Automated Fixtures Advice on Purchasing Inteligent lighting for an educational theater.

[SweetBennyFenton]

Well the time has come for me to ask the college I work at to invest in some new lighting equipment. One of the investments I want to make is 2 to 4 intelligent fixtures. While they wouldn't get used for every show we do, I want my students to have some experience with intelligent fixtures before they go out into the world. So here's what I want advice on.

I am looking for fixtures that are:
1. Something the students are likely to work with if they are working professionally.
2. Spot instruments... my theater doesn't have much use for moving flood instruments.
3. Something that is reliable. I am willing to pay more for fixtures that have a good history of quality.

So... if you work at an educational theater, what fixtures do you have or like?
If you work in the professional theater, what instruments do you wish your young electricians had experience with?

What are the industry "standards" now-a-days?

All advice is appreciated.

 

[rochem]

First of all, make sure you've read the Gafftaper Method . While it's not always applicable, make sure that you are at least familiar with it and still choose to go forward. Moving lights are expensive, have expensive lamps, require frequent maintenance, and will become dated relatively quickly. Unless your intent is to have them tearing the fixtures down to the sub-assembly level, I would HIGHLY recommend renting instead of buying. You get to choose new fixtures every time, you're guaranteed that they'll work (or you'll have a spare ready to go), cheaper in the long run, no maintenance or lamp costs to worry about, and many other advantages. I don't know the Portland area at all, but I'm sure there's some rental shops within reasonable distance of you.

However, to address your actual question. Martin and Vari-Lite are the two giants in the industry right now. Studio Colors and Studio Spots are still seeing frequent use, and there's some Clay Pakys that get used occasionally, but I'd say VL and Martin would be your best bet in terms of fixtures you're going to see most often. If you really wanted to buy, I'd look into the MAC 700. It's an incredibly reliable fixture, and they're great about just doing their own thing and fail much less often than pretty much any other fixture. It has CMY mixing, rotating gobos, an iris, strobe flags, and a zoom, so there's most of the features you're going to find in moving lights. The 700s certainly aren't the newest, best, or most powerful fixtures out there, but they're still in use on LOTS of shows (including tours and broadway), and they get the job done. For the most modern fixtures, the MAC 2000 Performance and the VL3500 Spot are probably what you're looking for. Very powerful fixtures, with CMY mixing, rotating gobos, mechanical shutters, and the 2K has an animation wheel that can make some very impressive looks when used correctly. However, these fixtures are very expensive, and they do fail unexpectedly, so keep that in mind.

I'm not an educator, and I'm really not a professional either - I'm still very much a student. And maybe it's just me, but I don't think detailed exposure to moving lights is really an important requirement for an entry-level electrician in a college setting. Yes, moving lights are very important, and it's becoming harder and harder to find professional theatres that don't use them. But for most shows, knowing how to hang them correctly and address them is probably as detailed as you're going to get. For very large shows, the show will more than likely have a dedicated moving light tech, and even if they don't, the shop that the show comes from will handle anything more involved than a bulkhead swap. If you're working for a venue that owns some of their own fixtures, one would hope that they had someone on staff who knew what they were doing. Can having "moving light experience" on a resume help you land a job? Absolutely! But you might be better off using that money to rent a whole slew of fixtures once a year to teach students about all the different types, then use the additional money you still have to purchase other gear they're going to see like scrollers, gobo rotators, LEDs (colorblast/blaze), etc.

This is all just the wild opinion of a young college student who's never been in a serious hiring position. Please take everything with a very large grain of salt.

 

[Footer]

Are you planning on purchasing a GrandMA to go with them or possibly a Chamsys/Road Hog Full Boar?

Hands on a modern moving light console and a few lights of any type will give your students more experience then just owning a few lights. In my opinion, a moving light is a moving light. It wiggles around, throws light out one in, has some gobos, has some color wheels, etc. With only 2 you really are not creating anything beyond a moving special that is going to get hung 5' off center on your 1st electric and never touched again.

