(td)squared

Among other activities, my week has included working meetings, international commission information sessions, and serving as a conduit between UB alumni and our current students.

Today’s Notes

In preparation for the 50^th anniversary of the Institute, USITT sections are encouraged to research their individual histories, focusing on

technological developments, connections to events, and benchmarks in the industry.  Section founders should be identified and included in

the timeline.  Why was the Upstate section founded?

The Vari-lite VLX, moving head LED fixture, runs very cool.  Once beyond the prototype stage, the fixture will be able to adjust from approx. 20-60 degrees. 

The color mixing systems additively combines red, green, blue and white wavelengths.

Apollo lighting gave us the chance to experiment with various combinations of steel gobos, gobo rotators and dichroic filters to achieve motion lighting effects.  The Apollo “right arm” is a good way to introduce automated lighting programming techniques to the first-time user.

SKYPE!

The students identified a number of experts that gave reports on flying systems, lighting consoles and color, and sound systems.  These reports went live to air to the Intro. to Technical Theatre class taught by Tom Burke.

More to come…..

Today on the exposition floor I picked the brains at the Vectorworks booth on 3-D drafting. In a short demo, I learned much about this software. A huge note for anyone new to Vectorworks is that anytime you draft in it, whether it is in 2-D or 3-D drafting, you are drafting in a 3-D environment. Here we’re a few tips that I believe will help everyone;

-All of the 3-D view shortcuts are loaded on the numeral pad, and make shifting between them instantaneous.
-They admitted that using a scroller on a mouse is still buggy, PC users should use CTRL-SHIFT 1 and 2 for zooming in and out.
-Extruding surfaces into objects, the original surface remains in place. The extruded surface is relative to the original surface.
-CTRL E is the shortcut for the Extrude tool.
-Utilization of the clip surface tool is key to 3-D creation. A simple example; A small square inside a large square, both are selected, and when the clip surface tool is used, it takes the smaller square and allows you to delete that portion out of the larger square. In short, you just made a hole for a window or doorway.
-In 2-D, Classes are often used for different line weights. In 3-D, Classes are best used for surface rendering.
-When creating a new class, if you check the box labeled “Use at Creation,” any object thereafter will change to that class if you select it then choose that class.
-Subclasses can clear up clutter in your class menu. Upon class creation, label the class as “Class Name-Sub Class Name.” It will automatically be recognized and placed into a separate submenu.

Additionally I also learned a great deal about the basics for 3-D animation. The two presenters Geoffrey Hall and Geoffrey Eroe both demonstrated several different programs they utilize for this tool. The goal of their seminar was to explain how this visualization tool can help communicate scenic designs to a Director. They recommended a You Tube Video for further references. Barring explanations of how to manipulate the software, a recommendation for surface rendering was to create a physical rendering, and then scan it in to the computer. Here’s a list of a few top programs that were recommended;

-Strata 3-D (30 Day Free Trial)
-3-D Studio Max (30 Day Free Trial)
-Blender (Freeware at Blender.org)
-H264 Compression Software
-Combustion (Video Editing)
-Google SketchUp (Non-professional alternative)

The theme of today is how to choose color of lighting design, “Jane is not absent from her class,” walking around the stage expo and 3D animation communication.
What I get from the color choosing section is when you are deciding the color you should be able to answer the question “ why you use color.” By adding gel you are subtracting to color from the continuous spectrum of light, and since there is different range of light in a single source it will be very helpful to understand what color in the spectrum is the gel letting through it in order to understand how it would interact on the surface as well as the light will or will no pick up the skin tone, costume or set. Another thing is that keeps on experimenting different gel rather than stick on a few amount of choice and use the light see really how the color looks like. An easy way would be using swatch book and a little clip lamp if not using a real theatre lighting instrument.
In the afternoon, during the class time of TH106 in Buffalo we are doing a live presentation through Skype to communicate to my classmate telling them what we are doing and here and we invited some of the exhibitor to explaining their products. Besides, I show up on the scene to prove that I am still in class ^.^ and I was in the Rosco booth showing the double gobo rotator.
At night Jeff, Chris and me went to the 3D animation which is more about how the presenter use different software to create their model and do 3D rendering video to show the textured and lights effect model.  More, what these different program differ from each other and how they work. Program they used such as 3D Max, strata, AutoCAD and vector work.

