The title sounds like an action movie but we are looking at some lighting theory of reflection, the angle of incidence and interaction of light with different surfaces. Plus the comforting constancy of physics and being able to predict what happens to a stage lighting beam once you’ve let it fly.

Last week, a Project Manager sent me an email asking for my thoughts on forthcoming plans to use white PVC covered flats to back an award show, rather than using their usual finish material of felt. The question was specifically asking about successfully uplighting the shiny PVC from the floor using LED battens to create a changing coloured background. A pretty standard technique for this kind of show, making a pleasing backing for things to happen in front of.

The set designers of today, whether creating environments for the TV studio, award shows or exhibition stands, have access to a wide range of materials. As well as traditional wood, paint and cloth finishes, they love to use polymers and glass. Perspex plinths, PVC wall coverings and glass table tops all have one thing in common. They give the lighting designer a headache.

Let’s take a look at the basic physics behind the problem.

What happens when you light a diffusing material like felt?

A felt covered flat or a Cyclorama has a diffusing surface that scatters light in many directions because at a micro level it’s, well, bumpy. A light source skimming across the surface is reflected back in many directions, including “out front” to the viewer. In fact, the useful viewing angle of reflection for a diffuse material is pretty wide meaning the effect works for the audience, wherever they are. The light reflects of the side of the bumps and out to the eye. Not having a really obvious nap or grain (like velour or suede) such a diffuse surface is pretty forgiving in terms of both lighting and viewing angles. It has a similar look from everywhere.

The light that reflects from a surface in this way is called, surprise surprise, Diffuse Reflection and is instrumental in the perception of reflected colour.

Because light spends some of it’s time pinging around on and shooting off and different angles , the lit surface also appears relatively even, with quite a lot of the original light doing it’s thing for everyone. Hooray for felt and other fluffy surfaces.

How Shiny Surfaces Take Light

By contrast, high gloss surfaces such as shiny PVC based fabrics, are very flat at a micro level. Less bumps equals less diffusion . Shiny surfaces seem like they should reflect light well, they do indeed reflect it well. So well in fact, that any poor photon unfortunate to hit this material is instantly twanged off again in a reasonably straight line based on it’s originating source. This kind of reflection, the window shape reflected in the cauldron of Meg and Mog or a cartoon bomb, is specular reflection.

Surfaces have an element of both diffuse colour and specularity about them, including our white PVC.

So how do we predict the actual reflective behaviour of shiny things, including what the specularity will look like and where the dreaded, ghost like reflections will appear.

Bring on the angle of incidence.

The Angle Of Incidence and Light Reflection

In lighting, the angle of incidence (x in the image) is measured between the angle a light source strikes a surface and 90 degree vector to that surface (called the surface Normal, if you are into 3D CGI graphics you’ll know that). The geometry tells us that using a theoretical perfect surface, the angle of reflection opposes the angle of incidence. A lighting angle of 30 degrees will bounce back of at 30 degrees, the other side of the surface normal. This knowledge can also be used to calculate the set up of mirror effects, including Pepper’s Ghost.

This geometry is actually what makes a shiny surface less diffusing than a bumpy one. The surface normals of material like felt are actually all over the place, even though the flat is.. well, flat.

Back to Uplighting PVC

OK, so we know why skimming light across a diffuse surface works for us and what happens to the reflected light because of the relationship between the angle of incidence and the surface normals.

Lighting a shiny surface from a “straight on” angle, the small source is reflected in high def back in a similar direction toward the viewer, meaning they can see a reflected image comprising of every light source in the entire rig. Frankly, a bit of a visual mess. While the area of the source reflected is extremely bright, the rest of the flat doesn’t diffuse enough to create that pleasing coloured background we are after. Using RGB colour mixing LED fixtures, the individual LED light sources are not given a change to mix on the surface as they rely on diffuse reflection for this to happen successfully.

Uplighting and skimming the light at a shallow angle across the surface, the viewer “out front” doesn’t get to see the source reflected because of the angle they are viewing from – not the opposing to the angle to incidence. Well, not unless they are clinging to the ceiling , the place which ends up being the brightest part of any low room due to all the lighting flying up there and diffusing it’s little butt off.

Lighting a shiny surface in this way, a large proportion of the light is wasted on things other than the viewer. So all in all, both physics and experience tells us that uplighting PVC flats with RGB colour mixing LED fixtures doesn’t work as we might hope.

Another dimension is added when dealing with a surfaces that diffuse qualities that vary in different directions, such as brushed aluminium. The stripey bumpiness diffuses light and colour well in one direction while light from another angle of incidence is reflected in a specular way.

This is called Anisotropic Specular Reflection and is what gives these brushed surfaces their characteristic look.

Other shiny materials and the reflection of light

Other materials popular in the conference and exhibition industry may not all be as shiny as our PVC flats, but can exhibit reflective behaviour that leads to questions such as “Why is that graphic brighter than that one? “ or “What can you do with the lighting so that we don’t get that bright spot?”

Foamex boards, vinyl graphics and even polystyrene lettering all have their own level of specular reflection, though they appear reasonably matt. The result can appear to be a discrepancy in intensity or a particular highlight, which of course alters depending on where you look from.

Perspex lecterns and glass coffee table are capable of pinging your well aimed front light all over the backing, screens and even back into the camera lens. Ranks of chrome and glass awards trophies cause havoc by muck spreading light in all kinds of unwanted places.

What can we do?

Understanding the different behaviours of specular and diffuse reflection, the angle of incidence and how colour mixing fixtures create their light on the surface, we are armed to make design choices about lighting positioning and angles. We might even be able to make helpful suggestions about set materials while in discussion with the production designer and the rest of the creative team.

But the chance to take preemptive action, like advising against the merit of white PVC flats for LED uplighting, might not always present itself. The important thing to remember is how light behaves once we release it and that we work with a medium that, unlike smoke, is basically predictable.

As predictable as the likelihood that, when those truck doors open on another day, white PVC flats will be glinting back at you.

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On Stage Lighting presents an essential guide to stage lighting jargon and UK lampie slang for anyone who needs to understand what these weirdos are talking about or needs to blag it as a member the LX department.

Every so often, lighting technicians have to talk to people in the real world (or lesser mortals like sound engineers). It soon becomes apparent that, as in every corner of life, there is a certain amount jargon. Lighting terms, slang and other gobbledygook that techies use when communicating with each other, to the exclusion of the outside world.
While a full glossary of stage lighting terms is outside of our scope today, here is the Blagger’s Guide to Lighting Jargon.

Some of the terms are lighting specific, others related to stage work in general and are based on the garbled utterings of UK based lighting techs.

Directional Terms

To an outsider, one of the most peculiar things about stage workers is their sense of direction. On stage, normal directional communication gets mangled. Any one who remembers acting in a school play will know that their drama teacher kept talking about “Stage Left” and “Stage Right. Drama teachers themselves often get this muddled up, so let’s be clear: Stage Left is your left hand side if you are standing on stage, looking out at the audience. This is the opposite of House Left (from the audiences point of view) or Camera Left (er, from the camera).

It doesn’t get any easier, though. Stagey people say Up when they mean backwards and In when they mean down. What’s that about?

Up and Down Stage are further and nearer to the audience respectively, relating to historically sloping stage floors. If something “runs up and down” it is not a fitness crazed techie (does anyone know any, BTW), it is something that has its long axis sitting at ninety degrees to the stage front. Up and down stage.

Conversely, it might “run on and off” (Onstage being nearer the centre, Offstage nearer the sides) with its long axis parallel to the stage front.

So having used up the terms Up and Down to mean something else, what are we going to do when we really mean up in the air or down toward the deck? Why, use Out (up / away) and In (down toward the stage floor) of course.

Let me be the first to admit publicly that my tiny brain uses these directional concepts by default, even when absolutely nowhere near a stage. Be warned of this before you try to move a sofa at home with your nearest and dearest techie.

Endless Numbers

Many of the different technical disciplines use numbers but the lighting department seem to barely use anything else. If you think that the world of business uses too much jargon, you should listen to two lampies outlining their plans for the next five minutes.

The trouble with deciphering the numbers is that they are used in a wide range of contexts and that context is only clear if you know what the numbers mean. Otherwise, they are just numbers. Let’s start by looking at what the numbers represent

Quantity and Capacity

Somewhere in the number jumble, there may terms that reference the quantity of items or the capacity of an item. Examples include five [insert another bit of jargon here] or a 6-way [bit of jargon] or a [bit of jargon] to 12 [other bits of jargon]. Also included in the capacity equation are references to power draw (1000 watt or 1k), current capacity or electrical rating (16 or 16 amp rating with appropriate connector type).
A final confusion factor is added to distinguish between equipment that is designed for use with 3 phase or 1 phase power. The term “3” refers to three phase power and thankfully the word “single” is inserted by thoughtful jargon spewers to reduce the shear quantity of integers in any one sentence.

Length

Lighting cables are not only denoted by their electrical rating and connector but also their usable length. The length of rigging kit is also something we might need to talk about. Rummage around in a lampie sentence and you will probably find a reference to the length of something, like 10 metres. 2 10s references two of something, ten meters in length.

So far, we have got the potential for a sentence to contain number that denote quantity, capacity, connector type, phase number. That just describes a piece of kit.

3 63 3s 2 3 63 singles refers to a piece of common electrical distribution kit: Three (of) [sixty three amp, three phase] plug to three (of) [sixty three amp, single phase] socket.

6 16 2 15, 3 10 metre 15 and 2 2 way 16s actually translates to : Six (of) [sixteen amp] plug to [15 amp] socket, three (of) ten metre fifteen amp cable and two (of) sixteen amp two way splitters.

Notice the use of the word “metre” to split up the length and the connector rating. Hey, anything else would just be confusing, right?

Manufacturer Numbers

Rather unhelpfully since the dawn of production lighting manufacture, the makers of stage lighting equipment have followed naming conventions for their various products that rely heavily on numbers. Lanterns produced by Strand Electric went from pattern numbers like 23, 264 and 243 on to ranges with real names that the subsets could only be described by their beam angles such as 16/30 or 11/26 ( 16 to 30 degrees and 11 to 26 degrees).

