All 11 of the VL3000s were positioned front-of-house. Franks used the lights mostly for background colour and texture, using the Madison Square Garden Theatre walls as scenic backdrops for the ESPN draft analysts at the main set. From directly in front of the stage, Franks needed fixtures that could throw to the sides and back of the Theatre, a distance of about 150ft (46m). "He needed to cover a whole lot of area with a few units," High Output's Chris McMeen explained. "It takes a powerful light to throw that distance, but then when you zoom all the way out, how much light are you really getting? The intensity of the VL3000 Spot fixtures, even at full zoom, is outstanding. If you try to use a 500W lamp and have it zoom to full, it's just going to get washed out."
"The zoom was great because we could cover a large area, and they were still very bright," said Franks. "And we were able to soften them without losing the size. With some other types of fixtures I've used, you have to compromise either the brightness or size of the image."
"Eight years ago, when I started doing this event, I was using conventional fixtures, which were very time-consuming," Franks said. "Once you focused, you couldn't go in and make adjustments because they had loaded in the tables and set pieces. With the VL3000 Spot fixtures, it was great because we could use the zoom. It was almost like having a conventional because you could focus it and soften the pattern and do subtle things . . . But," he added, "they were brighter and covered more background."
(Lee Baldock)