Last, let’s get back to my topic of the lighting of Olympic yesterday. Since, there are so much lighting fixtures in the venue it take as much people to handle the lighting job and as 300. 44 spot operators, 11 lighting team with stage manager. They started the designing process in the year 2006. The lighting team started installing trust and electricity in April and May then move to focusing. Before they go into the space they use ESP vision to visualize the spread and area of the light, help them speed up the process and get a near accurate position. In order to control over thousands of light and 63 projectors they have 3 grand master console control and 3 backup systems and it took 2 month for programmers to program all the moving light those programmers almost gone mad. Synchronizing all the projector is a great challenge, since there will be at least 1 to 2 film of delay between projectors, to solve that they choose abstract image that the little differences among projector would not be so noticeable.
Although there are so many instruments all of them are retailed, all they spent on this production is around 90,000,000RMB(around 12 million USD). There is interesting question during the section, “did the lighting team ever turn on all the light at full and see how it looks.” The answer is the brightest that they did is 60~70% at the entrance of athletes.
I think that is all for today’s blog~
tomorrow is the last day of our conference

Hello all you beautiful people,

Please notice that this is part two of a blog on LED at the USITT. To read part one click on the link here. http://tdsquared.org/2009/03/leds-part-one/

Today we spend the day walking around the trade floor looking at LED instruments that could begin to replace the Source Four, the Fresnel, and the Par. We found that the LED could be classified into fixed position and moving head instruments. Our first stop was to look at a compact moving head light called the A7 manufactured by JB LED lighting. This fixture is three color diode fixture that has the added feature of a moving lens plate. This feature allows for zoom from 8 to 28 degrees without losing its beam or field attributes. This 17.6 pound fixture has smooth dimming a feature that is becoming a more prominent feature not just in this light but in many that we saw. The Delta fixture manufactured by DTS lighting an Italian company showed some promise in the compact moving head fixture world as well. The delta an indoor and outdoor fixture was valued for the control features more. The fixture was a three color diode fixture but was designed to be controlled with four sliders red, green, blue, pre-calculated slider that mixes white color temperature. When it comes to fixed LED fixtures Altman takes the very traditional approach in maintaining the variable lens style of our current PAR fixture. This allows the LEDs to mix at the lens rather than on the surfaces which it projects on to. This traditional lens usage allows for common accessories like barndoors to be added to the instrument. Like in traditional 1k PAR fixtures it is common practice to swap lamps to change field size from very narrow through wide. Altman’s LED fixture duplicates the ridges and valleys found on the surface of these different lamps on a lens placed in front of the LED multi source point.

As a result of people we met on the trade floor we were invited to a private party for the unveiling of Vari-Lite’s new instrument the VLX. The VLX is a full-blown LED wash moving head fixture that contains a number of groundbreaking new technologies. The most prominent technological advancement is definitely the lack of color shadowing, even at short distances. The color mixing incorporated both a very true metal-halide white as well as a very accurate tungsten colored white; this will allow the VLX to be seamlessly integrated into any stage rig containing either metal halide or tungsten sources. Other very impressive technologies found in the VLX are its ability to change its beam angle, eliminating the need to change a barrel; as well as, its immense intensity created by a mere economically friendly six hundred watts. The techniques which allow this incredible instrument to accomplish all these prominent advances we are unfortunately not allowed to discuss publically until the VLX public revealing on April 1^st.

Katie and Andy

Hello (td)squared fans!

It’s nearing the weekend here in Cincinnatti, and events are starting to slow down. We’ve had a ton of fun in sessions, events, and more.

Today my focus was on organizing the live broadcast stream to our Theatre 106 class back in Buffalo.

We spent lunch with folks from Vectorworks and assorted other people at the Vectorworks sponsored “Tweetup”, an lunch meetup for folks who use Twitter. As (td)squared uses Twitter (we are twitter.com/tdsquared) we fit right in. At the event, we wrote up our agenda for the live streaming show and talked about how we wanted to approach the stream. After we had written our agenda and done a test with home base, we headed over to the conference floor to begin final preparations.

We met up with our group and made sure our vendors were on board; we had spent much of the morning talking to folks from P&B, ETC, Altman, Le Maitre, and Flying by Foy so we could integrate their products and demos into our show. Once we knew everything was in place, we began the show!

I can’t say it was very smooth; we had several tech problems with video and audio connections dropping due to a very shaky connection, but I still want to thank the magazine Stage Directions and their awesome editor Jacob Coakley – he helped make sure we even had some sort of connection, and that was greatly appreciated.

In the future we want to research using a type of cellular connection that will allow us to avoid WiFi entirely and connect to a cellular network instead. This will enable better quality and faster connections for future events such as our USITT Regional Meeting that we will host, or for Prague Quadrennial.

That was the main highlight of the day today, and I’m looking forward to our last full day in Cincinnatti on Saturday!

Today is a very exciting day learning the keyword, metamerism, and the back-story of how the lighting and projection effect created by the lighting team from China in the Olympic Games in China. From what I have learn from the session using and mixing, diachronic, and LED even thought we are using same gel or diachronic we will not get the same color with different instrument. Metamerism is the matching of apparent color of objection with different spectral power distribution. The perfect example is under the same environment and same color object, people see that color differently in the eye. Also when two objects put together human eye would try to distinguish and enlarge the difference between them. The research that Adelson did at MIT with an image really proves that how our eyes try to skew the same intensity of gray and recognized these two separate sections in the image is different.

