Try reaching Alan Falkner, an ETC field service engineer based in Hollywood, during the two weeks surrounding Thanksgiving. Usually Alan is jimmy-on-the-spot, a testament to ETC's exceptional service. But for those two weeks, Alan completely disappears. His friends anticipate it; his co-workers prepare for it; and his fellow church members make fun of him for it. Come December, though, Alan's reclusiveness reveals its yuletide bounty.
Employing over 20,000 individual lights and 200 circuits of control, Alan transforms his house into a winter wonderland that rivals the likes of the well-known Frisco Christmas in north Texas. Turning the corner of Catalina Avenue in Burbank, unsuspecting drivers are met with an ornate lighting display completely choreographed to an FM transmission of holiday hits like "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Doggy Jingle Bells."
"It's very impressive. Every year, Alan surpasses his previous year's design, and I look forward to seeing what cleverly kludged technology he implements," reports Tony Stefani, ETC's Los Angeles sales representative. "For instance, the idea of using a lighting playback controller and a CEM control module to drive the outputs is genius."
Combining his technical know-how and his access to old ETC parts and products, Alan has managed to create a visual lightscape that is both detailed in its design and savvy in its application. Based on his knowledge of ETC's Sensor dimming, Alan custom-built two 96-way SCR dimmer panels, each dimmer 1.5 amps in size, and 14 of which utilize his own version of ETC's Dimmer Doubling technology. He's placed these in an old ETC connector-strip housing, making each 96-way dimming panel approximately 4 foot by 1 foot in size. Controlling these dimming panels are retired Sensor CEM modules retrofitted for his needs. Every section of 12 circuits is GFCI-protected, and Alan has placed the power to the entire system on a contactor attached to a clock that prevents the system from being energized during the daylight hours.
From this dimming system, Alan has arranged for each of his "wintery elements" to have a circuit of white light and a circuit of colored light. These wintery elements include nine rosebushes, 14 candy canes, eight shrubs, and three trees. He decorates two roofs, each of which features both colored and white circuits, divided into 32 sections and a star on top of his house that alone has eight circuits of controls. He hangs icicles off the roofs and snowflakes on the walls. He employs wash lights for the sides of the house and a sign that posts three messages. Without notice, the angelic house covered in white Christmas lights can change and fade magically to a dynamically colorful environment full of nuance and décor.
"No, I have not turned all the lights on full at the same time – since the main breaker for the display is only a 50-amp two-pole!" Alan jokes about the dimming system.
As the nerve center of his holiday lighting control system, Alan programmed a retired ETC Insight 2x LPC to receive SMPTE time code and play back eight lighting sequences. "I've been using a computer that outputs the songs to the FM transmitter and the SMPTE to the Insight, but this year I decided to use a DVD player," Alan explains. "By using the 5.1 sound from a DVD player, I have six tracks of audio. I only need two tracks for the music going to the FM transmitter and one track for SMPTE. That leaves three audio tracks to potentially use for voiceovers in the future." What if the DVD skips or the DVD just stops? Alan has the Insight programmed to run an "emergency sequence" of generic looks when it stops seeing SMPTE time code – complete with a reboot command of the DVD player to get the show back on track.
"It's amazing how much thought Alan puts into his system. The more I asked him about the specifics, the more the complexity became evident to me," says David Hilton, one of ETC's Field Project Coordinators in Hollywood. "This speaks to how thoroughly Alan approaches systems, and how much he tries to safeguard them from failure. Just as he does with his tech work for ETC. We're really lucky to have him."
Alan Falkner's Catalina Avenue Christmas
CREW
Production Company: Alan Falkner
Lighting Designer: Alan Falkner
Sound Designer: Alan Falkner
Programmer: Alan Falkner
AV Control System: Alan Falkner
GEAR
Dimming
20,825 lights
186 dimmers
14 dimmers using ETC Dimmer Doubling
200 control channels
158 amps or 17,852 watts total connected load (Does not include 16 35-light sets and 9 1/3 100-light sets)
Control
1 ETC Insight 2x LPC
1 DVD player running randomly an eight-song loop
2 channels to speakers (Only used night of open house to avoid annoying the neighbors)
2 channels to FM transmitter
1 channel of SMPTE timecode to LPC
1 low-power FM transmitter
Power distribution
25 GFCI protectors
1 60-amp 2-pole contactor controlled by a mechanical timeclock
1 125-amp sub-panel to (13) discrete 20-amp circuits
1.5 miles 18 & 16-awg zip-cord
