Lighting is Infectious

We believe this to be true. Admittedly, we have a love affair with light—light fixtures, light design and lighting in general. Lighting has infected us.

Light breathes life into any design: concert stages, theater, interior spaces and skylines. For us, it has added life to our booth at LDI, which will embody our current expression of loving light and its infectious nature. We have created a small wondrous world filled with the many ways light can be articulated, as well as a visual platform to show case our new and exciting products.

Imagine interlocked video walls made from our modular MVP™ Series surrounding a space especially created for our Q-Wash™ 560Z LED moving heads and Epix™ Series of pixel mapping fixtures. Overhead creeps a spidery truss design where our COLORado™ Zoom Tour static wash lights will hang alongside the awesome quad-colored Legend™ 412 moving yoke.

The look will ensnare you. Our infectious new products will captivate you. Get infected by light at booth 183.

LD Profile: Camron Ware

Six questions with Camron Ware
Founder of Visual Worshiper, VJ, Light and Projection Designer

1. How did you get into this field?
Started at a church actually where we had no budget and I had to get resourceful and creative with lighting and environment design.  I would also travel and do one-off show where I learned the touring industry and now I have my own company that provides lighting and environment design.

2. What do you think is the next big thing in the lighting industry?
Brighter LEDs and more of them and the continual blurring between lighting and video. While those might be the obvious answers, it’s the reality.  More efficient light and lamps that do more for less money.

3. Do you have a favorite fixture (and why)?
I would have to say my 10,000 watt fresnel out of an old Disney studio – it’s amazing what you can do with one light.

4. What has been your favorite design/project?
Last year I lit Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a local private school that puts on big, quality productions.  It was in the round and had about 300 students in the cast and crew.  Aside from 96 ETC PARs, 40 moving lights and about 100 LED fixtures, my favorite piece was the LED light-up coat I built for Joseph to wear during the final bow.  [Video below.]

5. What was the biggest unforeseen obstacle that you’ve faced in one of your designs, and how did you overcome it?
It’s less about technical obstacles and more about lack of budget or passion from the people in charge.  Getting people to realize the power and dynamics of lighting can be tough when following creative dreams.

6. Complete this thought: A show without light is like…just another day listening to the radio.

Read Camron’s review of the COLORado™ Batten 144 Tour linear wash light here.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat video:

Tech Talk: The MVP™ System in a Nutshell

Mike Graham looking pensive in front of MVP™ video panels

Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET® Professional

…And there was video, and it was good…

CHAUVET® has entered the video panel world with our release at InfoComm in Orlando this year. MVP™ Series of modular video panels has already started to buzz right out of the gate. (Honestly, we could not be any happier with the immediate response that we have gotten.) This month I thought I would break down some of the video jargon you will start to see in our literature as well as hear by our sales team.

MVP™ installation and operation is actually easy

Before we get into the video person to lighting person translation guide let me first say that MVP™ installation and operation is not scary at all. We have taken our time and have made sure to make this as easy as possible. If you ask the crew we worked with at InfoComm, they would pick the MVP™ panels over lights any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Also, they would rather hang them. This is because they are lightweight, the rigging hardware is easy to use and all of the cabling is done with Neutrik® powerCON® and etherCON® connectors. How simple is that? No strange proprietary connections that you can’t find on the road, just easy to use connectors that are available at any boxed goods store in our fine industry.

Four concepts of video you should definitely know

So, let’s say you are new to the wonderful world of video and you want to sound like you know what you are talking about. There are four words and phrases that will go miles into making sure that you get the information you need, that will let the salesperson know that you mean business:

1. SMD LED – Surface mount diode LEDs are used in the manufacture of the MVP™ panels. We use these because they are much smaller in size than other LED styles and take much less power to operate. They also have a very wide viewing angle and are very stable in their construction.