During the opening ceremony of Olympic Games in China last summer August 8, I was watching that on TV when I was in my home town Macau (China). At that moment I was amazed by the idea of how the creative team put together and highlight the 5000 years of historical culture to the whole world. The design team achieved that by the integration of different light source, such as traditional lighting instrument, video, and projection, performance and sound. The lighting technical side of this event is not that I have ever imagined of. It is such and ambitions project to accomplished and see how projection starts to get involve in this kind of huge venue of international event.

First of all, how they can light this massive open air “bird-net”. It turns out to be using over 2500 moving light installed in the stadium, also 63 projectors and LED installed on the floor to creates the visual images. Another problem is how to balance between these 3 different light sources luminosity and contrast in the stadium so they are at the same level of light to fulfill the need of acting at site, on visibility of screen and other lighting area. In order to get the same brightness of the projection image in the air as LED, they lower the intensity of the LED to 30% and layer 3 projectors together at the same spot to increase the luminosity…

p.s as this post is getting to long and it is 3:30 in the morning …. I will update the rest later~`

As set designers we use the model as a tool for developing and testing partially formed ideas. It, when well crafted, can be used by the director as a means to clearly understand playable space. The technical director and his or her team may reference the model for color, texture, and size information. The designer, Paul Shortt, supports these assertions. In presenting his body of work, he revealed how the model works as a tool and offered techniques for enhancing the model. He shares my belief that modeling in 3/8”=1’0” scale allows for maximum detail while keeping the maquette a manageable size.

New Lighting Technologies Solve Specific Challenges

The need:

Glowing light effect (Linear)

Battery or AC Operated

Water Resistant

Flexible

The solution:

EL Wire

The need:

Glowing panels

The solution:

Light Emitting Capacitor (LEC)

Beijing Olympics Lighting Designer – Key Points

Achieve balance in three key elements: actor illumination, keeping projection surfaces visible, and achieving special effects.

Through the use of ESP Vision, focus points were preset. The designer speaks highly of ESP Vision and recommends it.

When using projections/projectors account for weather/temperature, need for lumens, and remember that abstract images are easier to project when using multiple projectors.

This is a special multi-part team post from Katie G. and Andy.

This blog is coming to you as a collaborative effort as we both took on the task of doing major research on the newest forms of LED instruments. LED fixtures unlike traditional tungsten fixtures utilize multi source point compared to a single source point reflector combination of the old system. These multi source point fixtures are composed of a series colored light emitting diodes arranged in groups. Each of the diodes in these groups are single color beams that mix together to create a single smooth field beam. Each generation of LED fixtures has groups of colored diodes consisting of three, four, or seven. LED fixtures containing three colored diodes per group use red, green, and blue color mixing; this type of mixing does not take into account for the orange, yellow, indigo, and violet wavelengths. Eliminating these wavelengths causes the field beam to either too warm or too cool, resulting in an imperfect white field. The LED fixtures that contain four colored diodes in each group help to eliminate this problem by adding a fourth diode colored amber. The amber diode begins to account for the missing wavelengths of the three diode fixture, thus creating a closer to perfect white. Most seem to think that by increasing to seven diodes you would create the perfect white; in theory this concept would hold true, however the current technology of the seven color diode fixtures fails to meet this expectation. Failure results due to the additional three diodes wavelengths result in less luminous cells within the beam field, these dead zones decrease the maximum saturation of field color. The distance between diodes and number of colored diodes within each group seems to be most efficient within a four diode LED fixture.

The transition into replacing traditional theatrical lighting fixtures with new LED lighting fixtures forces us to deal with the relationship between source and reflector. The most successful LED cyc fixture we have experienced so far is the 100w spectra-cyc LED fixture by Altman. We believe their success has arisen in maintaining the traditional J-reflector in previous cyc fixtures. This has allowed them duplicate the successful field properties found in traditional cyc fixtures. Competitor products that do not maintain the traditional relationship between source and reflector including the newly acquired Selador line of LEDs by ETC cannot duplicate the field results of the asymmetrical color mixing.

Please check back tomorrow for Part II as we explore the LED PAR and spot fixture from around the trade show.

Hello everyone! This is my first “real” post – I’ve spent so much time obtaining and troubleshooting our internet connection and helping others work the blog that I haven’t been able to do it myself! Finally though I got a free moment so I wanted to share some thoughts on the conference so far and some of my favorite sessions I attended.

