Tech Topics aims to keep you informed about the important technical aspects of lighting. We will be regularly posting helpful articles for all involved in the science and art of lighting. Click on the title to be directed to the full article.

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Sentences No One Wants To Hear In Production
By Lance Darcy, Live Design Magazine
There are many sentences in our industry that no one wants to hear. “Someone’s been hurt,” for example, sends a chill down my spine. “The client is unhappy,” though much less serious, also summons a bad feeling in the stomach. One sentence, “We’ll figure it out on site,” is often tossed around and seems innocuous.

Building Intense Intensity Effects
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
In the mid-1990s, automated lighting consoles started to incorporate effects engines. With the single press of a button, a ballyhoo or color cycle could be created, eliminating the need to spend a long time building positions and steps of a chase.
Although this new feature was a wonderful tool, it became widely misused. We began to see many productions where the effects were used for the main programming and not just a tool to supplement the other capabilities of the console and programmer. Luckily, for the most part, times have changed. We now see effects used as one of the many tools an automated lighting programmer has available, and more productions shy away from the chaos of effects-heavy programming. Recently, as I was programming a concert tour, I realized how I often use effects on the intensity channel of fixtures as a primary tool.

Copy That
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
In most situations, copying is a bad idea.  I have taught my son that copying from someone else’s paper in school or copying data for a book report from a web page is wrong.  If I were to copy a previous article and submit it as a new one, PLSN would almost certainly reject it. 
However, when programming automated lighting, copying is a very powerful tool.  There are many instances during programming where copying data speeds programming, provides quick references, and generally enables work to get done faster.  As always, you should read the user manual for your console of choice to determine the exact keystrokes required to copy various types of data.  Most consoles contain very strong copying syntax that can aid you during your next programming session.

Lighting the Club Band
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
I’ve been asked several times about what smaller bands playing nightclubs should carry for lighting gear. These questions come from cover bands to newly signed acts to old touring professionals who are reuniting for a club tour. The two things they all have in common is a lack of knowledge and a shortage of cash for lighting. Long gone are the days when bands put colored PARs in coffee cans and connected lots of wires to a foot pedal board for the guitarist to trigger.

Chasing the Past
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Imagine a time when automated lighting consoles did not have effects engines, fanning abilities, and other automated functions.  That was the case back when I started programming. These programming tools were not widely implemented.  We had to create complex chases and positions by hand using math and other methods.  Many of these methods are long forgotten; however, they are still very useful to this day.  The understanding of how these processes work can still be a viable way of programming today to help create more complex programming when they are combined with modern console functions such as effects and fanning.

The Promise of LEDs
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
A few short years ago, LEDs were like the Jessica Simpson of the live event production industry; they were pretty but not too bright. Thanks to Haitz’s law, that’s changing faster than executive salaries on Wall Street. But what does the technology have in store for us in the future? For answers, we asked Chad Stalker of Luminus Devices where all this will lead.

Working with Celebrities
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Working in the entertainment industry allows many opportunities for interaction with celebrities of all types. I have had the privilege of meeting rock stars, actors, models, politicians, and even an astronaut who walked on the moon. Celebrities come in all types and working with them presents some unique situations and challenges.

Programming Attraction(s)
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Jason Badger has found a unique niche as a specialty automated lighting programmer.  For over 10 years, he has been programming major attractions and rides for Disney parks around the world.  As if this is not enough, he also spends his free time working in the Los Angeles area on other types of productions.  However, what is distinctive about Jason is his work on Disney attractions.  I wanted to learn more about programming theme park attractions, so I interviewed him about his specialty.

It Doesn't Add Up
I work for a lighting company and we have a slew of power draw sheets that look nice on paper, but never seem to be entirely correct when I do a load test on a show site. I asked someone here if they knew why that is and they mentioned something about multiplying by the square root of three. What are they talking about?
—Confused Electrician
Dear Confused,
If you think three-phase power calculations are confusing, you should try figuring out the Bowl Championship Series. Texas beats OU, Tech beats Texas, and OU beats Tech; so who goes to the championship? Whoever the university presidents say will go.