Modern lighting equipment manufacturers have continued on this unimaginative folly by mainly referencing fixture power such as 700, 1200 and 2000s. Fixtures made by different manufacturers get called the same thing, for instance, the Martin MAC700 profile and the Robe ColourSpot 700 both get called “seven hundreds”. And so it goes on.

4 700s on 3 at 200 translates to: Four (of) [some kind of 700] on bar three, starting at DMX address two hundred.

Reference Numbers

With lots of different parts to a lighting system, we need to be able to distinguish elements within it. In order to stop others from knowing what we are up to (other than skulking in Dimmer City) lampies have devised a cunning and impenetrable method of marking different control channels, dimmers, fixture addresses, intensity levels, gel references and circuit numbers. Yes, you’ve guessed it – more numbers.

The context that these numbers are used in is not so definable. They may be thrown into the middle of a sentence, their presence only discernible by the fact that the integer in question does not relate to either quantity, electrical capacity, length or manufacturer imposed number.

Putting it all together

By now you either knew all this already or are utterly confused. How do you work out which numbers relate to what? Here is some general guidance for cracking the number code:

Jumpers (not the woolly kind) that jump from one electrical connector into another are always referred to plug first. A 16 2 15 (often written 16 > 15 or 16 – 15) is a sixteen amp plug to a fifteen amp socket. Confusingly, in DMX cabling the number of pins takes over from the rating: a 5 to 3 is a 5 pin XLR plug to a 3 pin XLR socket.

Working out what a number it relates to is sometimes a question of knowing what it cannot relate to:

The number 101 is not one that relates to a fixture type, beam angle or common power capacity so it could either be a dimmer / control channel but chances are it relates to Lee 101 – Yellow, a vile yellow gel.

The numbers 16, 32 or 63 all relate to common UK power ratings and connectors but could also relate to anything else. You see how it’s all a question of context.

So, now you have started to get to grips with lampie grammar, let’s take a look at some other lighting terms and slang.

Lampie Rhyming Slang

The UK lighting business follows in the Cockney Rhyming Slang tradition with it’s own version of the language. In true Cockney fashion, the best proponents of this rhyming slang usually only refer to the first word of the term:

• Billys = Billy Bunters = Punters = The General Public
• Dianas = Diana Doors = When the Billys are let into the venue
• Desperate = Desperate Dan = Lighting Plan

A particularly inventive use of rhyming slang is the phrase “Onions” which is a contraction of “Onion Bhajis” – it rhymes with Zarges, the popular brand of combination ladder.

Trade names

Every industry uses trade names in their own unique language, stage lighting is no exception. Here are a few of the most common:

Spanset – Technically known as a roundsling, the Spanset, Spanny or Spanz is an extremely strong webbing covered loop using for rigging and slinging.

Grelco – Common in the UK, the word Grelco refers to the specific type of plastic 15 amp 2-way splitter which this brand used to dominate. Younger lampies have been known to call them Snappers, after a more modern trade name. The 3-way version of the Grelco is inventively referred to as a Trelco or Trellies, in case you were wondering why Dave said he needed some trellis but does not seem interested in gardening.

Socapex – The popular brand of multipin connector used for dimmer and power circuits, “Soca” has become the lampie slang term for the entire cable as well. Other terms include Multi or Snake and different connectors are referred to by their dominant brand – Lectriflex, for example.

People

In the stage world, it seem like everyone has some form of derogatory term for those who dare to work in other departments. Some used by us “lampies” include “Noise Boys” and “Hum Scum” for the our arch enemies in the sound department and “Vidiot” for anyone involved with screens, tellies and cameras.

Electricians are unsurprisingly called Sparks or Sparkies while Chippies (carpenters) are also known by other phrases, depending on the level of abuse intended. “Wood Butchers” right through to “Hairy Ar*ed Nail Benders”. In the world of trades shows, Rug Tuggers are in charge of all flooring requirements throughout the hall.

For some reason, Riggers are often known by the most derogatory monikers but only from a distance. They are generally too scary to insult in person but the term “Nappy Wearing Sky Gods” cannot be heard above the noise of a cherry picker at 15 metres. “Nappy” refers a fall arrest harness and not to the results of a particularly vibrant curry from the night before. Watch out though, riggers have a special spy called the Groundman who lurks around on deck and reports insulting language to the roof via Motorola radios. They can also drop things on you.

Animals

In the stage lighting world, you don’t get too close real animals unless you happen to be on the electrics crew for a “Horse Of The Year” show (yes, I have). To feel closer to nature, lampies occasionally use animal based jargon including:

Spiders – a many legged, cabley thing that breaks circuits out of a mulitcore. If you are feeling more rock n roll, you can call them Fan In and Fan Outs instead.

Badgers Clamps – A  scaffold half coupler with an eyebolt for suspending barrel.

Pigtail – Any kind of short cable coming of something such as the power lead of a moving light or a flying lead from a breakout box.

Descriptive Lighting Terms

Sometimes, the best slang is based on an obvious likeness of something to something totally unrelated or a consequence of their presence. This is the case with:

Pickle – a pickle shaped hand held switch used to locally control electric chain hoists AKA the motors.
Ray Guns – Plastic 16a Ceeform 2-way splitter that looks like – well, a gun. “Sod it, Nev. Just gun ‘em together, I can’t be bothered to run another 50 metre 16 to this one as well”.

Trees – Plastic 16a Ceeform 3-way splitter of tree like appearance.

Binoculars – More 16a Ceeform 3-ways that look…. Well, you’re getting the hang of it now.

Tripe – A bundle of cables, taped together for easier management that ends up looking like tripe. Another term is Loom.

String – Electrical, referring to cable including the largest of heavy mains supplies.

Shin Busters – Low mounted fixtures that trip everyone up, specifically the monitor engineer (if you get it right)

Acronyms

While the financial and business sector have the monopoly on outrageous acronyms, stage lighting jargon has it’s fair share. We won’t go into all of them, but here a selection:

• AJ – Adjustable spanner, a UK term.
• DBO – Dead Black Out. Everything dark.
• TRS – Tough Rubber Sheath. A reference to the insulation on mains and dimmer cables . Used to denote a single channel of cable.
• RCD – Residual Current Device. Safety switchgear that protects the user.
• MCB – Miniature Circuit Breaker. Safety switchgear that protects the equipment.
• FOH – Front Of House. Anywhere forward of the stage line or where the general public hang out. Also used when leaving – F*** Off Home.
• FUCT- Acronym for various words including Failed Under Continuous Testing. Used to mark up faulty equipment

Unimpressed by Technology

In order for technical types to real feel that they are the masters of all the bells and whistles they survey, they resort to derogatory names for posh kit. This can be found in other departments such as the video where they habitually refer to the snazziest of 90” Plasma screens as Tellies.

In the lighting world, this practice is evident by terms such as Nodding Buckets or Wobblies for moving lights and Waggly Mirrors for scanners.

Contextual Terms

No highly complex language is complete without some terms that use the same word for multiple purposes, to the confusion of non-speakers. Here’s a few.

Dead – A height at which a flying piece rests. A busted something. Something that isn’t broken but is no longer required in this performance. “ Are these boxes dead?”

Strike – To dismantle the entire show. To remove something from the stage area. To fire up discharge light source.

Spike – To nail. To decide on a fixed position for something an/or mark that position. The use of white tape to denote a hazard such as tripod legs or Shin Busters.

How to pretend you’ve been doing this for ages

In order for the Lampie Blagger to convince those around them that they have been around since the dawn of nodding buckets, it’s a good idea to throw in slang from times past such as:

Cracker – The cracked oil machine referred to an early form of atmosphere generator. Today, they are usually called Hazers but using the word Cracker will really give you a history.

Black Light – Ultra Violet (UV) lighting effects are not quite so in fashion these days.

Floats – Floats refer to another out of fashion lighting technique, footlights. Originally floating wicks, footlights were used extensively for a part of theatre lighting history. Sound engineers still call low mounted microphones Float mics, don’t let them nick your terminology.

How to avoid getting rumbled

Here are some common Heffalump traps that will flag you up as a rookie instantly. Avoid.

Incorrect use of “Lamps” – Stage lighting technicians refer to lamps and never bulbs, although the word Bubble will give you an old fashioned kind of cred. Lamps never refers to the fixtures themselves, which are called lanterns or more specific terms.

SocapLex – This is a common faux pas and is like a sign that says “I hope to go there one day, but so far I have only bought the T shirt”.

So, that’s all for now. Now you should be able to order a cable, chit-chat in the local tongue and hurl abuse toward other residents of the stage area. What more could you possibly want?

If you have any particular favourite stage lighting terms, techie jargon or reasonably clean slang, let us know in the comments below.

Image by Jake Bouma

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Live lighting is making more appearances in an increasing range of performances and show types. Put the edge back in your lighting design with the fear of uncertainty.


Before tiny electronic lighting controls and predictable fade times, the theatre world relied on the physicality of men in coats pulling levers, twiddling dials and a direct connection between them and the light seen on stage. The reason that early modern lighting consoles looked suspiciously like they were based on a pipe organ, was that the real time connection of an lighting technician and his lights was highly regarded.

Along came the predictability of electronic systems and the growth of the international lighting designer, and lighting in the mainstream theatre became a “set and forget” gig. LXQ2 Go just as x moves to y, 3 seconds with a 1 second follow on, DSC special at 33.3%. The Director and Lighting Designer wanted to know that the vision they had worked so hard to create would not be messed up by mere operators. Many theatre shows today still run under such factory default conditions, it manages the risk of unpredictability.

As concert lighting has grown up and commercial lighting for all kinds of live events has become a job for many, the old direct connection between an LD and his illuminating proteges has returned. The time and planning restrictions on many shows (particularly one offs) has meant that creating lighting “live” is even more the fashion.

This is great, not because running a show with no rehearsal and a similar quantity of information is apparently cheaper, but because stage lighting is an art that shouldn’t stop just because the punters are in.

