At ‘The People’s Opening’, in Liverpool, Stephen Page of DBN Lighting controlled the main stage with a Vista T2 while Rob Sinclair used his new suitcase-sized S1 for the CBS broadcast of their ‘Good Morning America’ programme.

From etnow.com News
HSL supplied all lighting equipment including over 200 moving lights and 12 crew for ‘The People’s Opening’ extravaganza that launched Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year. The spectacular event was staged at – and around – St George’s Hall in the city centre.
The performances involved approximately 700 people including Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart and local upcoming indie stars The Wombats, all of which took place on eight surrounding rooftops including the Walker Arts Gallery, St John’s Beacon, the Empire Theatre, Lime Street Station, etc. as well as on top of and in front of St George’s Hall.
The site was hugely challenging on which to work. Lights had to be craned into position and rigged at all these locations, and also onto a series of scaffolding constructions around the main area.

The get-in started on the Monday for the Friday show and the HSL team, project managed by Mike Oates, battled with high winds and driving rain throughout the whole period. The hostile weather forced the cancellation of all but one night of full rehearsals before Friday night’s stunning show.
Lighting designer Stephen Page (a director of Manchester based DBN Lighting) was “extremely pleased” when HSL won the tender to supply the lighting kit. “They have been brilliant,” he says, “The crew have all worked very hard in difficult conditions on a complex site to deliver what I needed.” He has known HSL for some years, but this was the first time he’s worked with them in this context – as his equipment supplier.
Page was involved in the creative process that has evolved into The People’s Show from an early stage, working closely with producer John Wassell, co-directors Nigel Jamieson, Jayne Casey and Mark Murphy along with production designer Dan Potra. The event was production managed by Simon Barrington.
The industrial look of the site, which integrated technical support structures constructed from freight containers, assorted scaffolding towers, cherry pickers and scissor lifts, was juxtaposed against the neoclassical elegance, pillars and arches of St George’s Hall.
Page lit the Hall with a combination of Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E AT and Studio Due CityColor fixtures. Forty CityColors provided the basic wash along the 170-metre front and the south façade of the building, while the 18 metre pillars were highlighted with 30 Robe ColorSpot and 40 ColorWash 1200s.

On top of St George’s Hall and on all the surrounding rooftops, HSL provided approximately 40 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs, chosen for their high power and brightness and their ability to produce searchlight type effects. About 100 JTE PixelPAR 90s were also used on the various rooftops for general illumination of the performers.
Over 70 Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700 Series fixtures were dotted around the main stage and on the site lighting structures, used for lower level coverage and short throw applications. Page comments that these were also very bight and ideal for the task. Seven sets of Studio Due CS4s on scissor lifts were placed in between the main run of St George’s pillars, rising up and down during the show.
A selection of PARs, profiles. blinders and 40 Fuzz Lights were positioned around the stage on St George’s Plateau and on the scaff structures, providing stage and general areas washes and coverage plus audience illumination.
HSL also supplied six followspots, four on scissor lifts in front of the building, one on top of the Empire Theatre and one on the concourse in front of the site.
The show was enjoyed live by 28,000 people and broadcast on several networks.
Mike Oates comments: “We certainly had to think on our feet on this one, and together with Star Events (structures), UK Rigging (production rigging/rooftop safety) and the Event Safety Shop (production H&S management), come up with a series of creative scaffolding solutions for lighting in all locations. Some of this was done in advance – but much had to be improvised on site!”
The light-show was operated by Page from his own Jands Vista console. HSL ran two Luminex radio DMX links – from the main site at St George’s Plateau to the St John’s Beacon car park, and another from there to the top of the tower. All other links were wired. All lighting kit was powered from generators supplied by Buffalo.
HSL also supplied lighting equipment, LD Rob Sinclair and crew to US broadcaster CBS for their ‘Good Morning America’ programme. This was beamed live from St George’s Hall’s famous Concert Hall and included a three-number performance from Ringo Starr.
Lighting consisted of Robe 1200 Spots, i-Pix Satellites, 2k Fresnels, Source Four PARs – mostly rigged on a series of stands around the balcony of the attractive circular Victorian room. Sinclair also used his new suitcase-sized Jands Vista S1 console.

Vista S3 and WYSIWYG join LD Glen Hunter for The Good
Fight in New York.

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) is one of the
most prestigious theatre schools in the country, and was recently selected to
tour The Good Fight at the 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival. Written
by Nick Enright (best known for “The Boy from Oz”), with music composed by
David King, The Good Fight is set in Australia during the first World War. It’s
based on themes such as mateship and centers around the tale of a
legendary boxer, Les Darcy, and his rise from blacksmith to the world’s most
famous boxer. Performed for the first time in the United States, the New
York Musical Theater Festival showcases new musicals from Australia,
Canada, South Korea the United Kingdom and the United States.