But getting back to my point, if you want your students to really learn about moving lights you have to teach them how to work with moving lights on a programmer based console such as a GrandMA/Hog/Chamsys. Those are the industry standards out there. EOS/ION/Pallete do not work this way.

So, my suggestion is to give your students experience with moving lights. Pick a show every year, rent 10-15 fixtures and a moving light console, and go nuts. Even a yearly week long workshop is a great way to get some exposure. Also, a dozen or two scrollers, a few right arms, a dozen LED wash units, and a few ellipscans (yes they are junk but they are cheap and work) will teach the basics of moving lights.

 

[derekleffew]

Well, I tried (and failed) to boycott this thread because of its title. SweetBennyFenton, first let's teach students that we don't want or need "intelligent" lights, we want "obedient" lights.

rochem, what kind of automated fixtures does your fancy-ass college own? Other students, how about your college? Maybe something from this thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/24407-what-has-training-come.html can help further the discussion of what schools should be teaching future designers/technicians.

...But getting back to my point, if you want your students to really learn about moving lights you have to teach them how to work with moving lights on a programmer based console such as a GrandMA/Hog/Chamsys. Those are the industry standards out there. EOS/ION/Pallete do not work this way. ...

I'm sure many would argue that MLs have been successfully controlled on EOS/Palette and other non-MA/Hog/Chamsys consoles. Being programmer-based is not a requirement, just a way of working. I've never gotten close enough to know for sure, but I believe Artisan>Virtuoso>V676 never adopted the "programmer" concept, and they've done fairly well.

 

[jglodeklights]

What you would want to purchase will depend greatly on the theater(s) your school has. Michael's suggestions are certainly good ones; those are industry standards. However, I wouldn't want to use a MAC700 if your theater has 45 foot trims! Pesky need to see more than just a beam of light in the haze when dealing with actors...... Posting a little more information about your theater(s) will help us out here. Also including information about your current setup, such as console(s) will help more, too.

In response to Kyle, I feel these are valid points. Sometimes renting, if it is a shorter tech and run, may be more efficient than purchasing, especially since moving lights are usually in the 8 or more quantity. For 4 MAC 700's and an Expression 3 (which in hindsight I wouldn't have needed) and cable, I was quoted $2500 for a two week rental. The fixtures and cable came to $1900 and the rest was the Expression. Spending the initial investment (and then requisite money that would go towards maintenance after that) instead on rentals, or a workshop that brings in a guest teacher, may be more helpful to students. I gained experience with moving fixtures on an ION and Expression 3 in school, but it was limited to 4 movers and up to 32 scrollers and a couple of meteors. It was some experience, but I can't even begin to program a GrandMA or HOG and 30 or upwards moving fixtures in a big show setting with lots of effects and fans.

That said, the EOS Family, especially the ION, is becoming a a heavier hitter in the market. One of the designers I worked with this summer, who is a designer, associate and assistant on quite a few major tours, events and conferences; noted that several productions he had worked on and at least one upcoming one for him ended up with IONs instead of GrandMA's or HOGs. With all the budget crunches out there producers are just less willing to invest in the more expensive consoles. ETC is also being real good about making the language more in line with industry standards for moving fixtures, rumor has it v2.0 of the EOS software will be real sweet.

That said, again, If you want students (and yourself if you don't already know how) to learn a programmer based console, Chamsys MagicQ PC on a touchscreen computer with a USB to DMX Dongle (about $700-$800 for the entire package) will allow you to do that. Or you can just load it up on an existing PC/Linux/Mac (I didn't have much luck on a Mac, it kept virtualizing the mouse). A touchscreen will help, though.

 

[Amishplumber]

Are you planning on purchasing a GrandMA to go with them or possibly a Chamsys/Road Hog Full Boar?

Hands on a modern moving light console and a few lights of any type will give your students more experience then just owning a few lights. In my opinion, a moving light is a moving light. It wiggles around, throws light out one in, has some gobos, has some color wheels, etc. With only 2 you really are not creating anything beyond a moving special that is going to get hung 5' off center on your 1st electric and never touched again.

