For one of the biggest pep rallies in the world — a concert in Madison, Wisconsin featuring the UW band and its 72-year-old conductor Mike Leckrone, Ken Ferencek used a gigantic rear projection screen that serves as a backdrop…wider than a band that has over 120 trumpet players alone. You might think, "Hey, if I just use a bunch of VL3ks and zoom them out, I can cover this beast." And maybe they could cover it as well as with a Fresnel. But the problem lies in the color wash. You see, moving lights like that mix color with three different colored flags that move into the path of a beam of white light. The further they move in front of this beam, the more saturated the color becomes…But the color is never completely "true" even using this method. Ken explains that only the Fresnels will give him the “true colors,” like reds and ambers that he seeks. Each year he offers up the same challenge. If you put a 5k with saturated colors on a scroller next to any moving light of your choice, he will fly to your town for a side-by-side comparison. He knows what he’s doing, and old school is going to win out every time.
—Nook Schoenfeld, “LD-at-Large,” PLSN, June 2009