I enjoy playing music and was trained read the dots at an early age. But there was a recurring theme in my young musical career that was a clue to my future love of lighting shows live. “Robin, that sounded nice but half of what you played isn’t on the page and you stopped looking at the music after the first eight bars”. Apparently, “making it up” is not main part of the traditional musical education so passing grade examinations took a back seat while I got interested in improvised music such as jazz.

We are taught that it is better to have live musicians in the pit (and not just by the landlord of the pub next door), live dancers, live actors and a sound mix that is presided over by a real human. Well, a sound engineer anyway. Keep it live, they say!

So why is so much stage lighting taken from the artist and given to the lighting equivalent of a backing track?

Before a recent concert we were focussed up, paintbox programmed and ready to go. While the stage sat empty, doors closed, waiting for the evenings performance, I was asked “Let’s see what you’ve got then?”

A simple enough question and one that is often asked of a Lighting Designer by Directors, Producers and other associated bill payers. What lighting have you got for us today? Just give us an idea, y’know, whistle a few bars or whatever. This question seemed inappropriate for a live show that was about to happen, we had never done the show before and would never do it again.

The question jarred because:

• The stage is empty
• There is no music or action
• The performance has yet to start

Now, I am not an overly sensitive artistic type, but it struck me that you don’t wander up to the Courtney Pine and casually wonder what notes he might be using today. I don’t suppose many people asked Monet for a peek in his paintbox, to see what colours he had mixed up.

The innocent question received the usual pushing up of faders, lighting the backdrop and cheery chat about what kind of show it might be tonight But it started me thinking about my favourite approach to lighting and the parallel with live artists such as those playing improvised music.

Lighting is a creative outlet and doing it live can build an interaction between performers of a show both on stage and those of us in the dark. As a jobbing lampie, a lot of events can sometimes seem mundane – light the stage, change the colour, look out here comes a big flashy bit. It is surely a lot less mundane that pressing Go at exactly the same time 3 times a day when someone else tells you to. Perhaps the reason I was drawn to events over theatre was the same reason I never really got interested in sight reading music – it seemed like the difference between a riffing comedian on song and a TV presenter grimly plugging away at the autocue.

Live show lighting moves a large chunk of the creative process from the pre show and technical period of a production and drops it slap bang in the middle of the show itself. Modern lighting equipment and control systems allow for even more interactivity than levers and a bit of wood ever did, so why not use all that power? We’re not talking about taking your own cues and firing off pre recorded looks but actually deciding on, balancing and changing the lighting right here, right now.

The trouble with leaving the design process so late, is that other people don’t like it. “What’ve you got for us today, then?” “Er, well I’ve mixed up my paints, cleaned my brushes and when we get going you can have a look.” It’s too risky.

If you work backstage, you don’t need the attention of a crowd or applause for your performance – hell, you probably don’t feel the need to earn much money! The job satisfaction of being part of a show is your own personal, real time input to the moment, not just pressing a button like Pavlov’s dog in show blacks.

So take a break from thinking in Cue Lists and start thinking of yourself as a “stage lighting performer”.  Join the campaign around the slogan Keep Lighting Live!

Take to the streets and burn your show disks.

Do you enjoy lighting shows live? On Stage Lighting has a few articles lined up on the basics of creating live lighting including rig design and use of the lighting console as a paintbox. Let us know your thoughts in the comments as usual.

Update://  Hat tip to OSL reader Carlos who reminded me of  work by Nick Hunt.  Nick wrote a paper in 2001 that I hadn’t seen before.  It’s on this very subject and well worth the short read – The Play Of Light.

Image with apologies to the Musicians Union.

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This rough guide looks at the different functions of fixture personality files, trends in complex lighting control interfaces and asks “When is standardisation going to replace fragmentation in the world of stage lighting control?”

Fixture Personality Basics

Intelligent lighting equipment that requires multiple parameters of control has a model specific map of how those functions are controlled. If a fixture requires 30 channels of control, perhaps the first channel is mapped to Intensity with Pan Coarse on channel 3. The other 28 channels all have their own functions including colours, shutters and focus.

The table of channel control functions is not only manufacturer and model specific, but many fixtures also sport a number of control modes that can alter the mapping. Maybe Mode 1 uses channel 4 to control Tilt, while in Mode 3 Tilt appears on channel 3.

The way control channels, commonly DMX addresses, affect the parameters of a specific fixture type is basis of the Fixture Personality.

How do we use Fixture Personality data?

Using a simple DMX preset style desk, knowing the personality of a certain fixture tells us which faders the different attributes. So, we know that fader 1 will control Intensity, for example. But who wants to control complex lighting fixtures using a preset desk? Not me.

Every intelligent lighting control needs personality data to function properly. At it’s simplest, the console needs to know how to assign control channels to the different parts of the desk – Intensity to faders, Pan and Tilt to the position controls etc. When you select Gobo control, it’s no good finding the encoders are adjusting Prism.

So, the console needs to know the personality of the fixture types and these are commonly stored in a library of Fixture Personality files and set during the desk patching process. Currently, fixture personality file formats are proprietary to the specific console manufacturer. This bugs me but more about that later.

Other Fixture Personality File Data Use

So far, we’ve looked at the way a fixture personality file is used to map the different control channels to the interface of the console. This is only a part of it’s use.

Range table data – Some attributes of an intelligent fixture perform different actions depend on their set channel level, for 0 to 255. While parameters such as dimmer, pan and tilt change on a linear scale based on level setting, other parameters such as gobo or colour wheels have set positions that clunk through based on a range of control level. The Open White slot in a colour wheel might be recalled by Colour Wheel 1 > Level between 0 – 17. If your console fiddling experience is to be a positive one, the desk needs to know this.

Control channels can adjust some varied functions depending on range of channel level. Perhaps the macro to Lamp Off the fixture is fired using a Shutter > Level between 220 to 255, you don’t want this happening by accident but you do want to be able to Lamp On using the pre set macro at the console. Range table data within the fixture personality file sorts this out.

Auto Palettes – Patching up a new set of fixtures, you ask the console to generate some standard palettes to get started. White, Red, Amber, Gobo 1, Gobo 2 the list goes on. Using the range table s and other personality file data, the console is able to speed up the building of the blocks by automating some of the process.

The Future of Personality Files

While we are still working with a system that uses a Control Channel / Channel Level and different lighting fixtures exist in the market, fixture personality files will continue to evolve. The latest generation of top end lighting consoles have developed some clever techniques such as integrated colour setting whether CMY, RGB or HSB and Fixture Morphing (attempting to exchange one make of fixture for another with losing your programming). Many of these functions rely heavily on even more advanced fixture personality files and the processing of that data.

This brings me to a personal bug bear of mine.

Anyone who knows me well will know that I have been banging on for years about the benefits of standardising fixture personality files. Here are some of my beefs with the currently proprietary personality formats:

• Not portable between platforms like consoles and visualisers.
• They take console makers valuable time to create. This can makes the personalities released poor quality, with errors and omissions in functionality.
• Fixture makers can change mapping and mode specs. More time spent updating files for every desk maker.
• New fixtures are being added to the market at a furious rate. Every CheepoSpot fixture needs a personality file for the four guys in the world that use the darn things.

The whole thing is so inefficient – why are we creating hundreds of different file types for different consoles and software when the fixture manufacturer could create one – just one personality file. And the correct one. And update it when they changed their firmware. Having proprietary personality files just seems like such a waste of everyone’s time.

Will it ever happen? Will the industry unite around some kind of XML personality file that will fulfil the needs of the simplest control desk and the worlds biggest lighting console?

The lighting business has agreed on DMX512 and the ARTNet protocol is one of a number of widely adopted standards that have been integrated into control equipment. The current mess is the confusion between different media servers and two way communication with different consoles. Getting media thumbnails displayed and other vital tools. But there may be hope on the horizon.

In reality, once one feature has appeared on one console it soon filters down to other makes BUT it is then implemented in each desk makers own “special” way. Let’s face it, the output of a lighting console ends up the same, no matter what gubbins gets between the human and the fixtures. The console makers are only really selling the interface, after all. Surely the differentiation between control only needs to be the interface and the level of functionality

The trouble with an ever more fragmented lighting control market is everyone is so busy trying to differentiate their own product that it sometimes seems like we are getting further from standardisation and away from efficient development.

As each console relies on increasingly advanced personality files, hopes of an integrated standard single file for fixture personality data seems to get further away?

Perhaps the next generation of lighting technologists, the On Stage Lighting readers, will take on the challenge of better standardisation in future lighting control. If you are keen, you might like to take a look at the details of ESTAs ACN (Architecture for Control Networks).

OK, so we’ve taken a quick tour of fixture personality data and you’ve waited patiently while I had a minor rant about standardisation in entertainment technology. Oh, and we have spotted the ACN cavalry far off in the distance. Hopefully, you will have a bit more of an understanding of another vital tool in modern stage lighting – fixture personality data.

With any luck, future development and adoption of ACN will sort out the communication of individual fixture personalities (assume somthing like an XML file), but in the meantime we are stuck with fixture personality files for a while yet.

If you have any thoughts on how the lighting industry should emerge from the sheds and into the 21st century world of development, put your comments in the box below.

Image by Samuel Stroubes

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This week we look at attribute inversions in intelligent lighting control, the use of Pan or Tilt Invert in particular. So what is attribute inversion, why would a console programmer use it and when is an invert most useful? On Stage Lighting turns your world upside down.

What is attribute inversion?

If you have some understanding of intelligent lighting, you might know that the word “attributes” refers to distinct fixture parameters such as Intensity, Pan, Tilt, Gobo Wheel 1 etc. Each attribute channel is controlled by a value between 0 and 255, in the case of Intensity 0 being 0% dimmer output, 255 being FULL. Pan, Tilt and other gradually controlled attributes such Cyan change on a similar sliding scale.

Attribute inversion is the practice of reversing the behaviour of the parameter relative to it’s control channel value – in the case of Intensity, a zero value would result in the dimmer output of FULL. An inversion of the Intensity attribute.

