While the entertainment world was busy romancing the new generation of LED sources, physicists and electronic techs were busy marrying two technologies that would soon yield another lamp source to rival LEDs in efficiency and surpass them in other areas. The new LiFi solid-state plasma lamp is a tiny bulb, radio-frequency power supply, and electronic circuit that puts out a tremendous amount of light in a very efficient manner.
That giant sound you heard coming from Europe last month was the falling expectation that the world would come to an end when they started the Large Hardon Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. It turns out that fears of the collider destroying the world through the production of microscopic black holes never materialized. What did materialize was an anticlimactic flip of the switch that started the collider — not that you would have noticed had the press not been there. In the long term, what is learned from these particle collisions could change the way we view the world. In the short term… yawn… stretch… yawn.
It’s become painfully evident to me that this industry has been overrun with people who take too much responsibility for their actions. Every day it seems like I’m on a show where a technician double-checks his work, a programmer tests her backup console or a designer accepts the blame for an uneven front wash.
People! This has got to stop!
Since the 2007 introduction of Apple’s iPhone, the company has sold over 6 million of the wunderkind devices.
Described by some technology pundits as the “Jesus-phone,” the second generation of the touch-screen phone / music player / Internet device will hit store shelves at about the same time as this issue of PLSN.
There are several reasons why this could be the next big hit at LDI and beyond.
Several years ago I made an amazing discovery about automated lights — they actually make noise when they’re on. I know, I know — I was as shocked to learn this as you are. Up until that point, all of my experience had led me to believe that those babies were silently operating behind the 115 dB wall of sound produced by whatever band happened to be on stage at the moment.
In Part I of this article (PLSN, April 2008, page 50) I presented an argument for console agnosticism. Hopefully, by now you’ve had some time to think about the merits of being familiar with a wide range of consoles. These might include application specific virtues, cost factors and even political or historical reasons. So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’m going to tell you why you should forget everything I’ve said and spend your every waking moment learning one console.
There is a certain fervor that constantly surrounds discussions of lighting consoles. So much so that discussion may be one of the nicest discourses that could happen between the often zealot-like users of different desks.
Motorized rigging eliminates the need to figure out how to safely adjust rigged loads with counterweights in a conventional fly system. You just push a button, and up it goes. And so far, for the most part, it’s stayed there. Catastrophic hoist brake failures have been exceedingly rare. With the scarcity of major hoist failures, we want to avoid breeding a new kind of danger: complacency.
A C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet is a very big aircraft. With a maximum payload of over 85 tons, the U.S, Air Force uses this aircraft to move anything from troops to the 70-ton M1 Abrams tank.
In the deepest and darkest regions of your console, a demon exists that some will never dare to battle. In a place where many fear to tread, it has been cursed and reviled by many would-be heroes. In the beast’s lair, the measurement of the fourth dimension takes on an uncanny accuracy oth-erwise unknown to many humans. The periods known as Hours, Minutes and Seconds are joined by a unit of diabolical accuracy known as the Frame.
Crew Chief: “What’s this note on your plot about a 500-foot snake?”
LD: “Well…I think I need a 500-foot snake. Oh, and it needs to have at least eight DMX lines.”
Crew Chief: “We don’t have one. Can you make a 400 work?”
LD: “Did you look at the plot?”
Crew Chief: “Mmmm. Yeah. Okay, we’ll send out the fiber snake.”
LD: “???”
Crew Chief: “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
Knowing Your Limitations
This is a simplified version of a conversation I recently had with someone at Upstaging Inc., a company I work with frequently on corporate events. With FOH stuck at the back of a gigantic Vegas ballroom and a snake run that had to go all the way around — not through — the room, I suddenly found myself very pleased to have a lighting provider that specialized in fixing these types of problems.
If you’ve been reading my blog, The Complex, you may have caught that I’ve recently relocated to the city that never sleeps, New York. (And if you haven’t been reading my blog, along with the other great stuff on PLSN.com… get to it!)
The day that we got to our new apartment in Manhattan, I told my wife that one of the things I was going to make a point of seeing was the “Tribute in Light.” I did, and this month I’m going to reflect a little on one example of technology intertwining with humanity.
But first, a little background…