Intelligent Lighting

What are your thoughts on intelligent lighting? Are we ahead of our time, or is there more yet to come? Also, I've seen a lot of boards to run intelligent lights off of, what do you think is a good deal between price and functionality?

P.S. is there a code-name for intelligent lighting so i dont have to keep typing intelligent lighting?
 
P.S. is there a code-name for intelligent lighting so i dont have to keep typing intelligent lighting?

Tend to use "intels" a bit myself. And I reckon moving lights usually get shortened to "MLs"
 
Yup - the future is ACN and DL2's.

Deal between price and functionality - that award goes immediately and without hardly any more research than I've already done on the subject (which is alot) to LSC's maXim XL or XXL console w/PaTPad. Amazing functionality for ML's, from what I've seen in demos. I'm looking in to actually getting one demo'd here. Probably just the LP (Large w/PaTPad) model here for demo purposes.
 
Deal between price and functionality - that award goes immediately and without hardly any more research than I've already done on the subject (which is alot) to LSC's maXim XL or XXL console w/PaTPad. Amazing functionality for ML's, from what I've seen in demos. I'm looking in to actually getting one demo'd here. Probably just the LP (Large w/PaTPad) model here for demo purposes.

I agree one hundred percent - we've got the LP here with three of their dimmers and with its functionality and non-existent learning curve (especially ML control in the price range) we couldn't be happier.
 
The only thing I am afraid of in the future, if reference to the DL2, is that "lighting" as an art will start to fade--instead it will all be about who can create the coolest images, most intricate collages, or most interesting projection surfaces. Even though the DL2 can kind of serve both purposes, I think the use of it as a lighting instrument will get lost. Don't get me wrong, I love the instrument--I guess I'm not as impressed with it as some.
 
Actually, I'm scared s***less about what might happen in regards to that for major events.

Basically, I'm keeping my trust in the fact that people will always have to be lit. Concerts will always have to have their fog and haze and followspots and par washes (or something with a similar effect).
 
I don't think the future will be all digital. We'll likely see two types of instruments; 1) LED, and 2) Digital.

A basic LED based leko/fresnel/cyc series of instruments will be popular because of the large number of uses for simple pure color, low cost of instrument purchase, low cost of maintenance, and low cost of power consumption. They will also not have the pixelation that digital instruments do. I'm guessing we'll see fixed focus and pan/tilt versions of these.

Digital will be popular as well and again in fixed focus and pan/tilt configurations. We'll also likely see LED backed versions of these at some point down the road. Purchase and maintenance costs will still be higher than simple LED instruments and they will still have some level of pixelation though optical technologies will eliminate much of it. Their ability to do relatively pure colors, shuttering, gobo's (color or B&W), surfacing, and images will make them popular though.

Just some thoughts...
 
I think you will find that creative designers will use and push the limits of technology to get the effect they want. I think we will also see more use of light integrated into surfaces and materials, as we are beginning to see with led woven fabric fiberoptic, and probably some totally new concepts that we have not even thought of yet.

Sharyn
 
I was a little worried about the DL2 as well until I started incorporating them into my designs, and watching how other designers have used them. They really can never replace a good solid wash plot, they are only a new medium to apply atop the classic ideas.

They are flashy, and it is certainly easy to get carried away, but it provides so many new oportunities, including having an animated cast next to a live cast, and all kinds of camera effects. DL2s also provide a pretty nice CMY equivalent color, that can actually be matched down to tungsten source or arc if necessary, granted it is never going to be true "gel" color, different process of generating color, but it works great as a colored special.
 
I would have to agree with lightbyfire,

<They really can never replace a good solid wash plot, they are only a new medium to apply atop the classic ideas. >

I believe the digital fixtures of tomorrow will add to the 'toolbox' of the designer much as a new metric socket set adds to the mechanic's kit. The need for a Philips screwdriver or hammer will still be legitimate.
Ellipsoidals able to cleanly throw gobo projections and shutter cuts surely didn't replace wash fixtures, they just enhanced the kit available.

(Besides that, we all know school and theater budgets will continue to remain, er..... interesting.)
 
What's been discussed in this is almost the exact same thing that was discussed when intelligent lighting came out--worries that hte new technology will take over the old art. I think cost will always, always keep all forms alive, and the question isn't so much the instruments as the techniques. If you can get the same effect from a TW1 as you can from a Fresnell (not saying you can, but as an example), then you're going to opt for the intel--but it's not as if the technique is any different, you're just using a newer fixture, in the same process that has been done since the advent of theater technology.
 
You know the thing that struck me at LDI was the number of booths displaying products where the medium is the light source. While the High End DL2 display was unbelievable. I wonder if the future is not in projection but instead in surfaces that display their own images without a "projector".

And what's the deal with all the lame 1 and 3 Watt LEDs... I waiting for my 20 Watt LED... That will be sweet. How about a Source4 LED replacement kit with four 20 Watt LEDs (RGB+W)
 
Though they're hard to find, there are 10 watt LED's out there. I think that DigiKey or Mouser or someone along those lines sells them. But I don't think that they have the special reflector technology that makes the Luxeons as bright as they are.
 
While I do agree that material based light sources will be a critical new layer, I feel that it is seperate from digital lighting technology. After all a digital gobo does more than just light a flat surface, it is also useful on actors, and, in the case we recently used it in, on scafolding. The idea of projected light may be part of the effect, especially if something gets in the way of that source. Sometimes it isn't just having an image on a surface. As with any form of lighting design, the shadows are just as important as the lighted surface.

LEDs are going to revolutionize how designers deal with light, additive color mixing requires a whole different aproach to color rendering and perspective, particularly as it blends with subtractive color systems. I feel both modes, LED and digital projection, will be vastly influential and equally important in production design starting in the very near future.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back