But getting back to my point, if you want your students to really learn about moving lights you have to teach them how to work with moving lights on a programmer based console such as a GrandMA/Hog/Chamsys. Those are the industry standards out there. EOS/ION/Pallete do not work this way.

So, my suggestion is to give your students experience with moving lights. Pick a show every year, rent 10-15 fixtures and a moving light console, and go nuts. Even a yearly week long workshop is a great way to get some exposure. Also, a dozen or two scrollers, a few right arms, a dozen LED wash units, and a few ellipscans (yes they are junk but they are cheap and work) will teach the basics of moving lights.

As someone finishing up college and moving into the so called "real world" I would have MUCH preferred someone in college to show me how to program movers on a current industry standard console than pull out a couple of vari-lites connected to an Expression 3x and talk about all the features they have. A moving light is a mover, is an intel. I know how to hook them up and program them directly via DMX (i.e. sans personalities), but sit me down in front of a Chamsys, Hog, Jands etc and the concepts of LTP, palettes, personalities, encoders etc go right over my head. At least in my experience, that extra layer of abstraction is incredibly confusing.

In summary: IMHO I would focus less on specific fixtures/ features and more on the conventions of programming moving lights. That is where I feel real finesse and skill shows itself. Anyone can hook up a few Mac 250s and flash and trash a few looks...

EDIT: Grammer

 

[rochem]

Well, I tried (and failed) to boycott this thread because of its title.

Crap! I meant to mention something along those lines, but it totally slipped my mind.

rochem, what kind of automated fixtures does your fancy-ass college own?

My fancy-ass school is home to (4) MAC 600 Wash, (2) VL1000 TS, and (4) VL3500 Spots, as well as I believe 2 MAC 550s that live in the light lab. The VL3500s are new as of last year, and have only been used on two productions so far. I believe we had a minor issue with one during one of those shows that caused some lost time, but I think we were able to fix it in-house - I wasn't involved in that. I remember we lost a VL1000 halfway through tech for a show last year, and the designer had to scramble to replace all its cues with conventionals. A huge PITA and lots of lost time, but since we didn't have anyone on-site who could repair the fixtures, that was what we had to do. Also, keep in mind that even if you have the ability to make repairs, certain modifications can void your warranty - not something you want to do on a fixture you own!

That said, the EOS Family, especially the ION, is becoming a a heavier hitter in the market. One of the designers I worked with this summer, who is a designer, associate and assistant on quite a few major tours, events and conferences; noted that several productions he had worked on and at least one upcoming one for him ended up with IONs instead of GrandMA's or HOGs. With all the budget crunches out there producers are just less willing to invest in the more expensive consoles.

Couldn't agree more. My summer internship at PRG gave me great insight into what gear was going out for lots of shows. Of the 5 major theatrical national tours that went out, all but one were carrying an Eos as primary with an Ion backup. Some of them had one single programmer doing MLs and conventionals, but even the ones that split it up were able to easily dump the show into one console (plus one backup) for the tour, saving on truck space and cost. There's a number of them on Broadway currently, and some longer-running shows have even been manually moving data from their old consoles over to an Eos.

rumor has it v2.0 of the EOS software will be real sweet.

If you're not using the 1.9.8 beta, you should really jump on it! It's an open beta, and it really is incredible - they've added and streamlined some very useful commands, and they're opening the door for a huge explosion of new functions and capabilities in 2.0 with some simple changes to how key presses are processed. And you get to use these!:

 

[jglodeklights]

My ION is currently at ETC getting a MoBo replacement. As such, I am working with a loaner that I'm just not gonna mess with. Besides, it is 132 dimmers and 31 scrollers, no movers. With one show left, just not gonna deal with it. Now if I get my ION back before the benefit in October.............

 

[Gern]

I just un-boxed my second Ion today!
Looking forward to 1.9.8 and 2.0. I'll load beta soon, since the new Ion is my 'back-up' console, I feel OK with loading it now.

