We had the privilege of not only seeing but getting to demo a revolutionary fixture that Varilite has just released. It is what I now consider the first real LED moving light. The leap that this light represents in lighting fixtures is monumental. This fixture is not only the first LED moving head that I didn’t think looked completely ridiculous, but it is what I consider the future of lighting. This technology I believe will eventually make the arc lamp within the theatrical and concert worlds of lighting obsolete.

The LEDs within the light are 90watt LEDs. To give you some perspective the brand new lights that we use at North Point for lighting our current sets are 1 watt LEDs. There are 4 of these 90 watt LEDs on each chip: Red, Green, Blue, & White. These LEDs can be mixed to create an assortment of colors. There are seven of the chips in each fixture, each of the chips are individually liquid cooled. The light passes through an array of glass that diffuses and mixes the light so that when you look at the fixture you only see the mixed color and not the individual LEDs that mix to create the color.

The traditional way of getting color mixing out of a fixture is with colored glass wheels being layered on top of one another to create different colors. This however has the draw back of the colored glass cutting down the intensity of the light. The more glass you stack to create different colors the less output the light actually has. In contrast LED technology actually increases in intensity as you mix colors because more color means more light coming from different LEDs adding to the output. The result of this is very intense saturated colors. This is what will eventually kill traditional arc lamps, however right now it is a bit pricey and is only available in a wash type fixture.

If Varilite figures out how to reduce the price, which time will do, and how to focus the light into a reasonable spot or beam fixture, this new light will take over the industry.

Although we have had the ability for over a year now to use timecode, we have never really had the need. We are using SMPTE time code in order for video to trigger the console during our “minute to win it” segments. This allows us to program the light movements to sync with the video content (which is just a voice over) so that it is timed perfectly with what is being said in the video.

We have programmed a cue-list labeled “MTWI TC” that is activated before we begin the game. It then lies in wait for time code to be sent to it from video, which upon receiving it then in turn triggers the next step in the “Minute to Win It” cue-list. This allows the Lighting console operator to step through the sequences of the game leading up to the video and then the console itself syncs with the video portion of the game.

The SMPTE time code just needs to be reset to zero between services using the SMPTE Time Code Panel window.

Some of you might have noticed that our stage looks like it is on fire here lately. Not to worry we just have new Unique 2 hazers. Some might wonder why we changed over from the DF50’s that we have had for so long. The primary reason we decided to change over was that the DF50s were oil based which left a film of oil on all our equipment, decreasing the intensity of projectors and lights. The output of the single DF50s on each stage was a little lopsided for our stages as well.

We decided on the Unique 2s because they are water based which tends to evaporate quickly, which lends itself to a haze free speaker setting when the Speaker takes the stage. The Unique 2s also have a very high output allowing for the space to be consumed in haze very quickly. They are dim-able with a built in fan, which allows us to control the output of the hazer’s pump as well as the speed of the fan from the console. The DF50s were either all on or off.

The only concern that we had in changing our hazers was whether or not the new ones would set off our fire alarms since hazers an foggers are infamous for doing that. We went through several intensive attempts to set the alarms off in each room. We hit some obstacles along the way but are satisfied with our final results and believe that we are operating within the fire systems constraints. So, we decided that these were the hazers for us. Plus it didn’t hurt that each Unique 2 was just over half the price of a new DF50.

LED technology has been around for a while and we have had some cheap versions of LEDs here at North Point for several years now. The difference for me between cheap and high end LEDs is whether or not they flicker on camera and the intensity throw of the fixture. Other concerns are the low end curve and color accuracy across fixtures. The Colorado from Chauvet is our first serious venture into the higher end LED fixtures. These 1 watt LED fixtures perform very well for about half the price of their counter parts on the market. They have great color mixing capability and they have impressive intensity for the price. Most importantly they are flicker free on video.

They do, however, have a very poor low-end curve, meaning that they don’t fade in very well. When you try to fade them up they just pop on and then fade from there. This has been a problem with LEDs for a very long time but a lot of the manufactures out there have had some success fixing this problem.

All in all for the price I believe the Chauvet Colorado to be a very strong, competitive fixture.

No I am not talking about that operating system made by windows that has more problems than adults who were child actors.

I am referring to the console that all other consoles should aspire to be like. I have been a huge proponent of the console since I was able to demo it in late 2007 and they have not disappointed. We finally got our Jands Vista T4 consoles in April 09 and they have been a huge blessing. If you have any experience with lighting and you’ve ever said while programming “I wish I could” more than likely this console  has what you were missing at the time.

Looking at the physical dimensions of the console one immediately sees the huge Wacom screen. This screen is used as the interface for the entire console adjusted with the stroke of the pin. This at first might be a bit intimidating to people that have never come across the Wacom technology but it is an ingenious way to layout a console. The screen gives the user a huge amount of flexibility in virtually laying out all the fixtures in such fine detail that just wouldn’t be possible with a standard touch screen display. This allows out volunteers to easily find fixtures with limited training.

There are so many things to love about this console I am only going to touch on a few software based favorites but if you want to check out more in detail you can go to the vista site: http://www.jandsvista.com/

The color picker is one of the first things that caught my eye. A lot of the consoles these days are being made with some form of a color picker. The vista’s is so well integrated on the primary programming screen along with the ability to quick choose intensity or beam.

The other side of the programmer that sold me on the console from day one was the timeline feature. I have a background in non-linear editing so the GUI (graphical user interface) that the timeline provides for actually being able to finely adjust different aspects of fixtures within a cue or clip just makes so much since it is nuts that other consoles haven’t picked up on it.

The console has the ability to take any fixture un-patch that fixture and re-patch it in a different location on any universe and the programming that has been done will still be recognized by the console and work in all preprogrammed palettes and clips. This seems like such a brain dead idea, like duh you should totally be able to do that but most consoles can’t. The programmers at Jands even took it one step further to give you the ability to un-patch a fixture swap it out for a completely different type of fixture, all be it the more similar the better, and that new completely different fixture will still work as close as possible to the original fixture. This means the console is smart enough to figure out how to get the colors to match as close as possible, to get the intensity and the position and every other aspect of the new light to match as close as possible to the previous fixture. This feature is so revolutionary it is hard to completely comprehend how it works but I can only imagine how helpful this would be to a road show that might be in a different venue with different rented gear every couple of days.

My final reason, for absolutely loving this console, is the ability to VNC remotely into it, with any computer giving the user the ability to control the lights from anywhere. This allows me to focus lights very easily from the lift. I can check the angles of the lights from anywhere in the room. If I get a camera set-up in the back I could even run the lights from my couch at home.

JANDS is not satisfied with having what I consider the best console line on the market today they have one upped their own game and are releasing completely reworked software later this year. They aren’t leaking to much information about the new software but all indications is that it is a completely rethought operating system that takes into account all the new LED technology and the integration of video that, that allows.