New Lamps for Old
PLSN Magazine
While the entertainment world was busy romancing the new generation of LED sources, physicists and electronic techs were busy marrying two technologies that would soon yield another lamp source to rival LEDs in efficiency and surpass them in other areas. The new LiFi solid-state plasma lamp is a tiny bulb, radio-frequency power supply, and electronic circuit that puts out a tremendous amount of light in a very efficient manner.

LED Enlightenment
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Recently I journeyed to the Mecca of Illumination to study at the feet of the master guru of LEDs. I trained with the legendary leader for weeks and meditated on the growing energy of LED lighting programming. My teacher enlightened me about the ever-increasing importance for an automated lighting programmer to master the Zen of controlling LED products. Through focused visualization, the guru shared an assortment of methods, tips and essentials to help me find my own path of LED illumination.

Pre Pre Production
PLSN Magazine
A good automated lighting programmer will always prepare for the tasks at hand long before the trucks are loaded. Most lighting companies will prepare the fixtures, cables, truss and more prior to the first load-in. In the same manner, an automated lighting programmer should prepare the show file and console configuration before arriving on site. There are many important procedures and provisions that you should follow when you are beginning a new project.

Going Green
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
Nowadays everyone is concerned with power consumption for two logical reasons. One, we want to save ourselves some cash, either at the pumps or in our house with heating oil, and, two, we want to save our planet by lowering our fossil fuel consumption and emitting less toxic waste into our atmosphere. I firmly believe that the time has come to start getting rid of incandescent light bulbs, not just in our households, but also in our stage work. We are facing obstacles in doing this, but really, is it something our industry cannot overcome? I don’t think so. It seems we are well on our way.

No Shirt, No Shoes? No Way!
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Imagine this: I was working on a stadium concert for a big rock band in an indoor stadium. We had a well known LD and were just about to start the first rehearsal with the band. Our front of house technician came walking out to the consoles wearing only his shorts. With no shirt and no shoes he paraded across the floor and right up to the LD. Then he took his seat and waited for the rehearsal to start. I am sure you can guess the LD’s reaction; no one was surprised when the FOH tech was replaced just a few days into the tour.

Taming the Cable Monster
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
There’s a new movie in the making that will soon be playing in theatres and performing arts spaces everywhere. It’s about a new protocol that goes up against a monster bundle of cable. The winners in this battle are the techies and end users of large lighting systems. 

Blame the Gear
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
It’s become painfully evident to me that this industry has been overrun with people who take too much responsibility for their actions. Every day it seems like I’m on a show where a technician double-checks his work, a programmer tests her backup console or a designer accepts the blame for an uneven front wash.

Timecoding a Rock Show
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
The world of stage productions has really grown complex in the last 10 to 15 years. Not only have automated lights become standard, but so have digital audio consoles, complex show control systems, motion control and networking. Often these systems must be synchronized via MIDI or SMPTE to ensure a reliable and repeatable production. While it can be amazing to sit back and watch a programmed light show run automatically, it is also a bit disheartening to walk away from a desk and have the show continue.

Could a Phone be the Next Power Tool of Our Industry?
PLSN Magazine
Since the 2007 introduction of Apple’s iPhone, the company has sold over 6 million of the wunderkind devices.
Described by some technology pundits as the “Jesus-phone,” the second generation of the touch-screen phone / music player / Internet device will hit store shelves at about the same time as this issue of PLSN.
There are several reasons why this could be the next big hit at LDI and beyond.

Becoming a Vampire
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Walk into any venue after midnight during pre-production for a show and you will find several creatures dressed in black lurking in all areas. These “people” often only come out after dark and seem to leave the venue once the sun comes up. They usually work in darkness and yet they wield total control of the atmosphere, at least in terms of lighting. The cast and other crew members often only see the lighting crew and automated lighting programmer as their paths cross, coming and going from the venue. The lighting vampires often seem confused as they exchange “good mornings” with the other staff members at 9 p.m. There are many pros and cons to working the “late shift” as an automated lighting programmer and also many things to consider as you switch from “normal” work times to overnight, then back to normal.

