Technology Rings Alarms

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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. 
5. 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.

Arduino Anyone?

I had forgotten the smell of burning solder until today. My soldering iron used to be within arms reach most of the time, and I knew the resistor color code by heart. But the last time I needed those things, I think I was wearing a leisure suit, or maybe bell bottoms and Beatle boots. Soldering is like riding a bike except the pedals (terminals) are much smaller and harder to reach (see). I dug out the old soldering iron and dusted it off for a new project. What is the project?


I've been curious about Arduino and Raspberry Pi since they came out a few years ago, and when Simon Newton created Open Source Lighting Control Software that runs on Raspberry Pi, I had to check it out. Little by little I've been piecing together the hardware and software, and eventually I want to be able to control anything with DMX and get feedback via RDM using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how ambitious of a project this is, and I won't know exactly where I'm going until I get there. The only requirement is that it's fun, and I hope you will come along for the ride.


I've already assembled an Arduino, flashed some LEDs on and off with it, and I just got some parts in from Adafruit, including an Arduino stepper motor shield (in Arduinoland, a "shield" is a daughter board or a PC board that attaches to the motherboard) and a stepper motor. The reason for the soldering iron is that I had to solder the headers onto the stepper motor shield to attach it to the Arduino. It was quick and easy, and I had my stepper motor running in just a few minutes. I haven't done much with it yet, but little by little I will take over control of the entire earth via DMX, RDM, and Arduino. Won't you help? What shall we take control of first? Please add your comments.

Tools of the Trade

by Richard Cadena
Last week, like many times before, an eager, young lighting professional asked me for advice about how to reach his goals as a lighting designer. And just like all those times before, I searched deep in my lexicon looking for the magic words that would inspire him and propel him down his path to the top of the industry.

In his eyes I saw the same vortex of hopes, dreams, and desires that I had when I was in his shoes. And much like the way I felt back then, I sensed an eagerness in him to dispense with the inconvenience of a long and arduous grind up the ladder of success. Where is the magic bullet, I imagined he was thinking, that will pierce the armor of time and difficulty, and to make all things great happen post haste? Why can’t I be knighted into a posh gig with a huge salary and all the respect and admiration it affords?

I wish that I could shield every person like him from the harsh glare of the real world and excuse him or her from all of the hard work and long hours that it usually accompanies. Failing that, the next best thing is to offer a set of tools that will give him/her the best shot at finding what they’re looking for. The kit of tools I’m thinking of would include some magic beans, some elixir, potions, salve, and other remedies. Read on.

1. The magic beans will shade you against the heat of the real world by sprouting a deep love for and a fascination with your chosen field, because work you love is no work at all. When it’s in full bloom, you’ll be in full stride and you won’t break a sweat. "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." - Rumi

2. The elixir will heal the blemishes of your failures and give you the courage to stretch your wings and try to fly, knowing good and well that you could crash and burn. Whether you fail or succeed, the elixir will help you to emerge at every turn as enthusiastic as ever. "I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge." - Igor Stravinsky

3. The potion will make you immune to the sting of your errors by erasing your memory of the mistakes you make without erasing the lessons you learn from them. It will give you the courage to take reasonable risks without preventing you from making mistakes so that you will have the benefit of knowing what does and doesn’t work. As Pablo Picasso once said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how not to do it.”

4. The salve will sooth the ache of following a crooked path. The unknowing seek the shortest distance between two points—where they are now and where they want to be—and the knowing know the shortest possible distance between those two particular points is a crooked line along an impossibly unpredictable precipice of a precarious career. "Rightly conceived, time is the friend of all who are in any way in adversity, for its mazy road winds in and out of the shadows sooner or later into sunshine, and when one is at its darkest point one can be certain that presently it will grow brighter." - Arthur Bryant

5. The remedy is a capsule full of determination. When you take a full dose, you’ll know that failure is just a milestone on the road to success. Everybody experiences failure from time to time, but successful people don’t let it stop them. http://bit.ly/create-persist

6. The infusion of mentoring is the best inoculation against an anemic career. You are unique and there is no one answer to all the questions you’ll have on your journey. Find a mentor who has been down the road you travel and seek advice when you need it.

What has worked for you in your career?

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.