Like any workplace, a theatre or other live performance venue, presents hazards to those working and visiting. A two-part guide to Health and Safety and how it relates to working in the theatre,before we go into the detail, this first part looks at some big picture safety concepts. Next time, we’ll look at the specific safety issues in our own backstage world.

On Stage Lighting regularly gets asked questions relating to ‘Elf N Safety in a theatre environment: What is the law about this? What are the rules on doing that? Is it true I have to wear a harness when working over 2m from the stage floor, on a Tuesday, if there are less than 2 qualified electricians within 50 metres of the work area? That kind of thing.

Now, while these are all valid questions, they often are seeking some kind magic “law” that gives absolute clarity over what and what isn’t acceptable working in a theatre or other venue. Instead of getting bogged down with rules, regulations, codes of practice and other guidelines, let’s just cut to the chase:

If it’s unsafe or unhealthy, it’s not acceptable!

As On Stage Lighting is read in over 120 countries around the world, we’re going to avoid getting too muddled up in different legislation and instead take a good look of the reality of a maintaining a safe working environment in the theatre.

Show business has always had a reasonably good safety record, which is mainly down to the people who work in it, and many areas of the business are really getting to grips with health and safety in the modern world.

It’s everyone’s responsibility to do everything they can to mitigate the risks of working on stage, at crew level this means an awareness of hazards and your duty of care to your colleagues.

I ♥ Health and Safety

I have a confession. As someone who has spent my entire professional career at work on stage (?!) – I love health and safety.

I don’t mean I love clipboards, men with dodgy moustaches and nasal voices going around spouting spurious bits of legislation. I mean, I love being safe at work and knowing that I will able to come back tomorrow. Being self employed, your biggest workplace fear is injury.

Health and Safety – What’s it all about?

The H and S phrase has, certainly in the UK, become a bit of dirty word. Often used by Jeremy Clarkson and Daily Mail journalists who don’t have to work for a living, health and safety has become synonymous with killjoys, The fun being taken out of children’s playgrounds and the halcyon days of of our youth, when the long summers were spent dying of asbestosis and other work related diseases. When planning of large construction projects, Human Resources factored alarming death rates into their recruitment policy.

The purpose of Health and safety at work legislation is to protect those in the workplace, to defend them against a lack of care on behalf of others such as unscrupulous employers, who would rather get things done quicker or cheaper while putting people in danger. In countries with developed safety legislation, the basic requirement is to be able to demonstrate that you and I did everything we reasonably could to reduce risks.

To create a safe working environment in a theatre obviously has to start with an awareness of what dangers present themselves, with generally or specific to a particular show. In order to understand the risks, those in charge need a plan of how the work is to be carried out.

In the UK, this usually results in two pieces of paperwork – a Method Statement of the work to be carried out, followed by a Risk Assessment of any possible hazards arising. As well as identifying hazards, the Risk Assessment also goes on to detail how this risks can be managed. Reduced as far as is reasonable practicable, in other words.

The other key point about risk assessments and their associated documentation, is that the process does not end with the printing out of a .doc. Risk assessment is a continuing and evolving process over the lifetime of a project.

A lot of questions about health and safety are focused on the details of what people perceive it to be – fall arrest harness, hard hats, hi-vis vests. Here’s some news, these are just the finishing touches to a safe working environment.

Let’s take a look at some of the really big tools of good safety practice, anywhere.

Good Management

Management and a clear structure is the key to safety planning. At the top level, an understanding of the chain of command and competent handling of the flow of information, as well as proper understanding of the risks.

At crew level, clear guidelines of your responsibilities, how and when the work is to be carried out plus and understanding of your place in the hierarchy.

Management doesn’t just mean paperwork and calling instructions, it means providing appropriate supervision for everyone. Crew chiefs, senior techs and other experienced team members provide the supervision for more junior staff.

Good Training

A big phrase in H & S is “adequate training”, a right to be provided with the training and for those working around you to be trained sufficiently for everyone’s well being. The level of training varies with each task, a crane operator will obviously need more training than the most junior crew member, but each needs to be sufficiently trained for their task.

As part of the Risk Assessment process, many measures to reduce risk include using only operatives holding “X” training certs, licenses etc. It’s a way of being able to demonstrate sufficient training. Of course, there are many experienced staff that may well be much better than their certificated juniors – that is sometimes a judgement call for those ultimately responsible and how there Risk Assessment demonstrates training. It comes down to what you feel you can prove about their levels of competence. A certified plant operator that causes an accident doing something unspecified in the training, they have been negligent. If the operator has no certificate/proof of competence, it could be shown that the management failed to ensure they had adequate training.

Anyway, enough about criminal proceedings, we’re here to talk about safety.

Good Scheduling and Separation

Probably the biggest weapon in the health and safety armoury is scheduling. It’s a huge tool to mitigate risk, so simple that there’s not a lot to say about it.

Scheduling activities on stage so that the risks are reduced to those not directly involved, keeping physical separation between two task and not having everyone working on top of each other. This can be laid out in the main production schedule but it also comes down the different departments what share the same space, choosing not to work at height with loose hardware while those underneath build the set, for instance.

The Professionalisation of Show Business

The growth of show business, particularly the backstage and technical disciplines, in the last 30 years has led to ever greater professionalism in the industry. In the 70’s, rock concerts were being stage and staffed by mavericks in a toddler industry just finding it’s feet. Today, we have job descriptions, centres of education and professional bodies all geared toward working in a theatre or show as a profession.