Peeling Back the Layers
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Each year it seems that new lighting fixtures become more and more complex.  If you attend any lighting tradeshows you will find that most manufacturers have LED fixtures, media servers and digital lighting products. These unique products are very different in output and control from good old “automated” lighting fixtures.  Many of these units require knowledge of their protocol as well as a good understanding of how they interact with a lighting desk.

Stealth Programming
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Several years ago I made an amazing discovery about automated lights — they actually make noise when they’re on. I know, I know — I was as shocked to learn this as you are. Up until that point, all of my experience had led me to believe that those babies were silently operating behind the 115 dB wall of sound produced by whatever band happened to be on stage at the moment.

Looking for some new old stuff
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
Every month I see new products on the market. It seems the latest LED and media server technology is constantly outdating last year’s cool stuff. Automated lighting manufacturers are dueling to keep up with each other in terms of lumens while trying to come up with new features. This stuff is impressive, but it makes me wonder…“Why don’t people concentrate on making new cooler versions of existing gear?”

Console Agnosticism
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
There is a certain fervor that constantly surrounds discussions of lighting consoles. So much so that discussion may be one of the nicest discourses that could happen between the often zealot-like users of different desks. You may prefer an MA Lighting grandMA, Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 3, Jands Vista or some other console that I inadvertently (or purposefully) neglected to list. Whether your chosen board is from the Netherlands, Germany or the United States, I am here to show you the light.

The 12 Steps of Automated Lighting Programming
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
The practice of programming a show from an automated lighting console can be broken down into 12 straightforward steps.  Rarely have I seen a production fail when a programmer has followed these simple steps.  Those that do fail seldom completely follow these simple guidelines for programming.  While this manner of programming is filled with complexity and important elements, do not balk at it. If you follow these simple suggestions, you will be guaranteed a well-programmed show.

HD Switching
By Cory FitzGerald, Live Design Magazine
As the myth of convergence comes stumbling to a gig near you, some confusion arises about one of the hottest buttons to hit the media server market since its inception. To go HD, or not to go HD: this is the question of the current age, both on the job and at home. Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the constraints of SD or venture off to the mysterious territory of HD, perhaps to never work for those producers again!

Lighting the Concert DVD Shoot
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
The rules for lighting a concert in front of a camera are quite different than lighting one for the eye. The cameras tend to pick up things that the human eye cannot. Over the years I’ve had to teach myself how to change and adapt my show so it still looks the same to the audience and still looks good on camera. The fact is that this particular evening’s performance is not meant to be perfectly lit for the 15,000 people who bought tickets; it’s for the million people who will view the concert footage.

Automating the Show
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
As an automated lighting programmer, I am often tasked with helping to automate the playback of a production. There are several approaches that are used in our industry for various types of automated lighting playback. There are also times when the lighting console needs to trigger other de-vices to ensure that the production is synchronized by the lighting console. Whether using MIDI, MIDI Show Control, Timecode, analog signals, or other custom triggers, it is important to understand the choices and how to use them.

How Sharp is that Gobo?
By Mike Wood, Live Design Magazine
How sharp is that gobo? Isn't that something like asking how long is a piece of string? The answer to both these questions would appear to be highly subjective. Take a gobo and project it from a luminaire, and we all have our opinions about how sharp the projected image is. What's more, when viewing two fixtures side-by-side, we can usually agree on which one gives the better result. However, until now, we have had no way to either communicate or document that sharpness in numbers or to be able to compare two fixtures viewed at different times. This isn't to say that a sharp image is always desirable — sometimes we want nice soft fuzzy edges, so it would be good to be able to measure and duplicate that fuzziness as well.

Slaying the Beast: A Modern Tale of Timecode
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
In the deepest and darkest regions of your console, a demon exists that some will never dare to battle. In a place where many fear to tread, it has been cursed and reviled by many would-be heroes. In the beast’s lair, the measurement of the fourth dimension takes on an uncanny accuracy otherwise unknown to many humans. The periods known as Hours, Minutes and Seconds are joined by a unit of diabolical accuracy known as the Frame.