Lighting Designer Glen Hunter is a 3rd year lighting design student at WAAPA
and chose the Jands Vista and Cast Software’s WYSIWYG as his weapons of
choice for the tour. Glen commented: “One of the great challenges of the
show was that we opened the day following a 30 hour flight to New York,
which gave us a day to load in the set, lighting, plot, tech run and then open
that evening. I made a decision early on to completely pre-plot the show in
Perth with the Vista and WYSIWYG”.

When it came to choosing the console, Glen had no doubt that the Vista was
the desk he needed, having previously used it in major WAAPA productions
for West Side Story and Sweet Charity. “If you’re studying lighting, WAAPA
would have to be one of the best equipped schools in the Southern
Hemisphere. Due to the efforts of staff like Joseph Mercurio and Brian Anslow
we’ve been very fortunate to have the Vista since it was first released, backed
up with the power of a WYSIWYG visualization studio”, Glen said.
For The Good Fight, Glen chose to take a 1024 channel Vista S3 lighting
control system, which provides full control of a lighting rig when connected
to a laptop or desktop PC running the Vista software. “The Vista is one of the
most advanced desks on the market today, and importantly the S3 is
extremely portable”, he said.

As well as portable, Glen found the whole process of setting the desk up
faster: “Until you use the Vista, you have no idea how much faster patching,
and updating a patch can be. I practically got rid of my cheat sheets because
you can create graphical views in the Vista which look pretty much how you
like – either like the physical rig or in color groups, like on a cheat sheet. The
flexibility is infinite”.

“Each week before the show I would receive an updated plan of the generic rig
in the venue from the festival LD, then I would update my configuration in
WYSIWYG. Before the first rehearsals began, I built all the looks, palettes,
positions and around 200 cues in the Vista over a period of about 1 week”,
Glen said. “I was able to see exactly how each of the cues would look in
WYSIWYG, refine them and then show them to my Director to more clearly
convey my vision for each scene”.

Another aspect of the production process was that Glen was really impressed
by the speed and flexibility of WYSIWYG. “I was able to create the entire venue
and rig in under a day, and connecting it to the Vista was a breeze. WYSIWYG
has some great tools for getting a controllable rig up and running really
quickly, such as the Quick Tools feature”, Glen said.

I was very nervous about the Wybron scrollers as I had never used them and
had no way of testing my plot with real scrollers before leaving Perth – other
scrollers I have worked with can be notoriously unreliable. The fact that I
could build looks and control them in WYSIWYG gave me a lot of comfort!
When I got to New York everything worked perfectly. If I get the chance I will
use the Wybron scrollers again as they work beautifully and produce great
colors”, Glen said.

During blocking and dress rehearsals with the performers, Glen had Vista and
WYSIWYG set up on the plotting desk next to the Production Manager, Daniel
Jongen. “Dan would call the cues during rehearsal, I would practice playing
them through and I could see the results immediately in WYSIWYG. The
beauty of the system was that I could immediately identify any blocking
changes with the performers and update the positions and cues on the fly.
Extra cues could be added very easily. In particular, timing changes could be
made instantly and I could play back the results in WYSIWYG”, Glen said.
At the end of the 2-week rehearsal period the show had been fully plotted,
and all that remained was to head for New York and load in the show. The
Vista’s generic fixture model proved to be vital. “One of the big challenges
was that there were other shows using the venue, and as such we had a
generic rig with a mix of around 100 ETC Source 4 generics and Wybron CXI
color scrollers. Early in the design process we expected to be using City
Theatrical AutoYokes with Wybron CXI scrollers. You can imagine my
surprise when we arrived in the venue, hours before opening, and discovered
they had been replaced with Vari-Lite VL1000’s! The Vista allowed me to
change the fixtures in under 1 minute without having to re-plot the show.
The venue techs were really blown away, they had never seen anything like it”,
Glen said.

Another challenge was that none of the lights in the generic rig could be refocussed as the rig being used by other shows. “Despite my best efforts to
faithfully reproduce the venue and the rig in WYSIWYG, there were some looks
that just didn’t work as planned. The afternoon before the show opened we
needed to add or change around 60 cues to get the best out of the rig. The
Vista made this a breeze – for the movers we simply re-plotted the positions
and updated the color and intensity palettes. For the generics I would rework
a look and then simply copy and merge the new look into all the other cues
that needed updating. The Vista’s visual timeline made it extremely simple for
me to check that I had updated all the instruments correctly and that the
attributes were tracking correctly.”

