With their intense beam, fast pan/tilt and dramatic aerial effects, fast-action beam fixtures have drawn notice from designers in recent years, not with just the aerial effects but the ability to make the stage itself look bigger. Chauvet Professional’s Legend 230SR Beam, launched earlier this year, is positioned as an affordable and versatile fixture that gives designers the tight beam looks they crave.
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PRG’s RH+A division now offers the Ultraviolet series of lights, including the UV Bullet and UV Wash. While developed with architectural lighting installations in mind, these fixtures can also be used for entertainment industry applications, ranging from amusement parks and haunted house attractions to “cosmic” bowling and nightclub dance floors.
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LEDs are widespread within the entertainment industry. From video panels to lighting fixtures, LEDs are showing up everywhere. And lately, the scope has grown even wider to include costumes. Recently, I turned on the television and stumbled across a performance by the famous Rockettes dance troupe in which they were all dressed in black jackets covered with LEDs. As I watched, I realized that video images were being pixel mapped onto the dancers; and of course I was instantly intrigued!
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Back when I worked in broadcast television, the first thing they told the on-camera newscaster was “never wear a striped.” The skeptic who disregarded the message was shown his air-check the next day (along with a nasty note from management), and his jaw dropped when he saw the patterns of geometric lines crisscrossing his shirt. From that point forward, a solid-colored wardrobe was standard issue.
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Creative LED products are becoming more and more popular, especially in the installation and touring markets. Designers are looking for unique ways to design with light and video while also bringing to life their artistic visions. However, in order to be able to design freely with LEDs, products have to be easily manipulated and flexible in order to be shaped into virtually any design; this means that LEDs have to be available in configurations other than linear strips or matrices like those found in LED video panels. The VC-Dot series from Martin meets these demands and excels in ways other LED strings stop short.
Read More »One of my favorite things in life is being behind a lighting console in full control of a lighting rig. Whether programming or operating, I find true joy in pressing the buttons and watching the lighting change. Through the years working as an automated lighting programmer, I have found it very important to consider the ergonomics involved with my FOH setup. Working with a console for many hours can be very draining mentally, but it also takes a toll on your arms, wrists, legs, and more. This is why you should always plan accordingly to ensure that you are in a position to perform your very best behind the console.
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Mandylights LD Richard Neville — assisted by his associate Alex Grierson — designed the lighting, video design and programmed the Ricky Martin Live tour, which was an all-new show following the artist’s success as a judge on The Voice Australia. Lighting Director Churry Lafuente is operating the design on tour, which wrapped up in Australia (Oct. 3-20) and heads to Mexico in December. Veikko Fuhrmann created the stage design.
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I’ve viewed a lot of huge cool productions this year. The photos I always see are giant productions that require trim heights of 50 feet and stage widths of 80 feet or more. This is great if you are playing stadiums and the local Enormo-dome. But to be honest, outside of the EDM festivals, there are only a handful of artists out there that play these kinds of venues exclusively. But that doesn’t seem to stop certain production designers from building unpractical touring packages.
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YORK, U.K. — Projection artist Ross Ashton from The Projection Studio in London once again teamed up with sound artist Karen Monid to produce a third son et lumière, dubbed Triquetra in the historical city of York, UK, for the 2013 Illuminating York Festival of Art. The projections spanned a 75-by-25-meter (width by height) area.
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