The Five Lighting Metrics
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
I was fortunate enough to start in the lighting business when my own personal circumference of darkness was oh so small. I didn’t even know enough to know how little I knew. I was in the lighting business a long time before I stumbled across the secret to understanding the relationship between the five lighting metrics. It’s called ED-100.1.

Controlling Light....with Light
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Crew Chief: “What’s this note on your plot about a 500-foot snake?”
LD: “Well…I think I need a 500-foot snake. Oh, and it needs to have at least eight DMX lines.”
Crew Chief: “We don’t have one. Can you make a 400 work?”
LD: “Did you look at the plot?”
Crew Chief: “Mmmm. Yeah. Okay, we’ll send out the fiber snake.”
LD: “???”
Crew Chief: “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

The Ultimate Punt Page
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
For years, I have talked about the art of running an entire lighting show from one page on a console — I light television, rock concerts and business meetings this way. So many people have asked me how to construct these pages, that I have decided to reveal the secrets of Nook’s Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Punt Page.

Tracking Made Easy
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
There are many concepts and principles every automated lighting programmer should know. The most important is probably the principle of “tracking.” It is actually a very simple concept, yet is often the most difficult to teach and learn. However, once tracking is understood, its impor-tance to automated lighting data becomes clear.

Synchronicity, Part 2: The Spread of ACN
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Last month, I talked a bit about the recently approved ACN (Architecture for Control Networks) standard. Now that you know a little more about the reasons for the new standard and some of the underlying concepts, I’m going to talk about a couple of specific pieces to the puzzle that will benefit systems large and small. 

Button Pushing 101
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
The position of automated lighting programmer is relatively new to the lighting industry (given the full history), and that means there are limited resources for learning the craft. They include manufacturer-sponsored seminars, colleges, private training, tradeshows, Web sites and printed materials. If you’re a newbie, you should carefully examine your choices and decide where to focus your energy for the best knowledge-gaining experience.

Synchronicity, Part 1: The Rise of ACN
By Phil Gilbert, PLSN Magazine
Our industry looked a bit different 20 years ago. Some people might tell you that things were better in the ‘80s. You might hear them say: “Things were simpler;” “Young people were more respectful of hard work;” “All we had were dimmers and PAR cans, and you didn’t see Eddie Van Halen complaining.”

Size Matters
PLSN Magazine
Are instruments shrinking? Or is bigger still better?
Does Moore’s Law, which dictates that all technology must inexorably move toward a smaller/faster/cheaper paradigm, apply to lighting? Less theoretically, are there dynamics that are compelling the footprint of lighting platforms to shrink, even while they’re demanding that they increase in power and decrease in cost?

Programming Permanently
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
One of the greatest joys of working as an automated lighting programmer is getting the opportunity to work on many different types of projects. One of the most unique has to be the permanent installation. These include stores, bars, bowling alleys, amusement parks, restaurants, buildings and more. It is exciting to work on a project that has the potential to be seen by millions of people over a period of several years. These installations present unique programming requirements and challenges. The programming environment, automation, maintenance and even audience perspective must all be taken into consideration.

Lighting Touring Tricks
By Cory FitzGerald, Live Magazine
Programming a large-scale show can be a daunting task in and of itself, but what if that same show has to tour? Traveling from city to city on a sometimes daily basis, setting up, and tearing down several times a week creates myriad problems, dealing with different venues and sizes. But now imagine you have different equipment in each city! How do you make your complicated show look the same, or at least similar, every night?

The Dialectic of Production
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
“Everyone wants the advanced stuff,” says professor of entertainment technology at New York City College of Technology (CUNY) John Huntington. “What they actually need is really strong, in-depth coverage of the basics.” Huntington should know. He’s the author of Control Systems for Live Entertainment, and he has been teaching college courses in entertainment technology for about six years.

The State of the Lighting Tech Today
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
I’ve been hearing some disturbing stories lately. And I’m getting upset. It seems like its becoming normal for touring shows to fire lighting techs. On several occasions in the last two years, I’ve heard stories of whole crews being replaced. I get calls from people who hate working with techs that I know do great work for me. I don’t get it. Is it the new generation of youngsters and their attitudes? Or the fact that many techs don’t know what they’re doing these days?