The conference has been a fantastic learning experience so far, and has really changed the way I think of myself as a designer and director already. I’m looking into new ways to integrate technology into my workflow and be more aware of technology as a designer. While in the computer world I tend to be competent and generally “tech-savvy”, I’m not necessarily as tech-savvy when it comes to the incredible range of theatre technologies. I certainly can’t match the knowledge of Andy and Katie G., our resident technicians! Design in theatre is deeply integrated with technology, and while you can get by without fully understanding it, you can accomplish more if you understand it. One particular interest of mine is motion controlled scenery and the ways that type of automation can be integrated into a choreographed design, and that is certainly a technology-heavy element.

I attended a session today called “Theatres as a Catalyst for City Revival”, which described the ways by which theatre development projects help to revitalize cities. A consultant shared his thoughts on how theatre acts as a community center and ‘nexus of creativity and innovation’ in communities. By building community outreach and education into programming, theatres can create more value to patrons and give them reasons to visit outside of the traditional structure of a performance.  Our campus’s Center for the Arts offers many of these functions, but perhaps more attention could be paid to using the Center in broader educational outreach to communities that aren’t explicitly within the University. The speaker spoke of four key areas that arts centers act as: the cornerstones of communities, community redevelopment catalysts, the Art Centers as magnets for the community, and a incubator and educator.

Additionally, we saw a presentation by the lighting designer of the Beijiing Olympics. The designer, Mr. Sha Xialolan spoke about the massive scale of the opening ceremonies, which required a crew of over 300 people on lighting alone! And while we often get stressed on our projects with several hundred lights, this designer had to deal with several thousand lights! This is very tough to comprehend – it’s a staggering amount of information! In addition, he had to cope with projection around the top of the Bird’s Nest stadium, which prevented him from keeping his lights at high intensities for those portions of the show.

Those are just a few of the sessions we’ve been attending. Additionally we’ve been visiting and learning from vendors on the Stage Expo floor, poking around Cincinnatti’s theatres, and coming up with crazy hare-brained schemes for Buffalo theatre.

It’s been an exciting conference so far and I’m thrilled for the rest!

Organizational meetings for the Upstate New York Regional Section and the International Committee, a Reception for first time conference attendees, and a session where I learned (or attempted to learn) more types of knots than I knew even existed are just the highlights of what I have seen at the conference thus far. However, in my quest to research new, innovative, and community-changing theatre, the following sessions really pertained to that theme.

Producing at a Temporary or Non-Traditional Event Site

Two producers detailed their forays off the beaten path in the session “Producing at a Temporary or Non-Traditional Even Site.” Andrew Cady, who has also been general manager of Buffalo’s own Studio Arena Theatre, shared his experience of bringing the Sand Diego Symphony Orchestra into the jungles of Mexico to play on the ruins of Chichen Itza. As fate would have it, their concert fell on Columbus Day, which unbeknownst to the event organizers, is a day celebrated by the Mayans as “the day of indigenous resistance,” where thousands of Mayans from the surrounding region descend upon the ruins and have religious ceremonies amongst the ancient rocks. However, despite humidity wreaking havoc on the wind players’ reeds, having no canopy to shelter the orchestra from the threatening rain, and a very elusive town mayor, Mr. Cady managed to overcome the challenges of this space deep in the wild to have a very successful event.

The other project, the Woyzeck Project at the University of Minnesota, was produced in a condemned building on campus, presenting its own set of challenges. She managed to coordinate an entire production utilizing many spaces both inside and outside of the building with three directors, all with a budget of less than $5000. One unexpected result of the project was that now, everyone is clamoring to do a project in this previously ignored building.

Theatres as Catalyst for City Revival

This session, presented by the architecture commission of USITT, featured three case studies of theatres spurring economic development in communities, a topic Buffalo might benefit from paying attention to. According to one presenter, the arts are growing, despite the down turning economy, and the non-profit theatre industry alone was worth $166.2 billion in 2005. “Threshold anxiety,” in his opinion, is what is preventing many of our theatre buildings from becoming the performing arts centers of the future, which embrace and engage their communities.

In order for a next generation performing arts center to remain pertinent and vital to a community for as long as possible, it must be able to fulfill six requirements:
1. Does it educate?
2. Does is foster innovation?
3. Is it an agent or catalyst for change?
4. Is it a showcase?
5. Can it host the traditional performing arts?
6. Does it incubate new experiences for the community?

One of the cases presented, the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee, fulfills all of these guidelines, as well as addressing the issue of threshold anxiety. The architect behind the project, Scott Georgeson, stressed that they are a “jeans and T-shirt kind of place,” and mentioned that the original name of the company was the “Comic Opera Theatre.” The company performs operas in English, not Italian, and the fresco of the 18th century Italian style theatre features whimsical portraits of supporters of the theatre as well as Milwaukee landmarks. In other words, for a theatre to be successful, especially in an area where the object is to draw people from outside of its immediate surroundings, people cannot be intimidated by it.