 

[xander]

I think the real question here is what is the end result that you want to achieve? Are you training technicians or designers?


-Tim

 

[Techfiend]

To answer Derek's question about other students/schools:

Here we have 4(2 currently working now?)-Mac 2000 Profiles, 2-Mac 2000 Washes, 5-Mac 600's, 5-Mac 500's, 4-Studio Spots (Just pulled half of a frost flag out of one, another has a bad ignitor), 4-Studio Colors (One with a bad ignitor), 1-DL1 with Catalyst.

Control wise the school has a GrandMA 1, Element, Expression 3, Express and a Microvision between 3 performance spaces. An EOS as well as a Strand 500(?) have been brought in before to program shows with the mover inventory.

As a technician/programmer in school, and as a student, I want to be exposed to as much as possible. Consoles are high on my list, but anything that is a change is welcome.

 

[SweetBennyFenton]

Wow... it seemed I opened a little can of worms on this one. Didn't know that the term "intelligent" was a no-no.

To answer a few questions:

1. I am looking at the Ion right now. While I want a console that can handle moving lights, most of the work we do is with conventionals. I would feel a bit silly getting a Hog to run a show with 60 conventionals and only two movers.

2. I am looking to train both electricians and designers. I work at a liberal arts college so the students will hopefully get a good introduction and grasp of basic electrical and design skills. Even my most committed students will need additional experience after they leave me if they want to be competitive in "the industry." I want them to form a good foundation that they can build on.

3. Renting is not a bad idea but the money issue gets complicated. If I rent, it comes out of my show budget and that is less money I have for other things. If I buy, the college at large pays for the instruments and my budgets don't get touched. I'm trying to put together a package that the college won't scoff at but that gets me some instruments that my students will be working with after they leave me.

Thank you all for the advice so far. Very helpful.

 

[Footer]

3. Renting is not a bad idea but the money issue gets complicated. If I rent, it comes out of my show budget and that is less money I have for other things. If I buy, the college at large pays for the instruments and my budgets don't get touched. I'm trying to put together a package that the college won't scoff at but that gets me some instruments that my students will be working with after they leave me.

Common situation, there myself. One thing to consider... and it has been said a few times. I would have at least a 20% of purchase price budget per fixture per year for maintenance. With bench time at most shops costing at least 100 hour, you can spend a grand servicing a larger fixture pretty easily. Its not a question of if these things are going to break, they will, and it will be at the worst time possible. IF you can buy a spare, do. The ION is a great console and is gaining popularity. I have yet to see one come through, but then again the music world has never warmed up to ETC anything.

 

[Esoteric]

Let me tell you, the moving light experience I got in college was absolutely critical to my career arc.

From our HogII training, to the actual units themselves, we did everything. Programming, hanging, addressing, designing with (for theatrical shows, live music, and in their own right, all of which are different), and (most importantly) doing maintenance and repair on them.

When I went out on my first tour I went out as an electrician.

Within 2 months I had repaired many of the moving lights, I had updated palettes (when the LD got ill at one stop after a bad burger), and after 2 months I was hired as the full time moving light technician for the show. After the tour I got hired on a tour setup/rehearsal as a moving light programmer.

More than anything in college my experience with moving lights and LEDs (in their infancy at the time) that has gotten me work.

As far as what, which. An industry standard moving light console would be best. But, with your situation maybe you run your "normal" movers on your Ion and you rent a Hog or GrandMA for a week every year as a training exercise.

What is your background with moving lights? If you have a good repair knowledge base then look at purchasing used units and using your students as cheap labor for repairs/maintenance.

Also, be sure to get a good mix of units. It is a little more difficult to use certain units in certain shows.

 

[shatbox]

At the community college at which I am studying, the staff and faculty have worked very hard to get grant money to fund the program. We currently have an Express, (2) Expression3s, (2) ions, and a RoadHog. Intelligent lighting wise, there is an inventory of scrollers and Colorados, along with VL & Mac washes and profiles.

