On Stage Lighting has a beginner’s guide to media servers, digital lighting and some extra skills that could become vital for future stage lighting technicians. Plus, are us lampies now betrothed to the video department? Or will we never actually get up the aisle?
If you watch TV shows, rock concerts or big gigs like an Olympic Opening Ceremony, you see some pretty impressive lighting effects. In the background, scenic elements become walls of moving images, LED matrices throb with funky colours and text. It’s all part of the brave new world – Digital Lighting. The idea of using stage lighting and video projection techniques isn’t new but the systems used are becoming more complex and the boundaries between lighting and vision are being blurred. It’s even got a fancy name – Convergence: the convergance of digital media, projection and lighting technologies. More about that later.
What is Digital Lighting?
“Digital lighting”, using digital media in lighting, refers to a couple of different technologies and applications.
Digital Projection – Using projector technology to throw light with patterns, colours and imagery. This only differs from standard projection in it’s purpose – to create looks, mood and to light a space with digital media.
Screens and digital array systems – Using LEDs and other pixel light sources to create a screen to replay digital content. A simple array could be a 3 x 3 grid of pars or a more complex flown cloth with a high resolution grid of 3 colour LEDs. This is where the definitions really get stretched – are “screens” really lighting? Well, it’s all part of the visual experience.
Digital Lighting – General Pointers
Content can be sent to digital lighting devices using a video signal –VGA, Component, Composite. One media server output = 1 piece of projection content. If you need two fixtures to do different things, you need more than one server output.
Content can be mixed before outputting. Based on mulitple layers, one media output can have a mix/blend a number of different images/gobos/animations etc
Digital moving lights such at the High End DL have Pan, Tilt, focus, iris and other “standard” lighting functions as well as projector-like controls. The DL also has onboard media serving facilities that are controlled using a laptop utility, effectively uploading your custom gobos/other wobbly stuff to the fixtures playback system.
In a DMX controlled system, personalities for the fixtures are created for the console in the usual way, with both DMX and Video sent to each projector