All this has led to better training, more skilled staff and a greater awareness of health and safety issues. Several friends of mine are now specifically engaged to manage safety on large sites, as ex-technicians they are the best people to genuinely understand the risks.

It would interesting to know if this will have an actual on actual statistics of safety in our business, one that already has an enviable record. But there are places that still lag behind on the awareness of even the basics of legislation. In my experience, the best parts of the concert and events business lead the way in the application of modern safe working practice on stage, while some theatres continue on with a less formalised approach which seems to work for them (whether they are complying with all their legal obligations, I wouldn’t care to say).

Next time in this two part series, we’re going to look at some specifics of safe working in a theatre environment, particular hazards and how they can be avoided. Hopefully this has given you something to think about in the meantime. There is some useful Q and A style information on health and safety in the Performing Arts here. 

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An up to date look at stage lighting iPhone apps and what they do.

July 2008 saw the start of stage lighting’s entry into the world of Apple’s iPhone apps – lighting themed software that you can use with the iPhone (or iPod Touch).

Since the first few iPhone apps became available, the market has become awash with beam calculators, DIP switch thingies (seriously, just read our article on how to work our binary DIPs without all that technology) and other goodies. Luminair were early on the scene with V1 of their  iPhone based DMX controller and have continued to develop the product, while tradtional console manufacturers have added remote functionality that can be controlled via your phone.

Image by William Hook on Flickr

Gel and Gobo makers have created catalogues and and references and serial iPhone developer Michael Zinman has launched his Genielux platform, a sort of worldwide lighting equipment hire database.

We can safely say that the market for lighting calculators is well and truly saturated. The addition of hardware like the Seachanger Color Bug, could bring some extra usefullness to the iPhone in your pocket. DMX testers and continuity checkers are things that spring to mind, not so sure about measuring 415v or using the iTouch to clamp meter yer PowerLoks but anything is possible.

Here’s what we know about stage lighting specific iPhone apps, grouped into a few sections with links through to the relevant Apple Apps Store page.  You can click on the image and find out more about each app.

DMX Control and Lighting Control Apps

Luminair DMX

Luminair enables you to wirelessly control, view, record and manage intelligent DMX lighting fixtures, dimmers, consoles, other software and media servers straight from your iPhone™ or iPod™ touch. Using Artistic Licence’s Art-Net protocol over your device’s built-in Wi-Fi connection, Luminair communicates with other compatible hardware and software nodes on your network.

A Lighting control interface on your iPhone, the Luminair software boasts the ability to control DMX lighting fixtures. The wireless DMX signal from the iPhone is sent using the open source DMX over Ethernet protocol, Art Net. This can be routed via a Wireless Access Point/Router into your DMX universe / ArtNet node. The app also has file management capabilities and colour mixing control.

“Right, can I have channel 47 @ 50% please”
“Where’s the desk?”
“Hang on – I’ll call it, what’s the number?”

Get Luminair at the iTunes Store

Zinman TCP/IP Remote

For IT professionals, systems integrators, and anyone looking for customizable control of any software or hardware capable of TCP/IP communications.

A general iPhone application that can be used in stage lighting situations. The software enables customisable remote triggerin of TCP/IP and UDP capable software. This includes professional level lighting consoles like the Grand Ma and media servers. Sounds like the kind of thing that developers dream of

Get it at iTunes

Grand MA App

The grandMA consoles are the core of the fully integrated MA system. The grandMA consoles are able to control – in the most elegant manner – moving lights, conventional lights, and effects, as well as LEDs and video. The reliable and proven operational philosophy allows a direct, flexible and intuitive way of working.

The Grand MA app is free at iTunes

Martin Max Remote

MAXRemote is your personal assistant to remotely control lighting devices straight from your iPhone or iPod touch. It is the ultimate remote tool for your Martin Maxxyz™ lighting console and Martin Maxxyz PC™ with a beautiful user interface and original features.

Martin’s Max Remote is free at iTunes

Other lighting consoles

Other desk makers including ChamSys, Avolites (Titan platform) and ETC have their own personal system for remote control of their products, some of which are browser based rather than actual apps.

Lighting Information and Catalogues

Lighting Handbook

Lighting Handbook is a new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it provides detailed information about Moving lights, LED fixtures, Scrollers, and more DMX fixtures.

It also provides access to the manual.

Get the Lighting Handbook at iTunes

Wybron iSwatch Gel

The Gel Swatch Library by Wybron, Inc., lets lighting production personnel browse, search, and compare more than 1,000 gel color filters made by the following manufacturers:
- Apollo (included in Version 1.4 release)
- GAM
- Lee
- Rosco

Buy this app at iTunes

GenieLux

Genielux is a user-friendly application that helps you find the exact model of lighting, audio, film, video, or other production gear that you need. It searches local vendors inventory for rent or purchase and returns a list of results based on your current GPS location. You can also provide an alternate location to search for the nearest vendors who can provide your gear.

Genielux is free for users, hire companies pay to list their inventories

The GenieLux app at iTunes

Wybron Moire Gobo Library

The Moiré Gobo Library from Wybron, Inc. lets lighting production personnel browse, search, and experiment with more than 3,600 different A-size gobos from the following manufacturers:
- Apollo
- GAM
- InLight
- Lee

Simple. Powerful. Comprehensive suite of Lighting Design and Electrics utilities for theatre and film.

