The Lumens Race
One of the first companies to look at manufacturing lights that can cut through anything was Clay Paky. The Sharpys have revolutionized how we light all shows. Their wash light is plain brilliant, even when placed in front of a hi-def video wall. With a little haze in the air, the beam is quite noticeable. And it works in perfect tandem with its hard edge brother as far as brightness. Of course, the [Martin] MAC 2K wash and the [Vari-Lite] VL3500 are plenty bright, but this new Sharpy wash light is killing it. Not because it’s so much brighter, but because the color systems are so fast at changing colors. Fast enough that I will include these fixtures in with color chases I normally would only attempt with LED fixtures. Plus, when compared to the movement speed of their large competitors, they are twice as fast. Other companies are catching up and realizing how the optics of a little fixture can make a 200W-to-300W arc light look so powerful. Elation and Robe now make models that utilize the pencil beam technology, and I’m pretty sure the Chinese are about to flood the market with their own versions.
The brightness of LEDs in lighting fixtures has become mind-boggling. Last year we saw Ayrton release the MagicPanel. These things have a block of 5W LEDs packed together that can burn your retinas out quite easily at a low intensity level. They put out a collimated beam of light that can cut in front of any video wall, often washing out the content behind the beam if the video or projection isn’t turned up to full. I found the average intensity I use on these fixtures is about 35 percent when I point the lights on stage. If I send the beams out into the audience, I never bring them above 15 to 20 percent — I wish to illuminate the crowd, rather than outright blind them. Sometimes I just bring up four of the individual LEDs in the corners of these panels and I get what appear to be four laser sights pointing through the smoke. More than one concert reviewer has commented on my brilliant use of lasers in a show, when in reality it was a small fraction of the LEDs on several Magic Panels illuminated.
Another recently introduced fixture is the Solaris LED Flare, distributed by TMB. Designed as an LED strobe, it certainly packs a punch. It retains most of its pure color when in strobe mode and is definitely blinding to anyone who looks directly into it. This fixture can also be used for a plain wash of color. Think of a ColorBlast fixture on serious steroids. I currently have a 20-foot diameter circular truss hung vertically on tour, and I chose to line the perimeter of this truss with these beasts. At times, I smack them all on at full, and the entire arena gets bathed in a blinding color for a second.
I have a high-def video wall playing inside this circle. The Flares augment it most of the evening, but if I turn them up past 30 percent, nobody will see any video at all. The chases an LD can utilize with these fixtures is seemingly unlimited and a lot of fun to work with. My average intensity level while using these fixtures as a wash is about 8 percent. If one brings the Flares or the MagicPanels to full, even the Sharpy beams will be washed out, incredible as that sounds.
Lighting vs. Video
In the last few years, I have started using the PRG MBox as my preferred media server. It has come a long way, and the man behind this device is constantly working to make it better. I now run my cameras right through this server so I can control whether the video screens will be displaying various media images or I-Mag shots from the cameras. Sure, there is a slight delay, but it’s no longer 10 frames behind, or so noticeable that it’s offensive to watch. It’s now down to about four frames of lagging to me. So currently I utilize one dedicated fader on my light board to bring up the camera feed from my director. I can choose to have the pop star’s image from the camera feed on display, or to display some pre-recorded media, or maybe have a blend of the two on the screens. The PRG MBox is the only media server I have ever used that lets me fade from one video clip to another, on the same layer. I have the guys from PRG Nocturne run the V9 wall at about 30 percent, which is plenty bright for an indoor arena. Then I choose how bright to run it based on each song. This band has a guitar player who wanted to incorporate a video tool that would take his guitar notes and feed them directly into the MBox and make cool distorted images with different frequencies. At first, it didn’t look as great as expected. But between the original software and the MBox guru, they got the device to work splendidly, and we have a cool guitar solo piece of imagery now.
Blinding the Crowd
One problem I noticed with the advent of all these new bright lights is that lighting designers have gotten use to focusing lights directly into the crowds’ eyes. In the days of old, this wasn’t so harsh. One could put a gobo in the light beam or soften it up with a diffuser so it wasn’t so blinding. I see shots of people with their hands in front of their face constantly. To me, that’s bad. I can take 40 Sharpys and make amazing “Matrix” style focuses of light beams in an arena. Yet not a single beam will terminate in a spectators face. And I painstakingly make sure none of these bright fixtures I use is pointed at a position where the spot operators are located. Well, most of the time.
I have a secret focus I update at every evening. In honor of the gig in Michigan known in the old days as Pine Knob, I call this move ”The Detroit.” I take one of my Matrix focuses but cross the beams so they intentionally do go into the spot ops’ eyes. To wake them up. In 1991, I played Pine Knob, and we had a truss spot operator actually fall asleep in his under-hung chair. For three whole songs. We had electrician Phil Alge climb the truss in order to reach down with his foot and tap the guy in his head until he woke up. For three songs, I longed for a light much brighter than the old VL2 that I could point at that guy to stir him. Nowadays, if I can’t get the spot ops to shut up and turn their mics off, or one of them falls asleep, they all suffer until the problem has been rectified.
