Videoroomtips, Lighting controller

There is a house light switch on the wall in front of the lighting controller that has a lockout switch so that the ushers can't interfere with it from downstairs or that when the lights are off for effect someone doesn't accidentally bump them on.

There are two Pot light switches. The top one controls half of them and is usually the one that is shut off when a video is being played to give a better view.

The instructions are on the white label on the right. Again.... do not interfere with anyone else's settings.

When the phone rings a light flashes behind the sound board to alert the people there.

Gary's saying:...... anything that distracts.....detracts! For instance a mistaken light cue, or a loud noise etc distracts from the message that is being delivered. (Makes sense to me!) This is a good reason why we have to become good at what we do, so that we can assist in the delivery of the message and not attract attention to the “Production” of it.

The purpose of lighting: is to help focus the audience's attention on what is being said or done and so they will tend to associate the color theme with the service. This is more of an art than a science. Each week Jayson, Carmen and Gary have a meeting and determine what is going to be the color theme for that weekend. Then digital juice is made up, and the colors are chosen for the background and the cross lights.

Basically we are trying to do what the sun or the moon does artificially. Our brain usually compensates for the shadows, but the camera is not so forgiving.

There is a color chart that shows the primary colors Red, Green and Blue and what you get when they overlap. (Secondary colors).

1. The Main light is called a KEY light and is at a 45º angle from the subject up and towards the front.

2. The Backlight, which lights the top of the hair and shoulders. Gives some depth to the camera shot.

3. The FILL light which is 45º up and over on the opposite side as the KEY. To fill in the shadows.

4. The background light lights up the background as in the leaves to give some depth to the scene and sets the mood.

A GOBO is a piece of metal or glass with a pattern etched into it, that is inserted into a GOBO holder, and placed in front of a light in order to produce a pattern on the wall.

There is the “Par Can” or “Par 64” as ours are called. They are the basic types of light with a Fresnel lens to focus the beam. You can get “barn doors” and gels for these. The focus slide is on the bottom.

These are the longer type and can come with different lenses. We have a 19º and a 36º lens. The brass screw at the back takes the back off to enable bulb replacement. (They are halogen bulbs so don't touch the bulb or it will shorten the lifespan and burn out from the grease on your fingers). After the light has been replaced there is a focus knob at the back that adjusts the focus of the bulb. After that this knob is left alone, and the focus of the light is done by unscrewing the top screw and pulling the barrel of the light in and out to focus the light. There are sliders on the sides and top and bottom to pattern the light where you want it. The GOBO holder goes in front of these into a slot.

We have two mirror lights and two scroller lights on either side. These are controlled using the track pad on the control board. The pad at the top left is the FAST button and the pad below it is the Slow button. Then you simply move your finger across the track pad to position the light, or change the gels in the scroller lights.

There are Two channels that are linked with the software that controls the mirror lights. These are the X and Y-axis.

There is a lighting stage map that is produced to indicate the number on the light controller that controls that particular area.

Each of these lights are around $500.00 each, and the mirror lights are about $1200.00 each.

Team	Cues to Save on
Team A	100-199
Team 1	200-299
Team B	300-399
Team 2	400-499
Team C	500-599
Team 3	600-699
Team D	700-799
Team 4	800-899
Special Events	900-999

0	Clear
6	Yellow-soft
14	Blue-Light
23	Yellow-Orange
34	Red
42	Blue-Dark
46	Purple
55	Yellow-Bright
60	Green
67	Red-Soft
74	Pink-Dark
84	Blue-Medium Dark
95	Blue-Soft

The board is divided into two halves. The analog half is on the left and consists of all the faders that control the brightness of the individual lights. The buttons underneath them turn on the light for as long as you hold it down. This serves as a “find” or check feature.

The Right half of the board is the digital half. This is where all the programming buttons are and the trackpad for scrolling the mirror and scroll lights.

The XLR connectors at the top are for the little lights that light up the board. There is a little dimmer control on the back of the board that controls the brightness of these.

There is a list of cues on the right side that are preset and are not supposed to be changed. These are labeled 1-20.

