Ariel Davis Lightboard
- Thread starterjwl868
- Start date
The budget is very limited, to say the least. We have no side lights (or any other lights for that matter) of our own; the venue doesn't have them either.
Special effects are somewhat limited (mostly budget, partly venue unknowns, partly time availability). For the growing tree, we have "giant" branches and a giant trunk on a pipe that is flown in just downstage of the "real" tree. And there's a grandfather clock with th remote control on the mechanism to make it move to midhight when Drosselmeyer casts his spell.
Some year we'll make it snow. The venue for the previous 3 years had no fly space, so I haven't given it any thought. Its probably too late for me to design something for this one (Somewhere on this MB is my request for help on that, but it got put on a backburner. And then someone in the organization said they had something, but never came through...) Plus, there are only 3 empty pipes, and I need to use them all do fly in drops. (Testing any design is also problematic - limited access to the venue and limited space in the studio, though I could do testing in my garage.) Maybe next year I can do the snow after I've gotten more familiar with the venue.
Don't know about using fog in the show (Though the battle scene could use something.) Again, it's a budget and equipment issue.
Thanks for the input, though.
Joe
Special effects are somewhat limited (mostly budget, partly venue unknowns, partly time availability). For the growing tree, we have "giant" branches and a giant trunk on a pipe that is flown in just downstage of the "real" tree. And there's a grandfather clock with th remote control on the mechanism to make it move to midhight when Drosselmeyer casts his spell.
Some year we'll make it snow. The venue for the previous 3 years had no fly space, so I haven't given it any thought. Its probably too late for me to design something for this one (Somewhere on this MB is my request for help on that, but it got put on a backburner. And then someone in the organization said they had something, but never came through...) Plus, there are only 3 empty pipes, and I need to use them all do fly in drops. (Testing any design is also problematic - limited access to the venue and limited space in the studio, though I could do testing in my garage.) Maybe next year I can do the snow after I've gotten more familiar with the venue.
Don't know about using fog in the show (Though the battle scene could use something.) Again, it's a budget and equipment issue.
Thanks for the input, though.
Joe
And STEVETERRY has the nerve to say that Altman 360 ERSs should go to the dumpster! Another poster here is asking about trying to use a scoop as a Linnebach to project clouds as he has no ERSs. Yes it would be wonderful if everyone could buy as many new SourceFours and Selecons as he/she wanted, STEVETERRY and SteveB, but we all know that's never going to happen, unless you're, say...Cirque du Soleil or the like. Thus our morbid, perverse fascination with outdated, impractical, inefficient fixtures. To many, anything that emits light is useful. At my venue, I was the only one who would use the 200+ pre-SL Strand LekoLights, as everyone else demanded SourceFours. While I was away, every single one of them went to the landfill/recycling center. A local college wouldn't even take them, as they were "only interested in SourceFours." I work with the "latest and greatest" every day, but still have an appreciation for what came before. Maybe it's misplaced nostalgia-ism.
Brother P-Touch rulez! I own three of them, and have more tape sizes and colors than I will ever use. Once, in order to program and operate an ETC original MicroVision (with round, silver, unlabeled, buttons) I had to cut 1/4" squares of white gaffer's tape on each button and change them when the black Sharpie™ wore off. What really irks me is when a programmer will put tape of any kind on a Hog or grandMA, when the board allows the user to label the faders on the LCD right above.
Good luck with The Nutcracker, jwl868. With a front wash and RWB Xrays, and a followspot, you should be able to create some pleasing looks. Sorry you don't have 500 S4s available, but often the theatre is "make the best with what you have."
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Have to agree with Derek on this one, I label things all the time. I wold rather have things labeled well than not labeled at all. ON my console I always label my subs and macros. This way, if I get sick, another crew member can come in and sit at the console and know what I have programmed where.
Cable runs are labeled, often I will label my multi break-outs as to what circuit they actually come from. I just got a new label machine that can do labels of all sizes, and can do heat-shrink tube. So useful!
I'm all fine with labeling either with P-Touch as said or Dymo professional labels, or with Board Tape. But he cut random sized not even straight labels stuck them on the board and wrote with washable marker.
Logos
Well-Known Member
I get a lot of the work I do because I don't insist on having SOTA equipment and will do my level best to acheive what the client wants with the minimum gear that is available. This isn't to say that I don't breathe a sigh of relief when there is decent gear available but there's a lot of pleasure to be had from acheiving what you want from a difficult start. (That doesn't sound like what I was trying to say but I know what I mean.) I just wish I had a few more 1K Fresnels and a few more decent profiles in my own kit. Never mind lets see what Santa brings.
