A Few Favourite Things
"We make art, but we use gear to make that art. Of course, you can light a show with anything - but sometimes a new piece of equipment comes along that just re-defines what's possible, and conversely some products become favourites, seemingly indispensible to your work. These are some of my favourites; they won't be right for every show (and may not be affordable on every budget!), but they are great tools that you should take a look at when you get the chance."
EvenLED
It's a sure sign of how revolutionary EvenLED was that
it now has a number of imitators! Designed by Brother,
Brother & Sons in Denmark, and now manufactured by
Martin, this was the first LED light I ever actually liked!
Each 1m square EvenLED tile contains 16 three-colour,
super-wide-angle LEDs. Put it behind a back projection
cloth and you have the most remarkable way of lighting a
cyc ever. Pair it up with a suitable control system, like
the pixel mapper in the grandMA, and you can literally
paint onto the sky, EvenLED working without the steppiness
and low end jump that has cursed most other LED products.
It's a remarkable, game-changing device that made the cyc
lighting on the Mary Poppins tour (now in the US)
both possible and beautiful. Paule Constable picked it up
for Oliver! at Drury Lane; Peter Mumford used it on
Prima Donna in Manchester. It's silent. It works
beautifully on TV, including as a green-screen background.
Every LD who sees it falls in love with it. I hope no-one
messes it up by trying to 'value engineer' it, even a
little. It is great - and great to see a product just
concentrate on doing one thing, and do it superbly well.
Martin website >, Brother, Brother & Sons website >,
EvenLED on Mary Poppins
>
EvenLED on Oliver! >, EvenLED in Manchester >, Video of EvenLED in action >
RC4 Wireless Dimming
There are a lot of wireless lighting control products
out there now, most of them claiming to be the best. My
favourite, though, is Jim Smith's RC4 wireless dimming. Jim
doesn't really make any claims of it, other than that it'll
work just fine under almost all 'real world' theatre
conditions. And that it's small. That's really it's appeal:
in a teeny-tiny package, the size of a matchbox, you get a
wireless receiver and two independently controllable
low-voltage dimmers. Add a battery and you've got a system
you can hide anywhere to add lights to anything. We used it
on Equus in New York, hidden in the skeletal, open
framework of John Napier's horse heads, driving two LED
'eyes'. It was the only thing we could find that would fit,
and it worked flawlessly. Plus the customer service is
great: once we knew we needed it, we called Jim, he made
some customisations to suit our LEDs, everything got to us
the next day. Highly recommended.
RC4 Wireless Dimming website >
The Source Four
You forget, now, just how good this light is - until you
go somewhere that still has a pile of older lights, Sils,
Harmonys, Cantatas, anything with the word 'Patt' in its
name, and you discover how much better ETC's light is all
over again. It's even better than its more modern
competitors - occasionally not as bright, but always better
put together and more reliable. The new 14 and 90 degree
lenstubes add versatility, while the ED lenstubes turn them
into quite remarkable image projectors. They're not
perfect, of course - what is? I wish there were less light
leaks, particularly when using the lights on proscenium
booms and with scrollers; sure, it helps keep the
black-wrap people in business, but life would be easier
without having to go through that every time. But I still
use them everywhere. My favourite? The 50degree, 750W, used
from the side with a gobo (a-size, so as not to waste any
of the beam) to give a beautiful burst of light.
I wonder if the Source Five will arrive in time to prove
that you can squeeze more light from a tungsten bulb before
they all get banned?
ETC website >
The Vari-Lite VL3500Q
My favourite moving light, bar one. That fantastic beam,
from tiny sharp spot to full stage cover. The built-in
linking of zoom and focus, one less thing to worry about
from the console. That colour mixing system, that will let
you get just about anything you want and keep it consistent
across the beam and - almost - consistent as you fade in
and out. Dimming that feels theatrical rather than
mechanical. And shuttering! Quick, accurate shuttering.
Who'd have thought, when these moving lights first arrived,
that one day they'd give us this level of finesse and
control.
If only they could be quieter. As quiet as they were when
they first came out, for starters (they've got louder over
time, in proportion to how their heat management issues
have reduced). And preferably, somehow, much, much quieter
still. Quiet enough to truly be used in plays, without that
awkward pause the moment the actors walk on stage and all
look up trying to find the vacuum cleaner in the grid...
Vari-Lite website >
The DHA Digital Light Curtain
The 'bar one' is this one; it'll always be the DHA DLC
to me, however hard certain console fixture libraries try
to file it away under 'Rosco' now. It's twenty years since
Miss Saigon opened in London with the old-style
antenna-rotator light curtains, a little less since the New
York production of the show inspired David Hersey to create
the light he really wanted, a 'Digital' curtain of light,
each section individually controllable and with its own
scroller. Designer Philip Nye even engineered his own
control system language, Light Talk, and software, Light
Moves; they're not needed any more now you can run the
lights from DMX, but the ability to limit the range of
movement and align the units electronically remains. More
importantly is the light they give out: a strip, turning
the air solid if there's even a hint of haze, and the
smoothest movement you'll see. The pitching version is even
more fun, letting you create enormous diagonal swooshes of
solid light. And, thanks to detective work by the RSC, we
even have a new lamp option - the '4545' - that tightens
the beam up a bit, and cuts out some of the really wide
scatter - perfect for when you have DLCs rigged a really
long way up in the air.