If I Have Seen Farther, It’s Because I Use a Visualizer
By Nook Schoenfeld, PLSN Magazine
I am blessed in that I am busy all the time. It’s also a curse as it cuts down on time at home and the amount of preproduction I can do on-site. So I depend on visualizers to get a jump start on my lighting programming for most of my shows. A visualizer is a computer software program that allows you to draw up a mock lighting rig over a stage set, connect a lighting console (real or virtual) to the computer and start turning on the lights. I can cue up my lighting for business conferences or rock shows in a couple of days, all from the comfort of my living room.

The Light of a New Day
By Dan Daley, PLSN Magazine
Legislators from California to Canada are introducing legislation to either encourage or compel the migration from incandescent lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs. It could signal the most significant shift in the lighting industry since the introduction of the LED. According to an Associated Press report, a California legislator has proposed a ban on incandescent bulbs, contending that compact fluorescent (CF) sources are so efficient — they use one-fourth the electricity spent in an equivalent incandescent — that consumers should be forced to use them.

Bringing Sexy (Light) Back
Patrick Murphy, Live Design Magazine
Laser light is sexy light. It produces the purest, tightest beams you can imagine. That's why it is routinely used as a special effect in large-scale events like the Olympics, concert tours, and world sports ceremonies. The saturated colors and pencil-thin shafts, choreographed to music, make an indelible impression on the viewer.

No Crack Problem Here
By Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
"It seems the expectation is that an entertainment electrician should be an engineer, licensed electrician and theatre technician.” Virginia Croskey, an adjunct professor at Prince George Community College in Largo, Md., wrote those words after taking a two-day entertainment electrician’s course. The course is designed to teach the principles behind the practice of being an entertainment electrician. Yes, Virginia, there is more to the entertainment electrician than meets the eye..

Lighting a Symphony - And Then Some
By Nook Schoenfeld , PLSN Magazine
In the last few months I received two offers to light a symphony. I thought to myself, “How hard can this be? Set a pretty look for each segment and key light a couple of solos. Simple, right?” Now add some flamenco dancers, jugglers, acrobats, assorted guest vocalists and 100 choir members. What I ended up with is a variety show, featuring the symphony.

The Media Mystery
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Early on a Tuesday morning, I sat in my office recalling the details of my last gig, when suddenly the phone rang. An LD wanted to retain my services, and began filling me in on all the sorted details of the event. He led me to believe that only the usual suspects — automated fixtures — would be involved. Then he dropped the bombshell: media servers were in on the job. Being the sly programmer that I have grown to be, I decided to investigate the routines related to preparing for programming media servers from a DMX console.

RDM and Flickering Legacies
Karl G. Ruling, Live Design Magazine
The RDM standard is now published, and products are coming on the market that use the methods described in the standard to collect information about equipment on a DMX512 network and to set parameters such as a DMX starting address and operating modes from the lighting control console.

The Illusion of Diffusion
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
A couple of months ago, I came face to face with the realization that all I had known to be true about diffusion was little more than illusion. For several years I put those little square pieces of plastic in front of my luminaires to magically transform the subject by changing the quality of the light. But by sheer accident I found it wasn’t changing it as much as I thought.

Illumination Inflation: But It Goes to 11!
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
A funny thing happened on the way to the top of the grand master fader. I found out that it not only goes up, but it also comes down. It was a complete accident, but it turned out to be a discovery that was right up there with the time I found out my VCR wasn’t supposed to flash “12:00.”

Hue and You: Creating and Using Color Palettes
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
One of the most essential functions of an automated light is the ability to alter the color of the light output from the fixture. The lighting designer must carefully choose the colors used within performances, as different colors can produce different physiological reactions by the audience. Furthermore, the use of colored lighting can dramatically alter the appearance of set pieces and performers. The automated lighting programmer must be aware of the capabilities and limitations when working with color and automated lights.

