Such is the case at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, where technical director Shawn DuBois oversees a full production schedule using student technicians, and who has found a solution to his lighting control challenge at the Arthur Zenkel Music Centre with the Light Palette Live control console from Philips Strand Lighting.
"The Arthur Zenkel Music Centre is home to the Skidmore College music programmes and 90% of the performances we do are acoustic in nature and classically-based," began DuBois. "We have our house rig set up with general stage looks so that we don't necessarily have to go back and refocus or reprogram the board for each different performance. For these types of shows, we simply need to be able to turn it on and then decide which sub-masters to use based upon how many people are on stage and what they are doing all in a classical white light performance. But occasionally, there will be a jazz or rock performance where we need to be more creative with the lighting and this is where we get to have some fun."
Having been with Skidmore College since the opening of the Arthur Zenkel Music Centre, DuBois faces a slightly unique challenge in that his student technicians are music students and not from a theatre programme where one would be more familiar with lighting controls. Because of this, DuBois relies heavily on the ease of control offered inside the Light Palette Live.
"It's the students who primarily run the board during the musical performances and it's not quite like the theatre department where I would call them theatre electricians or technicians because they're not quite at that level, but with the Strand console they don't have to be. The Light Palette Live is extremely intuitive. If the students have any PC experience, which they all do, they can run the console and understand its interface at the Command Line set-up to turn on a light, record a look to a sub-master, or even record a cue. It's that easy."
Although the majority of the Skidmore College music production schedule consists of classical music performances, the full production season also includes a partnership with Carnegie Hall that provides a semester in residence at Skidmore for students of the Julliard School. Each semester in residence comes with a new a diverse set of performers and many times the premier of a brand new piece. Therefore, never truly knowing what the design needs might be, the lighting control must be expansive and powerful as well. And it is here that DuBois found additional value in the Light Palette Live.
"This summer we purchased some new RGB LED lighting and this was when I looked at the board and said 'wow, now I get what this is all about'. I basically just told the board I was hooking up some new lights and it auto-assigned them knowing exactly which LED lights they were, it knew how to run them, and that was it, they were on. Very quickly I had full control and could bring up any colour under the sun. Strand has done something really phenomenal with this console, this is amazing technology."
(Jim Evans)