They sometimes ask about the current state of things at the venues I work at and I respond honestly (99 seat waiver; perfect for a theatre turned engineering student). At these theaters I work on non permanent integrated controls on productions). Anyway, they ask what I am building, or what products I am seeing or how they are used. I see Light factory, and the entire ETC catalog dating back to 1990, Strands. Being in Los Angeles, IATSE shows use the big boys obviously- PRG, Chamsys, GrandMA, sometimes Ion/expression for scripted tv.

What the college buys comes down to who the designers are (or will be: they are always looking for guest designers w/ the students assisting) and the type of shows they will be producing - though they some times buy for the sake of having the options. If you have designers that use ETC products go with ETC. The experience here is that the students will always take too long to program the console. No way around it. So the designers and staff do it though there is always something similar to a rep plot for the students to practice on (set up to not disrupt current productions). Because of the inventory of scollers, the Expressions work fine, though the ion is always used (no one likes finding or MAKING personalities for LEDs). The Hog is not as comfortable with conventionals as it is with the media servers. Since we are not working with dozens of moving lights, there is no need for a GrandMA. Basically, the Ion always wins. It allows the designers to switch between Scene and Tracking modes at a press of a button, which always puts them at ease. Plus those designers without experience on the EOS family have a place to learn which means we bring in more designers.

Fixture wise, it depends on the labor available, the lamp and potential repair costs, how much it is used, the designers' comfort, and the operators' ability. Infrastructure is an issue at many of these small theatres. Along with the fixtures there are DMX /Ethernet cables to buy/rent/make, Powercon to SPG/PBG/Twistloc adapters, getting Relay/non-dimms or other sources of power, and distro.

Some places will allow you to demo an instrument over the length of the show. Even with new and fancy equipment it will always come down keeping with what the designer intended. I find learning to create new devices out of what I have and bringing others into the project is more engaging than having stuff at your finger-tips.

Understanding the history/philosophy/methods of control has helped me the most. It is important that I see how things scale up. From one light - to a dozen - to LEDS and our best attempts at controlling them. Being able to troubleshoot. Knowing the why & how of DMX and what will replace it. I wish I had learned circuits and LEDs earlier, rather than learning it on my own. Computer programming too. I think the most important take away I have learned is that we currently must learn how to use and interact with these devices (think: old TI-83) . Soon, it will be the other way around (as intuitive as today's mobile phones). How will plug and play impact what I do? What skills are needed then? I guess it all goes back to creativity.

I know may have I said more than you asked, but I wanted to give a good snapshot.

sBox

 

[bishopthomas]

I will emphatically agree with those recommending a console over fixtures. I have lost work because I'm not familiar with GrandMA and Hogs. A few weeks ago I was called for a walk in LD gig on a GrandMA. I lost $400 because I don't know how to use one. I have a Pearl and MagicQ but have never had the opportunity to work on anything else. A moving light is a moving light as far as programming goes. If you can program a $250 ADJ ML then you'll be able to adapt very easily to a Vari*Lite, Martin, High End, etc. Get your students time on a console that is everywhere in the "real world" and they will go far.

 

[soundlight]

I went to a college that had a bit of everything. A good mix of the "Gafftaper method" (which I was pushing like crazy when Gaff made his purchasing decisions way back when) and a couple of real movers. We also had rentals for the fall dance show. So - when I got there, there were Apollo and Chroma-Q scrollers, some Rosco I-Cues, a couple of gobo rotators (DMX and non-DMX) and some GAM Film-FX and 2 strobe caps for Source Fours. There were also 6 Intellabeams and 4 Dataflash AF1000s and the consoles were an Obsession with the moving light designers' remote in the main space and an Express in the blackbox. I arrived with everything due for an upgrade. Over my time there and in the years time since I've left a lot has changed. There are now Seachanger washes and profiles, more Apollo Smart Color scrollers (up to 20 or more now I think?), DMX irises, more I-Cues, Elation LED bricks and LED pars, Selador VIVID-Rs (they're getting more of those soon), and all manner of power supplies, DMX optos, new cable and other stuff to go along with that. There are now 2 IONs + RPU in the main space and an Element in the blackbox. There's a HOG PC interface as well, and the Express exists as a backup.

