KANSAS CITY, MO – Rick McConnell, owner of XS Lighting, had been interested in LED alternatives to incandescent bulbs when the technology first emerged in the 1990s. So it was natural for him to try and heed the call from Mariner Kemper, chairman and CEO of UMB Financial Corporation, to "go green" and use more energy-efficient options. But McConnell also needed to meet the visual standards UMB Financial Corporation's senior media specialist Dana Farmer. The new LED fixtures offered bright colors, but they were unable to achieve the simple, warm white hue that put people in their best light, especially for video.
So until recently, McConnell and XS Lighting struck a balance with a compromise. They would use of traditional incandescent lamps for front lighting, while trying to provide the "cool" factor with energy-efficient LED gear.
This year, however, McConnell was finally able to switch away completely, using LEDs for keylighting people. The solution came in the form of the RevEAL fixture, a new LED product from Prism Projection.
"When I demoed the RevEAL fixture and saw the color and quality of white light, I knew that LEDs had finally arrived in the event production arena – the fact that they can also accomplish saturated color changing is a definite bonus," McConnell recalled. "The output is completely homogenous with no beam striations so RevEAL is ideal for stage and video lighting. It is an outstanding lighting fixture."
Farmer's concept was to create a "people oriented" design for a large UMB management conference this year. The stage backdrop featured a rotation of images of employees on eight suspended flat panel displays, of various sizes, arranged in an asymmetrical pattern. The primary objective in this production was to help convey the theme of the conference "Best People, Best Company." The background images of employees were always in the framed shot, so it allowed the video to connect the speaker with UMB's associates.
"Lighting for I-Mag is always a challenge, not enough light and the camera doesn't produce a good image, too much light and it is not pleasing for the live audience," said UMB's Farmer. "Whether working in film, video or stage the quality of light is my brush of choice. It allows me to paint an image with shadows and create emotion within the setting.
"It can be tough to emotionally connect a corporate audience to the speaker utilizing I-Mag," Farmer added. "The quality of light and the subsequent video achieved shapes the overall experience. The production values were superb as Rick McConnell used eight RevEAL CWs for stage lighting and eight Elation OPTI Tri PARs upstage. The upstage lighting was just to throw a little color on stage, but I was amazed at the high quality of light provided by RevEAL fixtures. It approaches that of film lighting and was truly an amazing look. Rick and the entire XS team did a wonderful job of pulling together the vision."
XS Lighting and UMB Financial were able to produce a successful event, which previously required 20+ conventional fixtures, dimmers with a three-phase power tie-in, and created the same quality of light with the new LED fixtures powered by only two, 20-amp circuits.
"I haven't done the actual math on it, but I expect that we could have powered the entire lighting rig from one cable if it hadn't been on two separate trusses," said crew chief Ray Robins. "We ended up running a 6-circuit multi up to the front just in case we needed more power for extra conventional fixtures, but the RevEALs cut right through and Farmer seemed very happy with the amount and quality of light, so we never had to go there. We ended up with just the multi running to each truss since the DMX control utilized W-DMX wireless. The flat panels took another circuit and there was all of the video lines to drive them, but I don't think our overall power draw for lighting was over 12-15 amps."
It took a while, but it looks as though alternatives to incandescents for keylighting are here to stay. Since the UMB Financial event, XS Lighting has offered complete LED lighting packages to other clients, who also wanted a sustainable solution, and all those events have been well received.
For more information, please visit www.revealighting.com.
