STRANDSTRAND NewsNewsNews Spring 2005 INSIDE THIS ISSUE WYSIWYG 500 Series - Ten Years On New DMX Merge Controller Console Programming Tips New Digital Dimmers Lamda - 40 years of training Quartzcolor Product Highlight Democracy Grand Hyatt Erawan, Bangkok Dongguan Arts Center Strand People West End Show Update 500-series - Ten Years On! by Rob Halliday “If this sounds like a glowing By the time you read this, it will be almost report - well, it is. I am a exactly ten years since I programmed my first show on a Strand 500-series console satisfied user!” Rob Halliday - or, to be precise, a 400-series since the console was actually an early- model 430 complete with the now squeezed into eleven, effortlessly handled original purple buttons. by ShowNet. It is already more than a In the UK, the most remarkable part of the decade since I first looked 500-series’ success is that it has become the at the console - the closest the UK has ever come to having a article about the West standard control system across its theatres: End production of Oliver! on a number of recent tours there has in the January 1995 issue almost been no need to tour a console as of Lighting+Sound International then, rather than implementing a command to part of the production, instead just taking a magazine mentions the console but dismisses exactly satisfy a particular demand, inventing disk to load into the local console. Operators something that did that - but was versatile it for being not quite ready yet (-it later took know how they work, making it easy to bring enough to do much more besides. All while over control of that production, and went on staff into shows. And the family, from baby retaining displays, commands and setups that to control the show on tour in the UK, Australia 300 to fully loaded 550, all cross-compatible, made the console familiar to a generation of and the USA). mean that they’re seen everywhere from users familiar with Strand’s older consoles. It’s almost exactly a decade since I first got (Occasionally, equal numbers would ask for colleges and fringe theatres to some of the shown the console in depth, while the Old Vic opposite things... those cases result in new biggest productions around the world. theatre in London evaluated it. They rejected setup options, such as the infamous ‘preview Ten years on, the hardware is familiar and it - none of us quite yet understanding that follows live’). comfortable to use. The displays, which some the hardware was really just buttons, and the might consider dated with their character- The console coped just fine with Blood power of a console was the software which was based format, offer the advantage of being Brothers. In the time since, it’s coped with an relatively easy to change when it didn’t quite lightning fast. There are no delays. The do what we wanted. Provided we grumbled enormous range of shows of all types and sizes, software lets programmers and lighting enough! always seeming to gain new capabilities or new features just in time. For Martin Guerre in designers achieve what they need to achieve The first real show was the UK tour of Blood 1996, a big rig (with sixteen bit control of pan quickly and, above all, reliably - with extra Brothers, lit by Joe Atkins. The rig was six and tilt!) meant packing two whole streams tools such as the xConnect dongle offering Vari-Lite VL6s, some scrollers and some of DMX - it felt like even more possibilities by integrating new conventional lights - such a lot then! technologies such as WiFi wireless networking not enough ‘toys’ to into the lighting world. And we’ve always warrant taking two We also decided been able to load old desks on the road. to have two shows, however much The 430 was part of programmers on the software changed - some haggling over two consoles, one it has given us constant getting the rig to running conventional match the budget: lights, one moving improvement but with a Stage Electrics in lights. With the bedrock of consistency. Bristol wanted to try show plotted we fed If this sounds like a this new desk out on a the DMX from one glowing report - well, it real show, and would console into the other is. I am a satisfied user. do us a good deal if and snapshotted the For ten years now, the Designer remote USB we were prepared to data in, leaving the console has evolved when San Francisco Opera House, drive be the guinea pigs. show running happily I’ve needed it to evolve, one of the first 500 Series consoles installations on one console. Then We weren’t really improved regularly, and let me do my job the programming features got better, so that bothered what we used, and decided to give whether that be taking lighting designer’s on the UK tour of Les Misérables a