The shift to LED came as a result of a £192,000 grant given to RDC by Arts Council England to improve the building and to implement energy saving measures, in part by replacing the traditional stage lighting with LED luminaires. The Drama Centre's technical drama officers Chris Bocking and Ben Ward along with Mick Cocker of Lighting Logic, who supplied and installed the units, spent months researching the best possible luminaires for the re-fit and selected the Selecon PLfresnel1 and Selecon PLcyc1 for their project.
The Philips Selecon PLfresnel1 is a general purpose luminaire for theatre, small studio and display lighting applications. It produces an adjustable cone of light with a soft edge that is easily blended with adjacent beams to provide even illumination, whilst the PLcyc1 luminaire seamlessly blends intense washes of colour on cycloramas up to 5m high. As both luminaires combine LED source technology with Philips Selecon's industry benchmark quality, they are highly efficient tools.
The PLcyc1 luminaires along with a number of the PLfresnel1 are currently in use on a site-specific immersive production of Woyzek.
"These Philips Selecon units have proved to be excellent in quality and flexibility and have enabled RDC to use a rig that utilises half the number of units it would require if they were tungsten," says Bocking.
Woyzek is the first stage in phasing in the Philips Selecon luminaires, which will continue over the next few months, to facilitate a smooth transition from tungsten to LED. This will allow the centre to get to grips with a new way of working but still accommodate touring companies that may not be ready for a full LED rig.
(Jim Evans)
