There’s an article on Live Design Online about teaching the magic of entertainment design; in this case, projection design.  I am also a college professor, albeit taking a break to get back into full-time production design, but this is a subject that always comes up among those of us who enjoy teaching and seeing the student “get it.”

Check it out, it’s a good article and worthwhile read.

When I teach beginning lighting design classes, I always have a week of learning about the eye - how your rods and cones balance each other, what their respective jobs are, how the images you see are translated to the brain, and how, as lighting designers, we can use the strengths and weaknesses of the eye to heighten the audience’s experience.  Physiology always comes into play when you’re designing a lighted environment, and students always seem to enjoy finding out what different colors of light do to the body - blues are soothing (even to both genders), reds increase blood pressure and respiration rate, yellows make your eyes tire faster, and black is a submissive color.  None of the really “alternative” students appreciate being told that their black fingernails, eyeliner, and dyed hair color are really signs of compliance.

Inevitably, a question that comes up is “why do we see blue and gray at dusk and when the sun is setting?”  It’s a great question, especially because it lends itself to explanation of the photopic (lots of light, optimal conditions) and scotopic (low light, monochromatic) vision systems, and how rods and cones operate and cooperate.

The Purkinje Effect, as it’s called, is when the sun goes down, and we see a whole lot of blued out and grayed out colors.  This happens primarily at dusk, and in very low light conditions, where the color receptors (cones) basically leave it to the light receptors (rods) for detail for the brain.  When the light goes down, the color information is lacking, so the rods have to compensate.  Our vision becomes monochromatic because our color receptors, which do not interpret intensity information and respond best to yellow-ish light pass the workload on to the light receptors, which respond best to green/blue light and allow us to see shape and contrast.  Just without color.

There’s the lecture for the day.

LEDs seem to be the theme this week, huh.

I wanted to pass along a great LED text about the history, specifications, and technical properties of LEDs and their components - E. Fred Schubert’s text, Light-Emitting Diodes is a good read for anyone interested in learning line detail about the diodes.  I recommend it.

Most of us only know LED light sources as little bright things that are in electronic components - or, if you’re in the industry, another low-energy consuming source that is getting brighter and brighter.  I found a post at Madehow.com that lists the manufacturing process of “growing” LED lamps.  I highly recommend reading it!

There is also a solid post at HowStuffWorks.com that goes into a little more basic detail.  Check that one out too.

I had no idea about this until Ame Strong from Rosco Labs informed me of the program - Rosco has three colors of Lux that, when you purchase them, create donations for charity organizations.  That is awesome.

Rosco #313 (Light Relief Yellow), #359 (Medium Violet), and #361 (Hemsley Blue) are all representative of the charities that they support.  This is a great program - Light Relief and Behind the Scenes are organizations that help to support lighting designers in financial distress, and The Hemsley Grant is an internship program with the New York CIty Opera.  These are great programs - I had no idea about these, and since I have been known to use R359, I feel great about it!

Here’s some information from the Rosco site about the three color program:

#313 Light Relief Yellow
Light Relief Charity
www.lightrelief.org.uk/

Light Relief Yellow 313 was created by Rick Fisher on behalf of the Light Relief charity, the objective being threefold; to offer additional exposure to this important endeavor, to provide a revenue stream to the charity and to offer a new color to designers everywhere.

When asked about the choice of color, Fisher said “I wanted the Light Relief yellow to be a warm late afternoon sunny color. So many yellows look harsh or acidic. Light Relief yellow is a good bridge between the pale straw shades and the ambers we use all the time”. Fisher also commented, “I am thrilled to be working with this wonderful initiative of Rosco’s to benefit Light Relief and bring about a new addition to the their color range”.
#359 Medium Violet
Behind the Scenes
www.estafoundation.org/bts.htm

Behind the Scenes provides financial support to entertainment technology industry professionals when they are ill or injured. Individuals and organizations contribute money to the program, and Behind the Scenes provides grants for emergency situations. With this initiative, our industry can make sure our colleagues are cared for when tragedy strikes.

Many people in the entertainment technology industry lack health insurance and other financial support systems that are common for professionals in other fields. Behind the Scenes helps industry members through crises, such as serious illness, injury or death by fitting each grant to the recipient’s needs. Funds can be used for medical care and living expenses such as rent, mortgage, utilities, food, transportation and child care.

#361 Hemsley Blue
Hemsley Lighting Programs
www.hemsleylightingprograms.com/ob/gvh/home/

Mark Stanley, resident Lighting Director for the New York City Ballet and Associate Professor at Boston University, designed this color as a memorial to his mentor, the late Gilbert Hemsley. Mark Stanley said: “Gilbert had an extraordinary sense of color and was a particular fan of blues. We needed a blue filter similar to those Gilbert used on the older Leko’s - but updated for modern fixtures.

This new filter is a beautiful cold blue that won’t turn muddy when dimmed. It’s right out of Lake Mendota in Madison. The fact that every purchase will benefit the Hemsley Lighting Program is a gracious tribute by Rosco to Gilbert’s spirit and legacy”.

A student asked me a few months ago to give a reference on a good, all-inclusive book about being a stage electrician.  I thought about it for a while, trying to rack my brain about which text would give a wide variety of thorough information regarding distribution, practices, etc - but still giving a good breadth of knowledge about the craft and art of what lighting technicians do.  Nothing beats hands-on education in our industry, especially with a field as highly specialized as ours.

After several texts’ worth of information, I finally decided on the Set Lighting Technician’s Handbook.  This is a text geared towards film and television lighting production, but the information on electrical distribution and practices in this book are second to none.  From phasing to fixtures, source types, histories, uses, practices - this is a great book if you’re looking to get into the lighting industry.

Check it out.  It’s a great book for reference or just plain education.