Rosco website >
The Strand 500-Series
Dated, now - some would say obsolete, since even its
manufacturer no longer supports or even cares about it -
but still the console I'd chose to take into battle on even
the most complex theatre show. Why? Because using it for me
is, I'd imagine, like speaking a language is for those
truly fluent in it: you stop having to think about what
you're trying to say, instead it just somehow happens. I
can light the show looking at the stage, and my hands and
fingers just somehow take care of the practicalities of it
all. Of course, that's the result of fourteen years of
practice plus a million tiny details incorporated into the
software over those years. Those tiny details are what's
missing from many of the newer consoles, that plus speed. A
half-second pause when you switch from live to blind might
not feel like much, but it quickly adds up when you're
doing it hundreds of times a day, every day. I'm sure one
day something will usurp it from my affection; nothing has
yet.
Strand 500 as Classic Gear >
FocusTrack
I'm biased, of course - it's my product, after all. But
every time I feed a showfile into FocusTrack and it churns
out all of the information about the show, the cues, the
lights and how they're used - information that it used to
take me days of manually trawling through the showfile,
tediously noting things down by hand - I feel an immense
sense of satisfaction. Pride, even. Then, as FocusTrack
sets the lights to each position in turn as I photograph
them - no more calling up positions on the radio or
selecting them up by hand - I'm delighted by how much
effort I'm saving, how much more efficient the whole
process of documenting the show has become by letting
computers do what computer are supposed to do best. It's
just a tool, but one that does its task very well. I hope
others find it as useful as I do, even if they don't quite
have that same sense of satisfied pride!
FocusTrack website >
Canon EOS 5D mk II Digital SLR
Not a lighting tool, but a tool for catching the light,
the 5D mk II is a truly remarkable product. I've used Canon
SLRs for a long time, and I have an older 10D that still
works well, but while the 10D is one of those products that
just does its job without somehow ever quite satisfying,
the 5D is one of those products that immediately feels just
- right. The full-size sensor means that wide angle lenses
- my favourite kind - suddenly go back to being proper wide
angle lenses again. It is supremely fast, almost
instantaneous from switch on, no discernible shutter lag.
Most excitingly, for those of us working away in theatre,
it's performance in low light, even at absurdly high ASA
ratings, is just truly staggering, letting you grab
beautiful, sharp pictures under even the most, um,
'challenging' lighting conditions. That it can shoot HD
video, too, is a bonus I haven't even begun to explore yet.
It's expensive, of course, but if you care about recording
your work - and, in this ephemeral business of lighting we
all should - I really can't think of a better tool.
(And as an aside, isn't it funny how many 'Eos'es there are
in our world now....)
Canon EOS 5D website >
That other lighting-related Eos >
Apple iPad
This is a game changer. It is impossible to explain just
how ‘right’ and natural the iPad feels to those who haven’t
tried - so if you haven’t, go try one. It makes everything
you’ve experienced before feel just wrong - hopelessly
outdated and awkward. And that doesn’t just mean other
computers, but so many other things - books and magazines
in particular. Those industries will never be the same
again. Apple has basically created a device that ‘becomes’
whatever the software tells it to become, then lets you
interact with it directly, no mouse or trackpad in the way.
It’s clever for them, because they get the sale of the
high-margin hardware. But it will also be remarkable for
us, perhaps finally letting us stop purchasing publications
printed on paper and shipped around the world to be
consumed by us then discarded - an unsustainable model.
Then it can do so much more. I can’t wait for the first
lighting control application to take advantage of this
thing properly - it’s going to be remarkable, the potential
for a direct, intuitive interface from designer to lights
that will be difficult to match for any conventional
lighting control hardware....
(Plus, blatant plug, you can now get my books as e-books on
the Kindle store, to read on your iPad!)
iPad website >
Entertainment In Production e-books >
Dropbox
For the longest time, I’ve used a laptop as my one and
only computer - mainly because I couldn’t stand the thought
of being away somewhere and discovering that the file I
needed was on the other computer at home. Trouble is, other
computers have snuk up on me: the iPhone in my pocket is a
perfectly capable computer, and sometimes it’s useful to
dump files onto it on days I don’t want to carry the
laptop. Sadly Apple, who usually rule at elegant solutions,
provide no easy way of doing this. Fortunately, the people
at Dropbox do.
Install it on your computer (Mac or PC) and it gives you a
folder and a free Dropbox account. Anything you throw into
that folder is automatically copied to Dropbox’s web server
- seamlessly in the background. And that file then appears
in the Dropbox folder of any other computer - Mac, PC,
iPhone - with Dropbox installed and set to the same user
account. If you need to get to a file from a computer that
does not have Dropbox installed - or need someone else to
collect a file - you can get to the files via a web server.