Friday’s dress rehearsal and the two shows (The Nutcracker) Saturday went very well. (One of the main dancers sustained a season-ending injury about two weeks before forcing changes in dancer sand choreography.) Our light board operator (a friend of the studio owner) had done lighting for community theatre for years and had no trouble with the board. (There were a few nuances – certain sliders couldn’t be run up too far without popping a circuit breaker and some of the beam lights did not work or apparently weren’t controlled by any slider.) The followspot turned out to be a little weak, but we managed. And setting up the stage took about 20 minutes longer than I had expected so I was holding up the start of rehearsal.
The worst glitch was when a CD started skipping during the first show. All we could do was stop the dance, put in the spare, and go again.
With such limited rehearsals at the venue, essentially no tech rehearsal, and a different set of technical volunteers from year to year, I’m always amazed at how well the shows go. From the stagehand perspective, the show is the epitome of the cliché: Two hours of total boredom and 3 minutes of mindless panic.
Joe
The worst glitch was when a CD started skipping during the first show. All we could do was stop the dance, put in the spare, and go again.
With such limited rehearsals at the venue, essentially no tech rehearsal, and a different set of technical volunteers from year to year, I’m always amazed at how well the shows go. From the stagehand perspective, the show is the epitome of the cliché: Two hours of total boredom and 3 minutes of mindless panic.
Joe
I thought this obituary of Mr. Ariel R. Davis (1912-1997) would be applicable to this thread: Deseret News | DEATH: ARIEL R. DAVIS.
Esoteric
Well-Known Member
Esoteric
Well-Known Member
I hear you! Winning "The Lighting Designer you want to have when you only have two clip lights and a flashlight to light a show" worked wonders for me!
I have used units I didn't even know the manufacturer of, scoops as wash lights, pageants, units with no lenses, bare light bulbs (before Sean Adams made it "cool" although I did get the idea from him), practicals, candles, lighters, lanterns, whatever it takes to get the scene lit.
On the way you discover some useful tricks that you use even when you have access to VL3000s and Source Fours.
Mike
This thread has been a walk down memory lane. I started working with Ariel Davis dimmers when I was 12 years old. We had one of the 6 slider units that plugged into a panel backstage at our church. The six outputs could be hard patched to several different light bars oabove the stage.
My high school had a unit with three of the 6 slider units plus master controls over each and one large handle that the three masters could mechnically lock onto. There was a patch panel on the lower surface. The large handles that are in the picture of one of the other posts, are used to transfer the master control so that it no longer masters the slider units and has it's own output connectors.
I just recently built a 24 dimmer system for Florida Southern college that replaced the exact model that I had in high school and everthing on it works.
I worked for Ariel Davis the summer that I was 16 assembling dimmer racks.
Ariel Davis did build some of the very first SCR dimmers, and they provided one free with their new "quickconnect" patch panel to the "Pioneer memorial Theatre" on the University of Utah campus. Prior to that the U of U used Kinsbury hall for all of it's drama, ballet and opera. The dimmers at the Kinsbury were rows and rows of Ariel Davis 6 slider units, with the house lights controlled by motorized magnetic amplifiers located in the basement and controlled by a home made keyboard. The system was used for all of the lighting up until the Ariel Davis dimmers became available.
I also helped out on a program using 20 of the Ariel Davis six sliders in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. We used fifteen miles of extension cords fort that pageant.
Ariel Davis sold out to Electro control, who eventually became the architectural division of Strand. After Ariel Davis sold out to Strand, he tried to develop some equipment that got around his own patents that he sold with the company. The effort didn't last very long, but I worked with one of those systems in the library of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Bye the way the six slider units were built in two models. ONe had a capacity of 100 amps total with 20 amps maximum per slider and the smaller and first model was a total capacity of 50 amps total with the sliders also 20 as the larger model. Thanks Derek for the link to the obituary.
My high school had a unit with three of the 6 slider units plus master controls over each and one large handle that the three masters could mechnically lock onto. There was a patch panel on the lower surface. The large handles that are in the picture of one of the other posts, are used to transfer the master control so that it no longer masters the slider units and has it's own output connectors.
I just recently built a 24 dimmer system for Florida Southern college that replaced the exact model that I had in high school and everthing on it works.
I worked for Ariel Davis the summer that I was 16 assembling dimmer racks.
Ariel Davis did build some of the very first SCR dimmers, and they provided one free with their new "quickconnect" patch panel to the "Pioneer memorial Theatre" on the University of Utah campus. Prior to that the U of U used Kinsbury hall for all of it's drama, ballet and opera. The dimmers at the Kinsbury were rows and rows of Ariel Davis 6 slider units, with the house lights controlled by motorized magnetic amplifiers located in the basement and controlled by a home made keyboard. The system was used for all of the lighting up until the Ariel Davis dimmers became available.
