Below are some shots taken inside the studio where “Colombia Tiene Talento” is filmed. The backdrop is 25 SparkliteLED drapes, located on stage, side of the stage, and into the audience. Fifty COLORado 1-Tri Tour wash lights are on stage and used as house lights above the audience while six COLORado Zoom CW Tour static wash lights surround the judges’ sitting area. All LED and flicker free.
See video from prior post.
Blue Planet Lighting hosted an open house at their new Las Vegas location, in the Russell Commerce Center just off the Las Vegas Strip, featuring the latest in CHAUVET Professional LED gear. CHAUVET Central U.S. Sales Manager Jeremy Pace was on hand to discuss and demo the gear which included: Q-Spot 560-LED, Q-Wash 560Z-LED, Q-Wash 260-LED, and Legend 412 moving heads as well as COLORdash Par Tri, COLORado Zoom Tour and the new COLORado 1-Quad Tour static wash lights.
COLORdash Par Tri, COLORado Zoom Tour and COLORado 1-Quad Tour (L to R)
Q-Wash 560Z LED, Q-Wash 260-LED and Legend 412 (L to R)
CHAUVET Europe hosted a training session for over 20 members of Avolites. The group gathered for a full day of product testing and demonstrations in the newly expanded European headquarters based in Nottingham, U.K.
CHAUVET Professional fixtures light up the Fort of San Diego, a historic monument in downtown Acapulco, Mexico. Designed in the shape of a five-point star, the former 17th century Spanish fortress acquires a modern vibe at night, under the vivid colors from 55 luminaires. Installed at the base of the walls, 50 COLORado 3p IP LED-fitted fixtures wash in saturated hues the stone façades, while five SkyScan 4000 Xenon-sourced search lights shoot beams of light from each of the five points of the fortress. All fixtures were provided by Novelties company, in Mexico.
Six questions with Matt Levesque, experienced lighting designer of architectural projects, theme parks, and corporate events. – also, founding principal of First Circle Design. Levesque recently completed a major design at MGM Macau in China, where he specified 95 Ilumipanel 180 IP wash lights from CHAUVET Professional’s Iluminarc line of architainment fixtures.
1. How did you get into this field?
Honestly, I found it was a great way to meet the cute girls in the drama department. It worked. I met my wife 17 years ago that way.
2. What do you think is the next big thing in the lighting industry?
Warm white LEDs that amber shift when you dim and dimmers will become obsolete; all lighting systems will be data controlled.
3. Do you have a favorite fixture (and why)?
Actually, I had to learn not to have a favorite as every client and project demands a new/different tool that meets their project’s objectives.
4. What has been your favorite design/project?
Universal Studios Japan 2001—great design with amazingly talented group of designers and consultants.
5. What was the biggest unforeseen obstacle that you’ve faced in one of your designs, and how did you overcome it?
Time. I always want more time for research or just a little bit more to refine the look. I had to learn most of my best work is the work I fuss over the least.
6. Complete this thought: A show without light is like…
…the music industry without The Beatles—just sad.
Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET Professional
Mike Graham looking pensive in front of MVP panels.
When we left our heroes, they were sitting at the front of a theatre trying to decide — to pixel map or not to pixel map? Ideally, you want to do both, but let’s hope that this decision was made weeks ago during pre-production. The Wall took three years to produce. Most of us don’t have three years to produce a show. If I went to the management of CHAUVET and said I would need three years to produce LDI, they would laugh me out of the room. We need the ability to quickly and effectively get our content out to the stage. This is where LED Studio, Art-Net, Kling-Net, and a whole lot of Ethernet with Neutrik NE8 connectors come into play. By combining these software platforms, we can easily control a whole stage of products that use various protocols to speak the same language. With the CHAUVET MVP Media System outfitted with ArKaos MediaMaster Express, you can manage your pixel mapping of DMX fixtures and all of your video products all in one source. Combine this with a lighting controller that can send and receive Art-Net communication protocol, and now you can completely control everything under one network roof. I am not going to go into how to hook up the system in this tech talk. The interconnection of the system depends a little on what you want to accomplish and a lot the scale of how big you want to go. Again, I recommend checking out the ArKaos manual and the manual of the controller that you are going to be using to trigger your show. The simple fact is that, yes, you can make your show pop with what you have available in front of you. The reason that you want so much control is to ultimately make it easier to program your show. Here are a few tips on ways to do some pre-production setup that will save you a ton of time onsite.
1. Know what you’re “looking” for. Unlike normal show programming, when you are planning out video, you want to have all of your “looks” in the can. In the “video” tab, “looks” stands for video clips. You want to show up with your clips ready and filed. This means that you will really need to know what you intend to do on this show. I highly recommend a blog that some guy wrote called “Zen in the Art of Entertainment Lighting.” It’s a three part series and applies to this conversation.
