In the live entertainment industry, certainly a very important aspect of a production is the set. With today’s technology, there are many options for what to do with a stage from a scenic standpoint, including new ways to incorporate video elements into the stage.
Horao, pictured here, is one of the manufacturers allowing designers to create LED arrays showing off dynamic graphics with depth.
LEDs have made a great impact in this area, and innovative products like Barco’s MiStrips and MiTrix and Element Labs’ Versa Tile and Versa Tube have provided the scenic designer with new tools to create unique and dynamic visual environments.
Recently, I worked on an outdoor festival in Austin, Tex. in conjunction with a large indie music festival called South by SouthWest (SXSW). For budget reasons, most of the stages at this festival were bare except for the backline (the band’s music equipment), so the festival’s producer, David Rosen, specified two large racks of Versa Tubes for both sides (side A and B) of the double center stage in order to add energy and impact to the performances. Fifteen Versa Tubes, stacked and mounted in six vertical rows, lined the back of the center stage on both sides. These were controlled via an ArKaos Media Server system. The ArKaos allowed the content to be manipulated live through color and effects. It was extremely flexible and absolutely necessary because none of the cues could be written ahead of time. That’s typical of a festival; none of the bands could rehearse ahead of time — they just showed up, plugged in and played!
Working with these fixtures inspired me to look into other scenic alternatives, and here’s a short list of some of these exciting new LED products.
LED tubes typically contain a row of pixels composed of red, green and blue LEDs. Some, like the Color Kinetics iColor Accent Powercore and Element Labs Versa Tube work by mapping pixels from a computer image directly to the pixels in the tube. Any video source or graphics program can create effects, including popular media servers like Catalyst, Green Hippo Hippotizer or Martin Maxedia. Versa Tube is available in both standard resolution and HD and comes in a variety of lengths. It can be mounted in virtually any configuration, allowing it to be incorporated into a set in endless possible ways. Other LED tubes, like the Chauvet Colortube 2.0, Colortube EQ and Pulsar ChromaStrip 2 can do color chases and color changes within a single tube, while others, like the Elation Octo Strip II only offer solid color changes.
LED tiles are sometimes edge-lit by color changing LEDs to produce a solid colored light, or they contain a matrix of color changing LEDs to produce colored light and graphics. Like building blocks, these tiles can be placed together in any configuration. With Element Labs Versa Tiles, video content created with a wide range of colors ranging from deeply saturated colors to browns and grays can be cleanly and accurately displayed. Video content and still images in a stock library or created using any graphics program can be easily displayed on the Versa Tile system. It comes in grids of two sizes, 50 cm x 50 cm (25 tile) and 1 meter x 1 meter (100 tile). Other LED tiles on the market include the Alkalite PZ-720A (distributed in North America by Elation), Color Kinetics iColor Tile FX 2:2, Pulsar ChromaDeck and the Chauvet ColorPanel 4.
MiStrip is Barco’s creative new pixel strip that can be used in a wide range of applications. It combines high 6100 Nit brightness with a 13.25 mm pixel pitch in a versatile product that can be mounted and arranged in endless shapes and sizes, making free form visual displays that can be easily integrated into any set. It has been used on projects ranging from the Detroit Auto Show to Bon Jovi’s 2006 tour.
The transparent LED display made its debut at LDI 2005 when Komaden Corporation of Japan prematurely showed a prototype of the Image-Mesh. But they failed to capitalize on it and Element Labs saw an opportunity, so they jumped in with the Stealth. Since then, we’ve seen the G-LEC Phantom Frame, Martin LC and the Barco MiTrix come to market. These displays are typically highly transparent, very bright, lightweight and modular for indoor use. They add a creative element to any visual designer’s tool bag. The MiTrix, for example, is a display with 24mm pixel pitch and 3000 Nit brightness that has been used recently on shows including the Academy of Country Music Awards and Rascal Flatts 2007 tour.
Since Main Light Industries outfitted their Lightscape fiber optics backdrop with LEDs, they set the bar for LED backdrops. Their Soft-
LED and HardLED modular panels provide creative low-resolution graphics to highlight any stage. These products offer unlimited creative possibilities for designers when it comes to displaying low resolution visual effects at an affordable price. The Chroma-Q Color Web and the Element Labs Helix products marry the transparency of a webbed backdrop with the low-res graphics concept. They feature a modular design, transparency, pliability and flexibility. The Color Web is available in one-meter square panels in a choice of two resolutions. The original Color Web 250 panel provides 16 individually addressable color mixing LED cells with a pitch of 250mm /10 inches. And the new Color Web 125 panel provides 64 individually addressable color mixing LED cells with a pitch of 125mm / 5inches, providing double the resolution per square meter. Currently you can find this product in action in European productions including Take That, Britain’s Got Talent and the Glastonbury Jazz Festival, among others.
A few manufacturers are taking the LED concept into the 3D world. Barco’s MiSphere, G-LEC B:xel and the Horao 3D allow designers to create three-dimensional LED arrays that offer dynamic graphics with depth that you can’t find in conventional LED displays.
These products I’ve mentioned here are just a small sampling of the innovative LED tools being manufactured today. They represent some of the most creative and versatile implementations of LEDs available and give the visual designer many more options to wow the audience. As production value increases, the need for managing the budget becomes tougher. Incorporating video elements into the set allows many looks from one basic design and can help to reduce many of the costs of shipping other kinds of heavier and bulkier scenic pieces from venue to venue.
