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philosophy

Philosophy. Of lighting.

Followspot colors

I generally specify followspots for tours where the artists are expected to walk around the stage, though I am generally not really a fan of followspots. The colors are finicky, the spots themselves are generally not maintained well – a venue typically bought their Super Troupers from Strong back in the ’70s, and hasn’t upgraded since, letting the components rust and get sticky, etc. Typically, followspotting is given to the crustiest, lowest-on-the-totem-pole guy on the call, usually not the person who would be best suited to making fine physical movements. Did I mention the colors are finicky? Lamps for these things are designed for raw power, and if the color is going to drift, it always seems to drift to… Read More »Followspot colors

Gel colors I like

Gels and dichroics might seem antiquated to the new kids on the concert lighting scene, what with the abundance of LED sources floating around the stages these days. The fact remains, however, that as wonderful as LED lights are for their electrical efficiency, it remains very difficult to get certain colors from them because of the narrow-bandwidth nature of their output spectrum. This makes them prone to the phenomenon of metameric failure – where two materials that look the same under one light source (tungsten, say) look very different under a different set of lighting conditions. (Say, the sickly white emitted by an RGB-mixed white.) For the sort of design that I’m normally involved in, this isn’t an issue –… Read More »Gel colors I like