2. Accessibility is the key. When you file your video clips, make sure that they are done in such a way that you can quickly access them when you need to. In ArKaos MediaMaster Express, you can set up your folders for specific songs. You also have 64 visual presets per page with 64 pages at your fingertips. You can easily set your clips on each page and have each individual page can be a song or scene of its own. You can also have up to eight layers of video running at the same time. Since you can also tell the video preset where on your playback surface you want your video to show up, having these eight layers really handy. Since ArKaos MediaMaster Express was designed for the lighting professional, it is stunningly easy for us to use.
3. Keep your eye on the plot. While you are getting all of this set up, have a sketch of the show plot that you are working with. Honestly, it can be napkin CAD, or the finest of visualizers, but have that sketch handy while you are working on setting all of this up. That sketch needs to include all of the elements that you want to send video content to.
4. Finalize your fixture layout and DMX address scheme. When you are setting up your pixel mapping, this is absolutely critical that the DMX addressing is correct and done before you start working on this.
5. Save early and save often. Goes without saying, but just sayin’.
6. Keep your products in mind when you are choosing clips. Keep in mind that low resolution and high contrast clips will look much better than high resolution and low contrast clips on higher pixel pitch. Big looks with simple content.
Whether you are planning on busking, pre-programming and operating live, or using time code, you should now be just about ready to load in. What to expect on show site?
… That is for another day.
Sixteen CHAUVET Professional Legend 412 moving heads projected powerful beams and striking, pixel-mapping effects as Skrillex rocked the house during the South By Southwest 2012 AM Only Showcase. Justin Jenkins, lighting designer for Creative Production and Design, specified 12 Legend 412 moving heads for backlighting while the remaining four fixtures created audience pixel-mapping effects and downlit the high-energy show.
“We chose Legend 412 fixtures because of their RGBW LEDs and quadrant-control capability,” Jenkins said. “As far as what we were able to achieve with programming, we were really happy with how well these lights complemented the show.”
A Look Behind the Trade Show Curtain
by Carmen Diaz, trade show coordinator for CHAUVET
My little countdown clock tells me it’s less than 25 days till show site. That means I’m getting down to the wire for shipping, rental and production. InfoComm, it’s big, it’s AV, and it’s breathing down my neck like Brad Pitt in Interview with a Vampire (which really isn’t too bad of a prospect… rawr).
Let’s take stock of what we’ve done so far… We have two 53-foot semis hauling 300+ fixtures 2,518 miles to the Las Vegas Convention Center. We’ve placed our orders for 400 AMPS of three-phase electrical power, carpet, a monster distro, labor, fabric, and lights. I’ve got over 200 emails regarding this tradeshow alone, and this is just one of three shows I’m working on currently.
It’s a lot of work and meticulous attention to detail to make a trade show worth the substantial investment an 800-square-foot booth entails. I’ve got a three-inch binder filled with schematics, order confirmations, maps, and more check lists than I can shake a stick at. Even as I write this blog post, I keep thinking of more small tasks I still need to do, like get candy for the booth, and silverware for lunches, and a million other “unexpected” problems you have to prepare for “just in case.”
But through all of this planning, panic, and preparation there is the satisfaction of a finished product and a beautiful booth to “oooh” and “awe”. There’s this unbelievable sense of accomplishment that you get when the build is complete and the show opens. Lights are blaring, music playing softly in the background, sales people chattering as the first of the attendees streams into the hall. I try to take a moment to look around in the first few hours, as the traffic ramps up and the exhibitors really start crowding around your booth, to enjoy everyone’s hard work paying off… and maybe even get a tasty beverage as my reward.
Here is a look at last year’s booth for you to “oooh” and “awe” at (although this year’s will blow it out of the water!):
CHAUVET booth at InfoComm 2011 just before the door opens.
About 100 ILUMINARC wash lights color the domed courtyard at the five-star MGM Macau Casino & Hotel in Macau, China. The 1,088-square-meter court has a distinctive Old World feel, inspired by Portugal’s Central train station in Lisbon. MGM calls it the “soul” of the resort. Matt Levesque, lighting designer and founder of First Circle Design, LLC, in Newport, Calif., selected 95 color-changing Ilumipanel 180 IP wash lights to downlight and sidelight the plaza’s manicured landscape, pathways and the building facades surrounding it. Watch how the lights turn the plaza into a fairy-tale-like realm and add a magical touch of color.
Inside the new Marlins Park, home of the Miami Marlins, is a swanky bar created by The Clevelander South Beach. The Clevelander holds approximately 250 guests with field level seats complete with a bar, dancers, body painting and DJs live from the pool area. Adding moving light to this excitement are nine CHAUVET Professional Q-Spot 260-LED moving heads. Here are a few photos:
