Video Digerati

What is an often-overlooked- but-essential element of any lighting or video control system? The Backup. Whether it’s a lighting console or a media server, the backup is the unsung hero of the show. Often it sits there — quietly, lonely almost — as if to say “Put me in coach, I’m ready to play,” but never getting called upon (hopefully). Yet it shows up the next day without complaint. How do you plan for this important piece of the control puzzle? The answer: Very carefully.

As media servers continue to develop features geared toward working with LED fixtures, lighting consoles are beginning to add in tools that address the unique challenges that programmers encounter while programming both lighting and video. As this convergence of lighting and video continues to evolve, the toolsets continue to evolve as well. Here’s a look at some of those tools.

With the rise in popularity of LED products on the market, it’s practically a given that at some point you will find yourself working with pixel mapping. This can be very easy, especially when the content you intend to use is loaded onto the media server that’s doing the pixel mapping. But what do you do when a client has a content playback device that does not output Art-Net or DMX, does not have a pixel mapping interface, and only outputs a video signal? If you have a media server with a video input card, then you’re in luck! You can use that for another creative purpose beyond simply displaying output from a camera. How? By converting a video signal to DMX values for pixel mapping.

I recently came across a great article outlining how working in theatre while in school prepares you for adulthood, and I started thinking about how my time in college theatre had helped me on my career path in lighting. Today, as I find myself more and more involved with the world of video, I realize that working with media servers has helped me be a better lighting programmer too. How so?

The director of an event held annually in Las Vegas on New Years Eve asked for help mapping video onto some costumes that would be onstage for about 30 minutes during the opening walk-in numbers. After assessing projection angles and maximum effectiveness for stage lighting, I convinced him to position a performer on the top center platform of the stage so that I could project in 360° onto the performer’s dress, something visually exciting and unique for the guests.

When we watch a music video, a commercial, or an interesting piece of cinematography, our eyes are often treated to unique visual effects meant to capture our attention and possibly evoke a response. The content creator of the media used in these genres has a wealth of tools and plug-ins available to create these types of effects as well as a creative eye that’s been trained to use these effects.

Let me start by saying that, as some of you may know, I was the console training manager for High End Systems for many years — up to and through the launch of the Hog 3 platform. Because of that, it’s safe to say I’ve taught hundreds of classes on the Hog OS. And that makes it especially ironic that, in 2015, I’d be finding myself in a Hog4 training class again, but this time as a student. In the class, I had the opportunity to work with several new features, but the ones in particular I’d like to focus on here are Plots and the integration of the Media Picker.

On a Hog4 they are called Per Fixture, Per Type and Global. On a grandMA2 they are called Selective, Global and Universal. What do these labels mean? When should you use them, and why? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of palette types.

As manufacturers of automated lighting continue to develop fixtures with multiple LED sources combined into one unit, the challenge of programming these fixtures increases. When units like the A.Leda B-Eye (Clay Paky), the Shapeshifter (High End Systems) or the MagicPanel 602 (Ayrton) are specified in a lighting rig, the programmer will likely be faced with the choice of whether to use the fixtures in a reduced mode or in a pixel mapping mode. A couple of factors will usually determine which mode the programmer goes with, including the vision for how the fixtures are to be used in the show and, just as importantly, the amount of available programming time available. Here are some tips to help take the second item off the list.

Samuel L. Jackson wants to know. Okay, maybe not. But I just finished a media server-heavy show and want to share with you what was on my desktop.

As lighting programmers, we are frequently put into situations where we have little to no time to program for a show that’s happening the same day, so we’ve learned to improvise. Whether you call this “busking,” “punting,” or maybe even just “operating on the fly,” we all have a few techniques that help us get through the “no time to program” one-off. But what about one-off shows with a media server? What things do programmers need to be ready for a show when they have little to no idea what’s coming up next? Luckily, many of the same steps for working with automated lighting can also be applied to punting with media servers. Here are some suggestions so you can be ready to roll with the punches.

Recently I was asked about the difference between visualizers and which one would be best to choose for pre-viz (pre-programming a show). Those questions are not as easy to answer as they once may have been. For many years, lighting designers and programmers had only a few choices for pre-programming a show. And video engineers essentially had even fewer than that. All of that has changed, however, in the last few years. Visualizers, or pre-visualization software applications, are now available in practically all aspects of the entertainment and design fields. Which then leads to the questions, “What are they used for?” and “Which one do I need?” Let’s take a closer look at how the one-time “visualizer” has evolved into an array of powerful design tools for lighting and video designers.