BlackTrax is part of TFC's lighting, sound and video system for its 3,800-seat auditorium set up as a theatre in the round.
BlackTrax realtime motion tracking solution was installed in August 2013 and has consistently been used a number of times each week ever since.
"It definitely solved a lot of problems for me over the year we've been using it. As soon as BlackTrax was installed and I was able to control the iris and beam to a specific width no matter where the light tracked. The options of what we could accomplish suddenly became seemingly endless in terms of creating and maintaining the environments I had always envisioned," added Kevin Penrod, lighting designer at TFC.
"The biggest challenge BlackTrax has helped me overcome is the sheer reliability that it is going to work with an incredible amount of smoothness during our services -- to the extent that it can practically go unnoticed if I want it to.
"Thanks to the 'BTBeacon's' signal transmission, I can pick up my talent when they are off the stage before they step on the stage which is a huge confidence builder! The ability to track off the stage gives me more options creatively. On the average weekend it lets me light the talent sooner which gives my camera team time to make adjustments before the talent shot needs to be taken, and a much cleaner transition.
"BlackTrax has given us such a high success rate that I can't imagine going back to using another system or trying to light an in the round space without it and still achieve the right lighting. Now there is always the choice of follow spot operators, but they come with a high insurance risk, take a lot of work to find when you need them as volunteers especially, and even the best follow spot op misses his mark from time to time," concluded Pernod.
(Jim Evans)
