looks with a minimum of instrumentation.

The first lighting position to consider are the shinbusters or shins. As you might infer from the name, these are lights hung at or about shin height. They are typically elipsoidals with shutter cuts taken off the floor and focused to head height at the centerline. With these, it becomes possible to brightly light the dancer without illuminating the floor. The effect is one of making the dancer appear to float as if by magic.

After the shins, the next most important position are the head highs, or heads. These are lights hung at or just above typical head height. They are also focused to centerline, but unlike the shins they do not cut off the floor. While the light does graze the floor, the effect is minimal and allows the dancer to be brightly light while keeping a minimum of notice on the floor

These two positions are so fundamental to dance that many designers, should they find themselves in severely limited situations, would utilize only them. This system of sidelighting was developed by american designer Jean Rosenthal and is covered in more detail in her seminal text The Magic of Light.

Through the use of low angled sidelighting like this a designer may fill the entire stage space with light using as few as 8 or 10 lighting instruments. In a touring situation where venues range from having large compliments of lighting fixtures to incredibly limited options, this system allows the basic integrity of the design to be maintained in virtually any performance space. I discuss the implications of designing in repertory for tour in more detail here.

While Shins and Heads are the two primary angles utilized in dance, larger companies and dance venues will have a much more extensive lighting system for their home season if not also on tour. A more expanded low boom might have Low Shins, High Shins, Mids, Low Heads and High Heads. Classical ballet companies will also have high booms, typically in a pink and a blue that hang at 3-4 meters above the stage floor. Pipe-ends and other high-side lights may also be employed.

Other Angles and Lighting Options

Dance may begin with sidelight, but that is not to say that other options are unavailable to the designer. Backlighting, toplights, frontlight and foot lights should all be considered part of the designer’s tool kit. In addition to all these, lighted drops and cycloramas play a critical role in dance lighting.

Backlighting and top lighting often play a very prominent role in dance. Because the primary lighting angles keep the majority of light on the dancer and off the floor, the floor is left relatively dark. From this place, the designer has at their disposal any combination of overhead lighting positions to design shadows and patterns on the floor itself. Through the use of color, texture, shadow angle, and intensity, the designer can cause the dancer to appear to traverse entire worlds, while merely crossing the stage from down-right to up-left. For a more detailed exploration of lighting floors, see my essay here.

The use of a cyc in dance, or painted drops in ballet, can be quite effective as well. The color variety afforded by a three color cyc can give limitless variety to a designer when combined with the color options in the low booms.

Beyond the Basics and a bit of History

The advent of modern dance brought with it several changes that would rock the dance world and significantly impact the lighting designer in the process. The first was the elimination of toe shoes and ballet slippers. While not directly impacting lighting, this did lead to radical new explorations of form and movement, thus shifting the aesthetic center of the field. The second change, and one directly relevant to lighting, was the elimination of scenery.

With scenery gone, or relegated to a few gestural sculptures, lighting no longer had to contend with pesky walls that would block it. This freed the lighting designer to use whatever tool they saw as necessary to light the dance. It also shifted lighting to a more primary role in the creation of a visual space.

Lighting now had double duty of creating mood and atmosphere as well as setting. Lighting as scenery is commonplace in the dance world today. Be it through the use of toplight boxes, texture and color, or a partially obscured cyc, there are limitless ways to define the dance space architecturally with light.

Dance, in many ways, allows light to exist in its purest form. With little to no scenery and a focus entirely upon lighting a body in space, the medium lends itself to the poetic essence of what stage lighting can be. While theatre production can use quite a number of lighting instruments and angles to construct the various looks, dance is often content with a few clean, clear, simple gestures. Dance is an opportunity for the lighting designer to let their inner poet run free. To take light as a formal art and dance on stage with the performer. The lighting designer constructs the aquarium wherein a dancer may swim in their light.

Images are courtesy of Lucas Krech. The main photograph is copyright Julie Lemberger.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Programming moving lights is complicated, especially when you’re taking those first steps with some hired waggly heads and an unfamiliar console.On Stage Lighting lists 21 ways to make programming easier, more efficient and how to avoid mistakes that waste valuable time.