Glen knew from previous experience that when you’re a million miles from
home you can never have too many backups. “Once again, the Vista came to
the rescue. I set my Production Manager’s Macintosh Powerbook Pro up with
a copy of the Vista software and the show, next to my own desk, with a spare
1024 channel USB-DMX dongle. That way, if there were any problems, all I
had to do was plug the DMX into the Mac. During testing of the backup in
Perth, I was genuinely impressed by how easy it was to set up the software on
either a PC and Mac and get it up and running”.

Glen’s conclusion: “I’ve really gotten to know the Vista well over the past 3
years and its hard to imagine using another desk for theatre shows where
you have a lot of moving lights. I’ve only just started to scratch the surface
with WYSIWYG and I’m truly impressed by how this software made the process
of touring a lighting design so easy”.

About WAAPA
The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) has an
impressive range of production, rehearsal, teaching and performance
facilities available to support students in their pursuit of excellence.
WAAPA provides production and design students with the most
performances and the greatest diversity of any arts training institute in
Australia.

Writing in the February 2005 edition of Lighting and Sound America, Rob Halliday reviewed a beta version of Vista

“Once in a very rare while, a thoroughly remarkable product comes along, a product that changes not only the way you do your job, but your whole approach to that job.

The first thyristor dimmers must have been like that, and the first memory lighting controllers, as well as those early moving lights. The very finest of these products are so elegant that they manage to be revolutionary while appearing so obvious that you wonder why nobody thought of them before. Think of WYSIWYG. Or, beyond our industry, think of the first appearance of the Apple Lisa and Macintosh in the then-DOS-only world.

And now there is the Jands Vista lighting console”.

Download / read the article. (PDF – 475kb)

“It would seem like every approach to lighting control had to have been tried already. But then a new product comes out that makes you say “why didn’t someone think of that way sooner?”.

THE VISUALIST
By Robert Mokry

JANDS’ VISTA

Have there ever been so many top-end lighting control consoles on the market? (Not that I can remember). It would seem like every approach to lighting control had to have been tried already. But then a new product comes out that makes you say “why didn’t someone think of that way sooner?” Such is the case with the timeline cueing approach incorporated into Jands’ new Vista control console. If you’re not familiar with Jands (www.jands.com), they are a huge rental, installation, distribution and manufacturing concern in Australia. I always knew them as the Vari-Lite people Down Under – and they still are. Jands has developed a lighting control console that uses a pen-based interface along with a timeline for cueing information. If you’ve ever seen or used Digidesign’s ProTools®, Avid’s Media Composer® or Apple’s Final Cut Pro®, then you’re already familiar with the timeline interface. As I have said before, I think this approach would be great for control of digital media servers as well as automated and conventional lights.

Jands has also integrated a concept called “fixture abstraction”. What this means is that the console ‘thinks’ of automated lights in terms of their parameters – pan, tilt, color, focus, dimming, gobo, zoom, etc., and stores these as “abstract” values during programming, regardless of the fixture type being used. They are not tied to one type of automated light. Jands has mapped out the parameters for most of the popular fixtures in great detail. Vista’s “abstracted parameters” that are stored during programming can then be applied to any automated lights being used, with the console correcting for differences between the fixture’s differences in parameters and DMX scaling of those parameters. Basically it means that you can program with automated lights from manufacturer A, and then apply that programming to a system of manufacturer B’s fixtures – for the most part. You will always have to make choices about what to do when you program with a fixture that might not have all of the same features of the lights you have to use today, but it sure is better than reprogramming your show from scratch. That’s a huge timesaver.

I had the good fortune to speak with David Mulholland, Director of Development for the Vista project. During the obligatory discussion of beer (he had read my Maxedia article last month where we discussed Belgian ales, so he knew what to expect), David indicated I need to know about Coopers Sparkling Ale and James Boag (take note if you’re traveling Down Under). I certainly look forward to visiting Australia someday and sampling these fine brews. I hear they like Texans down there too….

We finally managed to discuss lighting consoles, and Vista in particular. I first inquired what gave Jands the idea for the timeline approach. David said, “Our original idea for the Vista was to make a console that would eliminate a lot of the hack work that was involved in programming. We saw timing as an area where users often spent long periods getting things to look right and often had to spend just as long if they wanted to make even minor changes. The Timeline approach has been used for many years in audio and video applications as well as some laser control systems and even a couple of early lighting consoles. Once we started experimenting with this approach, we immediately realized just how powerful it would be for lighting control. Being able to see what is happening over time means that programmers can focus on what is happening during a transition rather than just on the start and end points of a cue. It’s also great to be able to shuttle backwards and forward in the timeline, and to stretch or compress events to suit a timing change.”