Cue 14 is the Sermon lighting and is the light we use to set the white-balance on the video cameras.

You can see on the monitor on the lower right, the little yellow area where the light cues are displayed.

Now bring up the light faders of the lights you want on. (Use the appropriate brightness.

Then hit “Record”.....then “Cue” and choose a number that you want it to be. (See team numbers cue section).

To cue that set.....hit Go under channels A & B. (C & D are not presently used).

Look at the monitor, and see the fade up and fade down times with the little arrows in yellow. You can change that by hitting “time” then the number of seconds, then Record, then “Enter”.

NOTE: Light cues for the weekends are printed out along with the stage and sound map.

The Red numbers on the monitor are the mirror lights and scroller lights. These are independent of the Master fader. Which means that turning down the fader will not affect where the light goes.

There are Macro light buttons that are programs for the mirror and scroller lights. These have built in presets for the X/Y axis, and location.

There are plugs on the back wall that are connected to the light controller. You can plug in various types of lights to these and control them from upstairs.....very cool!

Record the light cue by hitting the record button, then the cue # eg 500, then hit Rec again then enter.

Each cue is saved in order, so if you go down your sheet and see where the possible light changes will be and number those on the sheet eg. 500, 501 etc. If it turns out you don't need to change the lights where you thought, you have it's number to fall back on if you need it. You can save 100 cues per team....so 500-599 for instance.

Now to check these, just hit the “GO” button and the lights will change in order.

If you are saving them in the A/B set they will show up on the screen on the far left under A/B.

So....now you think you have it set for the first service, and you realize that the songs at then end require worship lighting. So...you hit Cue 501 and GO.....Voila...worship lighting. BUT you now want to SAVE that for the next service. So.....you now hit REC then 503.5 then enter.

Why 503.5 you ask......???? First because it needs to have a number that follows the sermon lighting cue....so has to be 503....something...and you can use .1 all the way to .9 to insert another cue in between....so it is a good idea to start in the middle at .5 just incase something else happens and you need to set more in between cues. (make a note on you paper that it is the same as 501 cue worship lighting just so you remember what it is.)

So don't worry if once you write all your cue saves down you decide to eliminate a few.

Now.....say you set your lights and when it comes time to really do it, they don't seem to be quite at the best level. You get the computer to capture the setting by going to the channel button, (say its channel 23) then hit 23, you will notice the number comes up in red on the screen. Now you can use the scroller track pad on the right to slowly adjust the level, watching the numbers on the screen, you can adjust it imperceptabley. When you have it right you hit the REL (Release) button and you have analog control again.

If you decide to put in a light that is not programmed already, you simply adjust the fader to the appropriate level, then hit record, and say you are reprogramming the sermon lighting it would be REC 503 REC...Enter. (For some reason you have to hit record twice.) This creates the “new” 503 cue program.

If you GO to a cue and you need to jump back, to the previous one, just hit the BACK button.

Do NOT Do what I did and go back too far past the 500 cue, because you end up in some other teams cue section...When I first started doing this I thought it had to start at 1 so, I hit the back button back to 1, then realized that 1 was a cue, so confused me, tried to clear Cue 1 and Cue 2 etc.....AHHHH!!!!! Don't do that!

You should label all the lights so that they are readable, cause the time I did it, someone wrote with a black pen that was virtually undecipherable, and so it became a guessing game. I guess if you do this enough you become familiar with where things are.

The White numbers on the screen are 001 to 96. These are the analog light channels.

Note that the last cue you do, if you hit “Go” again...it will appear that there are more of them....eg if you end with 506, you keep seeing 506's.

Note there is a blackout button if you need it, it is located above the master fader.

The master Fader controls the level of everything....just like the master fader on a sound board.

You need to have shoulder lites on the main speaker for the video team, as it makes him stand out better.

Note if the computer has captured a channel, the faders will not work, until you release it. (REL).

There is a button called BLIND. Which means you can adjust things without anyone seeing it, but you have to know where they are, and what the levels are.