JOHANNESBURG — MA Lighting’s South African distributor, DWR Distribution, ran the first of a series of grandMA Level 1 and 2 training events recently. The 3-day session took place at DWR’s headquarters and was attended by 10 working LDs and programmers. The attendees, who arrived with their own consoles or laptops running grandMA OnPC, came from Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. The class size was limited to 10 to ensure everyone received the best attention of Nick Britz, DWR’s Technical Manager, who instructed.
Britz had recently visited MA Lighting in Germany, where he refreshed his own knowledge of the grandMA training program, and also acquainted himself with the grandMA2 console and software. (DWR has just supplied its first grandMA2 to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.)
“It was the ideal opportunity for Nick to pass on his knowledge to the industry,” said DWR’s Duncan Riley. Topics covered included creating Fixture Types, live programming with Edit/Update, MIB (move in Black), programming with Effects and Modulators, Timing Parameters, Store Options, Special Features, among others.
“The new 3D Visualizer really impressed everyone among many other things, and the general learning process across the three days was very constructive for everyone, including me,” Britz said. “We’ve all learned many things, starting with the basics and also went into several areas of MA’s Level 3 training.”
DWR followed up with another two one-day sessions a week later, this time for attendees who didn’t have their own consoles, and another 30 people progressed through the Level 1 topics. Once again, attendees came from relatively far away, with some driving from Durban flying in from Namibia.
DWR expected to repeat the training programs in both Cape Town and Durban.
For more information, please visit www.dwrdistribution.co.za.