Every year that I was there, the department rented 4 VL3000 Spots for the fall/winter dance production. In the past they've rented other lights - VL1000s, Cyberlights, Studio Spots, but the VL3000s were rented 5 years in a row because they provided the features we wanted for the dance productions. The zoom range was the most important.

As to the topic at hand: 4 moving lights is a perfectly reasonable inventory for a college to have. I don't see lots of movers being a good idea but a couple of movers are very useful. If my college hadn't had movers I wouldn't have had experience opening them up and troubleshooting them, I wouldn't have had to think about all of the move-in-black stuff that has to happen and I wouldn't have understood the real value of a true moving light desk. I wouldn't have learned about palettes and how to set up preset focuses and why half-colors in the color wheel are awesome and how to allow time for this function to kick in before bringing the light up to full and all that stuff. I would get 4 MAC700 Profiles. MAC700 Profiles are some of the most bulletproof fixtures on the market right now, and it's very easy to open the light up and show students what's going on. You can also easily rent more in most places if you want to expand for a show, and you can put metal gobos in them (unlike V*Ls) so you can get customs for a lot cheaper than V*Ls. The zoom range is decent and the stock gobos, especially the static wheel, provide some decent options for theatre as far as breakups go. There is also the animation wheel which provides for great layering effects with the static or rotating gobos. So I'd get 4 MAC700s and immediately change out half the gobos for customs that you put on the order. Stock the fixtures with your favorite breakups from your favorite manufacturers, since just about anyone will make gobos for a MAC700. Get extra gobos for the fixtures that you will rent to increase your inventory from time to time. The MAC700 is a true proven standard that isn't going anywhere any time soon. They are incredibly stable and have a great feature set.

You should also look at LEDs. I think that the way to go these days for theater, after seeing just about everybody and their brother bring through two or three variants of their LED strips at the place I work now, is the Chroma Q Color Force series. RGBA and my does the amber look lovely. The color range is mind-blowing for an RGBA fixture and the amber and blue diodes are what make this fixture. Anyone can have an RGBA fixture but almost no other RGBA fixture can touch the colors that these babies can. I love being able to hit the low 50s of Rosco colors with just blue and amber. Makes for a gorgeous lavender. Chroma Q Color Force is also what your students will see in the field as things turn over in rental houses. 4wall has been switching out to Color Force over the Color Kinetics range.

As far as consoles go, the ION is a great choice. Make sure to get 2 touchscreens with the console. The ELO 19 inch ones are the ones to get. If you want MA, get a 2port Pro node so you have 2 universes, get a touchscreen PC, a Behringer BCF 2000, an X-Keys and a MIDI button interface of some sort (Looks like the Akai APC-40 is nice) and use that. Set it up in a light lab and if you want to really have fun get a couple of ADJ Vio-scans (concert folks, think mini Nova Flower that's a scanner instead of a moving head and has an LED source), some Blizzard Flurry Tri washes, some Blizzard Q6As, some Chauvet COLORrails (to learn MA pixel mapping) and some Chauvet Q-spot 260 LEDs. Say 4 of each. BAM, concert light lab. I would have LOVED to have something like that to learn on in college.

 

[Footer]