While it maybe possible to invert the behaviour of any fixture attribute, in practice the most common inversion is that of the Pan or Tilt parameter of a moving head or mirror. The end result of an invert of either a Pan or Tilt attribute is that it makes the control channel behave “back to front”.  Instead of panning left, the fixture moves right. Instead of tilting up, it goes down.

Reasons for inverting a Position channel could be to either fix a rigging error or create any easier environment for programming moving lights.

Fixing an error – If the crew happen to have rigged a moving spot the “wrong” way round (180 degrees to the rest of the fixtures) then selecting a whole bunch of fixtures and moving them all together doesn’t work. The misplaced fixture moves in the opposite direction and pre programmed effects also run backwards during playback. Rather than bring the rig in and rehang the spot, the programmer can simply invert the Pan/Tilt channels at the console and order is restored.

Another common error is that many moving lights allow the user to invert channels at the fixture itself, using the on board menu or switch settings. This might be left over from a previous show, the heads not having been reset to factory settings during a hire prep.

Making programming easier – This is a positive move to speeding up position programming and fixture behaviour in some circumstances. Inverting the Tilt attribute of fixtures on the deck (sat on their bases) means that they move in the same direction as those hung in the air from clamps. Selecting all the heads and tilting them, all move upstage and downstage together.

Inverting the Pan attribute fixtures on one side of the centre line creates mirrored movement, where opposite pairs move toward centre together. This can speed up programming certain rig layouts and can even be used to rough-in a full rig of positions with only half the fixtures working. If you think this sounds pretty far fetched, it isn’t – I’ve done it. This workaround requires that at least one of every fixture “buddy” is running. More about these buddies later.

Another product of Pan inversion is that movement effects generated within the console, and moves from one position to another, happen symmetrically across stage.

Where to invert fixture attributes

There are two choices to setting a parameter inversion – at the fixture or within the lighting console. The worst situation is some inversions at the fixture, some set within the desk and know one knows what’s going on.

The preferred choice, given professional level equipment, is at the lighting desk. Knowing that all your heads are physically set up the same and leaving patch editing functions in the programmers hands is reassuringly structured. Inverting a channel at the console is usually part of advanced patching, setup or fixture editing control functions.

Setting an invert within the function menu of the fixture itself is usually reserved for situations where you are using control equipment that doesn’t provide the facility to perform inverts. Controllers with less than full functionality can often be quicker and easier to use if these local inverts are set. Something to think about when you are next running 4 scanners with a 12 channel, 2 preset desk.

Which ever way you decide to set an attribute invert, the most important thing to remember is that it must be done BEFORE any position programming takes place. Setting inverts will ruin any position work you have already committed to the desk.

The Downside to Inverts

The negative side to setting Pan inverts is that they make some fixtures move in the opposite direction. OK, you say, that’s what we wanted right? Having some fixtures pulling when others are pushing can be good or bad depending on rig layout and your aims as an LD/programmer. You might have a rear truss loaded with 16 moving spots and planning to use Fan effects on the desk to create some awesome looks. You may want to create some offset Pan sweeps, creating a horizontal wave effect from one end to the other. Modern lighting consoles have tools to speed up the programming of this kind of sequence but the effects are harder to achieve without all the heads moving the same way by default.

So you choose your poison.

Rigs for Pan inversion

The type of rig that can benefit from a few Pan inversions could be a concert or dance rig that requires quick position programming and symmetrical effects. Fixtures that have an “other side of stage buddy” are ideal candidates for pairing with one of the heads having an inverted Pan channel. Far Stage Left and Far Stage Right, Drum Riser Left and Drum Riser Right etc. Having these buddies working symmetrically means fine tuning your positions is often a matter of selecting a pair and moving them in one hit.

Top OSL Tip – You might find that you need to move both buddies in one direction, maybe to centre them up on stage. The quick method for moving both these guys, toward stage right for example, is to use the Fan tool. As one fixture has a Pan invert set, they actually move in the same direction.

Obviously, you might have some fixture positions that would be prime candidates for some inversions plus others that aren’t, like our rear truss spots.

Part of the rig could have inverted buddies, other banks of fixtures might work together. Some say that you should use fixture orientation and Pan/Tilt inverts to make sure that every fixture moves in the direction that you would expect uniformly across the whole rig eg. Wheeling the Pan encoder clockwise results in every fixture moving to Stage Left. This is dogmatic simplification that misses a host of programming and playback possibilities and can make certain looks a whole lot harder to create. If you are working in a 360 degree environment like a large night club, the idea of a “correct” way for a fixture to pan is plain silly anyway. Perhaps this is why such invert techniques are more likely to be found in the work of club or concert programmers, rather than theatre ops.

Tilt Invert

As we are talking about the nature of the rig helping to choose invert tactics, we come back to tilt inversion. Although Tilt invert is commonly used to align fixtures sitting on their bases with those hanging down from a structure, it can be used for other purposes. Perhaps the fixtures are laid out in both forward and rear positions and you wish to be able to wheel the entire rig either toward the stage area or away in one motion.

Once again, the choice depends on not only your preferences for programming but also the resulting playback of pre-designated effects.

Pan and Tilt Swap

A setting that does what it says on the tin: Swaps the Pan control with the Tilt control channel. This used for fixtures that are rigged on their sides, such as the side of an upright truss, that makes their pan/tilt movement apparently “wrong” in relation to the stage. Swapping the Pan and Tilt doesn’t allow us to reap any other programming benefits unless you’d just like to confuse the next person to use your console.

Inverting other attributes

There are occasions where it might be necessary to invert other attributes apart from Pan and Tilt. This sometimes applies to other linear parameters like Intensity and CMY or RGB colour mixing and can be done at the console or within a personality file. This kind of invert is a more unusual kind of housekeeping required when the fixture personality file is incorrect and the fixtures do not behave as expected. The inverting of other attributes is not usually employed to create a useful programming or playback tool.

Turn Your Life Around

We’ve taken a quick look the practice of fixture position attribute inversion, the different methods of doing it and some advantages for the moving light programmer. As setting inverts is something that should be done before any programming begins, it’s important to think about the pros and cons early on. Trying out position invert tactics on a small set up of around four moving lights should give you an idea of what they can do. If your control won’t do it, even the most basic scanners have some on board setting. When you are comfortable, you can unleash the power of “back to front” on your next monster rig.

Let us know how you get on.

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In a free conference speaker training course, we are going to look at life from the other side of the lectern. As part of our Keynote Speaker Awareness Week, we are going to empathise with with this desperate bunch and remember importance of visibility on stage.

Please turn off your mobile phones.

Dear Mr Speaker,

Yes, I know it’s hard, being the star of the Sales Division Kick Off. Company profits are down, the CEO is on your back as Head of Regional Sales (Rutland) to get your chaps all singing from the same song sheet, leveraging your synergies and thinking outside the box.

So, you’ve got great plans. The management team is onboard. All you need to do as the keynote speaker is to communicate your grand design to the 600 suits assembled at the Winsor Suite of the Rutland Intercontinental (near the A378, by the Little Chef). These turkeys need to understand, they need to see it your way and be in no doubt as to how they should proceed to flog more gear.

OK, let’s see what you’ve got so far.

The Powerpoint deck you’ve spent weeks on waits eagerly, ready to bring the first name slide proclaiming the all powerful job title that you have arse-kissed for 10 years to get. Animation will never be the same again, not after they’ve seen these beauties.

You’ve agonised over content, scripts and worked out how to stand on stage nonchalantly, hand in pocket, without looking like you are playing with yourself.

Everything is ready.

The secret to good communication

The black clad ninjas that dap around the grey carpetted stage say they are ready. You speak. It’s odd hearing your voice coming back at you with a delay. So you say “ It sounds funny to me, can you hear me at the back?”. The ninjas say carry on and disappear again into the darkness.

But wait.

Looking up from your notes at the lectern, something terrible has been wreaked upon you. There is a light, no two, and it’s dazzling you. The more you look at it, the more dazzling it becomes until you finally turn away, toward the screen and your favourite slide with the Venn diagram. “I don’t remember those purple spots?”

You stop, look at the light again and enquire after the possibility of dowsing the two offenders. Not all of the lights (you’re not unreasonable) just that one and the one on the other side. They are the worst, let’s lose them.

The ninjas get a little agitated. There is manic whispering in the dark. One of them speaks “We’ll do our best but those are your lights, I’m afraid” How ridiculous. This place must have more than 60 lights, you only want to get rid of two – in percentage terms, a meagre amount.

Mr Speaker, let me assure you that the ninjas have only the best intentions. They are fully “onboard” with your restructuring plans and can’t wait for you to share them with the masses. They also know the importance of communication.

You need lighting, dammit

In order for you to communicate your message to a room of 600 delegates, the great unwashed need to be able to see you clearly. Hey, you pride yourself in being a people person, able to win the sceptical over with your special eye sparkle and the elbow squeeze – right? If you are going to be able to squeeze the ranks of chairs filled with drowsy delegates, it’s no good hiding in the dark.

Light needs to fire from the source, bounce off you and make it all the way up the room to the guys you rely on to deliver on those Q1 targets. For this to happen, the light needs to come at you pretty hard and it’s something that professional performers have to put up with. They know that in order for them to become a real star, the adoring public need to engage with them on stage. And seeing is a good chunk of the engagement equation. And being able to see someone as they speak, assists comprehension and audibility. Yes, you really do seem louder when we can see you, Mr Speaker.

The reason that only two lights are dazzling as you grimly grip the lectern, is that those are the light sources that make engagement possible. Without them, you look like some kind of character from a shadow play, not the strong, and confident leader addressing the troops.

The lights might not be quite so annoying if they were fixed higher in the air. But unfortunately, the Winsor Suite of the Rutland Intercontinental has only a 12ft ceiling height and no facility for hanging lighting equipment overhead. This isn’t an excuse but just so you know. Perhaps after this years performance, the CEO will let you book the O2 for your keynote next year.