Showtool LD is a bunch of lighting design related calculators : Beam, Gels cuts, Power Law, DIP switches and DMX all one app.

Buy ShowTool LD at iTunes

DMX Color Mixer

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dmx-color-mixer/id349839425?mt=8

Colour mixing app that you can pick colours and cross reference against dmx values.

Get it

Wybron CXI Calculator

The CXI Color Calculator from Wybron helps lighting production personnel find and program colors for the CXI dual-gelstring color changer. Scroll through two overlapping gelstrings of cyan, magenta, and yellow to blend the ideal shade, then plug its numerical values into your lighting control console to have a CXI color changer move to that color. The Color Calculator also gives you the values needed to replicate several colors from the GAM, Lee, and Rosco

Get this app at the iTunes store

Zinman Pocket LD

PocketLD is a photometric database and calculation tool for stage lighting and TV/Film lighting professionals. Simply enter your throw distance, than select manufacturer, fixture and a lamp to calculate beam/field diameter and fc/lux.

MZ brings us another neat little iPhone and iTouch app that does Lighting Designer type calculations with a comprehensive fixture database to make life easier. Free database upgrades, so you can get new fixtures for the software as they are added.

Get the PocketLD app at iTunes

PowerCalc – West Side Sytems

PowerCalc performs basic electrical power calculations with watts, volts, amps, and motor power factor.

A calculator for power law, resistance, inductance and other useful stage lighting stuff. Although you could do these sums on the iPhones standard calculator, this little app makes life easier. Requires the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade and is only a few pennies

Buy it at iTunes

Beam Calc – West Side Systems

Use BeamCalc to calculate the geometry and photometrics of spotlight beams. Position and direct three light sources (chosen from the included library) to determine lighting characteristics: elevation angle, beam and field pool width, illumination, shadow length.

A handy beam calculator to help you choose spotlight angles for your lighting designs. The BeamCalc needs just a few measurements such as trim height and horizontal distance from the subject. It spits out the beam width of a given angle or can reverse the calculations for you, helping you to decide if you spotlights will be wide enough.

Entertainment lighting equipment uses a control system called DMX512. DMXCalc is a simple and elegant calculator which does address arithmetic for DMX equipment.

DMX Calc on iTunes

Zinman Gel Calc

GelCalc is an iPhone/iPod touch app for stage lighting designers, electricians, and stage hands.
Quickly calculate number of sheets of gel, best cutting direction to yield the most frames per/sheet and pricing.

Get GelCalc at the apps store

Zinman iSwitch DMX

iSwitch DMX is an easy to use binary DIP switch utility for stage lighting electricians, technicians and programmers. Selecting a DMX address updates the DIP switch graphic with the correct DIP switch settings.

Get the iSwitch DMX app

Zinman ML Finder

For the stage lighting tech addressing a light plot. ML Finder displays the DMX footprint for over 500 moving lights, LED’s and media servers. Know how many DMX channels each device uses, in any mode. Simple to navigate and FREE to download!

Zinmans ML Finder on iTunes

Seachanger Colour Bug

The colorBUG from the SeaChanger group at Ocean Thin Films, Inc. is a wifi enabled, handheld light/color metering device that works with your iPhone or iPod Touch running the colorBUG client app, allowing you to measure:

- Color in CIE 1931 x,y space
- Illuminance in lux
- Color Temperature in degrees Kelvin

This software requires a colorBUG light/color metering device for functionality.

The software is free at iTunes

DMX Ref

DMXRef is designed to take the math out of working with DMX lighting equipment. DMXRef includes DIP switch and auto addressing functions, conversion between local and global addresses, and Dimmer Doubler decoding.

Buy it at iTunes

Rigging with the iPhone / iTouch

OK, so the actual swaggering around wearing a greasy clutch chain like a scarf is still down to you. But rigging calcs are always something that are better made without mathematical errors, so here’s a few rigging calculators for the tricky stuff like bridles and load distribution.

Bridle

Bridle is the innovative bridle creation app for the entertainment rigging industry with a fresh perspective to the ancient craft of calculating bridles.

Get Bridle at the apps store

iBridle

iBridle is for use within the events rigging industry. It can accurately calculate bridle leg lengths, apex angles and load distribution. There are no set measuring units, so regardless of whether you work to metric or imperial standards you will always get the answer you need

Buy iBridle here

JR Clancy iRigging App

Rigging app that provides tools and reference data for many areas of rigging, including wire rope, battens, arbors, sheaves, stage ropes, motors, curtains, and fleet angles. Available in Imperial or Metric Versions.

The Imperial rigging app is free at iTunes

The Metric versions at the apps store

Other useful Apps, not lighting specific

Zinman Portfolio

Portfolio is the perfect app for Photographers, Illustrators, Artists, Designers and anyone looking for an intuitive way to showcase their work on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Includes the same look and functionality as Apple’s Photo app, with improvements relating to an electronic portfolio.

If you’re a lighting designer or have any kind of visual portfolio to organise and display on your iPhone, this takes care of it nicely.