Based on an image by Jason Gulledge on Flickr

Compared to conventional fixtures, the intelligent light programmer has at least 10 times more information to wrangle. Many parts of the industry rely on the combined LD/Programmer role, meaning that design decisions have to be made by the unfortunate performing the frenzied button pressing. Time to get organised.

1- Be prepared

Turning up with the patch done (at least) saves time on the load in. Get the patch right in the quiet of the office, rather than trying to concentrate on 100 fixtures and their DMX addresses while some noisy chippy is jigsawing right next to you. Being able to slap a file into the desk and get it up and running while the rig is at working height makes the crew feel like you’re on the case. If you can’t access the console before the gig, most have an offline editor of some sort that is easy enough to patch with.

2 – Create a cheat sheet

Cheat sheets come in all shapes and sizes. Some easy to use reference material about your groups, fixture numbers or other stuff you will use regularly. When you develop a “system” to your programming with similar patching and desk layouts, the sheet becomes a routine in your head.

Another useful cribsheet is notes of ideas, scenes or looks considered during the design process – it’s amazing how your mind can go blank when faced with a “virgin” console. “So many things to program, I just can’t think what they are!”.

3 – Start early

While you won’t make many friends by slinking off to fiddle with the desk while the truck is being unloaded, don’t forget that nobody wants to be here all night. If programming is your responsibility, make a beeline for the console while kit is still being rigged. Depending on the complexity of the entire control system, there might be system issues. This needs to be done while the rest of the lighting crew are still putting barndoors in and colouring up – and the rig is still easily accessible. If the lighting department is just you, starting early isn’t so easy.

4 – Find a decent programming position

This is a lot more important than it might seem. Many final operating positions for the lighting console often have a limited view of the stage or are offset from centre, making programming positions harder. Auditorium centre and high enough to see the stage floor if possible. Seeing the floor gives a reference point for positioning and helps with sorting out beam symmetry. Different venues call for different programming positions – on an outdoor Orbital concert stage, I like to do most of the programming from Down Stage Centre and tidy up “in the crowd” positions from the FOH tower later. Being on stage makes it easier to see what’s going on when programming in daylight and you can check the band members focus by walking a just few metres from the desk.

Time spent moving the console to a good position is paid back ten times later. Just be prepared for a certain amount “no, I am not going to be here for the show” to the world and his wife.

Don’t let anyone hustle you off back to your final resting place until you are sure that most of the programming is done. Be friendly and ask if you can set up your cans (comms headset) and do the rehearsal from this position. Otherwise, those post rehearsal changes are going to take twice as long.

5 – Get comfortable

My inner Occupational Therapist says so (me, sitting on a roadbox typing on a tiny netbook). Chances are, you are going to be stuck at that desk for the next xx days with little chance of parole. Dedicated theatre style production desks are great but a significant number of shows are programmed from upturned Martin cases and the like. I prefer to work standing up if possible, but however you arrange your desk make sure that:

• The console is at the right height so you don’t have to stoop.
• You can see the stage and the desk without too much neck or eye movement. This can involve jacking the desk up a bit on boxes.
• Layout any peripherals/ plans/ keyboards/mice to be easily used without cables being snagged etc.
• If you have a chair, make sure that is the right height/ back is supported etc.

I have been known to spend 20 minutes hunting for boxes exactly the right size to bring the desk to a position that isn’t going to be a pain in the back/neck. The next 4 days went much better as a result.

6 – Check the fixtures

Check all the available fixtures are responding correctly. Pan and Tilt the right way and that the attributes are controlled correctly from the desk – colour1, colour2 etc. Winkling out any heads with an onboard Pan Invert or finding out that you have the wrong personality file version is a lot less heartbreaking at this stage.

Having “started early” you might not have the entire rig of fixtures available, some may still need to be rigged. At least you can check out what’s there. Many of the following tricks can be used with only a partial rig – in the world of corporate gigs and one night stands, you regularly get zero time to program with a full rig.

7 – Save a patch file

Once the desk patch is installed and checked, save a patch only show file with any amendments you have made to DMX addresses, fixture order etc – hopefully in a seperate file to the orginial patch. If you already have some colour / gobo palettes, great, save them too. Any spectacular screwups in the early stages of setting up the desk can be easily sorted by clearing the desk without having to repatching from scratch. Many consoles allow for incremental/ multi file saves nowadays but for the ones that don’t, taking the time to create a new disk/card is well spent. Especially when you realise that you wiped half the patch, thinking that you were programming.