White Lies, Black Magic and Gray Matter
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
Have you ever been so mad that you saw green?
Probably not. Green is supposed to be the most restful color to the eye because the lens of your eyes focus green right on the retina, and you know how much work it can be focusing all those heavy non-green photons. More likely, you’ve sat in a green room to calm down before an appearance on stage. You might have a greenhouse, or gotten the green light to join Greenpeace. Or perhaps you’re a greenhorn drinking green beer on Saint Patrick’s Day. If you’re lucky you might have a pocket full of greenbacks. Or if you’re environmentally conscious you might be working on a green lighting design. But if you’re angry you probably won’t see green.

An Automated Lighting Programmer Is What You Want To Be
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
An automated lighting programmer is what you want to be.
Sitting behind a console, pushing buttons is fun, you see.
It takes practice and knowledge, however, to move ahead
And you are unsure how to make your experience spread.


Lighting Films for a Living
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
While most programmers work in a variety of production categories, some spe c i a l i z e in a unique segment of our market. Scott Barnes is one of these programmers. For the last 10 years he has been located in Hollywood working on feature fi lms. If you have seen Poseidon, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Zathura: A Space Adventure, then you have seen his work. I sat down with Scott to learn more about his application of automated lighting programming.

The Dark Side of Chiaroscuro
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
Pop quiz: What are the two most important tools of a lighting designer?
If you said Starbucks or the Internet, maybe you should consider a career in audio. If you said light and dark—congratulations, you just might have a future in this business.

Lazy Lighting Designers Lack Looks
Nook Schoenfeld , PLSN Magazine
I’m always asked how I get lighting design gigs. Half the time they are return gigs, meaning it’s the same trade show or band that goes on tour every year. Forty percent of the time I am called by production people or other designer friends to cover a gig. The other 10% are people calling because they’ve seen one of my shows and want to hire me based on what they’ve seen. You never know who’s in the crowd watching your work.

Women Who Light - And Lit - The Way
Dan Daley , PLSN Magazine
It doesn’t take an inordinate amount of scrutiny to see that the technical jobs in entertainment are a male-dominated domain. Look around at concerts and theatrical productions or on the credits after a television program or a feature film—the LDs, the mixers, the gaffers and the techs are overwhelmingly male. (They don’t call them best “boys” for nothing.)

The History of Automated Lighting
Michael Callahan, PLSN Magazine
For many of us who now rely on automated lighting, its history may offer some surprises. The remote control of beam direction, size and color, for example, go back at least a century, although the full potential of automated lighting was not recognized until the 1950s. The first modern automated lighting system was built and patented in the early ‘70s, but much of what happened after that didn’t quite turn out as planned.

From The Programmer Seat To The Designer Seat
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Whoa! Wait a minute. What I am doing back here on the LD page? I was hired for the programmer’s gig! Okay, I can do the LD gig too. I hope I will get paid the LD rate. What? You expect me to be the LD for the same rate? Okay, just this once. But next time I’m getting paid as both the LD and programmer.

Who Takes Care of the Followspots?
Jack Gallagher, Live Design
It's opening night at the brand new, larger than life, downtown Performing Arts Center. The lights have dimmed, and the audience's conversations begin to lull. Pop! The followspots are on as the curtains open. Performers hit their marks, and their voices dance.

The Show Will Go On
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
“But what if I die?”
That was the response from the sick LD when I told him to go back to the hotel and get better. At some point in our careers we will experience a show situation in which we are working with people who are ill or when we are sick ourselves. Unfortunately, the age old credo, “the show must go on,” often takes precedence over our own well being. Of course, no production is worth dying for, and in the same light we must consider what benefits we really provide to a show when we are feeling under the weather.

Defaults In De Console Makes De Programming Delightful
Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
Automated lighting consoles share many common functions, but one of the most critical is the default DMX512 values for parameters of an automated or digital light. Understanding the importance of these values, their relevance to us as programmers and how to modify them are crucial skills of an automated lighting programmer. Working without proper default values is similar to trying to start your car in the wrong gear with the wheels turned to the extreme right, while lying down in the back seat.