Get Zinmans Portfolio

That’s pretty all the stage lighting iPhone apps we  know of. If you own any of these apps, let us know if you like them in the comments.  Perhaps you’re wishing for a lighting related iPhone app that you’d like to see the devs working on?  Funny or serious, stick it in the box as usual.

If you think we’ve missed some, just add them below and we’ll update the list.

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To kick off 2010 at On Stage Lighting, we thought it would be nice to point out six things of lighting goodness elsewhere online, maybe new to you. Oh, and to invite you to add your own stage lighting related finds online that you think other OSL readers will find interesting, in the comments section.

Why six? Well, lampies can only work in sixes can’t they?

Theatrical Lighting Database

Funded by the New York Stage Council For the Arts , the lighting database is a great collection of lighting paperwork for a few of Broadway’s legendary shows, designed by the a few of biggest names in lighting design such as Tharon Musser, Richard Nelson and Jules Fisher.

The paperwork in the database includes plans, plots and equipment schedules. The detail in the paperwork of theatrical lighting design, including focus notes and gel calls, is not only a vital part of planning and communication at the time, it also gives us a sense of what went on. Looking through the various sheets can also help anyone learning lighting, particularly theatre lighting, to improve their knowledge of how to present ideas and plan a show, as well as rig design itself. And using tools from an era before there was software to do it for you.

Learning stuff about lighting always includes a certain amount of staring at other peoples plans, well as squinting at the pictures in equipment catalogues. You can find the Theatrical Lighting Database here.

Theatre Freeware Lighting Plan Software

Talking of lighting design software, if you are looking for free software to create simple rig layouts and some lists in .cvs format, Karl Eaton’s Lighting Design freeware is great. It’s so simple to create an “old fashioned” lighting stencil plan, with bars, numbers and basic geometry and you can easily create custom fixture attributes and assign them to a symbol without having to wade through endless libraries and wondering if you have the latest version.

If you need to draw a clear plan, show where fixtures should go and how they should be plugged up and fancy something a bit more sophisticated than my frequently used “Biro and back of a tour schedule” method, this is great. You can’t “Save As” a crumpled paper schedule, for a start.

Spend more time doing lighting and less time learning CAD.

MQ Scroll Wheel for PC

On Stage Lighting is keen on the Cham Sys MagicQ, it’s a good desk, but also because of the free software version that allows a user to learn the concepts of a number of professional lighting consoles, while actually using a cheap USB DMX interface like the Enttec USB Pro as an output device.

The function that has always seemed frustrating, probably as a result of the PC software being a ported version of the console, is the difficulty with which you can manipulate the encoders without hardware – one of the most important bits of moving light programming.

The MQ scroll wheel is free 3rd party application that gives you scroll wheel control over an encoder as you hover over it on screen. It’s simple, just download it and run the .exe while running the Cham Sys software. The resolution of mouse scroll wheels are not always that fine but it does work and actually makes a difference if you haven’t got someMagicQ hardware in front of you. If you like it, don’t forget to donate too.

GAM Split Gel Guide

As a reader of On Stage Lighting, you know that we like to publish articles on different aspects of learning the trade, giving you tips, ideas and information in a unique way. A guide to using split colour (using a multi coloured filter made up of different gel pieces) is just our kinda thing.

But, the On Stage Lighting Guide to Split Gel is not coming any time soon while this baby is out there. The web page from gel maker GAM, tells you pretty much all you need to know on the subject and has some great techniques that you might not have thought of, even if you have experimented with two and four way diagonal splits. It even has comprehensive images of the filters plus the resulting light.

iSquint Flickr Group

iSquint.com is one of America’s fastest growing lighting technology sites. Justin has some great stuff over there, particularly his Rumour Mill column which frequently flags up things going on the kit makers trade. (I also did an interview over there, but wouldn’t dream of calling that a highlight)

Justin created a Flickr group for people to add the sexiest show pictures of lighting designs they have done. On Fridays, iSquint features one of the images as a showcase snippet for the LD. Get along there to see some inspiring images and some cool lighting, even add your own pictures and show them off.

Take a look at the details and visit the group

Lucas Krech’s Blog

You might remember that Lucas wrote a great Introduction To Dance Lighting for On Stage Lighting last year. We loved that piece and appreciated in particular the way that Lucas adapted his writing to fit with our “house style”, I’m sure you found the article useful too.

I’ve been following Lucas’s blog for a while now and he always has interesting things to say on a range of subjects including lighting design, the finances of the freelancer and even his passion, philosophy. He even wrote a piece on why he thought his blog would never become really popular, citing too broad a range of subject matter or writing a scholarly manner.

Recently, Lucas has started publishing some articles that I think will really be of interest to you. He talks through his design process on a recent show, The Sisters Rosenweig and has come up with two great Colour Theory Basics posts on Hue , Saturation and Chroma.

I really recommend you check out his blog, especially with the recent trend in posts on lighting basics. To get a taste al the interesting topics Lucas covered in 2009, take a look at his round up from last year.

You really should read this guy.

OK,  so hope there’s something in that lot for you.  If you have any favourite stage lighting related online discoveries, put them in the comments box and tell us what they are all about.  Happy New Year.

Image based on picture from Jus’ fi on Flickr

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In the stage lighting calendar, the Christmas season is awash with choirs and orchestras, carol concerts and recitals. On Stage Lighting considers how to light a classical concert ,an orchestra or choir (while keeping conductors and musicians happy) including a simple rig design without overstage rigging postions.