8 – Set up Pan and Tilts

Many rigs involve some Pan/Tilt swapping (for fixtures rigged on their side) and you might like to invert the Pan attributes of certain fixtures for symmetry. Check these and sort them out early on – it’s no good programming position palettes until you are happy with the way the rig responds. Again, in three days time you will wish that you had corrected that accidental Tilt Invert on the second Spot from the left on the FOH truss.

9 – Create groups

Don’t skip creating groups just because your desk has a seemingly easy way to select individual fixtures. If the console has not got a macro to change the selection order (such as Random or Inverse) create some groups for that too. You can create groups without control of the entire rig but check them later.

10 – Create palettes

One of the fundamentals of moving light programming, palettes for colour and beam effects can be created early on (if not before) and should ideally be of the “universal” type. These apply to any fixture of that type (even those not patched yet,) meaning you can program the palette with only one head running. Adding more fixtures, they assume the programmed palettes too.

11 – Create a See Me position palette

Depending on the console position, you may not be able to see beams on the floor well . A position on the cyc, ceiling or other plain surface that you can see clearly and use to sort stuff out on. Create colour and beam palettes in this position, using it send a fixture to to check the colour or prism alignment during programming.

12 – Set up a quick “Director” look

Despite the fact that you have a mountain of things to get sorted before creating great art, it is a fact that if you linger near the desk for more than 5 minutes, the Director/Client/Money Man will come over and ask you to show them some looks. Swallowing the urge to tell them to leave you alone to get on with it, the best way to get shot of them is to have prepared some big n rough looks that they can gaze at while the Production Manager comes over to steer them off to catering and leave you in peace.

13 – Create some “Focus” looks

Once at the desk, the crew will delight in shouting for test channels, conventionals to rough focus and other general tasks. If you are using a programmer based console, you can placate the shouters by playing back memories that don’t interfere with your programming. It avoids the sinking feeling when you find that you have recorded some random Source Four into the last 20 memories.

14 – Minimise hand movement

Economy of hand movement and streamlining workflow are two useful tactics in programming of moving lights, particularly with large numbers of fixtures and cues. Different desks have different time savers, but just considering how much actual “doing” of stuff you can cut out is a start. On the GrandMA full size, a lot of economies are found by creating custom buttons and macros on the right hand Screen 3, near the encoders. One of the attractions of command line data entry is is the physical economy of entering data in one small area.

15 – Get “Herding” your heads

One of the biggest indicators of an inexperienced programmer is treating each moving head as an lovely individual to be nurtured and tended carefully on a 1:1 basis : Starting off – select 1 spot – move it into postion – set colour ….like focussing conventional lighting.

Think of them more like sheep. “Herding” fixtures into toward the stage, tilt up the entire back truss , tweak positions save a palette, set ALL colours to red, set half the heads to amber before quickly running through tweaking focusses.

The key point is to try to perform the big adjustments, before splitting the rig into chunks, then smaller chunks, then maybe opposite pairs before finally tweakin’ the odd head or two. When controlling a whole bunch of fixtures, get them all doing the same thing by winding an encoder (like Zoom/Focus) all the way down until every head hits it’s 0 point. Winding them all back up again, the parameter is now in sync. Or you could hit a nearby palette to line them up before adjusting once more.

16 – Use the mirror or fan function to position multiple fixtures

If you set half your symmetrical rig to Pan Invert, you can speed up the positioning of sets of fixtures by controlling them together. Use a Fan or Align (MA term) function to tidy them up in the same direction. The great thing about this method is that you can (and I have), program and entire rig with only half of it working (outdoor gig, wet distro, only six channels of hot power, don’t ask) as long as you can see at least one of every “pair”. If you prefer to have all your Pan set the same way across the rig, you can still use Fan or Align functions to wind fixtures into symmertical positions.

17 – Build looks from other programming

Cut and Paste whatever you have already to build palettes, looks and new shapes. No point in doing things twice. This applies at show level too – many LD’s have “previously enjoyed” showfiles based on certain fixture sets that they can use as a major building block for a new show. Already having the basics laid down give you more time to create.