year later it a go: it would do the show, and it had one requests and turning them into reality, or and Oliver! a year after that it was easy enough compelling advantage over other options - it taking my own ideas and bringing them to life for one programmer to deal with everything. could output the D54 protocol that many on the stage. British theatres still required to control their front-of-house dimmers as well as the DMX that The installation at San Francisco Opera and It’s been a great trip, and as the consoles we needed for the touring dimmers, scrollers big installations for Cirque du Soleil in Las continue to evolve, it’s not over yet.... and moving lights. Vegas, provoked the development of features like AutoMoveWhileDark and the multi-user Much of what we now have in the desk, the operation of consoles across the ShowNet functions that make it quick, versatile and network - so that when the rigs got bigger powerful, didn’t exist then - looking back again, as they had by the time of The Witches at this early software is quite a dramatic experience for those who’ve evolved with it of Eastwick in 2000, we could just plug in a over the years since it’s difficult to realise second console for a second programmer and quite how much it has changed! have two people working on one big rig separately or, more usefully, Indeed, our first technical support phone call sharing the work as needed, then to Strand’s Bill Richards was “how do we turn just unplug the second console the lights out when we go to dinner?“ “Run for show running. cue 0,” he confidently replied. We’d tried that, it didn’t work. He was disbelieving... A year later and more new until an hour later when he walked through features (particularly ‘magic the door, sat down at the console and tried it update’) let one programmer for himself.... and one console replace an Obsession, an Artisan, a Mac, a PC That bug got fixed quite quickly, establishing and a MIDI computer linking them all together the pattern that’s existed ever since. Strand on the UK tour of Miss Saigon ! At the Prince became good at listening. Best of all, the software team led by Richard Lawrence Edward Theatre, where two universes of DMX became adept at listening to user feedback but felt like so much so long ago, Mary Poppins is Selected Show History Across the World Strand 300-, 400- and 500- Series Consoles Blood Brothers, Oliver!, Martin Guerre, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables, Opéra de Monaco, Chicago Hey Mr Producer, Oklahoma!, Swan (Casino de Paris), Esplanade Lake, Cinderella, Play Without Theatres on the Bay, Kimmel Words, Nutcracker!, Lenny, Tess, Center for the Arts, Putting It Together, The Witches Vienna Opera House, The of Eastwick, Spend Spend Spend, Toronto Opera House, St My Fair Lady, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Miss Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Paramount Saigon, Ragtime, The Master Builder, Anything Pictures, Sony Goes, Carmen, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jerry Studios, Culver Springer: The Opera, The Woman in White, Studios, Fox Jailhouse Rock, Saturday Night Fever, Tell Studios, ABC Me On A Sunday, Mary Poppins, Billy Elliot, The Television, NBC Television, CBS Phantom of the Television, Hong Kong Academy for Opera, Mamma the Arts, Windows on the World, Mia. Aardman Studios, Sky Television, Vienna Opera House, The New Bolshoi, Royal National War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco LAMBDA, National Theatre School of Theatre London, Canada, Place des Arts, University of North Royal Shakespeare Company UK, English Carolina, University of Maryland National Opera London, Glyndebourne Tours and Productions World-wide Opera UK, Royal Opera House Linbury Studio UK, Royal Court London, Royal Exchange Manchester, Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas, Walt Disney Concert Centre LA, Los Angeles Music Center, San Francisco Opera, Sydney Opera House Australia, Victoria Arts Centre Australia, Sydney Olympics 2000, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Paris Expo, Opéra de Lyon, Sydney Opera House, Australia LAMDA: Forty Years of Technical Training This year marks the fortieth anniversary - 102 way of dimming (a mixture of JTM, of the Stage Management and Technical Permus and Mini Two) in the dimmer Theatre Course offered by LAMDA, the room, with a 520 console the most recent London Academy of Music and Dramatic replacement for a lighting control system Art. that was originally a Strand SP three- preset manual desk. The 520 reflects its position as the most popular lighting The course’s creation followed the console around theatres in the UK at the construction of LAMDA’s new theatre in 1963.