Light, Art, Technology and Education

There was recently a segment on NPR about an art installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called Levitated Mass. It’s a 340-ton boulder supported by two beams under which people can walk. When the interviewer asked the question, “Why is this art?,” the artist avoided answering the question directly. 

The truth? Art is subjective. One person’s art is another person’s rock. Is a rock light show art? Is it technology? Is it both? 

That was the subtext in the 3-day class I recently led at Chauvet Lighting in Sunrise, Florida. The class started with the fundamentals of lighting, technical things like understanding lighting metrics, how to figure out what kind of instruments you need to achieve your objectives, and what a basic lighting rig looks like. Then we spent a full day exploring art and lighting. We discussed things like color theory and how painters have been using color for hundreds of years, how Hollywood uses light and shadow, and how there are certain design principles that can be used as a starting point for lighting design.

All of this was just laying the foundation for the climax of the class, which was designing and cueing a rock show. We took one song and blocked it, identifying the intro, lyrics, choruses, bridges, and outtro, and then we split up into three groups, each of which had to program their own rig. The assignment was to program this one song and in the end we were going to play back our work in order to see what everyone had done, and critique what we saw.

Most of the people in the class had little or no experience with lighting design or programming. Two of the groups worked with a very simple controller with a simple rig so they could concentrate more on the looks, timing, and effects. Their rig consisted of two tripod stands with four SlimPAR 64 LED fixtures and two Intimidator Spot 250 LED automated moving yoke fixtures.

The third group had a more daunting challenge. They decided they were going to use a more advanced console, an Avolites Tiger Touch, even though none of them really knew how to program it. I was going to help them, but even though I have programmed and run shows on an Avolites Pearl, I had no idea whether or not the syntax was the same or even close on the Tiger Touch.

I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I’m not one to shy away from a challenge. I believe that the best way to learn is to leave your comfort zone behind and stretch yourself to your limits and beyond. Besides, the approach to programming a show is the same regardless of which console you’re using. You patch the fixtures, record palettes for positions, color, gobos, etc., then use those palettes to create scenes that you record as cues. The timing of crossfades, chases, and movement is very important but it can’t be that hard, I reasoned, to figure it out on any console.

The night before the last day of class, I had every intention of reading the Tiger Touch user manual so I could help the group using it. But the devil fools with the best laid plans, and in this case the devil was a great restaurant on the Intercoastal Waterway. I got back to the hotel too late to read the manual, so we were pretty much flying by the seat of the pants. 

At first, we had trouble just connecting the console to the lighting system in the demo room, which had a bunch of Chauvet Legend 1200 Spot and Wash fixtures, Legend 300 Spot and Wash, and various COLORado LED fixtures. But it didn’t take too long to figure out that the outputs of the console were looking for ArtNet clients and we were running straight DMX. Once we fixed that, we were up and running.

We programmed a few palettes and starting programming looks right away. This is where reading the user manual ahead of time would have really come in handy. The Tiger Touch seemed to want us to record one cue or chase per fader and use multiple faders for playback. I scanned the manual while the group was programming away, and it does tell you how to build a cue stack, but I didn’t want to kill their momentum so I let them continue. Besides, I figured there was more than one way to program and run a show and maybe this would lead to a new discovery. 

After a full day of programming, I asked each group to show their work and we played the music while they ran their show, one by one. The first group blew me away with their creativity and their impeccable timing. It turns out that one of the group, a product specialist named Nick Airries, had experience as a lighting designer/programmer. He took input from the rest of the group and programmed the console using an audio feed and very precise timing.

The second group captured favor right away by introducing their show with a poster they made that said “Show-Vay,” a play on the company name. Their show was no less spectacular. 

The third group had to play back their show manually, and they had to remember the accents and get the timing just right. To be honest, it wasn’t the best light show I’ve ever seen if you know anything about programming consoles, you will recognize their grand achievement. They started completely from scratch, learned enough about the console in an hour or two to program the song, crafted several cues, tweaked the timing, and come up with a strategy to play back the show. They were the real winners in my book because they took a big risk and their payoff was that they learned an awful lot.

In the end, I was really proud of the work everyone did. It was definitely art.

New! Practical Applications for Digital Audio Networking Seminar

Bob Vanden Burgt

We've just added a new seminar at PLASA Focus in Nashville on July 11. The free one-hour seminar is called "Practical Applications for Digital Audio Networking" and it's about audio networking protocols. There are lots of them out there, but they are brand-specific, so you need to use interfaces to connect different devices together. Bob Vanden Burgt of Link USA will speak at the seminar, and he'll cover the evolution of networking in the live audio industry, the transport protocol "wars," remote control and monitoring, and the challenges facing the audio industry today and tomorrow from a networking standpoint.

Nashville Municipal Auditorium
July 11, 2012
3PM-4PM

To register or to see a complete list of free seminars at PLASA Focus Nashville, click here.