18 – Use the tools

Whatever labour saving devices the console has, use them – Shape Editors, funky selection tools,mapping from video, whatever. We are all impressed by your ability to program 100 step Mexican Wave chase but we have computers to do that now – thank god!

19 – Keep lists

I note down everything that still needs sorting. Things that need tidying/fixing or programming that needs removal. Ticking things off on a list is satisfying and, if you have a memory like mine, vital.

20 – Discourage visitors

Some production desks have a big jar of cookies that create a hub of what we might call “connectivity” today. Directors and Production Managers need to constantly connect with the rest of the team – an LD/programmer often just needs to be left alone. The 1st law of programming is that within five minutes of sitting down at the desk either a) Someone will come and talk to you and you can’t get away or b) Someone will come and talk to someone else and stand in your line of vision.

No need to be antisocial, just make sure that your programming area is not the social centre of the universe and isn’t next to the tea making facilities.

21 – Get an iPod

I picked up this idea from a RnR programmer about 10 years ago, before the Ipod was the byword for personal stereo. This guy used to program the desk with a Walkman, supposedly listening to the next band he was LD’ing. I was struck by the genius of this plan – it cut out all extraneous noise and meant that you left him alone. The tinny sounds of Thrash Metal coming from the earphones and the cable dangling down to his pocket contstitued the subtlest of “F*** Off!, Go and chit chat to someone else” signs I’ve ever seen.

Phew!

So, over 2000 words and we haven’t even programmed a decent look yet. So far, we have spent time checking stuff, fending off distractions, hunting for furniture and recording memories that probably won’t be used in the show. Still, start early enough and maybe we can fit in some programming!

Hope the desk is the first thing off the truck

If you have any favourite ways to make life easier when programming, put them in the comments below.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Media Servers and Digital Lighting was a quick introduction to “convergence” and the technologies involved in using digital media for stage lighting. Current lighting trends include the use of arrays of fixtures such as RGB LED units to replay images and effects, using Pixel Mapping. This article looks at the basics of pixel mapping and asks if it is possible to re create some of these effects on a budget.

What is Pixel Mapping, exactly?

Pixel Mapping (in the World of Lampie) is the use of software to map and replay media such as bitmaps or video on an array (AKA grid or raster) of lighting fixtures. The fixtures could be anything; moving spots, PAR cans, Birdies but the use of colour mixing LED kit (inc Pixeline, Versa Tube or Color Web) is a common and appealing technique. You effectively get a low resolution screen to display your goodies, made from “pixels” of red, green and blue LEDs. In this article, we will refer back to the RGB LED model as it’s easy to understand.

Displaying the image on the screen is the job of the pixel mapper. Professional lighting media servers have mapping functions, pixel mapping software (like PixelDrive or the Arkaos Pixel Mapper) is available to run on a laptop and some lighting consoles can cope with a degree of mapping all on their own.

Pixel Mapping isn’t projecting media content using a projecter and firing it from the lighting console. The main brief of mapping is to turn your array of “simple” fixtures into a giant telly. The “screen” doesn’t have to be rectangular or even one complete surface – using pixel mapping, you could create some great effects with a long single strip of RGB LEDS or play a huge image across a number of different elements.

How does pixel mapping work?

The pixel mapper treats each fixture as an individual pixel and sends the correct information (usually colour and intensity) to the array.

Lighting fixtures are still commonly controlled using different implementations of DMX. With our LED “pixels” using up at least 3 DMX channels, you can see how even a small surface can use up hundreds of DMX addresses. Some control systems and media servers have their own proprietory network protocol to talk to each other, but talking to the fixtures themselves requires a standardised approach. Currently, the most common control signals are sent using ARTNet, the open source protocol for sending mulitple DMX universes. This can be split down at the surface or go straight into a proprietory control box for the LED sytem.

Pixel mapping is only an interface tool. It lets you create complex effects the easy wasy – with digital media. It certainly beats programming a 1000 step chase of complex RGB levels. It doesn’t have to be a full colour “screen” of LEDs. There is no reason why you can’t send the output to dimmers connected to a grid of PARS.

What information does a pixel mapper need?

Take the simplest system – a 3 x 3 grid of PARs (yes, you can’t display hi res video on this but it’s a good starting point). The pixel mapper needs to know that your array or grid is 3 pixels by 3 pixels – 9 PARs in a square.