Hike Up Your Skirt and Plan Like a Man
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
I belong to a group of people who would sooner wrestle an alligator than to have to plan ahead. There’s even a name for people like us—men. We don’t make lists before we go to the store, or plan routes before we drive across the country, and we don’t put on our blinkers before we change lanes. Most of the time, we don’t even know we’re going to change lanes until we see all the cars around us scrambling to get out of our way. But give me a job where thousands upon thousands of dollars are at stake, and I’ll be the first to hike up my skirt and wade through the deep waters of planning and plotting.

The Dawning of Digital Lighting
David Taylor, PLSN Magazine
It is normally a bad idea to attempt to predict the future, especially in the presentation and performance industry where stagehands and production folk have memories like elephants. But the performing arts building consultant has to predict in specifi- cation where equipment and protocols will be settled in two to three year’s time, and how buildings will be relevantly functioning in ten, twenty or even fifty years hence.

Rehearsal, Cue, Performance OH MY!
Nook Schoenfeld , PLSN Magazine
Almost every show I light involves scripting cues. This is the process of breaking down a show’s events. If it’s a corporate production, most likely I will be handed many pages showing the schedule of rehearsals and performance times for the next week. If it’s a musical or theatrical play, the lighting department may get a full script with hundreds of hand-written notes detailing potential lighting cues. If it’s a rock show, we may get a set list with some discs of music you can expect the band to perform.

Lighting: Troubleshooting Via Text? LOL
Patrick Dierson, Live Design
I'm in a small nightclub working with one of the biggest rock bands of the 20th century. I've lost control of all lighting fixtures hanging over the stage. The only things that are responding are the fixtures on the deck and the audience package. All communications are down. We have no Clear-Com. We have no walkies. You can't talk on your cell phone because the music and audience are so loud that it's just a garbled mess. The only thing I can rely on is the technology of text messaging, the transcript of which I saved below (pardon the casual spelling):.....................

Pre-empting Plotter Envy
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
Several years ago, a friend of mine got a pen plotter. It was a big, beautiful instrument. It was shiny and gleaming, and it stood on its own two legs in the corner of his office. I was envious of him and his plotter for two reasons—one was that he could create blueprints and crank out professional- looking drawings at will, and the other was that everyone who saw it immediately knew he was an AutoCAD stud. It was more than a convenient tool to aide him in his work; it was a status symbol.

Contract Killaz
Nick McCord, Live Design
In the three years I attended California State University Northridge's Theatre Department, where I received my bachelor's degree, and the two years I spent at Pasadena City College, there weren't any courses offered called “Watch Your Ass 101” or “Screwing The Producer Before He Screws You.” Nobody told me ahead of time to be aware of the misleading and false-promising producer types, or the mom-and-pop companies that want to take advantage of you for being young and new to the business, or the ones that want the world from you but have nothing to offer in exchange. So after being burnt, deceived, swindled, hosed, stiffed, cheated screwed, conned — whatever you want to call it — I decided I would share, with both up-and-comers like myself and those new to the industry, some advice to avoid falling into the same traps I have.

The Dark Side of LEDs
Richard Cadena, PLSN Magazine
When I was in junior high and high school, my friends and I used to build our own surfboards in our backyards and garages. We would buy the foam blanks and shape them with sanders. In a matter of minutes, we would be covered from head to toe in white foam powder, but in a few hours a beautiful shape would emerge. Then we would put designs on them and cover them with fiberglass cloth and resin. When the resin hardened, we would sand them smooth and put a few more coats of resin on, and when it dried, we’d have a brand new “stick.”

Confronting Your Patchwork
By Brad Schiller, PLSN Magazine
In the near future, you will be able to hang some lights, plug the data lines in to your console and press “Find.” The system will then automatically configure itself in front of your eyes and you will be able to immediately begin programming. Within a few years of this feature being added to all automated lighting consoles, we will begin to see newbies that have never had to create a patch. Ah…this is the stuff dreams are made of. Unfortunately, the development of concepts such as Remote Device Management (RDM) takes years to create and adopt. In the meantime, we will all need to continue to understand and practice good patching skills.