But, if you want to act the big shot after bouncing up on stage shouting “Good evenin’ Rutland! Are Yoo Awight?”, you need to act like a pro and put up with the trappings of your exhalted position. If it’s good enough for Robbie Williams, surely you can cope with a couple of lights.

Don’t stand in the dark

Now, you might feel you have a better solution. Moving slightly to one side, you notice that those pesky lights are not bothering you now. In fact, at one point you decided to really engage with the crowd and stand with your toes poking over the edge of the stage and leaned right forward, real communication. That felt good didn’t it, Mr Speaker? You reached out to the huddled masses and also found comfort away from the photon emitting pests. Great.

The trouble is, in the both the above scenarios, you disappeared from view. Your face was sucked into a black hole and the most important part of your speech went with it. I can personally guarantee that if you can’t feel the lights on your face, you can’t be seen. Using this knowledge to your advantage is what pro performers call “finding your light”.

So, like I said. I know it’s hard and every sympathy is with you but let’s all remember why we are here. We are here to communicate your message to those who will be instrumental in your next move toward Global Sales Director. Having spent weeks on the slides, the script and choosing your outfit, don’t forget the basics of good communication – not hiding.

The ninja has spoken.

If you feel that this was the most valuable piece of keynote speaker training you have every received, please feel free to get in touch with On Stage Lighting and we will let you know where to send the cheque. With professional speaker trainers earning hundreds of pounds a day by picking holes in your delivery, you might a least buy us a beer or two.

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On Stage Lighting returns from two days of too much walking, too much talking and a certain amount of beer to bring you the essential features of the the PLASA London show 2009. We take you to the places on the floor the industry publications don’t reach and look behind the smoke and mirrors.

A year seems to pass so quickly. This week, it was time for scores of backstage ferrets to emerge from the darkness and make the journey to Earl’s Court for PLASA once more. Techies don’t go to shows if they can help it but the promise of free beer and nibbles, and maybe the odd LED to be blinded by, is usually reason enough to get out of show blacks and into a different darkened room for a few hours.

Exhibitors stands spread from EC1 to a large part of EC2, but the “whose got the biggest stand” competition seems to have taken a back seat – for this year at least. What doesn’t seem to have waned is a tendency to fill your stand with vast high power LED arrays, making it much harder for the punters to examine the goods. Perhaps the stand designers need to revisit Lighting Design 101 – Contrast and it’s importance for visibility.

Whether less visitors attended PLASA 09, it’s difficult to say but the atmosphere was a lot less hectic and the stands not so crowded. There were also a number of “regular” exhibitors who were notable by their absence.

So what was there?

LED Trends for 2009

It may come as no surprise, but LED lighting technology continues to feature heavily in the world of fixture making and each year we seem to have a different mode. OK, so this isn’t London Fashion Week but a few years ago we had LEDs on drapes/webbing and LED backlighting systems such as the Martin EvenLED and Schnick-Schnack-Systems.

This year, there were definite themes to the latest “naked and in yer face” LEDS

Panels built on the concept of semi tranparent arrays for media content replay (such as the Martin LC panel) by bending strips and tubes into curved formations and creating 3D LED surfaces. So, curvy arrays – everyone seemed to have one.

Heads have also turned toward improved colour output, with many LED fixture makers boasting better colour rendition. Studio Due showed a new version of the ArchiLED, with improved 4 cell LEDs replacing the individual RGBA ones. Many other high quality LED “bosh” lights were given pride of place including the i-Pix range and the Selador / ETC wash light. I don’t think that the Selador made it to PLASA last year but I was lucky enough to see an early model in the UK round the back of some grotty industrial estate – it featured on the plush ETC stand this year. The feature of the Seledor is that it uses 7 different LED colour sources instead of the common RGB / RGBA (with amber) / RGBW (with white) giving the colour range a boost.

Lighting designers have a requirement for in better colour rendition in LED fixtures and the manufacturers have definitely worked hard in this area.

Other things of note in the LED area were the Vari*lite VLX high power LED wash light and a great little LED moving spot with excellent optics. The Highlight Showtec features a 27 LED array which is (somehow) focussed down to a spotlight capable of projecting gobos and is bright enough to compete with a standard 250w discharge sourced moving spot.

Console Improvements and Departures

At the control end, console creators have been busy refining their current offerings. Not too many “brand new shiny things” rather more backend changes that make real users happy. A major version upgrade hits the Jands Vista software AKA start the code from scratch. Jands decision to start again was to enable them to take the console where users wanted it to go and includes some improved timline editting and media server support. The development is the work of a structured team, part of a growing situation where lighting control developers emerge from the garden shed and embrace a more grown up approach to producing software.

Changes at Cham Sys were even more subtle – moving toward using a solid state hard drive and Linux ProX which apparently is a “good thing”. Not really knowing much (or caring) about operating systems, I didn’t ask too many more questions.

I also decided I wouldn’t ask Avolites whether the “new” thing this year was that the Pearl Expert / Titan software combination was finished and would now be making more friends among Avo users than it has since launch at PLASA08. Issues with hardware and software has currently left the Expert off many operators Xmas list, a situation that can take time to recover from as a manufacturer.

Avo had a genuinely new toy to look at, which made for a more amicable discussion. The Tiger Touch and other associated touchscreen gubbins for the Expert are a major progression/departure/addition/choice (delete as appropriate) with regard to trad Avo User Interface. The new hardware removed many of the buttons and faders from a Pearl Tiger and replaced them with a touchscreen, additional encoder (now 3) and utilises the Titan software which now powers the Expert / Tiger Touch as well as the Diamond 4. It is also possible to create cue stacks on the playbacks.

The more desk savvy of On Stage Lighting readers will be thinking “Touchscreen? Cue Stacks? So, is this Avo finally going down the Hog / GrandMA / Everybody else route.” While Avo says that the Touch concept represents control surface choice for the user, the more skeptical might say that they can see an user interface brick wall coming up with the traditional Avo hardware. In fact, this has been seen as the “elephant in the room”, to those of us outside of the company. How Avo users will react to the lasted hardware is not clear. The amount of choice in the desk market has created a certain amount of unseemly scrambling in recent years and history tells us that hasty releases by manufacturers often lead to woes further up the road.

At the top end, MA Lighting was showing a more complete version of the MA2. Last year, the 2 on show was a lone trial desk. This year at PLASA, the MA stand was dripping with the black and yellow livery of the next generation Rolls Royce of lighting consoles. OK, Mercedes. While the old GrandMA was always a top end piece of kit, the Full size 2 gives the impression of German engineering in which no expense has been spared though I understand that the price ticket remains reasonable for a console of this quality. This is the single most comprehensive lighting control ever: Three 17” touchscreens, quicker responsive faders, lots of software additions, the list goes on – I think you would call it “feature rich”.

Many of the features may provide a glimpse into the future of control surfaces, particularly the fourth touchscreen which is situated below the encoders and integral to the direct control of everything from attributes to FX ramps. A particularly good use is a draggable representation of beam shaping shutters that speeds up the control of modern fixtures. Endoders are great for some things, but this tactile/visual style must be at least part of the future .

Wireless and Batteries

PLASA09 was also about all things wireless. Not only did a number of wireless DMX proponents command their own stands on the floor, a feature of many fixtures is inbuilt wireless capability. Coupled with LED light sources and battery power, wireless control featured in a number of LED products notably CORE Technolgies IP rated (water resistant) LED uplighter and Global Design Solutions Battery LED kit that includes in-flightcase smart charging and even a pack that enables charging via 2 solar panels.

Wireless solutions for both power and control of lighting fixtures is an exciting development. Issues related to the availability of power is rarely to do with a lack of juice, more often difficulty in getting in power the right place – trailing cables everywhere is often not an option. Cable management aside, the time taken to install cabling constitutes a significant part of overall build time. Being able to sling out a load of uplighters and instantly have remote control of colour mixed light for the next twelve hours plus, is a plus in many situations.

CORE and GDS (GDS using the same LEDs as the i-Pix) have the aformentioned high quality of colour output that is important to specifiers.

On the wireless front, the L&SI sponsored Innvoations Gallery contained a number of wire free products including a motor hoist control and wireless RDM (Remote Device management) DMX traffic system. Wires are so last century.

Other interestings

This year was the first opportunity for OSL to have a good look at the ( award winning, as of last night) Robe Robin series of moving heads, the key feature being a Plasma light source. The compact spot and wash lights are similar to 250w MSR/MSD powered head with a pleasing colour temperature and some nice optics. I am not sure I understand how a plasma lamp really works, but the unit was bright, cool and quiet. It also featured a touchscreen menu control for adjusting settings and an internal battery to enable a hire warehouse to set and address the fixture without having to plug into a mains supply. Look, no wires again.

After the prototype debut at PLASA last year, the RSC sponsored Lightlock has found a manufacturer in Total Solutions. The Lightlock was designed as a means of solving the specific problem that moving heads create when attached to a small hanging structure such as a trapeze or pantograph. The unit is electrically powered and senses movement, attempting to eliminate it by creating an opposing force via a moving mass inside the unit.

Although the problem seems pretty specialised, it does allow moving lights to be rigged in ways that have not been possible before and is particularly of interest to designers of TV studios, who use pantograph systems for easy overhead fixture suspension. The cost per unit, in relation to a moving light or pantograph for instance, does not look too outrageous if it allows a specific design problem to be solved.

The unit that Total were showing looked totally different to the original show last year. As well as being a neater unit, I understand that a major revisit of the internal components was necessary to make the Lightlock a commercially viable piece of kit. Apparently, the production version is significantly more kinetically efficient too.

It was good to see the Morpheus, granddaddy of “men in sheds” intelligent lighting, at PLASA for the first time. Showing their established multi stream CMY scroller system, they also brought the Pacific Fader CMY and dowser design specifically for the Selecon Pacific. While the world seems to be full of the ETC Source Four, the Selecon Pacific continues being a great profile spot which has either incandescent and discharge light sources. The Pacific Fader fits the gate of the Pacific, providing CMY and CTO graduated dichroic filters that are DMX controllable creating a wide range of high quality colours. Using a discharge light source, dimming is provided by a further graduated dichroic that a demonstation showed a really beautiful dimming quality. Sure beats mechanical shutters.