Such musical events might not call for a huge light show of Wobbli Buckettes a-dancing about the place but lighting an orchestra isn’t a walk in the park. Despite what everyone else around you might think, lighting is integral to a successful concert.

In the world of orchestral musicians, “show” lighting is unimportant. Music is all about sound so you can pretty much wave goodbye to any of this “we are all here for the common good” guff – as far classical musos are concerned, you are of no consequence to them. Classical musicians don’t become top class instrumentalists with their ability to see the bigger picture, sometimes leaving you wondering if they would rather even the audience weren’t there.

However, they will know if they can’t see their music in the gloom and are not ones for keeping their troubles to themselves.

The audience, on the other hand, didn’t pay good money just to sit and listen to the CD while not being able to hit “pause” and pop off to the toilet. While not all of the audience delight in watching their favourites warbling or scratching away, seeing the performers is important to the rest and to the management.

Your goal as “person lighting this show” is help the show by making it possible to read dots, not to p**s any musicians off and to light the gig to the satisfaction of the players, concert manager and audience. In the controlled lighting space like a theatre venue or church, there is little ambient light so you are in charge of every bit of light needed.

Lighting The Music

A lot of tiny dots all bunched together – musicians cannot play properly without well lit music. While pit orchestras in theatre use Rat stands (music stands with a built in light), most classical players need a more “comfortable” dot reading environment. Your primary lighting concern should be to enable the musos to read their music easily but you can’t just issue the entire choir with Petzl headtorches – it’d be too expensive for a start.

Lighting the Conductor

The Maestro needs to be lit so the ensemble can see the frantic arm waving that makes sure everyone gets to the end of the tune at the same time. Being able to see music and conductor comfortably is pretty much 90% job done. You might also consider front lighting the maestro for the curtain call, so bows can be taken and flowers received.

Lighting for the Audience

Unlike theatre, intelligibilty of the spoken word is not a big issue but the audience have paid good money to see the show so it would be nice to be able to actually see their favourite artistes at it, a bit of low intensity front light “filling in” helps.. You can also push up the frontlight when it comes to bows and flowers time.

Arty/Mood Lighting. While some Musical Directors will request different colours, moods or textures, we won’t be going into how to achieve this today. The arty stuff comes down to whatever suits the performance which with 90% of these gigs is “Open white and leave it alone” to be honest

Lighting an Orchestra – Know Your Enemies

No, I don’t mean musicians – lighting enemies. The things that are most likely cause members of the ensemble to raise their hand are shadows and glare. Shadows on the page make it harder to read the score – the contrast between the white page and the black notes should be good. Uneven contrast on the page makes the eye work hard and if shadows move (like a violinists bowing arm or a percussionist arms), even harder.

Note about shadows: A light source and an object on stage create a shadow. There is a myth that adding more light sources cuts down on shadows, in fact they just increase. More light sources can mitigate the contrast effect of shadows but can also make them more complex to control. And controlling shadows is our goal, we’ll look into that further on.

Glare in the eyes of the players or conductor is a potential problem. While having lights shone in your face is uncomfortable it also effects the iris of the eye, making it smaller and harder to read music on the page.

We know some potential problems are and how they are caused, so avoid them from the start. Otherwise you will spend your time fielding complaints about the lighting and others will lose confidence in your lighting abilities. Once that happens, the world finds problems even where none exist.

Let’s look look at the practicalities.

Lighting The Scores

To light a choir and orchestra so that they can read their scores with minimal shadow or spill, you would like to use height. Putting your lanterns high up overhead and pointing them straight down means no light in anyone’s eyes, audience or orchestra. It also gives you the smallest, most controllable shadows (if you stand under an overhead light in your house and look down at your feet, you’ll see what I mean). The lower the angle of a light source, nearer horizontal like a sunset, the longer and more unmanagable the shadows become and the longer a shadow is on stage, the more performers it troubles.

The downside of heavy “toplight” is that it can make your ensemble look like they’re being beamed down from an alien spacecraft. A lot of harsh hotspots on the tops of heads and scary gaunt faces. It is also not always possible, quite a lot of concerts setups don’t have the overstage lighting positions required for these angles.

Your options are to bring the toplight a) slightly forward or b) slightly backward. Steep frontside top light can still seem pretty harsh from the audience, especially at levels that light up the music well. Steep backlight can light music while avoiding the hollow faces and foreheads that are too “hot”.

The trouble with steep backlight (directly from straight on upstage) is that, particularly for standing choirs, each persons head throws a shadow directly onto their score. For seated musicians, this is less of a problem. Lighting choirs, this can be eased by moving the steep backlight to one side and adding another backlight from the opposing angle – effectively lighting over each singers shoulder. Any shadow caused by a choir members neighbour is mitigated by the light from the other side.

Lighting the conductor is pretty uncomplicated, the orchestra needs enough to be able to see the stick and any facial expressions used to drive the piece. Light could come from upstage ish but mustn’t fly off into the eyes of the front row. Again, bring the angle steeper (more overhead) or from the side as an alternative. If there are no rigging positions overstage to light the conductor, see if you can find a cross light angle that is not going to bother the audience or the players.

