Conventionals In The Spotlight...

[WestlakeTech]

PLSN Article-"Old Lamps For New"

I just finished high school. We have tons of moving lights as some of you may have seen. And it irritates me to see 90% of the students in the program, especially the freshmen, act as though intelligent lights are the only ones out there. One of this past year's freshmen even made an "I love the Westlake intelligent lighting rig" group on facebook. So it was wonderful to open this month's PLSN and find conventional lights recieving the respect they so-well deserve.

[Les]

It irritates me to see that some high schools even get access to this stuff! No offense... But seriously!

I guess the silver lining is when one of them falls in love with "lighting design as they know it" and finds themselves in a theatre where you actually have to go touch the lights, and get dirty and make due with a minimal and/or antiquated system.

[gafftapegreenia]

That's funny because I just read that article the other day, and couldn't have agreed more. It's something we hear on CB have been preaching for years, its kinda our mantra.

Thanks for posting the article. I usually like what Nook has to say anyway.

[DaveySimps]

I read the article last week and could not agree more. The best part is when he began to emphasize that conventionals can do certain things BETTER than moving lights.

You gotta walk before you can run people.

~Dave

[WestlakeTech]

Originally Posted by Les

It irritates me to see that some high schools even get access to this stuff! No offense... But seriously!

I guess the silver lining is when one of them falls in love with "lighting design as they know it" and finds themselves in a theatre where you actually have to go touch the lights, and get dirty and make due with a minimal and/or antiquated system.

None taken. The fixtures in that video are now only about HALF of what we have if even that much. We just had a renovation and intelligent lighting was a big part of the budget. I often wish we had less. That video is from our dance team's annual show Zenith. Well, it's hardly a dance show anymore. We had performances on show week Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Friday I was in the hall at school and heard a guy (who'd been at Thursday's show) tell his friend how awesome the lights were. But he didn't say a word on the dancing. The fact is, it was a massive light show, with some pretty good dancing.... but it's supposed to be the other way around. David Poole has issued Westlake TEC a prolonged death sentence, though most people regard him as a savior.... Then again, design has never been his main focus. It's just making sure he's got plenty of button-pushers.
(sorry, been holding this stuff in for 3 or 4 years so it's kinda nice to let it out)

I'm glad this article is so well received.

[NickJones]

It's a shame, as you don't realy learn how to program a show properly if the lights are where you need them every time. If they go and do a show without movers then they will be stuffed and spend heaps of time re-focusing. Im also with Les when he says its unfair you guys get heaps of movers. I want more movers!
Nick

[ship]

Originally Posted by gafftapegreenia

That's funny because I just read that article the other day, and couldn't have agreed more. It's something we hear on CB have been preaching for years, its kinda our mantra.

Thanks for posting the article. I usually like what Nook has to say anyway.

Not my mantra in posting = study of conventional fixtures first in mastering them before one touches a mover in my opinion.

I'm with Len though probably more overt in not agreeing any school really really needs a mover, or if they do it should be a cost effecive base tech system and not "the most modern in technology." This if not basing most experience in college if those of the theater say work also for the school's production house. Say if 'Cats' comes by an they have movers, getting experience in class how to deal with the movers and working with them there but not say if designing 'Adding Machine' for class they should be using moving light on it.

Grew up with magic in the theater before moving lights were invented and heck for even my first few years after college we didn't have access to moving lights either in doing good lighting anyway. Only moving light I ever used before like 99' was some burned out club rotator that we modified with gobos instead of colored swiveling lenses and a 8x16 lenstrain added to it's front. Basically taking the spinning gobo wheel with lamp and inventing our own fixture from there. Couldn't really define the one time only use fixture, kind of moved about some and three dimensionally turned over the audience in mid-air three dimensionally. Since than for me at least it's been at most say AF-1000 or MAC 250 fixtures in self test or pre-programed mode if used at all.

Learned a lot in those days, can still see what a 6x16 beam spread at 24' should look like or even a 8" Fresnel at the same distance, that's importatnt for design. Strongly feel those with a few years under the belt are best studying and learning the basics in angle, beam, intensity etc. before they also consider mastering a mover with the rest.

Rather than a jack of all traids but cool in keeping one's interet where lighting and design is involved, I would rather those learning master their skills and move up to other things. Walk before ride.

[SAWYeR]

I'd have to agree with everyone else. just having finished my first year of college I have worked with moving lights in three shows I've worked on, but only in one of my designs. I work for a theatre company and a production company and we use them a good deal but still, all but one of my designs have been done with conventionals. Sure movers are great, they're cool and flashy, but there's a saying at DePaul, "I don't care what you can do with moving lights, if you can't do a design with and handful of Lekos and PARs then I don't care." I feel that today many budding LDs such as myself have become far to enamored with automated lighting and think it's the only kind of lighting there is. I may know a great deal about how to use/program/design with movers, but I have not forgotten how to make a show magical with good old fashioned conventionals. I also feel very strongly on the subject of high schools owning moving lights. In my opinion giving the students the opportunity to work with such technology is an excellent learning experience, but once they get out into the real world they're going to find that very few theatres that they will be working in will own or even rent moving lights. I say it's better to get to know how to design the "old fashioned" way and have experience here and there with movers than to become spoiled at a young age and lose or never even develop the ability to design without them. However as the field of automated lighting grows and new fixtures continue to be produced I feel that there will be a growing trend in the use of movers in high schools and colleges that this will become somewhat unavoidable. I may only be 19, and I know I have a lot to learn, but this is something I feel pretty strongly about. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[WestlakeTech]

Well, to be honest, many of the Tech Theatre students have no aspirations of pursing any similar career. Most of them will never touch a console after they graduate. Yes, of course it's a great opportunity. But one of the things that bugs me the most is what students here get taught. They're told everything about DMX, color mixing, the operation of the Full Boar... but no one teaches them how do design intelligent light shows. And no one tells them not to make it a distraction.

Phil Gilbert, a Westlake alumnus, helps the students design. At one point in my song, he gave me some instruction on how to make the Technobeams on the floor strobe. I saw the effect and instantly said no, much to his surprise. I want people to pay more attention to the performers.

[shiben]

Ok a few things: 1, our college does not even have a single mover, and we are running everything from theater productions to fairly large rock concerts. Your Highschool is more than spoiled. Care to make a donation? We could probably use a few... We just picked up 2 used I-Cues, and I am still figuring out how to use them effectively without distracting the audience. 2, As a third year design student, I guess I cant understand why you have mostly movers out? Are your sound designers deaf? Mine all tend to cringe at the sound of a color scroller fan, much less a full blown mover... Anyhow, kind of a cool rig. Is it used for theatrical productions at all?