On Stage Lighting readers unfamiliar with dichroic colour filters should know that rather than absorbing colour wavelengths, dichroic filters reflect them while the desired colours carry on through. A dichroic dimmer works in a similar fashion, reflecting different amounts of the whole spectrum.

Anytronics were showing the AnyScene 2 which now boasts more DMX channels and the ability run up to 8 panels in tandem. For the unitiated, the Anyscene is a great little panel that allows you to record DMX information via an input and then play it back by pressing one of the playback buttons on the front. This is ideal for installation where you want the end user to have limited control to your highly complex DMX controlled environment, having used the tools of your choice to set the scenes. Anyway, being able to slave up to 8 panels and give any panel control is a really useful addition.

Our favourite product in the non lighting camp? We call it the Tape Trundler and it was an interesting piece of gear for the application of tape to a stage floor. Like a big parcel taping gun with a wheel and a long handle, the dispenser seemed like the answer to the prayers of anyone who had spent hours on their knees taping down Marley (AKA known as dance flooring). Now if you could incorporate laying cables and taping them down into that, I’m in.

So that’s if for another year. The PLASA show is the accepted way to show off your latest innovations and is surely has to be given credit as a part of the engine that drives technology at the current manic rate.

If the smoke and mirrors all get too much, there is always the option of stopping off at the AC Lighting stand and watching someone else make cables.

So, did you get to PLASA this year.  What really caught your eye?  Comments in the box below as usual.

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In the final part of our Cham Sys MagicQ PC Getting Started tutorials, we work to the final stage of preparing our show for the fictional 3 piece band using a simple rig of PARS. If you haven’t already done so, work through MagicQ Tutorials Part 1 and 2 before tackling this one.
In this tutorial we will create another page of playbacks, a short opening sequence using a theatre cue stack and use the FX generator to quickly make some snazzy effects with the Beam Fans. We will also look at some of the theatre stack timing options.

Note:  Apologies to regular On Stage Lighting readers, and followers of the MagicQ tutorials in particular, for the extended (and unplanned) break in updates over the summer.  This was due to an extremely heavy workload of gigs which were only broken by a family holiday – I’m sure you understand.  Normal service is now being resumed at On Stage Lighting for the autumn season and I am looking forward to getting back to writing for you guys.

Editing Cues

We already know how easy it is to record information into a cue (enter data into the programmer, hit REC and choose a playback), we haven’t yet learned how to edit that information after it has been stored.
Like most programmer based consoles, editing happens back in the Programmer and changes are usually output “live” to the stage while overriding any other playbacks that are running at the time. This means that you can edit parts of cues while leaving the other playbacks outputting and the end result will not mix your data up.
An example: During the sound check you are playing back out a two colour wash using two faders– Red and Blue. You want to adjust the levels in the Blue Wash only, editing that information in the programmer before saving it back to the Blue Wash fader.

A non programmer based desk that records output requires that you record individual cue information without other playbacks running (in this case, Red Wash) – a pain when you need to program or edit during rehearsals and don’t want to alter the entire look on stage.
But, the MagicQ is a programmer console and we can make individual changes and add them to specific cues.

Getting edit information into the Programmer

Different consoles have their own way of loading information into the programmer and the MagicQ PC has a few choices.
At it’s simplest, we just want to load the Blue Wash Cue into the programmer to be edited so we use INCLUDE (a term borrowed from Avolites) then Choose the S button the playback fader. This loads the entire cue in to the Programmer (the CLR button light shows that there is information there) and we can make changes to the levels using any method – Keypad, Groups and Encoder, Programmer spreadsheet or the Programmer Intensity Window.

When happy with the new levels (that are output to stage and override the current state of the fixtures we changed) pressing UPDATE. Depending on the SETUP – > Prog Settings, the programmer then either clears itself or leaves the data there for you to carry on working – adjusting levels and recording another cue, for example.

The reason you would like to leave values in the Programmer until you are ready to CLEAR them is you can use those values to record new cues, update old ones or even remove parts of other cues altogether. If the Programmer doesn’t clear itself, don’t forget that the levels will continue to override your stage look until you hit CLR. That’ll be why those blues are still up, even after you have moved on to another task.
All this talk of cue edits brings us neatly on to blind mode.

Blind Mode

If you have used any kind of memory lighting desk, you may have come across Blind Mode before. The concept is to enable you to record or edit cue information without it appearing live on stage. While the usefulness of not being able to see what you are doing can be a bit limited, using Blind Mode has been a traditional method of inputting “known” data (like dimmer levels recorded on an old fashioned channel sheet) while the show is running.
Imagine the electrician of a touring show, having not had enough time to put both acts into the house lighting console, carefully entering and recording the cue levels for Act II in blind mode during Act I. This is not a joke, it has happened on more than one occasion. Fortunately, we now we have improved desk reliability and better portability of show data.
Anyway, to enter Blind Mode on the MagicQ you just need to toggle the BLIND button and you will see that the results of programmer output are not reflected live on stage (as seen in the OUTPUT window). The recording and editing process remains the same.
It is important to understand the effects on stage of both the Programmer (overrides conflicting playback data) and Blind Mode (hides the Programmer data from live output) when you find things aren’t behaving as expected. To stop programmer data altering the output either CLEAR the programmer and dump everything in it or hit BLIND to hide it.
When it comes to using a programmer based console in a complex environment like rehearsing while you are programming, it pays to know exactly what is in the programmer. The PROG data window is your friend here but most operators also build a rough list of “things I have done since I last hit CLEAR” in their heads.

Default Cuelists

Before we add some playbacks to Page 2, let’s consider that we might want some faders to appear on every single playback page. How about the Blinders – they always come in handy. We could create a linked copy on multiple pages and on different faders but there is an easy way to make sure that a Memory, Stack or Chase appears in the same spot across every page. Called a Default Cuelist, we need to set it in the Playbacks windows which is opened using the PB [right]. Open the PB window.

The Playback Window gives you a graphical view of the playbacks on the desk, can be used to organised playback layout and, most importantly, gives you access to playbacks that might not be physically available on your version of the MagicQ . As the show files are universal, there is a possibility that a show was created with an extra fader wing and memories place on playbacks that you don’t have buttons for. Wing / Extra playbacks are marked with a W-# and can be activated from the PB window.

But we just want to make our Blinders playback a default, so select it’s “S” button and look at the bottom left encoder – it has a Default On/Off toggle. Set it to On and you will notice that the Blinders playback now has DEF above it’s label. Now, which ever playback page you change to using NXT or PRV [Bottom Left], the Blinders remain available.
All shows are different but there is often a cue that you need constant access to.

Using Pages

Organising Playback pages very much depends on personal taste though some tips can be found at Using Submasters for Busking. Here are some different ways that programmers might organise pages for this kind of gig.

Song per page –This is a classic techniques that is good if you are touring a specific act with your own set programming on a per song basis. While the set list order changes, the actual cues per song don’t. The MagicQ even has a little feature lets you load a text file set list which it then uses to re order your song pages ready for the show that night.
Fast/Slow pages – When busking an unknown show, it’s useful to be able to flick to a page of stuff that you know fits the tempo.
Warm/Cold pages – Again, an unknown show – you decide if the next track is an upbeat sunny one or a moody, bluey one.
Main page and FX – I use this one quite a lot, it consists of a Home page to keep most things you regularly need like colour washes and “backing” stuff. A page above, and sometimes below, are variations on the playback which include FX like Pan/Tilt Movement or Intensity effects.
How you organise PBs is entirely up to you. The goal is to make sure that you are able to spend the maximum amount of time looking at the stage and keep up with the show. In this tutorial series, we are looking at different features of the MagicQ PC so the actual page layouts are not meant to be examples of the best method.

Creating a theatre stack

Next, we are going to create an opening sequence of cues that run as a theatre stack. This will be used for the opening sequence of the show – to bring the band on stage. It all sounds a bit Spinal Tap for a 3 piece, but this is a tutorial.

Open up our Custom Prog view, change to playback Page 2 (using NEXT PAGE [bottom left]) and clear the programmer.
Our opening sequence will start in blackout, some music will build, we will do some groovy lighting stuff and the band will appear to rapturous applause. For the sake of the tutorial, this part of the show will be run from a single cue stack, triggered by a Go button and the odd follow on ( a cue that executes immediately after the previous cue has finished). This will not be an example of the art of lighting, it will let us get to know more features of the MagicQ.
The first cue of the sequence will actually the preset look for the audience to walk into. Dk Blues onstage @ 40%, Blinders glowing @ 10% and Beam Fans looking nice at 70%. Set that up in the programmer and hit Record, type in “ShowOpen” or something then store to a free playback on Page 2. No need to clear the programmer, we are moving on.

Next, set all the fixtures in the programmer to 0%. How you do it is up to you. You can use command line, groups or whatever. As we are in Normal mode, “tracking” doesn’t worry us and there is no need to create a blocking cue (if you don’t know what tracking is, don’t worry about it for the moment). Just “get them lights what is on and turn ‘em off”, saving it on top of the 1st cue. CLEAR the programmer, it’s good practice and the next cue is going to use some different fixtures.

Before we go on, let’s take a look at what we’ve done – open the window for this cue stack by double clicking the label or “S” button of the playback. Just like when we recorded the Beam Fan chase in Part 2, we have created two cues that run as a chase by default. We need to change that with the Cue Timing softbutton. Now, the stack advances when we hit the Go (>) button of that playback.
Note: When we fire up the Preset before “doors”, we raise the fader of the ShowOpen playback. This not only sets the master intensity to 100%, it also starts the Preset Cue without pressing Go. This is because the default behaviour of the MagicQ is “Fader Activates Stack”. We don’t need to worry too much about this at the moment except to know that it happens.

Back to the stack. To keep track of the cues in the stack, we are going to name them. In the Cue Stack window, the spreadsheet has a field called “Cue Text”. To create that text, simply click on the field, type in the label and hit enter. I’ve called mine Preset and B/O so far.