Ok we’ve looked at ways of lighting musicians scores and the man with the stick, what about seeing them from the stalls? To be seen from “out front” we need to add some lighting from somewhere in front of the target (muso, singer, harpist etc). This could be from good old fashioned theatre style front light 45 degrees up and 45 degrees apart, but there are other positions that fill in here. The important thing to remember is that our biggest problem here is going to be “lights in the eyes” of players facing the conductor. This often makes the 45 degree angle less than attractive – a cello player sat in the front row will be guaranteed a front light in the face while trying to see the baton.

A more front/side or side light position fills in faces and is less of a nuisance for the majority. In a horseshoe setup, the players most likely to have the sidelight in their faces are sat either side of the conductor, facing the sidelight position. Just bear this in mind when focussing and cut off top edges at chest height on the opposite side to mitigate glare for the those facing.

The principle with this front light, is that that unlike a traditional theatre method for lighting a stage, the front light is Fill lighting that will be used at a lower intensity. If you are lighting the scores with positions from both sides of the stage, the sidelight provides most of the brightness required to see the orchestra from the back row of the audience.

Looking at the image, you can see lighting angles that are useful marked in green while red ones are going to cause problems. The arrows are not fixture positions but indicate direction with stubby ones being steeper (from over stage). As the graphic shows, any lighting angle that travels straight into the face of a player, particluarly via the conductor, is to be avoided. The angles that travel from upstage to down vary according to venue design, just make sure that audience members are not in the firing line when shooting from lower rigging positions.

Lighting a Concert in Reality

Many church recitals and school carol concerts are in venues that aren’t “the ideal world”. So, having looked at how we would really like to light our concert, let’s look at a common setup. Makeshift concert spaces often have no facility for rigging overhead, making wind-up lighting stands the only option.

We don’t have option to use high fixture positions overhead to light our orchestra – we need to be clever and even more aware of our angles, shadow and spill. Common wind-up stands go to a maximum height of 3-4 metres, a lot of our lighting angles are going to be shallower than we might prefer.

The benefit to portable stands is that we can place them pretty much where we like around the perfomance area – within reason. The other key to success is using a decent number of focussable fixtures with barndoors. 650W or 1000w fresnels are fine, depending on the size/throw of the venue ( 750w Source Four PARs/ PARnels are common in my world). The final piece of the puzzle is to use a number of stand positions to get “localised” light around the stage.

The first example here is scaled down version of a setup I have used regularly to light a choir and orchestra. The actual rig version uses double the number of fixtures to cover a larger area, but here we’ll use 12 fresnels for simplicity of demo and to allow for the smallest of budgets. We will pretend that the choir is also stood on one level. Tiered staging is often a feature of professional choir setups. Ideally, each lantern should be individually dimmed to allow for the maximum intensity control. Pairing two fresnels on each stand, while convenient, can cause intesity problems expecially as often the fixtures are working on different tasks and throw distances.

Looking at the diagram, one the lights on one side are numbered (the opposite partner of each lantern performs the a mirror task).

• Light 1 provides some front face lighting and a bit of light for the conductors stand. This is the danger angle that you probably won’t want to use too much apart from the walk-on and calls.
• Light 2 provides music sidelighting for the DS ensemble members facing across stage, lighting their music AND creating friendly front light for the players on that side of stage.
• Light 3 does slightly back lighting for the next US set of musicians. It also lights the conductor for the players.
• Light 4 side lights along the next row and a bit of front fill for the opposite side choir ranks.
• Light 5 creates front fill across the back ranks and is at an angle that troubles no one.
• Light 6 cross lights the rear rows of the choir ranks, far side. Music light, enough for 2 or 3 rows if you’re lucky.

Focus Notes:

Like most lighting, it’s all in the focus.

The FOH face lights are the worst offenders for “in the eyes lighting” of the opposite musos. Don’t forget to run them at a low intensity during the show, you can whack them up for the curtain calls.

Any light going downstage of the conductor must be cut off the front row of seating at chest height. Barndoor off to suit .  Although the conductors face is important to the players, you can cheat this by top dooring lower. There is often enough bounce from the score to see him grimacing.

Downstage crosslight/conductor sidelight – watch the DS b/door and long door off the audience seated.

Far cross lighting along the singers should be top doored off to just above head height on the other side of stage. This sidelight is going to be lighting faces as well as music.

Near lighting fresnels will need to be as wide as poss. Spot the far lighting ones down a touch to get a bit more oomph out of them.

You can let all US back/side lights light as far downstage as they go unless you think that their shadows are going to be a nuisance. Look out for the eyes of any front row audience and the two most downstage musicians.

Keep all barndoors tidy– every door should be in to at least the start of the visible beam.

Check light levels on stage by holding your hands out, squatting down and generally doing things that approximate where the scores and seated players will be. You can’t predict where every shadow will come from when a stageful of players appear, but you know you’re on the right track.

While the basic 12 light version of lighting an orchestra is simple, it’s a pretty blunt instrument that will only really cut it on a smaller orchestra and a handful of singers. A larger ensemble and some tiered risers for the choir mean you could do with some more fresnels (18-20) and a some larger wind-up stands or extensions that lift our rig higher , 4 – 5 meters should give the additional height to accommodate the rear riser lift. But the principle remains that same.