The system also needs to know that PAR 1 (DMX dimmer A/001 for example) is top left and that the number runs from Left to Right, Top to Bottom. This means when media pixel 1 is ON, the correct PAR (Top Left) fades up.

If we had a 3 x 3 grid of RGB leds, it would need to know that DMX 0/001 was Red, Top Left; 0/002 Green, Top Left etc. When media pixel 1 needed to be Yellow, it would send 100% ish to 0/001 and 0/002. (If you are wondering what 0/ is, it’s just the numbering system we are using to identify DMX universes this time. The first ARTnet DMX universe is 0)

So, the pixel mapper needs to know the number of fixtures and the shape of the surface plus the positioning (ie. DMX addresses) of the fixtures. Media server pixel mapping software can have the fixture personalities of particular instruments to help with the DMX channels. The personalities are handy for the quick set up of large arrays using common fixtures such as Color Web or Pixeline. In our examples, we’ll just think in terms of a few simple RGB elements.

Pitch or Offset

Many products and layouts have a set pixel “pitch”. This is the distance between each pixel, vertically and horizontally, and is important when mapping onto surfaces where the pixels/fixtures aren’t jammed up tight together.

Mapping a screen image onto a surface with a wide pitch, the image ends up stretched all over. Digital media usually has a 1:1 pixel pitch ( the horizontal pitch is the same as the vertical). If your fixtures were 300mm apart sideways but 1m up/down from each other, the resulting image is stretched and squashed all over the place. Distortion of media might be a nice effect but only if you intended it to happen.

Some mapping layouts consist of a number of different “bits” of surface, spread apart from each other across stage. Getting an entire image to work across all the surfaces requires the actual positions of each piece being entered into the pixel mapper. Getting the heights and offsets correct, in the mapper as well as in the rig, can be time consuming. The final effect is worth it.

Content for Pixel Mapping

The suitability of content for pixel mapping depends on the arrays they will be replayed on. A really low resolution grid like our 9 PARs isn’t going to look much with an XGA full colour image across it. Although it is not always necessary to create media content at exactly the right resolution, understanding how the images will actually look is important. Great effects can be created with a low resolution array and some carefully chosen higher res media but think of the result of 16 million colours on those 9 PAR Cans. A bit of a dimmy, flashy mess. I don’t recommend trying to get those colours using scrollers – heh, heh!

Pixel Mapping on the cheap

We bet that you want ways to experiment with pixel mapping without going the expense of full on media servers or Grand MA’s. Quite a few cheap lighting control software has some form of pixel mapping function including the OSL favourite – Cham Sys MagicQ PC (some tutorials on pixel mapping the Cham Sys are in the pipeline). The onboard array control on the Cham Sys is similar in nature to the system on the Grand MA – creation of grids, applying fixtures and mapping images, text and other effects to them. The MagicQ also has the facility to preview the resulting output in a window, so you can see the result.

Previewing your pixel mapping is ideal when you are looking for a cheap solution to experiment with this kind of digital lighting. Even if with some free pixel mapping software, the chances of being able to set up a vast array of real RGB LEDs to work with are slim. Even getting hold of 9 working PAR cans is a struggle in some places

What cheap pixel mapping options are there?

I have done some hunting around on behalf of the On Stage Lighting readers. Many of the software mappers have free trials but some genuinely free pixel mapping software is .Matrix, a project developed by a student from Tulsa. Although not in current active development, .Matrix maps Quicktime files to an LED Matrix,.outputs ArtNet ArtNet and developer Landy Bible, tells us that current features are stable and show ready:

“.Matrix is stable in my experience, and none of my users have reported any problems with it.
The biggest problem that anybody wanting to use .Matrix will have is getting it working the first time. It relies on Java and Quicktime to do its magic, and Quicktime doesn’t always like to play nice with Java. Typically, reinstalling Quicktime after Java is installed will correct the problem. “

Landy also says that he has currently put extra features on hold ( more I/O devices like the Enttec Pro USB DMX) but hints that if enough people are interested, he would continue working on the software. So, why not download it and let us know how you get on.

On Stage Lighting readers always want to know how they can learn this kind of technology without huge budgets. Do you have experience of any free/cheap solutions for pixel mapping? Tell us about your experiences in the comments box.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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