Fade Times

Depending on the setup of your MagicQ PC, the cues recorded so far have default fades times associated with them. We want out blackout to happen over 3 seconds so click on the Fade field and hit 3 Enter. Set the Preset to fade in over 2 secs, so as not to cause a sudden cold/hot shock to the lamps before the show. We don’t want them blowing before we’ve started.

Open up the OUTPUT window to view the grid and try out the cues. The Preset comes in over 2, the B/O in 3 and the whole stack wraps back to the start with the final Go button press.

Right, next cue – go back to our Custom Prog view using CTRL + top softbutton. The next cue is going to bring up the Beam Fans, but we are going to do it is a cool way, each one starting to fade in sequence. We are going to use a bit of command line syntax for this:

Select the ALL Beam Fans Group, then enter this at the command line and watch the Output grid after you hit Enter: @# / 4 > 0/1 Enter. The hash (#) is FULL on the PC keyboard and the rest of the syntax has set a complex time across all of the fixtures in order with delay times from 1 – 4 seconds, each with a 1 second fade in.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t quite get this at first, but did you see what happened when you executed the command with Enter? The fixtures came on in sequence over time. Not only that, but the times have been added to the programmer, ready to be saved in the next cue straight away. So let’s do it – save it with REC – “Fans Up” – S button of the ShowOpen playback.
To look at what we’ve done, open the Cue Stack window again and select the new cue before hitting View Cue (top) which shows the levels of the look. To see the timing information, use View Times:

You can see a delay time of 0 > 4 seconds and a fade time of 1 second. We could change the delay range from zero the three by clicking in the field and typing 0 > 3 Enter.
It’s worth understanding that this range of delay times was applied to the whole group All Beam Fans in selection order (the order that the group was selected when recorded), which for an auto group is numeric and on our rig, left to right. A different selection order of fixtures would produce a different fade in.
Note: I recently did some troubleshooting in a venue that had allocated seemingly random fixture numbers to it’s moving heads. The above example shows the importance of creating order of your dimmer numbers, fixture addresses FROM THE START. Because our PAR rig channels were allocated in a sensible order, the auto group feature created a sensible fixture group and the cue was easy to create. If you are interested, one of the first things I did at the venue with random fixture allocations was to create some basic groups using a custom selection order tailored to their rig plan. It was either that or go round re addressing a whole bunch of moving heads rigged >8 metres over ice.
We can see the individual times of each PAR by viewing Adv Timing in the View Times window. Each fixture has it’s own set of timings for each parameter. In the case of the PARs, only intensity / Dim timing is shown.

Save the show while we’re at it. Setup – > Save Show – Enter overwrites the current file.
Next we are going to create a dimmer chase using the built in effects engine. Best practice would be to create and save the effect in the FX store, like a palette, to be used in the cue. This would mean that the effect could be used in multiple cues stored /edited in one place for easy changes in the future.. So that’s what we’ll do – this effect will be a sideways run, with snap fade ins and steps that overlap each other.

CLEAR the programmer and select All Beam Fans and set them to 50% – this sets the centre point of the effect so the fixtures will go from 0% to 100% in each cycle. Choose Add FX (top) and select a Saw wave with the icon ^.

To get snap fade ins, we need to set the FX cross fade to 0 using the encoder on the right. The other most important encoder is the top left Spread adjustment. It’s currently set to Even 100%, toggle it to 0% to see what it does. The Spread controls where in the cycle the fixtures run their FX, all together or evenly spread across the entire group and anywhere in between. Have play with it and see what it does. The speed of the entire effect is controlled using the Speed encoder, bottom right. Size (the 0 – 255 amount that the effect deviates from the centre point) can be adjusted using the Size encoder. Put the Size at 255 to see a full dimmer saw between 0 and 100%, the centre point being 50%, with a smaller effect when set to 128.

When you are finished with the effect, store it in the FX store ready to be used in the next cue or any other cues when the mood takes you. Open the FX window, press REC – > type in “Beam Wave” – > and click an empty square in the FX window.
Clear the programmer, select All Beam Fans again, apply the effect from the FX window and save to the next cue in our stack. Test the stack by running through the cues.
To be clear, the last cue we recorded was an effect generated by the console. We could have selected the fixtures, assigned the Dimmer Saw and and recorded it straight into the cue.
Instead, we chose to record the effect to a kind of FX palette. This can then be used in many cues with different fixtures using a single reference point for adjustments and editing. The effect itself is recorded and that effect is then recored to the cue. This gives us two choices when it comes to edits – directly in cue or via the FX store and there is a distinction.
An edit to the effect in the FX store will change the effect in that cue and any others it has been used in.
An edit to the cue will change only that cue and break the link with the stored FX. The cue now has it’s own effect data.
Use INCLUDE – > FX window slot or INCLUDE – > Cuelist / Cue then UPDATE respectively.

Cue Stack Timing Options

Now we have a simple four cue theatre stack, it is worth a quick look at a few of the timing and related options you will want to know about at this stage. Open the window of our ShowOpen stack by doubling clicking the S button over the fader.

With the View Stack softbutton activated we can see the list of cues in the stack, plus other information relating to playback of each cue. They include:
Wait – The wait time between the Go command being given (the Go button, for example) and the cue executing. Follow indicates no wait time – an immediate Go with the command.
Halt – This sets the behaviour of the cue, relative to the previous one and can change the cue into a follow on (one that executes straight after the previous cue has finished running). The simple options are Halt – Yes (wait for the next Go command) or Halt – No (execute as soon as the previous cue has completed).

Delay – We have already come across delay set across our fixtures which is a good example of delay in action. Delaying individual fixtures or attributes (with complex fixtures) can produce a variety of cue executions in one place. The distinction with Wait is that Wait is waiting for the whole cue to execute whereas Delay can be more detailed.
Fade – The Fade in time of the cue which can be set globally or to individual fixtures or attributes, similar to Delay.

Next Cue – The default setting of Next fires the next cue number in the sequence, numerically speaking. Setting Next Cue to another cue number allows you to create jumps in the stack.

We are not really concerned with the remaining options in this spreadsheet today so let’s finish our look at cue stack timing by reminding ourselves how to see more complex timing information.

Choosing a cue by highlighting it in the Cue Stack window using the left hand field, pressing the top softbutton View Cue brings up data about that particular cue. View Levels shows us the channel level information while toggling View Times shows us a detailed breakdown of the timing data. In Simple View, this gives us global time setting for each attribute (in our case we only have Intensity). Advanced View shows us timing information on a per fixture basis. If we had complex fixtures like moving heads, this would also enable us to see individual attributes like Pan and Tilt.
Not only can we view the timing data, we can also change it from here too – Simple for global changes and Advanced for detailed ones. So you can see how we have started to get into quite a powerful but complex area of lighting control. We’ll leave timing there for today.

Finally, the end of the beginning.

This series of MagicQ PC tutorials was designed to give simple but practical examples to help you find your way through the minefield of learning a complex lighting console. We started with a very simple rig, had some clear goals and patched and programmed our way to better understanding.

There is much to learning professional lighting consoles and On Stage Lighting will be looking at further aspects of the MagicQ PC at some time in the future, including moving lights and running complex shows. For now, you have a much better understanding of the basics of the Cham Sys MagicQPC (and, by default, many others) that you can take to the next level. If you have been keeping up, here’s what we know so far – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised:

• How to start a show on MagicQ PC and set a DMX Output device.
• How to patch up generic fixtures with good labels and colour information.
• How to navigate around the MagicQ and basic routines such as Copy, Move and editing data.
• How to set up custom views and create your own workspace.
• How to set up a Grid and use it as a virtual fixture plan.
• How to use Auto Groups and create your own selection tools.
• How to handle channel data and set up looks using different methods.
• How to use the programmer to manipulate fixture data.
• How to create playbacks on MagicQ PC and use Copy and Move keep a tidy house.
• How to use the tools for editing cues and chases.
• How to create a theatre stack on the MagicQ and alter timing information.
• How to use the shape generator to create complex lighting effects quickly.
• How to apply complex timing across fixtures and attributes.

While working through those big tasks, you have started to really get to grips with the fine details of navigation and workflow on MagicQ PC and I hope you feel more confident on the console. See you next time.

You May Also Like:

• MagicQ Tutorial – Getting Started
• MagicQ Part 2 – Controlling Fixtures and Recording Memories
• Lighting Cue Timing – Better Scene Transitions

A guest post from Lucas Krech, a Lighting Designer with a passion for lighting dance performance. An great introduction to dance lighting that looks at some history, theory and the use of side light in particular.

Dancers live in light as fish live in water. The stage space in which they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within translucent walls and above the stage floor, the lighting supports their flashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies. The dance is fluid and never static. Designing for the dance has been my most constant love. I have designed the decor as well as the lighting for a good many ballets and I have installed the basic systems with which I have worked in dance repertory. If I leave anything to posterity, it will be, I think, most importantly in the field of dance lighting. My extraordinary good fortune was that I came along at a point in time when Martha Graham was creating and when Lincoln Kirstein was backing George Balanchine to create new and fresh uses of the ballet form. ~~Jean Rosenthal, The Magic of Light

Lighting the Dance

These first few sentences are perhaps all one needs to understand the dance. The rest is style and historical aesthetics. “Dancers live in light as fish live in water.” If you have ever seen a truly first rate dancer glide across the stage effortlessly and with infinite grace, you know what this means. The relationship between a dancer and their light, between a choreographer and their lighting designer, is unique among artistic collaborations. Perhaps the closest analogy would be the relationship of the composer to their conductor. So much of dance, even when dealing with classical story ballet, comes down to the lighting that one must almost unlearn everything you know about lighting in order to learn how to light for the dance.

Dance lighting is unique among performance disciplines in large part because dance is concerned first and foremost with movement. While in all performance mediums our focus is on bodies in space, it is the dance where we focus on where and how that body moves. Perhaps there is a large sweeping arc of an entrance that spirals to center for a pirouette where our dancer is joined by a partner who then jaunts about the stage with her. In short, we are concerned with the whole stage and the quality of movement rather than where someone is standing for such and such a monologue.