What next? Orchestra Rehearsals

Having set up the kit and a rough focus (often known as the focus in these situations) you await the influx of odd shaped intrument carriers, the rustle of scores and the sharpening of the conductors baton – the orchestra arriving for rehearsals. With any luck you have done your job so well that, after ascertaining that everything is good for them, you can slink off for a cup of tea. But how do you know if your lighting is to the choirs satisfaction?

Although you’d probably like the world to know that you are lighting the show, it is better not to make yourself to obvious and keep a safe distance, while watching players unpack and set up their music. You can easily tell if someone is uncomfortable or having trouble with the light levels on their scores. Often, musicians will adjust their chair position or rearrange their stands to get rid of unwanted bow shadows and you should let them get on with it. Only get involved at the behest of the conductor when there is something that only you can solve.

There is a rule amongst technicians that you never ask a musician if they are OK – they feel the need to find something to give you as an answer which is likely to result in pointless work on your part. Avoid direct questions like that. I usually prowl around the ensemble for a few minutes early in the rehearsal to see for myself if I would be happy with the light levels on each music score.

On a recent show, during this prowl I noticed that the organist had moved the organ into a position that meant no significant direct light was lighting his music. I quietly approached him in a break to see if he needed an Anglepoise or to move his intrument. We discussed the possibilities and he decided in the end that he didn’t want an Anglepoise for fear of knocking it overe during the show, and was happy to live with the light levels as they were. The guy was amazed that someone cared about his personal comfort that, despite my stupidity of breaking the golden rule, it was resolved by his rare “make-do” attitude.

If anything really needs adjusting, you obviously can’t clatter around with ladders during rehearsals so it must wait until rehearsals are over unless the problem is too intrusive to continue. For now, the orchestra and conductor just need space to get on with their bit.

After rehearsal, you can get on with whatever jobs you have left to do. But there is one more person you have to consider, now the orchestra have gone: The Tuner. There are two things that make their life harder – a lot of noise and working in the dark. If you have stuff to do, leave a light for the tuner to work by and keep the clatter of ladders to a mininum. They’ll finish much quicker.

All Done

Hang on Rob, what about the show?

As an On Stage Lighting reader, I am sure you have the show under control. The thing about lighting an orchestra or choir concert is that the rehearsals are the break point. A successful gig in this case is getting to the end of rehearsals with no questions about dimly lit music, glare or your focus.

After that, the show is just the thing between you and the load out.

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Taking common lighting complaints of our readers, On Stage Lighting looks at the really vital skills you will need to succeed as a stage lighting professional and finds a surprising place to learn them. We also bust a myth about life on the professional side of the fence. No wobbly buckets, PC console emulators or LED based duvet covers were used in the making of this article.

Through this site and my professional life I have a fair amount of contact with lighting beginners, many of whom are starting out in stage lighting and some of which hope to make it into the business as fully fledged lighting professionals. When discussing their own lighting set up, be it a small theatre, school or church, there is a common theme:  Dissatisfaction.

Opening with “we currently have crappy old lanterns” or “the rigging positions are bad because..” or “If we had some more kit and a few moving lights…”, there is a general assumption that lighting would be better or life easier if only there were access to the comforts of the modern stage lighting professional.

The Myth of Professional Lighting

Last week I was doing a show of the type that I generally call a Scrapheap Challenge. Take one lighting professional, a pile of lighting kit of questionable standard and see if you can get a show together in time for rehearsals in a few hours time. It’s a reasonably common occurence if you work in commercial event lighting and something that I assume I must display some talent for, based on the number of times a month I seemed to be booked to do such a gig

Notable negatives of this particular situation included:

• A lantern inventory that only partially resembled the one put together by the original Lighting Designer
• Equipment that has probably not heard the phrase “maintenance schedule” uttered in it’s presence
• Cracked lenses, missing focus controls, floppy barndoors.
• A mixture of Source 4 and Strand SL profile spots with a mixture of beam angles not necessarily ideal for the task – all with iffy optics.
• Socapex multicore spiders that were not all marked correctly
• A generic rig that was a bit too big for the 18 channels of dimming that turned up, meaning pairing and plugging up all channels at (and over) capacity
• 2 dimmer channels of the 18 were unusable for various reasons, making the above situation more tricky.Missing infrastructure that meant it was not possible call up more than each 6-way dimmer without repatching the control lines, making the focus a PITA.
• Not enough colour frames and other shortages that really make your day longer.
• I’m sure there was more, I just can’t remember what it was.

The marking and infrastructure issues also made fault finding longer than it needed to be but otherwise things were done, problems were solved and by rehearsal time, we had a show and the quality and suitability of the lighting was never in question.

The point of telling you this unremarkable story of yet another gig is to bust the myth that, in a professional lighting situation, life is easier because we all have better kit, newer toys and a whole host of other comforts not available in school, churches and village halls. We don’t. What professionals do have is the experience of dealing these things and a lighting experience nearly always started the aforementioned schools, pubs and village halls.

A lighting professional is paid to turn in the goods, not to complain about the kit. We also have the professional imperative to get the job done.

But I Don’t Have Enough…..

In Stage Lighting on a Budget, we found out that even the biggest shows suffer from contraints such as not enough channels, fixtures, control availablility etc. The article also runs through common solutions to the problem of not having enough of something, take a look.

