It is finally December! I now feel comfortable talking about the upcoming holiday season. I have always had issues with starting the holiday spirit before celebrating Thanksgiving. As of late, it has gotten even worse, with holiday music and decorations starting before Halloween. Honestly, who buys a Christmas tree that early? The thing will be half-dead before Santa Claus comes to visit. Not the best way to impress the Big Guy in Red. Are you going to leave him stale cookies, too?
The other thing that grinds my gears: Holiday lights before December. Watching these specials on TV about extreme holiday lighting for homes is hilarious. They start in early October to make sure they have it up and running for the holidays. Some of these displays are mini productions unto themselves, and the people setting them up probably need all the time they can get for design, programming and set-up. Even while I applaud their efforts, sometimes I can’t help but cringe a bit at the final result.
I understand that these are enthusiast with little to no training or understanding of color temperatures, color choices and overall design concepts. There are some truly jaw-dropping displays out there — although I must admit, my jaw isn’t always dropping for the same reasons. And more often than not, I shake my head at the light quality coming from the different “white” lights.
The people putting up these displays rely on, of course, what happens to be available from their local hardware stores. “I need 200 strings of white LED lights — give me everything you have,” they’ll say. In my area, the string lights are almost always sold out and you have to be there when the truck arrives with more. So they end up mixing and matching white light strings in order to fill their needs.
You can probably guess where this is headed. My friend and designer from the Philadelphia area, Ian Hoffer from AuRoRa Sound & Light Design, recently drove through his neighborhood and snagged a prime example of why getting all of the same strings is important.
All of the lights on the roofline are white light LEDs. Yes, the strings on the stair rails are color, but not important here. Notice how off putting that is? I count four different color temperatures of white! I’m sure on paper and in the homeowners head, the design is delightful. It would be, that is if I wasn’t distracted by of various colors of white!
In our business, this just doesn’t work. With all of the white light LED products that are available to us, we have to pay close attention to the color temperature. I read through an endless number of product descriptions, and they always list the various color temperatures of white as “Daylight” or “Tungsten.”
When I hear “Daylight,” I automatically think of a color temperature of 5,600°K, and I think of “Tungsten” as 3,200°K; those numbers got stuck in my head some time ago. That doesn’t necessarily translate to what a particular white light LED fixture produces, however. Tungsten could mean 2,900°K, a bit warmer than what I think of as “Tungsten.” Same with “Daylight,” it could be higher or lower than my expectations.
So what does all of this have to do with the world of stage lighting? Just a reminder that, when you are investigating a new White Light LED product, be sure to dig a bit deeper and find out what the actual color temperature is of the fixture. You’ll want to find a product that matches (or comes very close) to the color temperature that your current inventory produces. If you base it on just a broad description as “Tungsten” or “Daylight,” your stage may share the same lack of white temperature color uniformity as this house in Philly.