Stage Lighting: The Technician's Guide

"Stage Lighting: The Technician's Guide" landed on my desk last week and I just got a chance to take a close look at it while I was on a plane today. It's designed to be a textbook for new lighting students in college or high school, but I think it's a great book for anyone in the lighting industry. I learned a lot from it just picking topics at random and reading.


The format of the book is simple. It's divided into three parts: Lighting Technician, Lighting Designer, and Lighting Resources. Part One: Lighting Technician has two subsections — Lanterns, Dimmers, & Control - getting down to basics, and Part Two: Lighting Designer also has two subsections — Lighting the Performance Space and Lighting the Show. As the first subsection implies, it is all about the basics but there is enough information to keep it interesting for any level of lighting tech, programmer, or designer.


The Lighting Resources section is fairly ambitious in that it lists a lot of gear, manufacturers, and other information in a time when everything is changing. New products are being introduced at an incredible rate and the nature of the products is changing, especially in the area of LEDs. Nevertheless, there is a lot of valuable information and it's the kind of information that you'll want to keep at arm's reach, which is one of the reasons the author says the book is intended to be a reference as well as a textbook.


It also comes with a DVD that is very well produced and fun to watch. It shows very clearly how lighting instruments are hung, patched and run. It explains in a very easy to understand way a lot about lighting instruments, dimmers, control desks, color, gobos, effects, and safety. The chapter on lighting design covers lighting angles, focusing, color, terminology, design, lighting a scene, and more. The DVD is a pleasure to watch and it conveys a lot of information in a short amount of time.


The book and DVD are written by an Englishman named Skip Mort and it's published in London. Some of the terms and spelling is less familiar but it's not hard to get past that. It makes little difference to me if we're talking about color or colour, nor does it matter if the lighting instruments are called lanterns or fixtures. Light behaves exactly the same in Europe as it does in North America and the rest of the world. The song remains the same. In fact, it's a great way to learn more about how things are done in other parts of the world and, who knows, maybe we can learn from each other. Why not use a PC or profile zoom? After all, isn't that what a followspot is?


This is a great book and DVD! It's well worth the $39.95 price tag. 

Sandy Espinosa wrote about a tragic accident in Los Angeles where 21 year-old Jose Lucero Jr. fell to his death at the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios. (http://bit.ly/KkRYIO) As long as there are fatalities and accidents on the stage, we need to work harder to get better at protecting ourselves and the people around us. There is not enough information about this particular accident to take away any lessons from it, but in general, we need to know where and when to draw the line between safety and danger.

Alan Rowe, the training director at I.A.T.S.E. Local 728 in Burbank, gets the credit for hipping me to something called "imminent danger." In our industry, we always say "The show must go on." But if it can't go on safely, then it's not only your right, but it's your obligation to make it safe or stop the show. But what is "safe?" And where do you draw that proverbial line we mentioned?

The answer is in the definition of "imminent danger." According to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the definition of imminent danger is ".....any conditions or practices in any place of employment which are such that a danger exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the imminence of such danger can be eliminated through the enforcement procedures otherwise provided by this Act." It goes on to spell out the criteria for an imminent danger and what to do about it:

"Requirements. The following conditions must be met before a hazard becomes an imminent danger:
There must be a threat of death or serious physical harm. 'Serious physical harm' means that a part of the body is damaged so severely that it cannot be used or cannot be used very well.

"For a health hazard there must be a reasonable expectation that toxic substances or other health hazards are present and exposure to them will shorten life or cause substantial reduction in physical or mental efficiency. The harm caused by the health hazard does not have to happen immediately.

"The threat must be immediate or imminent. This means that you must believe that death or serious physical harm could occur within a short time, for example before OSHA could investigate the problem.
If an OSHA inspector believes that an imminent danger exists, the inspector must inform affected employees and the employer that he is recommending that OSHA take steps to stop the imminent danger.
OSHA has the right to ask a federal court to order the employer to eliminate the imminent danger.

"Call (800) 321-OSHA immediately to report imminent dangers."

The expectation that you will go home to your loved ones each and every night is your right. That you will uphold the requirements in the OSH Act to remove or report imminent danger is your obligation. Have fun at your job but above all, be safe.

Workshop or Funshop?

We recently returned from a 3-day class and one-day workshop in Burbank, thanks to I.A.T.S.E. Local 728, who hosted the events. As Heather Hillmeyer-Newsome (former lighting programmer on "Desperate Housewives") said, Alan Rowe, who is the safety and training director for Local 728 and helped put it all together, "is responsible for the best damn education program any organization has ever put together!" After the class, Alan, Roger Lattin and I conducted a workshop at Dadco (Ron Dalquist's shop) and it was really a lot of fun because we had access to portable power generators, portable power distros, and lots of HMIs. It went so well that Alan and I have already decided to do it again next year. APT is also considering taking a similar event to other locations. If you have any ideas about where we can hold such an event, we'd love to hear from you. We look forward to your suggestions.

Electrics workshop (funshop?) at Dadco in the Los Angeles area, 2012.