COPENHAGEN, Denmark – ETC's Selador Series LED lighting fixtures minimize warming – locally, for performers onstage, and perhaps globally as well – so it was appropriate that they were used at December 2009's COP15 climate change summit. At the end of the summit, attendees were invited to a performance of the August Bournonville ballet Napoli at the Royal Danish Theatre. Amid a house rig including ETC Source Four Revolutions and Vari-Lite VL3500Q moving lights were Selador Vivid and Lustr LED luminaires. The Vivids handled sidelight and cyc lighting; the Lustrs illuminated the set pieces.
"When we first started planning the show, we talked a lot about how to make the production as ‘green' as possible," noted LD Mikki Kunttu. "We even considered getting rid of conventional lighting completely, but this proved to be impossible. Using LEDs for sidelights was something new for me, and they worked really well. I was very impressed."
Before employing the Selador fixtures, Kunttu had reservations about LEDs. "I was skeptical until now, because previously I'd considered that neither the dimming nor the power were quite there yet. But this time, they were fantastic, with the colors especially good. We had no problems whatsoever with dimming."
"For some time, the Royal Danish has wanted to become more power efficient, and the climate change summit – when we would be on show to the most important people in the world – gave us a good opportunity to see what was available," said Thomas Bek Jensen, head of lighting at the theater. "With Selador powerful enough to light the entire cyc from bottom to top by just placing a row on the ground, pointing up, that meant the theater could replace an entire wall of ancient 1,500W cyc lights totaling 100,000 watts with a single row of Selador totaling more like 1,000 watts.
"From the wings, the Selador fixtures were focused just above the floor so that the light was on the dancers' bodies and not their feet. This was a pleasant surprise for many of them, because they are used to being blinded by the side booms so that they can't see the floor. After initial curiosity about the lights, they were all very happy."
Selador's three fixture lines – Lustr, Paletta and Vivid – are optimized for different uses. Each line features Selador's x7 Color System technology, which offers a broad spectrum LED color and saturated color-brightness levels that can compete with the outputs of tungsten lighting fixtures but use up to 90 percent less power.
Lustr is designed for whites and skin tones, Paletta for soft pastel colors, and Vivid for strong saturated colors. The Vivid line itself comprises three versions: the new Vivid-R and the Fire and Ice. As their names suggest, Fire covers a warm palette of passionate reds, oranges, and ambers, while Ice specializes in a cool palette of brilliant indigo, green, cyan, and blue.
Selador is designed specifically for theatrical and broadcast production use so that costume colors stand out and flesh tones are improved. Even in the deep-blue shimmering sea of Napoli's Act II, observers noted that actors' skin tones appeared natural, not off color or harsh.
Kunttu also used some of the rig's ETC's Source Four Revolution moving lights to help create another underwater scene in Act II.
"They are fantastic fixtures," said Kunttu. "Looking from a practical point of view, they're really silent. In opera houses, noise from moving lights can be a big problem, so having a fixture which doesn't make too much noise is a major positive point for us."
Jensen is looking forward to going green on a permanent basis at the Royal Danish.
"The theater is funded by government grants and has had a huge power bill, which we'd love to reduce as much as possible. We are hoping to get funding to change all our outdated and inefficient equipment as soon as we can, because if we change all the equipment, we can save a lot of money each year."
To view a video of Kunttu and Jensen talking about their use of Selador LED fixtures, along with images from the Napoli show, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg2MCfItjO8
For more information on ETC and its products, visit www.etcconnect.com.