2. Pixel pitch – Pixel pitch refers to the distance between LEDs. It is measured in millimeters. We measure from the edge of the LED because SMD LEDs come in several different sizes. If we measured from the center, it would be a mathematical mess. You might end up with two 18 mm pitch panels with completely different amounts of LEDs.

3. Viewing Angle – Viewing angle is the area of which the panels can be seen from. This is really important to know when you are setting up your show and you want to make sure that the people sitting in the 400 section can not only see that there are video panels, but see what is on them. The MVP™ panels have a 140-degree viewing angle.

4. NIT – NIT is a measurement to video people as LUX is for lighting people. It is defined as follows: the candela per square meter (cd/m2) is the SI unit (International System of Units) of luminance; nit is a deprecated non-SI name also used for this unit (1 nit = 1 cd/m2). The unit is based on the candela, the SI unit of luminous intensity; and the square metre, the SI unit of area. Nit measurement is done at the manufacturing plant and is not something that you can take your handy light meter out and measure. The higher the nit, the higher the maximum brightness of that source is.

Getting signal to the panels is easy

Another concern about the MVP™ system is how to get signal to the panels. Contrary to popular belief, there is no magic wand needed. We implement software that has been created specifically for CHAUVET® to manage the signal distribution to the panels. In a basic setup, we send signal from the PC over USB to the MVP™ Signal Processor and then to the panels. (We will address advanced system setups in future tech tips. Stay tuned!) Once we have all of our wiring done, we configure the software and tell it where the panels are and what kind of layout we have. So for example, if I have six panels wide and five panels high, I create a grid in the hardware setup section of the software that has six panels wide by five panels wide. I then make sure that the software knows what kind of panels are out there, and then I send the configuration file to the panels. In a nutshell, it is as easy as that. All of the settings are done using one software program. There is even a playback section built into the software that is easily accessible and easy to use.

CHAUVET® will be requiring customers come to our worldwide headquarters to attend training on this system prior to using it. We want to make sure we can provide all the tools necessary to you so when you get back to your shop, installation, or wherever you intend to use the MVP™ system, you have a good handle on it.

There you have it, the MVP™ system in a nutshell. For a lot more information, keep checking out our website as we are adding more and more details on this every day.

International Travel

Mike Graham, looking pensive in front of MVP video panels

Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET® Professional

Working at CHAUVET® requires I spend some serious time hanging out in the friendly skies. I have had to take my shoes off at some of the worlds finest airports, and have been stuck in the middle seat on more than one occasion on international long haul flights.

The more and more I do this, the more and more I can identify with Edward Norton’s character from Fight Club. In fact, I think that I passed myself on a moving walkway just last week. So, I am at the tail end of a work trip overseas today and am getting ready to fly out. I am just about acclimated to the time changes, and now get to go back and try to get back to normal.

There are a few schools of thought on how to deal with jet lag. I think for me, I just try not to sleep on the trans-ocean leg. It seems to work for me typically, but on this one….not so much.

So, tomorrow, I get back on the big aluminum tube and breath in the same air that everyone else is breathing in for 13 hours or so. Don’t worry, I have my Airborne ready to go. I just hope they changed the movies.

Next month’s tech talk is going to by my first on video. I am doing a ton of research now and am looking forward to bringing all of you some great information on how to make video part of your show!

So You Think You Can Light Dance?

Mike Graham, looking pensive in front of MVP video panels

Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET® Professional

I will never admit to watching shows like Live to Dance, or Dancing with the Stars, or American Idol, but if I did, I could tell you the evolution of lighting on TV shows has been astounding. Since I come from a design background and can remember when people were afraid of moving lights, I can tell you it is really cool to see how the technology has finally been fully embraced. For those of us who are old enough to remember Star Search, Soul Train, or Dance Fever (It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it. I give it an eight.), you will remember it was all about a ton of PAR cans, pin spots, mirror balls, and haze.  Now look at where we are. LED video walls, huge moving light packages, LED wash lights all over the place, and fantastic applications. What an evolution in just over 30 years.