Let There Be Lighting: Andy Ciddor
Crossing the Line
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| There has been a flurry of activity on the architectural lighting
front. |
We’ve been hearing about convergence in our industry
for quite a few years now. Indeed, in recent years, some of the
most significant changes in the structure and ownership of the industry
have been undertaken in the name of media convergence. Whether or
not this is a good thing continues to be the topic of lively discussions
in many a coffee shop or bar.
Meanwhile there has been a convergence of another
kind going on in studios and stages throughout the world of lighting.
Until recently, each area of lighting has had its
own tools, practices and – often – even its own language.
A couple of decades ago (during one of those enforced coffee breaks,
taken whilst waiting for a half a dozen frenetic engineers to cajole
a recalcitrant camera chain back into life), the assembled lighting
team racked their brains to find some commonality between different
forms of lighting.
At that time, there was only one piece of equipment
that we could recall having seen everywhere – from a film soundstage
to a rock concert, from an opera house to a television studio, and
from a major musical to the launch of a new model of toothbrush.
It was the Quartzcolor Iris cyclorama flood, designed by Mario De
Sisti for the Ianiro family.
It is a luminaire that is still available some thirty
years after its introduction and in my opinion, quite rightly so
– as there are few, if any other cyc floods in its class.
CONCERT STAGING
Things have certainly changed since then, as developments
for the concert stage in particular have steadily percolated their
way into every corner of lighting. The parcan and concert truss
led the way and have since been followed by all types of robotic
devices – from color scrollers to moving-mirror ellipsoidals
and moving-head fresnels and ellipsoidals.
While robotic luminaires (I refuse to call them Intelligent,
as I’m usually quite content for them to simply be obedient)
may require an additional control console and programmer, that situation
has become normal in almost every field of production over the last
decade.
On the other hand, most concert lighting practitioners
are quite surprised to learn that the molefay/minibrute is actually
a piece of film and television equipment.
After all, Allen Branton was using 9-light molefays
for sidelight and Mole 5K’s on the drum kit for David Bowie’s
"Serious Moonlight" tour in the early 1980s. The majority
of those currently working in concert lighting were probably in
grade school at the time.
The increased sensitivity and robustness of the image
pick-up devices in our cameras – combined with improvements
in lamp and luminaire optical design – is giving us lightsources
that were once below the threshold of our cameras.
The output of projection systems and ellipsoidal spot
effects has now moved into the window of our camera’s capabilities;
television pictures may never look the same. The creative opportunities
offered by the current generation of robotic zooming ellipsoidal
spots are simply begging to be exploited by a creative LD with a
decent sense of aesthetics.
If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to audition
a Coemar CX7, a Martin MAC 2000, a HighEnd X.spot, a Clay Paky Golden
Spot, a FutureLight MH860 or a Vari*Lite VL2202, you may be surprised
to find out how quiet, reliable, bright and flexible they can be.
One caveat: Never underestimate how long they take
to program, especially if your console doesn’t have advanced
moving light programming facilities.
ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING
Perhaps the most surprising areas that have the potential
to give a new twist to our lighting art are architectural lighting
and event lighting. The searchlight has been a kind of light source
without a good purpose since the end of the London Blitz in 1941.
Initially, the beams sweeping the sky to celebrate
a movie premiere or the opening of yet another carpet showroom or
used car lot, were actually salvaged ex-military searchlights –
operated by some poor lighting technicians paying their way through
college.
The automated – and now also color-changing –
searchlights available from such companies as Sky-Tracker, Griven
and SpaceCannon are worthy of consideration for large-scale outside
production work.
While we may not always have an area as big as an
Olympic stadium to light, John Rayment’s use of searchlights
during the 2000 Sydney Olympic opening and closing ceremonies should
not be overlooked in the general hype over that production.
His use of 48 7-kilowatt and 36 4-killowatt searchlights
as color-changing washlights is something we should all file away
as an interesting solution to a problem that may yet arise.
Architectural lighting is often dismissed as simply
a few fixed floodlights on a building – perhaps with an occasional
highlight on some obvious feature, like an archway, a portico or
a spire. Until recently, in some situations that was indeed the
case.
Two factors have combined to change that state of
affairs. Adventurous event designers and producers have been using
automated concert-style fittings to liven up buildings as part of
such transitory events as festivals and public celebrations. Color,
movement, gobos, projection and effects have been used to give familiar
buildings a very different – and often dynamic – appearance.
While this may have been achievable for a couple of
nights – generally only in mild weather and almost always with
a technical crew on hand for maintenance – it was never intended
for anything resembling permanent installations.
However, building owners, chambers of commerce and
city authorities are often so impressed with the transformation
that they want to keep at least a simplified version of the lighting
in operation. Architectural lighting designers, many of them migrants
from the performing arts, are having a lot of fun obliging them.
Enter the luminaire manufacturers, who now feel that
they have color mixing down to the point where they can build a
fixture with a level of reliability and robustness suitable for
architectural applications.
Studio Due’s CityColor, a color-mixing floodlight,
was soon followed by offerings of beam and flood lights from Griven,
Martin, Clay Paky, HighEnd, Coemar and SpaceCannon, with no doubt
many others to follow.
FLOODLIGHT OF ACTIVITY
The outcome of this flurry of activity on the architectural
lighting front is that now there are a substantial number of wide-angle,
color-mixing floodlights available for rent as well as purchase.
The fact that most of these are rated between IP33 and 65 (dust-proof
and waterproof and thus suitable for use as headlights on a midget
submarine) can be a real bonus for outdoor production work, but
that is not really the point.
These are wide-angle, 2.5 kW metal halide floodlights,
suitable for scenic applications and area washes – but they
have a DMX socket on them and CMY subtractive color-mixing capabilities.
That’s a very useful piece of gear to ponder
the possibilities of. I’m just waiting to see how long it will
be before someone equips a studio with a full top and bottom cyclorama
wash – at 130 lb. plus and more than $4,000 per unit.
Andy Ciddor has been involved in lighting for more
than three decades as a practitioner, teacher and writer.
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