It’s delightfully simple - Apple-simple, in fact. Of
course, it’s not perfect - you have to remember to have put
the files into the Dropbox folder. Then again, you could
use Dropbox to store all of your files in. Sign up and you
get 2Gb of storage free; 50Gb costs $9.99/month, 100Gb
$19.95/month.
Highly recommended if you have more than one computer;
highly recommended even if you don’t as a simple, effective
way of backing up your critical files.
Dropbox website >
Looking Forward To Trying:
Robert Juliat Aledin
I don’t think it’s too much of an overstatement to say
that our world is about to change, and that Juliat’s Aledin
is going to lead the charge. Exhibit (a): day 1 at the
Broadway Lighting Master Class, when Don
Holder held a session comparing traditional tungsten
fixtures to LED-powered equivalents. I walked in half
way through, just as they were running a comparison of
two hard-edged spots with matching gobos fading to zero
over thirty seconds. I guessed one was a Source Four,
the other was an LED light of some kind. I was confident
I’d be able to tell which was which just by watching the
fade.
I couldn’t.
This is remarkable given how many indicators there usually
are as to the presence of LEDs - poor colour, steppy
fading, and that horrible final step from 1% down to zero.
None of them seem to be present in the Juliat. The fade
curves of the two lights were slightly different, but no
more than you’d see on some conventional dimmers. It faded
like a ‘real’ light - and, having played with it in various
forms over the last few months, I know that it behaves like
a real light, too, zoom, focus, shutters, gobos all doing
exactly what you’d expect. Except that the low heat at the
gate means you can make gobos out of plastic, or even
paper, if you want to... I’m already longing for a new kind
of optical effect, a ‘gently moving leaf’ effect,
simulating trees moving softly in a gentle breeze. This has
never been possible to make with gobo rotators or the like,
yet feels like it would now be as simple as some strands of
paper and a slow-moving fan...
Plus, of course, there’s the lights ‘green’ credentials -
low power, low heat, longer-lasting consumables. Or, if you
prefer, just the ability to run many, many of the lights
from even tiny power supplies.
Of course, it’s not quite yet your ‘dream’ LED spotlight -
if only because it’s a single colour source rather than a
colour-mixing source. Though this, again, means it’s
actually just like the lights we already know and love -
put a piece of gel or a scroller on the front!
Interestingly, Juliat have made the light by taking one of
their existing bodies and slotting in a new lamp assembly
where the lightbulb has traditionally gone - you can, I
believe, just swap over the lamp assembly on certain
existing Juliat profiles. This somewhat defies the
conventional wisdom about LED sources - and makes you
wonder why more manufacturers haven’t done the same thing.
Rumour has it that the team at Brother, Brother & Sons
in Denmark have been involved in designing this light. If
so, that will be the second time they have re-defined my
conception of what LED fixtures can achieve in the
entertainment industry, since they were also behind the
EvenLED.
Good name, too...
Juliat website >
Stage Technologies F:light
I wanted this nine years ago, to light the flying ladies
in The Witches of Eastwick. It didn't exist then,
so we put together a system using Wybron's AutoPilot. It seemed absurd that the
automation computer knew where there people were but we
were having to figure it out all over again, and while
it worked it wasn't great. Better late than never,
F:light promises to solve this problem: an interface box
that knows about your lights and where they are sits on
the DMX line and connects to the automation console. On
cue, takes over control of the lights from the console,
positioning them to light the moving, automated objects
wherever they are, however fast they're moving and -
more critically, and very hard to do from the console -
as they accelerate and decelerate. Plus you don't have
to reprogram your cues every time an automation sequence
is changed. It all sounds great. I can't wait to try it
(or the similar yet more all-encompassing system
promised by Cast, makers of WYSIWYG).
Stage Technologies website >
Spotlesslight Lightwarper
The possibilities are endless, but for starters imagine
something as simple as a followspot that is precisely
mapped to the shape of the performer and automatically
moves and changes shape as they do - no more circle of
light spilling past them onto the stage floor. Imagine the
same system spotlighting two people, or three, or ten (and
without people getting brighter as their spots come
together). Then imagine inverting it, so the stage is lit
with images but the people are in the dark... Spotlesslight
bills itself as an 'interactive projection system for live
entertainment'; it's an infra-red motion tracking system
coupled to a video projector with a computer running some
clever processing inbetween. It's another tool I've wanted
for years, but which would be easy just to file away as one
of those impossible things. Of course, big shows -
particularly Cirque's stunning KA, have been creating their own
ways of doing this for a while now, and more recently
smaller shows, like Chunky Moves, have also been getting in
on the act. But Spotlesslight promises a generic system
that can just be put to use. I've seen in now, at LDI,
and while it's not perfect the people behind it are
hugely enthusiastic and it's clear it will just keep on
getting better and better.
Spotlesslight website >
Lightwarper Datasheet >