I also helped out on a program using 20 of the Ariel Davis six sliders in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. We used fifteen miles of extension cords fort that pageant.
Ariel Davis sold out to Electro control, who eventually became the architectural division of Strand. After Ariel Davis sold out to Strand, he tried to develop some equipment that got around his own patents that he sold with the company. The effort didn't last very long, but I worked with one of those systems in the library of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Bye the way the six slider units were built in two models. ONe had a capacity of 100 amps total with 20 amps maximum per slider and the smaller and first model was a total capacity of 50 amps total with the sliders also 20 as the larger model. Thanks Derek for the link to the obituary.
You're welcome, dramatech. I might as well "complete the circle" by including this link to the sole other thread on CB: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting/8927-ariel-davis-dimmer-distro.html. Would you possibly have built this one:
or is that a later model? (More pictures at: Mike Nicolai's Photos - Ariel Davis Power Distro | Facebook .)
or is that a later model? (More pictures at: Mike Nicolai's Photos - Ariel Davis Power Distro | Facebook .)
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That would be hard to say, It is the right model and built in the same time frame.
I have used two other dimmer systems, That used the "quick connect" type of patch panel. Both were from companies in Salt Lake City. One was in the performing arts center in Redding, CA, and the other one was at the Nora Mayo Hall in Winter Haven, FL. They were both 2 scene preset SCR dimmers. The one in Redding, I believe was a brand named "Major". They were both from an era, that would have been during the Electro Control period. I know nothing about them, except I find it curious that that they both are from Salt Lake and use the same patch system that Ariel Davis sold the patent to Electo control.
I have used two other dimmer systems, That used the "quick connect" type of patch panel. Both were from companies in Salt Lake City. One was in the performing arts center in Redding, CA, and the other one was at the Nora Mayo Hall in Winter Haven, FL. They were both 2 scene preset SCR dimmers. The one in Redding, I believe was a brand named "Major". They were both from an era, that would have been during the Electro Control period. I know nothing about them, except I find it curious that that they both are from Salt Lake and use the same patch system that Ariel Davis sold the patent to Electo control.
Ah, the memories! My first lighting experience was with a Davis dimmer with a slider patch. I was probably around 12 years old, assisting at church.
There is nothing quite like operating a dimming system whose controls spit little arcs as you adjust it, and makes a noticeable hum when you energize the main breaker. The new systems are a lot more flexible, but it just isn't quite as romantic.
They also produced a fair amount of heat. The control room with a bunch of dimmers could get rather uncomfortable.
There is nothing quite like operating a dimming system whose controls spit little arcs as you adjust it, and makes a noticeable hum when you energize the main breaker. The new systems are a lot more flexible, but it just isn't quite as romantic.
They also produced a fair amount of heat. The control room with a bunch of dimmers could get rather uncomfortable.
This thread has also been a walk down memory lane for me. My first job in the industry was assembling dimmer panels that used these slider units (I worked for EC's Canadian subsidiary where we did final assembly on everything the company sold north of the 49th). The dimmers were an innovative product but they probably wouldn't meet today's electrical codes. We were still building them in the mid-70s, mostly for schools in out-of-the way places where reliability and ease of use were the main concerns.
I've attached a couple of catalog shots I have from the early days (late 50s?), so you can see what the state of the art in lighting control technology used to look like. One of the board ops seems to be wearing specialized clothing to protect her from the showers of sparks emitted regularly by this type of gear.
I've attached a couple of catalog shots I have from the early days (late 50s?), so you can see what the state of the art in lighting control technology used to look like. One of the board ops seems to be wearing specialized clothing to protect her from the showers of sparks emitted regularly by this type of gear.
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pathway, can you tell what the two handles below the breakers did (post #5, near the bottom of picture #4)?
Thanks for the other pictures. Got any more (of any console/fixtures)?
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The two handles that you are refering to, were transfer switches on the one that we had in my high school. We had three of them. The way they worked, was that our house lights were controlled by the large handles at the top of the console. Once the house lights were all of the way down, the switches would be thrown, and then they became master controls of the six sliders below them. Ours had three positions. One was the house lights. One was the master control of the sliders, and the third was a series of three 20 amp breakers per control that fed connections on the patch panel.
In theory it was a great idea. The problem was that we could never take the house lights all the way down, and use the controls for anything else. The admin was afraid that if we took the house all the way out, that the students would "make out".
In theory it was a great idea. The problem was that we could never take the house lights all the way down, and use the controls for anything else. The admin was afraid that if we took the house all the way out, that the students would "make out".
