CharlotteOne’s mission is to unify the churches of charlotte, focusing on the up incoming generation: 18 to 35 years. Because CharlotteOne pulls from a broad church base, we didn’t want the lighting to isolate those that didn’t feel comfortable with big productions. That being said, we still wanted to be edgy. David of CharlotteOne and I decided to move away from moving heads and mirrors and take a softer approach to light. Emphasizing a dynamic display without seeming to showy, we decided to design a rig only with LEDs.

Currently CharlotteOne meets in Steele Creek Church on Arrow wood Road south of charlotte. The auditorium has a large fabric scrim behind the stage and a ceiling full of ETC conventional fixtures. Placing 12 Color Kinetics Colorcast 14s behind the scrim, I was able to turn the entire scrim into a colorful light screen. I built three platforms which held the light at a 45 degree angle approximately 4 feet from the base of the screen. The lights evenly touch the scrim with a full range of colors and remain just low enough that the source of light is invisible to the audience. The effect was impactful without being to showy. When used with the pars, not only were the LEDs a huge success, Steele Creek is looking to put it in the budget for this year.

I have become a huge fan of side lighting. Moving lights on each side several feet in front of stage, the fixtures can light every part of the artist. My lighting designs seldom involve direct front lighting except for specials. I can accomplish an even front wash without having a light in front of the stage. A front light cuts through lighting layers and either directly interferes with lighting scrims and video screens or indirectly bounces light onto the stage screens. A front light destroys the visual depth of layering. Unless the building has 25’ foot or taller ceilings, I will sometimes even try to put specials on the side of stage. In theatre the front light is necessary in order to darken other parts of the stage. With live music, the stage is always full and usually shallow, nullifying the need for front light except for specials. With this in mind we added 4 LED pars on each side of stage to light the band. Because of the restriction of monitors, band members seldom walk all the way to the front of the stage in praise and worship bands. That space leaves room to light the front of the artist from the stage as well as get great washes layering the stage. Unlike par cans, LEDs can create diverse looks without turning off. Only a few LED par cans are needed to create different diverse stage looks, previously impossible without large numbers of conventional pars.

For additional effects, 8 Alkalite Octopod 80s were placed beside each musician and around the drum set. Focusing fixtures on the underside of symbols reflect light onto the rest of the drum set and send splashes of light onto the audience every time the symbol is struck. The remaining lights we used to side light the band members. I used to try to put the fixtures directly in front of the artist. Because of the use of pedals by nearly all members of the band, everyone has to look down to change their settings. Low lying front lights are brutally blinding when looking down, so I chose a slightly less dramatic effect for the sake of functionality. All the fixtures were pointed into the air in order to cast shadows of the band members and drum set on the white fabric ceiling. The lighting effect heightens the stage creating an overwhelming vertical lift.

When programming the LEDs on the Light Jockey, I used two different approaches all with transparent cues. The first is with a fade time on all sequences and the second is set all sequences to snap. Unfortunately Light Jockey cannot save a universal fade time without a DMX command. So all color effects have to be saved for each desired fade time such as 1 second, 2 seconds, and 5 seconds. Hopefully in the future, the addition of an abstract channel assignable fade time will be programmed into Light Jockey. Until then we are stuck programming three pages instead of one. In addition to single scene color effects, I used all the three primary colors and 4 two-channel colors on a flux effect. The flux is when all fixtures are randomly fluctuating from 0 to 100% with a fade time, typically between .5s to 2s. For a fire effect overlay a green flux over a solid red; for a meadow effect overlay a blue flux over a solid green; for an enchanting effect overlay a red flux over a solid blue; etc. Categorized in 4 groups, each group was programmed individually. Positions 1, 2, 11, and 12 were reserved for All Fixtures; 3 and 4 for Group 1; 5 and 6 for Group 2; 7 and 8 for Group 3; 9 and 10 for Group 4. The setup gives the operator complete instantaneous and smooth control of the stage.

The second set of effects was based on instant colors. The same setup was applied except with no fade time. The effects applicable to this setup are conceptually different. In addition to single scene color effects, I used all the three primary colors and 4 two-channel colors on a flash effect. The flash effect is when all fixtures are randomly flashing a color. When the color is not being flashed, no color is assigned defaulting to whatever is the default color. The same idea is applied to a strobe effect which strobes a color and the alternating color is the default color. My personal favorite is the strobe between red and blue. The effect makes the stage look like an anime cartoon. An LED off program is placed on a lower position in the cue to apply if a true strobe is desired.

The setup has been deemed the LED rig and has been used with several other clients. I could go on for days about the many possibilities of an all LED rig. Even though I have been programming shows with LEDs for nearly 5 and a half years, I am learning new and more functional approaches to LED programming-design and organization every day. If you would like to down load the program for further understanding, please go to the web site and explore Light Jockey (www.eyedialogue.com/LightJockey.htm). We have started offering our programs first for backups to our clients and secondly as an educational tool for other lighting designers and programmers.