Tech Topics aims to keep you informed about the important technical aspects of lighting. We will be regularly posting helpful articles for all involved in the science and art of lighting. Click on the title to be directed to the full article.

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No Shirt, No Shoes? No Way!
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Imagine this: I was working on a stadium concert for a big rock band in an indoor stadium. We had a well known LD and were just about to start the first rehearsal with the band. Our front of house technician came walking out to the consoles wearing only his shorts. With no shirt and no shoes he paraded across the floor and right up to the LD. Then he took his seat and waited for the rehearsal to start. I am sure you can guess the LD’s reaction; no one was surprised when the FOH tech was replaced just a few days into the tour.

Taming the Cable Monster
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
There’s a new movie in the making that will soon be playing in theatres and performing arts spaces everywhere. It’s about a new protocol that goes up against a monster bundle of cable. The winners in this battle are the techies and end users of large lighting systems. 

Blame the Gear
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
It’s become painfully evident to me that this industry has been overrun with people who take too much responsibility for their actions. Every day it seems like I’m on a show where a technician double-checks his work, a programmer tests her backup console or a designer accepts the blame for an uneven front wash.

Timecoding a Rock Show
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
The world of stage productions has really grown complex in the last 10 to 15 years. Not only have automated lights become standard, but so have digital audio consoles, complex show control systems, motion control and networking. Often these systems must be synchronized via MIDI or SMPTE to ensure a reliable and repeatable production. While it can be amazing to sit back and watch a programmed light show run automatically, it is also a bit disheartening to walk away from a desk and have the show continue.

Could a Phone be the Next Power Tool of Our Industry?
PLSN Magazine
Since the 2007 introduction of Apple’s iPhone, the company has sold over 6 million of the wunderkind devices.
Described by some technology pundits as the “Jesus-phone,” the second generation of the touch-screen phone / music player / Internet device will hit store shelves at about the same time as this issue of PLSN.
There are several reasons why this could be the next big hit at LDI and beyond.

Becoming a Vampire
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Walk into any venue after midnight during pre-production for a show and you will find several creatures dressed in black lurking in all areas. These “people” often only come out after dark and seem to leave the venue once the sun comes up. They usually work in darkness and yet they wield total control of the atmosphere, at least in terms of lighting. The cast and other crew members often only see the lighting crew and automated lighting programmer as their paths cross, coming and going from the venue. The lighting vampires often seem confused as they exchange “good mornings” with the other staff members at 9 p.m. There are many pros and cons to working the “late shift” as an automated lighting programmer and also many things to consider as you switch from “normal” work times to overnight, then back to normal.

Peeling Back the Layers
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Each year it seems that new lighting fixtures become more and more complex.  If you attend any lighting tradeshows you will find that most manufacturers have LED fixtures, media servers and digital lighting products. These unique products are very different in output and control from good old “automated” lighting fixtures.  Many of these units require knowledge of their protocol as well as a good understanding of how they interact with a lighting desk.

Stealth Programming
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Several years ago I made an amazing discovery about automated lights — they actually make noise when they’re on. I know, I know — I was as shocked to learn this as you are. Up until that point, all of my experience had led me to believe that those babies were silently operating behind the 115 dB wall of sound produced by whatever band happened to be on stage at the moment.

Looking for some new old stuff
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
Every month I see new products on the market. It seems the latest LED and media server technology is constantly outdating last year’s cool stuff. Automated lighting manufacturers are dueling to keep up with each other in terms of lumens while trying to come up with new features. This stuff is impressive, but it makes me wonder…“Why don’t people concentrate on making new cooler versions of existing gear?”

Console Agnosticism
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
There is a certain fervor that constantly surrounds discussions of lighting consoles. So much so that discussion may be one of the nicest discourses that could happen between the often zealot-like users of different desks. You may prefer an MA Lighting grandMA, Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 3, Jands Vista or some other console that I inadvertently (or purposefully) neglected to list. Whether your chosen board is from the Netherlands, Germany or the United States, I am here to show you the light.

The 12 Steps of Automated Lighting Programming
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
The practice of programming a show from an automated lighting console can be broken down into 12 straightforward steps.  Rarely have I seen a production fail when a programmer has followed these simple steps.  Those that do fail seldom completely follow these simple guidelines for programming.  While this manner of programming is filled with complexity and important elements, do not balk at it. If you follow these simple suggestions, you will be guaranteed a well-programmed show.

HD Switching
By Cory FitzGerald, Live Design Magazine
As the myth of convergence comes stumbling to a gig near you, some confusion arises about one of the hottest buttons to hit the media server market since its inception. To go HD, or not to go HD: this is the question of the current age, both on the job and at home. Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the constraints of SD or venture off to the mysterious territory of HD, perhaps to never work for those producers again!

Lighting the Concert DVD Shoot
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
The rules for lighting a concert in front of a camera are quite different than lighting one for the eye. The cameras tend to pick up things that the human eye cannot. Over the years I’ve had to teach myself how to change and adapt my show so it still looks the same to the audience and still looks good on camera. The fact is that this particular evening’s performance is not meant to be perfectly lit for the 15,000 people who bought tickets; it’s for the million people who will view the concert footage.

Automating the Show
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
As an automated lighting programmer, I am often tasked with helping to automate the playback of a production. There are several approaches that are used in our industry for various types of automated lighting playback. There are also times when the lighting console needs to trigger other de-vices to ensure that the production is synchronized by the lighting console. Whether using MIDI, MIDI Show Control, Timecode, analog signals, or other custom triggers, it is important to understand the choices and how to use them.

How Sharp is that Gobo?
By Mike Wood, Live Design Magazine
How sharp is that gobo? Isn't that something like asking how long is a piece of string? The answer to both these questions would appear to be highly subjective. Take a gobo and project it from a luminaire, and we all have our opinions about how sharp the projected image is. What's more, when viewing two fixtures side-by-side, we can usually agree on which one gives the better result. However, until now, we have had no way to either communicate or document that sharpness in numbers or to be able to compare two fixtures viewed at different times. This isn't to say that a sharp image is always desirable — sometimes we want nice soft fuzzy edges, so it would be good to be able to measure and duplicate that fuzziness as well.

Slaying the Beast: A Modern Tale of Timecode
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
In the deepest and darkest regions of your console, a demon exists that some will never dare to battle. In a place where many fear to tread, it has been cursed and reviled by many would-be heroes. In the beast’s lair, the measurement of the fourth dimension takes on an uncanny accuracy otherwise unknown to many humans. The periods known as Hours, Minutes and Seconds are joined by a unit of diabolical accuracy known as the Frame.

The Five Lighting Metrics
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
I was fortunate enough to start in the lighting business when my own personal circumference of darkness was oh so small. I didn’t even know enough to know how little I knew. I was in the lighting business a long time before I stumbled across the secret to understanding the relationship between the five lighting metrics. It’s called ED-100.1.

Controlling Light....with Light
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Crew Chief: “What’s this note on your plot about a 500-foot snake?”
LD: “Well…I think I need a 500-foot snake. Oh, and it needs to have at least eight DMX lines.”
Crew Chief: “We don’t have one. Can you make a 400 work?”
LD: “Did you look at the plot?”
Crew Chief: “Mmmm. Yeah. Okay, we’ll send out the fiber snake.”
LD: “???”
Crew Chief: “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

The Ultimate Punt Page
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
For years, I have talked about the art of running an entire lighting show from one page on a console — I light television, rock concerts and business meetings this way. So many people have asked me how to construct these pages, that I have decided to reveal the secrets of Nook’s Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Punt Page.

Tracking Made Easy
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine<