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The 12 Steps of Automated Lighting Programming

The 12 Steps of Automated Lighting Programming

The practice of programming a show from an automated lighting console can be broken down into 12 straightforward steps.  Rarely have I seen a production fail when a programmer has followed these simple steps.  Those that do fail seldom completely follow these simple guidelines for programming.  While this manner of programming is filled with complexity and important elements, do not balk at it. If you follow these simple suggestions, you will be guaranteed a well-programmed show.

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What Would Scooby Do?

Do you remember the episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! when Scooby refused to tie in the electrical feeder cable for the rock show because he felt it was unsafe? Of course not. Stopping the show for safety reasons takes a lot of courage, self-confidence, and maybe even a little bit of madness. And that’s just not the big, bongo-playing Great Dane we all know and love.

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James Blunt

Millions of people recognize the distinctively sensitive tone of James Blunt’s singing voice, primarily with his mega-hit, “You’re Beautiful.” But most would be surprised to learn that the singer-songwriter, raised as a military brat, got his pilot’s license at age 16. Or that he is an accomplished ski racer. Or that, as captain of a British military unit in 1999, he led the squadron that secured an airport held by Serbian forces in Kosovo, making Blunt the first British officer to enter the Serb-held Kosovan capital of Priština.

 

 

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Tommy Stephenson of TMB

Who: Tommy Stephenson, customer development for TMB.

What: Distributor of entertainment production supplies.

Where: HQ is in Pacoima, Calif. (Los Angeles area). Offices in New York, Toronto, London, and Beijing.

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USITT 2008 Show Report

When the rodeo comes to town, everyone is firing up their outdoor grills, and fields of bluebonnets line the highways as far as you can see, you know it’s springtime in Texas. But this year, spring also brought USITT to downtown Houston. And with it came the sweet fragrance of budding new technology, including just a hint of RDM and ACN. Along with the new growth, there was also plenty of ripe Ruby Red Rio Grande Valley grapefruit-like technology to tempt the attendees.

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Console Agnosticism

There is a certain fervor that constantly surrounds discussions of lighting consoles. So much so that discussion may be one of the nicest discourses that could happen between the often zealot-like users of different desks.

 

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Elation Impression

There has been a proliferation of LEDs in the entertainment lighting industry, including a number of new LED fixtures with various form factors. But the Impression, the latest LED moving yoke wash fixture from Elation, is one of the first moving yoke LED fixtures that can compete with conventional moving yoke fixtures. As such, it serves as a versatile, compact and bright alternative to conventional discharge wash luminaires, combining low power consumption, high efficiency (60 lumens per watt), low heat emission, no UV or IR, long life operation and fast and smooth color fades.

 

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Chauvet Colorado 6

Chauvet’s Colorado® 6 is the newest in the Colorado series of LED fixtures. The fixture is compact, consisting of three LED modules per unit. Each module consists of about a dozen 1-watt red, green and blue LEDs. The fixture resembles a 3-light Mole Fay, but each fixture can mount to another via a series of clips and knobs that are quite simple to assemble. The fixture can be turned into a long strip light for cyclorama lighting or giant wash fixtures by stacking them four wide by three tall. They have 12-inch long AC and DMX512 cables protruding from each one to make for easy daisy chaining of power and data. They draw 1.2 amps each, and you can connect 12 fixtures in series on a 120VAC 20-amp circuit, or double that amount using a 240VAC 20-amp circuit.

 

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Pepper’s Ghost Returns in High Definition

Just about 150 years ago, at a performance of Charles Dickens’ The Haunted Man, audiences were astonished when they witnessed a remarkable visual effect — one in which ghostly images appeared on stage, side-by-side with real actors. The magical illusion was created in 1862 by an inventor named Henry Dircks. But because the illusion required an almost complete reconstruction of a theatre, the concept garnered little attention — until a young chemist name John Henry Pepper witnessed the illusion and modified it for easy incorporation into existing theatres.

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New Products

American DJ’s Quad Gem DMX

American DJ’s new Quad Gem DMX is a four-lens effect with 224 red, green, blue and white LEDs configured in groups of 56 per lens. The LEDs project four moonflower ef-fects from a single unit. The highly portable, DMX compatible unit was designed for DJs and clubs. It consumes 20 watts of power and the LEDs are rated at 100,000 hours. The Quad Gem DMX features 12 built-in programs, fast to slow strobing, and 0 to 100 percent electronic dimming.  It can be operated in three modes: sound active, DMX, or with American DJ’s UC3 optional universal controller, sold separately. 

American DJ • 800.322.6337 • www.americandj.com
 

 

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How Many LDs Does It Take to Light a Show?

I’ve recently worked on a couple of gigs that truly required more than one lighting designer. Each gig had multiple lighting systems supplied by different vendors. In the past I’ve done gigs like these where I was the only console programmer/operator. While there was a staggering amount of overtime, the end product delivered to the client was not as good as it could have been. That’s because I wore too many hats and burned myself out. Nowadays I’m thankful to share LD duties on many large gigs.

 

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Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy, LD for American Idol and other TV shows, doesn't just blast the set with white light, as the lighting for Fergie's performance in the CBS special, Home for the Holidays, attests.

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