I then asked, “Since the industry loves touchscreens so much (or at least they’re used to them), do you think people will adapt to pen computing, and why?” David responded, “For our very first prototype we used a touch screen but found that it just wasn’t accurate enough to get the control we desired. For a while this looked like a major problem and we considered changing the whole user interface. Then we started talking with Wacom, and their Australian people supplied us with a 15” Cintiq unit to experiment with. Our R & D team and product development focus group were blown away with the quality of the LCD and the accuracy of the pen, and everyone that tried the unit wanted to take it home. We also noticed that a lot of people have trouble making selections on touch screens and use a rubber tipped pointer or stylus to avoid the ‘fat-finger’ problem. So in a way, switching to a pen-tablet isn’t a big leap. And once people get used to the fact that you can rest your hand on the screen without accidentally activating something they find it very comfortable to use. The pen provides quite a few options:

A – The tip is used to point and click (by tapping)
B – There are two switches that can be used to right-click, etc.
C – The reverse end of the pen is an ‘eraser’

“On the Vista you can use the pen switch to access the ‘right-click’ menu where applicable, and although we haven’t implemented the pen eraser yet we have plans to do so. This will mean that, for example, the operator could use the eraser to clear programming.” I then asked David what happens if you lose the pen. He responded, “Everyone asks that! We’ve got a built in trackpad – similar to what’s found on many laptops. You can also connect a USB mouse or keep spare pens in the armrest”.

We discussed Ethernet networking for installs and tracking backups, as well as offline editing software for Vista. David commented, “Currently, we don’t support networking for multi-user operation and it’s not high on our priority list at the moment. However, we are looking at smaller units with less programming and playback hardware. In fact we showed a wing and mini-console that is designed to operate with an external PC and screen at the recent PLASA tradeshow in London. As for offline editing, we already have a PC version that can be used as an offline editor. Adding a dongle enables DMX output, so it’s possible to run a show from a PC. We also hope to get a Mac version out very soon, something that not too many people are offering right now.”

I wanted to know how Jands planned on handling pre-visualization in Vista. David responded, ”Our Fixture View icons display intensity, color, position and gobo data. But we don’t have a full-blown visualiser built in yet. However Jands is a Registered WYSIWYG Developer, and the Vista can communicate directly to a PC running WYSIWYG via Ethernet.”

I then asked about how Vista handles more than four universes of DMX, and what is the maximum amount of DMX channels available via Ethernet without bogging down the console’s processor? David replied, “The Vista patch currently supports eight universes – four internal and up to four more via either Artnet or Pathport, the two Ethernet standards we support. In testing we’ve had 700 fixtures all running real time effects without slowing down the console.”

I think the fixture abstraction thing is cool, but I also know it requires a person or persons mapping out all of the parameters of all of the fixtures to be used to make the system work, a very tedious and time-consuming task. David elaborated, “The Vista library is more complicated than most consoles and creating a fixture is quite time consuming. However we have an extensive library of popular fixtures and have developed a library editor application that’s built into the console. We’ll also turn around a new fixture quickly and we are adding to the library all the time.”

I then asked him the most important question for me – how will Vista handle the digital media servers? Will we see frames going by in the timeline? This to me is a hugely exciting and salable feature, especially if it’s tightly integrated with the media server. David was a bit coy about this – he commented, “at the moment we haven’t settled on an advanced control method for media servers. However we think that the timeline lends itself to a more graphical approach, and we have a number of ideas under development we are bouncing off customers and internally testing. We do quite a bit of production here and the building is full of people with ideas. Unfortunately it’s a little early to provide much detail, but I think you’ll be hearing more soon after we finish the fall tradeshow season.”

The official launch for the Vista is PLASA in London and LDI in Las Vegas. I wish the Jands folks the best of luck with this interesting new product, and thank them for their cooperation with this article.

About the author: Robert Mokry is a 20 year veteran of the entertainment and mobile home industries, and forbids his daughters to date drummers. He can be reached at rmokry@robertmokry.com

Wherever the Vista has been shown to end users, there have been enthusiastic comments regarding its ease of use and simplicity of operation. One world-renowned British lighting designer, consultant, and sometime console designer said, ‚ “That’s the way it should be done. I don’t understand why someone hasn’t done it before now.”

Read the article >