My Stage Lights Are Too Old

Lately I have spend some of my time working in a school environment to get their stage lighting up to scatch. We go in, strip their rig out, maintain and fault find before re hanging it for general use and giving every lantern a decent focus. More often than not the lighting kit is old and a small amount of it may be electrically dangerous so that gets fixed up or very occasionally condemned. The rest get a check up and a rub down and are good for another few years yet – the solution is very rarely that they need to buy much new gear. The equipment is old but probably hasn’t been actually used a great deal unlike modern hire equipment that has usually seen a lot of use in its short life.

By the time we leave, a whole new lease of life has been breathed into the rig with a small amount of maintenance and an understanding of how to get the best out of what is there, the focus in particular. Despite great leaps in lighting techology, a conventional lantern is basically a metal box of some kind, with a lens and a reflector and a bulb. Sure, some are better than others but the essence of good stage lighting isn’t the date stamp on any fixture – light comes outta the end, we do something with it.

We Have The Wrong Fixtures

LIke “bad” weather (vs. the wrong clothes), you could question whether there is such a thing as having the wrong lights. There are fixtures that suit a particular purpose, purposes that suit a particular fixture and rigging positions which may or not suit both of those. The thing is these are the fixtures we have, what are you going to do with them. A common complaint starts along the lines of ” We only have PAR56s so….”. A normal PAR 56, last time I looked, spewed light from the end of it like anything else so in my book that’s a perfectly good fixture, especially if you are trying to pretty up a pub band.

If the director wants a tight spot and you only have cyc floods, there could be a problem. It could be resolved by trying to find out the required end result of this spot and suggest a lighting alternative you can do. Or maybe not being able to have a tight spot could be flagged as a must-have in which case the Production Manager will have to be approached for the budget to hire one.

It’s their call, all you can do is the best you can with the equipment you’ve got.

Our Rigging Sucks

This is a common one: “We’ve only got a couple of wind up stands” or “We only have two bars over stage” etc. I’ve done a ton of lighting using wind up stands and still do in the events market. They are quick and very flexible as you often have a number of options of where to put them and half of the lighting design equation is where each fixture is placed (vs. where it points). Only two bars over stage? How about zero bars overstage, then? That’s not a far fetched scenario, last year I lit an 8 metre stage presentation using the only viable positions in the venue which were crosslighting from either side of stage at about 5ft from the deck.

In every rigging situation there are things that you can do, things you can’t and things that “it might be nice if..” In lighting, it’s part of our job to dream up innovative and safe ways to get light sources where we want them or, quite often, to think up an achievable lighting alternative.

My Venue is Special Because…

Everyone likes to think they are special. Equally, everyone likes to think that their venue is the only one in the world that has x, is only as high as y, or you can’t do z lighting in. While every venue is unique, it’s not an option to throw hands in the air and exclaim that everything would be alright if only we were somewhere else. Even purpose built venues seem to come with their own purpose built foibles (which makes them even more frustrating), so the thought of one day walking into the perfect venue for lighting might have to be put on hold for now.

There is a common theme developing: this is the venue we are working in, this the kit we have, this is where we can put it. THIS IS IT.

The Solution? Good Lighting Skills

The solution to this ghastly world of the wrong kit, in the wrong place at the wrong time is lighting experience. The knowledge of what and what isn’t possible. What’s important and what’s not. What works and what doesn’t and having more than one answer to every question.

Basic lighting skills such as a familiarity with lighting angles such as side light and back lighting, the effect of different positions, shadows / reflection and making decisions when you don’t have enough of something are what really counts. While it’s tempting to overdose on finding out about automated gubbins, ethernet control, pixel mapping and learning software version 16 of the GrandHog MaxMA Pro Expert VII, light is still light and (we assume) always will be.

Where Do I Learn Good Lighting Skills?

I can remember the first stage lighting rig that I played with when I was very young. At my local village hall, under the supervision of my dad, there were two bars over stage, a couple of low perch positions Front Of House. Oh, and I think we had one push up stand. Control was done using two banks of domestic light switches (at least it was electric). I can even remember the lantern inventory: 8 x Patt 137 floods, 1 x Patt 23, 1 Furse  fresnel (in Hammerite blue with an orange mains lead) and our new pride and joys, 2 x Strand Minim fresnels (no barndoors). There weren’t too many different things you could do with this rig so Dad kept things pretty simple but always managed to work some creativity into the productions, perhaps the odd gobo hire.

After that, I went on to learn lighting skills in youth theatres, schools and other places associated with a general lack of lighting wonderfulness. All of my current colleagues in professional lighting did the same, finding out how to deal with lighting situations in an often simple environment, without the aid of sizeable budgets, shiny toys or fantastic kit inventories. Instead of deciding that your lighting kit is too old, point your attention using all your available skills to get the best from what equipment you have.

Maybe one day you hope to be in the exhalted(!?) position of a professional lighting tech or designer, getting paid for your own personal contribution to the lighting Scrapheap Challenge that is life day to day gigging.

If you are looking to learn good lighting skills to prepare you for such an undertaking, you’d better hope your learning enviroment encompasses shoddy equipment, lack of facilities, ridiculous deadlines and the general feeling that this time it really is going to be impossible. If you look around and find yourself in such a pitiful situation already, congratulations.

Welcome to the best place to learn stage lighting skills, have a nice day.

Before you complain about old lights, poor rigging positions and the wrong kit, think what wonders it’s doing for your lighting education.

Image by Toholio on Flickr.

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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 off 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 at 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 chance 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 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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