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Yesterday, 5,000 of my closest friends and I were standing outside the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio after being evacuated from the USITT 2015 exhibit show floor. A bit of technology triggered the alarm and sent thousands of us swarming in a new direction (outside the building), and that seems to be the theme of the day. Lately I’ve been working on revising my book “Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light” and the rapid pace of technology is set off alarms for me, and that's sent me scurrying in new directions. In the last couple of weeks I’ve gone to Vari-Lite training, ETC Ion console training, I’ve scheduled some one-on-one time with the GLP folks in LA, and I’m in contact with friends all over the world, all in an attempt to re-educate myself about the changes that have occurred in automated lighting from 2010 to 2015.
I worked at High End Systems for 13 years before I wrote the first edition of the book. It was fertile ground for building a foundation of understanding automated lighting. Seven years after the first edition was published in 2003, I updated the book. There were not a lot of changes between those two editions. But in the five years since the last edition, the changes have gone to a new level. What has changed since then?
I worked at High End Systems for 13 years before I wrote the first edition of the book. It was fertile ground for building a foundation of understanding automated lighting. Seven years after the first edition was published in 2003, I updated the book. There were not a lot of changes between those two editions. But in the five years since the last edition, the changes have gone to a new level. What has changed since then?
- LEDs are now the dominant light source in the industry. No longer are there doubts about their brightness or their ability to dim smoothly, and most lighting professionals accept that they can render colors extremely well. Since the last edition of the book LED profile fixtures have become a reality, and there are now more and better options than ever before. LEDs have changed everything.
- Switch-mode power supplies are now the norm. The cost has gone down enough and the reliability is good enough that the old school magnetic ballast power supplies are not even available except in the very low end of the market, and even there they are being challenged by inexpensive SMPSs.
- Networking is not only common in the industry, but in some cases it’s a necessity. More and more consoles are relying on networking to accomplish feats of amazing complexity.
- Software is eating the world of entertainment lighting. More and more consoles are developing incredible off-line editors and software versions of their top-of-the-line consoles and these applications are just as powerful, in many cases, as the full console.
- Video mapping and pixel mapping is changing the art and technology of the entertainment lighting industry.
All of these changes are contributing to the rapid advance of technology in the industry, and that’s a double-edged sword. For those who are willing to embrace it, the alarms are a wake up call and they represent an unprecedented opportunity to venture into unchartered territory. The learning curve is sometimes steep but the rewards are handsome. For those who are unwilling to embrace new technology, the alarms are chilling. Don’t hit the snooze button; get up and greet the day.