As to the topic at hand: 4 moving lights is a perfectly reasonable inventory for a college to have. I don't see lots of movers being a good idea but a couple of movers are very useful. If my college hadn't had movers I wouldn't have had experience opening them up and troubleshooting them, I wouldn't have had to think about all of the move-in-black stuff that has to happen and I wouldn't have understood the real value of a true moving light desk. I wouldn't have learned about palettes and how to set up preset focuses and why half-colors in the color wheel are awesome and how to allow time for this function to kick in before bringing the light up to full and all that stuff. I would get 4 MAC700 Profiles. MAC700 Profiles are some of the most bulletproof fixtures on the market right now, and it's very easy to open the light up and show students what's going on. You can also easily rent more in most places if you want to expand for a show, and you can put metal gobos in them (unlike V*Ls) so you can get customs for a lot cheaper than V*Ls. The zoom range is decent and the stock gobos, especially the static wheel, provide some decent options for theatre as far as breakups go. There is also the animation wheel which provides for great layering effects with the static or rotating gobos. So I'd get 4 MAC700s and immediately change out half the gobos for customs that you put on the order. Stock the fixtures with your favorite breakups from your favorite manufacturers, since just about anyone will make gobos for a MAC700. Get extra gobos for the fixtures that you will rent to increase your inventory from time to time. The MAC700 is a true proven standard that isn't going anywhere any time soon. They are incredibly stable and have a great feature set.

Once again though, I don't think you have to have movers to teach lighting in the college environment. Regional theatre (what 99% of most college are aimed towards) use a few movers and a ton of scrollers and that type of thing. I have been out of college 4 years now. I have one classmate that just finished up an equity national tour as a ML tech and is now taking out her 4th show as head elec. Another one of my classmates is the head elec for one of the non-vegas circ installs. Both work with moving lights every day. Both learned 0 about them in college beyond a one week "heres some wiggle lights and a hog II". Its great stuff to know, however, its also pretty easy to pick up after you have the basics down. Both of the above people learned GrandMA by getting put on a show with one. I learned Chamsys because I had a show to do and had some time on my hands. I never programmed a moving light beyond an elipscan until after I left college. Its not necesary. If you can do it, do, however, unless you can do it right don't do it at all. If you teach good fundementals, and it sounds like thats the type of school you are at, don't worry about the movers. Would you rather spend 2 weeks teaching moving lights or would you rather spend 2 more weeks having students work in a light lab working on their eye? Unless your program ends with Mellon or Arts, odds are your students won't touch moving lights for several years after graduation. If they do touch them, its going to be in a shop setting where what you will teach them will not apply.

When I taught at a high school a few years back, I had 8 moving lights. They were the most useless things I could have had in the inventory. I had a crappy color inventory, few source fours, hardly any SO cable, and old consoles. However, I did have 8 lights that were pretty useless. Unfortunately, my students liked them and based entire designs around them. The faculty knew we had them so they had to be used for every show. Nothing annoyed me more then those lights. So, before you dive in, really consider if it is going to help your students. It will give them some real world training, however, the real world does a pretty good job of doing that training. When they need it, they will learn it. Teach them common sense, instill a good work ethic, teach good design, and teach how to be a good technician.

 

[Sayen]

I'm not an educator, and I'm really not a professional either - I'm still very much a student. And maybe it's just me, but I don't think detailed exposure to moving lights is really an important requirement for an entry-level electrician in a college setting. Yes, moving lights are very important, and it's becoming harder and harder to find professional theatres that don't use them. But for most shows, knowing how to hang them correctly and address them is probably as detailed as you're going to get.

I disagree slightly. At the high school level I have a handful of full moving lights and a lot of gafftaper method. The emphasis is still on conventionals, because you're right about that as a priority. But I've had several high school graduates do very well starting in college and professional careers because when they showed up for the 1st days training they already had basic exposure. One of my grads became the head lighting technician as a college freshmen for a campus in CA, working gigs in Hollywood, based on learning the GrandMA/Hog systems through rentals in high school.

 

[bishopthomas]

Sorry, Kyle, but I disagree. It seems like you had a bad experience with moving lights in your venue and that has left a sour taste in your mouth. You're right, for someone getting out of high school/college going straight to work for a large theatre or production company there will certainly be on the job training. But not everyone goes that route and I'm not sure why you don't think it would benefit someone to get a skill set that will set that person aside from the competition. Like I said, I don't know GrandMA and so I don't get calls to work on them. A carpenter that doesn't know how to use a table saw will be at a huge disadvantage to one who does. Remember, we're working with tools here, not toys. Moving lights and consoles are tools to fulfill a job, would you really want to limit a carpenter to a handsaw?