My background and training as a designer is in modern ballet and post-modern dance. The following essay is written primarily from the perspective of designing for modern dance forms. While many of these principals can be applied to classical ballet and some post-modern styles, those forms are not the focus as they demand their own unique approach.

For the purposes of this essay I am assuming the use of a conventional modern dance space. This typical dance space has several wings, perhaps four per side, with a boom placed in the center of each just out of sitelines. Sidelights are hung on the booms and point straight across stage. These low hung units allow for color changes between pieces in repertory and allows the entire stage space to be filled, with very few lights. The wings and dance floor are black and there is often a white cyc in the background. Should the cyc not be used for a particular piece, there is a black curtain immediately downstage of the Cyc.

The Angles of Dance

Because our interest in dance is based first on movement, the lighting must be grounded in an approach that seeks out interesting ways to reveal that moving body. While in a play, where our concern is dialogue and plot, we focus on faces through the use of frontlighting. In dance, to show off the musculature and movement, we rely primarily on sidelight positions.

While sidelight is a primary tool in dance lighting, at a more basic level the use of different angles in dance is often treated in a more minimalist or poetic manner than one finds in a play or musical or television. While in a play or television, you might have a key light that is brighter than the myriad other lights used in the scene, for a dance, you might only have that one light or a very few lights from a tightly controlled palette of angles.

Sidelighting

The sidelighting conventions for dance developed out of the twin needs of a body’s movement in a kinesthetically focused art form and a touring repertory. As such this system was devised to achieve the maximum variety in lighting looks with a minimum of instrumentation.

The first lighting position to consider are the shinbusters or shins. As you might infer from the name, these are lights hung at or about shin height. They are typically elipsoidals with shutter cuts taken off the floor and focused to head height at the centerline. With these, it becomes possible to brightly light the dancer without illuminating the floor. The effect is one of making the dancer appear to float as if by magic.

After the shins, the next most important position are the head highs, or heads. These are lights hung at or just above typical head height. They are also focused to centerline, but unlike the shins they do not cut off the floor. While the light does graze the floor, the effect is minimal and allows the dancer to be brightly light while keeping a minimum of notice on the floor

These two positions are so fundamental to dance that many designers, should they find themselves in severely limited situations, would utilize only them. This system of sidelighting was developed by american designer Jean Rosenthal and is covered in more detail in her seminal text The Magic of Light.

Through the use of low angled sidelighting like this a designer may fill the entire stage space with light using as few as 8 or 10 lighting instruments. In a touring situation where venues range from having large compliments of lighting fixtures to incredibly limited options, this system allows the basic integrity of the design to be maintained in virtually any performance space. I discuss the implications of designing in repertory for tour in more detail here.

While Shins and Heads are the two primary angles utilized in dance, larger companies and dance venues will have a much more extensive lighting system for their home season if not also on tour. A more expanded low boom might have Low Shins, High Shins, Mids, Low Heads and High Heads. Classical ballet companies will also have high booms, typically in a pink and a blue that hang at 3-4 meters above the stage floor. Pipe-ends and other high-side lights may also be employed.

Other Angles and Lighting Options

Dance may begin with sidelight, but that is not to say that other options are unavailable to the designer. Backlighting, toplights, frontlight and foot lights should all be considered part of the designer’s tool kit. In addition to all these, lighted drops and cycloramas play a critical role in dance lighting.

Backlighting and top lighting often play a very prominent role in dance. Because the primary lighting angles keep the majority of light on the dancer and off the floor, the floor is left relatively dark. From this place, the designer has at their disposal any combination of overhead lighting positions to design shadows and patterns on the floor itself. Through the use of color, texture, shadow angle, and intensity, the designer can cause the dancer to appear to traverse entire worlds, while merely crossing the stage from down-right to up-left. For a more detailed exploration of lighting floors, see my essay here.

The use of a cyc in dance, or painted drops in ballet, can be quite effective as well. The color variety afforded by a three color cyc can give limitless variety to a designer when combined with the color options in the low booms.

Beyond the Basics and a bit of History

The advent of modern dance brought with it several changes that would rock the dance world and significantly impact the lighting designer in the process. The first was the elimination of toe shoes and ballet slippers. While not directly impacting lighting, this did lead to radical new explorations of form and movement, thus shifting the aesthetic center of the field. The second change, and one directly relevant to lighting, was the elimination of scenery.

With scenery gone, or relegated to a few gestural sculptures, lighting no longer had to contend with pesky walls that would block it. This freed the lighting designer to use whatever tool they saw as necessary to light the dance. It also shifted lighting to a more primary role in the creation of a visual space.

Lighting now had double duty of creating mood and atmosphere as well as setting. Lighting as scenery is commonplace in the dance world today. Be it through the use of toplight boxes, texture and color, or a partially obscured cyc, there are limitless ways to define the dance space architecturally with light.

Dance, in many ways, allows light to exist in its purest form. With little to no scenery and a focus entirely upon lighting a body in space, the medium lends itself to the poetic essence of what stage lighting can be. While theatre production can use quite a number of lighting instruments and angles to construct the various looks, dance is often content with a few clean, clear, simple gestures. Dance is an opportunity for the lighting designer to let their inner poet run free. To take light as a formal art and dance on stage with the performer. The lighting designer constructs the aquarium wherein a dancer may swim in their light.

Images are courtesy of Lucas Krech. The main photograph is copyright Julie Lemberger.

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A quick look at the past, present and future of user interfaces (UI) in lighting console design with the question “Are we actually doing it right?”

So, there we were in the middle of a series of tutorials on the Cham Sys MagicQ when something unexpected happened. Something totally out of the blue. A rumour went around that some students in Bath had used the MagicQ PC and PC Wing as part of a recent show – and didn’t like it! They didn’t get on with it and eventually gave up and swapped it for another controller. The other controller was (wait for it) a Pulsar Masterpiece! (Igor, I thought I told you to round up all the DisasterPieces and crush them?) How could this happen?

At first, this seemed like a case of youthful exhuberance vs. RTFM but I was assured that the User Manual was consulted on this occasion. A further conversation on Twitter brought up the whole question of what makes a good User Interface (UI) for a lighting control. I realised that current console interfaces that work so well for me were evolutions of desks that I already knew, with concepts that are rooted in lighting control history. What if you didn’t have a lighting console history?

What if you had never used a Strand Galaxy or a Celco Gold? Or even a Hog II? What if you only ever used a computer with a Windows style GUI? Would any of these flippin’ desks make sense to you?

What do you want from a lighting control?

• Speed – You want to be able to do as much as possible in the short time available.
• Flexibility – You want the console to give you the flexibility to control your specific show, and there are many kinds of show with different control needs.
• Control – Well, duh.
• To Spend As Much Time As Humanly Possible Looking At The Stage And Not Fumbling With Buttons And Other Input Hardware – Er, like I said.

There are two types of lighting controller: Those you know. And those you don’t.

The first type ticks all the boxes because you can use it’s many functions quickly, mostly without looking at the thing. The second kind is what makes you question the UI and can turn you off that console early on.

Modern consoles have evolved from older consoles and older operators have evolved with them. In stage lighting control we have some versions of our own standards, but they are incomplete and not always obvious to the newcomer. And first impressions count.

Long term vs short term usability

The new generation of techies have grown up in a world full of standards. Across software apps, the File menu has always been Top Left and it’s contents are pretty predictable. Standards are great because they allow the new, the lazy and (let’s face it) the stupid, a better chance of being able make at least some progress. Most PC apps give three or four ways of doing something in an effort that you will find at least one of Keyboard Shortcut / Right Click Menu / Top Menu / Toolbar.

The trouble with these standards is that they have led the world to believe that anything technical can be used, if you just “have a go”. Someone recently asked me to turn the ring tone on their phone off but I had never seen this phone before , how hard could it be? After a couple of unsuccessful attempts (I hung up on their mother and probably deleted at least one of their Contacts) the ringer was sorted. I could use the phone but only to the low standard.

When you become familiar with a UI, your muscle memory tunes into it and things happen automatically. Speed and accuracy are increased, freeing your mind up to concentrate on the end result while forgetting about process. Looking for functions vs. looking at the stage.

Who is the UI working for, the casual prodder or power user – or both?

A Cham Sys problem?

Cham Sys seem to have a great idea – Make a good console with loads of familiar features, add some more and create a platform with possibilities for the future. Make a PC software version that is compatible with cheap DMX output devices and hope to build a fanbase, proficient in your console and specifying the top models in your range.

But…

The first time I saw the MagicQ it was real and was accompanied by the man who designed it. And I had a history of using the Hog II, which the MQ shares many concepts. I liked the Cham Sys as a lighting desk and the fact that it came as a free PC app was a bonus.

Perhaps you and I had a different experience of the MagicQ UI. Perhaps you downloaded MagicQ PC, read the help, tried to make sense of an already alien world. No one can pretend that a lighting desk plonked on a computer screen is the ideal UI for anyone. Hell, I defy anyone to download Grand MA onPC and work out that it’s a half decent lighting console. However, the MA has the kudos of being “the” desk on those shows you read about in L&SI, it doesn’t have to introduce itself to you via a PC screen.

The trouble is, many people encounter tghe MagicQ via the PC version and perhaps with little console history. Is this the best first impression? Is there the tiniest possiblity that what seemed like a great idea to spread your message might actually backfire when you can’t put your best UI face on to the newest users?

Where are we GUIng now?

(ok, enough UI puns for today)

While trying to empathise with the guys struggling with an alien interface, I started to question the future of lighting interfaces and their ease of use for all kinds of users – casual and dedicated.
A lot of my initial thinking on this subject was centered around the physical aspects and I asked a question over at the Blue Room that provoked some interesting opinions. Are we using the right hardware and software? Do current lighting controls only work for me because they were designed by my contemporaries? Would it be better if all UI were further standardised?

So what do you think? What kind of UI do you think would take us into the future of lighting control and cater for all users?

Image by Zach Klein on Flickr

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