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The Lighting Nerds

The Lighting Nerds is a bi-monthly podcast that talks about the technology used in entertainment lighting, lighting industry news, hosts interviews with people in the field, and generally banter about lighting.
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Now displaying: Category: stage lighting
Mar 28, 2016

Geeze, enough with the late episodes, Craig! I was prepping a new rig and programming video and lighting alike and had two shows this weekend. Audio quality and editing skill in this episode: 6/10. Sorry. I'm on the road.

Anyway, Episode 010 is hot off the proverbial presses and it's low-key but high in content. And fiber.

  • Chauvet teases us with the new Maverick Series
  • Martin teases us with the MAC Axiom Hybrid. What does it do? We can't tell you, but it will be awesome.
  • Things we carry in our gig back, and we mention a new tool: The KRE Can Wrench: http://kreelectric.com/cam-wrench/
  • Emails! So many e-mails
  • Lighting Term of the Day: ACLs
  • The Lighting Quiz: what year were Vari-Lites introduced?
Mar 3, 2016

We're back, 24 hours late this time because one of us - not saying who but his name rhymes with KAVIN - is cavorting about Europe, surrounded by history and country music fans.

In this episode:

  • Gavin is in Europe, and he caught a cold.
    • Advance your show, especially in Europe.
  • The Robe BFML
  • A tragic and preventable accident in an Italian theatre
  • Lighting Design, Console, and Programming Theory: color!
  • Controlling via MIDI and other goodies. A link to a guy who built a console thing! http://consoletraining.com/attacking-ma2-analog-remotes/
  • Term of the day: fly rail
Feb 17, 2016

Oh man, incandescent is back, and it's more efficient efficacious than ever, thanks to some MIT braniacs and the power of TEENY TINY THINGS.

In this episode:

 

  • MIT creates a ~40% efficacious light bulb with NANOSTUFF. Linky here: http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111
  • Lighting Design, Console, and Programming theory: palettes, positions
  • A short-winded review of Superbowl 50
  • An interview with Todd Erickson, of Smashing Pumpkins LD fame
  • Term(s) of the day: key light, fill light, kickers, sidelight, all that jazz
Feb 3, 2016

Hi guys! I'm trying some new things with the audio levels, trying to keep stuff around where most other podcasts are. So maybe you'll notice some changes from previous episodes in terms of audio levels. Shouldn't be too big an inconvenience. I hope.

 

In this episode!

 

  • We talk about Drafty, a new CAD tool for the entertainment industry
  • The Chauvet S-Par 1, which uses a micro-Fresnel array. Oooh, shiny.
  • A long-winded talk about the Color Quality Scale, spiritual successor to CRI. Here's a link to Davis and Ohno's paper, "Development of Color Quality Scale".
  • New recurring segment! Lighting Design, Console, and Programming theory: groups and cuelists
  • We review the 2015 Mega Super Bowl design just in time to review the next one!
  • Term of the day: fire curtain, and why water-based ones are a bad idea if you're doing a concert.
Jan 22, 2016

Holy cow, two days late this time? Shame on us. We had some audio issues, okay? OKAY?!?

Episode VI

 

  • ETC's Source 4WRD, an LED retrofit
  • The Elation 360i and the High End Uno - it's the year of the LED ACL beam, mark my words
  • A review of the Martin MAC Quantum Profile - tl;dr, we like it
  • Story time about followspots
  • Lighting term of the day: stage directions!
Jan 7, 2016

Between having a nasty upper respiratory infection (just what you want when you're a podcaster) gigging over New Years, and moving to different houses, it's a wonder we're only fourteen hours late on this one. Anyway, fresh off the presses, it's Lighting Nerds, Episode 005 folks. In this edition:

The Robe Square. It's certainly, uh, square.

The Lumu Power light meter.

 

Dressing for success on corporate gigs. Protip: a ratty tshirt and cargo shorts won't do. Tsk tsk.

Craig and Gavin get super-nerdy about CRI. We mention the Munsell color system, here's the WP page on it.

 

Lighting term of the day: proscenium.

Dec 24, 2015

It's the holiday season! In this episode of Lighting Nerds:

 

Happy birthday Columbus McKinnon, visit their blog at:

http://blog.cmworks.com/

 

Incandescent is dyyyyyying. Yes, it's true, thank science, and you can watch its death throes in art form:

http://livedesignonline.com/architainment/rage-against-dying-light

And then we talk about it. E-mail us your thoughts!

 

We discuss visualizers. Here are some that we mention:

Capture Argo

MSD

MA3D

LightConverse

ESP Vision

WYSIWYG

Realizzer

 

Renders from Capture Argo, created by Craig: http://imgur.com/a/sejr3

 

An interview with John Featherstone.

 

Lighting term of the week: ghost lights. Woooo!

 

And finally...

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Joyous Kwanzaa
Rockin' Ramadan

And a very special tip of the hat to those who believe in nothing but still want holiday pay.

May one day people all over the world not just tolerate but celebrate different faiths and cultures, and have their greetings accepted in the spirit they were given, without fear of being mocked and laughed at by those who lack understanding.

Peace.

Dec 10, 2015

In this episode:

 

History and terminology: Fresnel lenses

Here's a diagram for your enjoyment: http://www.uq.edu.au/_School_Science_Lessons/27.5.1.4.GIF

 

Industry news:

The New York Times re-instates designer credits

 

Tech talk: plots

 

Note: you will notice that my voice changes dramatically about halfway throughout the episode. This is due to my recording most of this show on location at a gig.

Nov 26, 2015

In this episode:

History and terminology: Limelight

Tech:

LDI products: The PRG Ground Control remote followspot, the Martin Atomic 3000 LED

Designing, specifying, and setting up a ground package

Tour reviews:

Mrs. Carter tour designed by LeRoy Bennet

Links:

http://livedesignonline.com/lighting/ldi-new-product-prg-groundcontrol-followspot-system

http://www.martin.com/en-us/product-details/atomic-3000-led

http://livedesignonline.com/projects/beyonce-mrs-carter-show-world-tour

 

Note: we recorded the majority of this episode a few days before the Paris attacks. We talk about them at the end of this episode.

Nov 11, 2015

In this episode:

History and terminology: "Leko" lights

Tech:

Lua scripting

Lime and mint LEDs

The Clay Paky Mythos 

Links:

TimeLord's Lua scripting: https://www.timelord-mtc.com/index.php?cID=150

Ma-Share: www.ma-share.net

 

CIE Color space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space

 

Short aside folks: in this episode I say, in reference to the ETC PARNel that it “is a Fresnel optic in a PAR housing.” This is a mistake, what I meant to say is that the optics of a PARNel are roughly equivalent to the result that a Fresnel lens gives you. Clearly the PARNel is not a Fresnel optic. That is all.

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