Have you ever purchased a computer only to find out shortly afterward that technology had passed it by? Well, this “buyer’s nightmare” occurs in the stage lighting industry, too. Since modern lighting controllers are basically designed around computer systems, in many cases the hardware becomes obsolete by the time the controller is manufactured. This leads to manufacturers stockpiling spare parts so they can service their products for an indefinite period of time. After a certain amount of years, the user is forced to purchase a new lighting controller either because there are no new parts manufactured for it, or because the requirements of their lighting system is now beyond the horsepower of their controller.
Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) has developed a lighting control system that will instantly update aging ETC light boards to state-of-the-art automated lighting controllers. This system, named “Emphasis”, will directly connect to and integrate with an ETC Expression, Express, or Insight lighting console, and turn it into a sophisticated automated lighting console with 2-D or 3-D visualization and off-line editing.
So what does all this mean? Instead of forcing you to throw out your ten-year-old controller and spend $25,000 to upgrade to a sophisticated automated lighting controller, ETC will upgrade your “obsolete” controller, using Emphasis, for a few thousand dollars.
How many computer companies do you know that offer “backward compatible” products? This is what you get when you purchase an Emphasis system, which starts at about $5,000 for a 2-D, 500-channel version. The software runs on a Dell Pentium 4 PC server (included) with integrated hardware and software upgrades. The video cards will be different depending on the system you purchase (2-D or 3-D). ETCNet2 is fully supported in the server so that control data can be distributed through Ethernet. The server will be configured according to how many channels you require for your system: 500, 1000, 2500, or 5000.
To use the software with the greatest amount of flexibility, four video screens should be used. The first two screens are the typical control screens: cue list and channel intensities. The third and fourth screens can be customized to show a number of different views. I prefer to have a light plot on one of the screens so I can point and click on a light to activate it, along with a 3-D wire frame view so I can move the light to the appropriate focus point. The fourth screen could have attribute menus so I can choose color, template, or other parameters, or a shaded virtual picture of the set so I can see the lighting change in real time. This is useful when the lighting controller has to be positioned where the operator cannot see the stage.
Cast Software’s WYSIWYG (pronounced “wisee- wig”, an acronym for What You See Is What You Get) program is integrated into the Emphasis software. This software is a complete three-dimensional, computeraided design and drafting program (CAD) with extensive libraries of lighting fixtures, theatrical set pieces, surfaces, figures, furniture, and accessories already preloaded. Along with a complete CAD package, this program will also produce all the paperwork that is commonly associated with lighting design including hook-ups, instrument schedules, inventory sheets, color orders and cut lists, shop orders, and many other reports. Any change you make regarding the lighting fixtures is instantly updated to all other reports and views. You can also import drawings that you produced in other CAD programs (such as AutoCAD) and work with them in WYSIWYG.
This software enables lighting designers to create their designs on their home comput- ers and download them directly into the lighting controller once on site. This is a wonderful feature as many times lighting work must be performed when the church is not available. The lighting is virtually represented with color, shadows, textures, and gobos on the computer screen. Although not 100% true to life, it does give you enough of an idea of the intent of the lighting atmosphere. This is also quite useful when the designer wishes to show a lighting atmosphere to a director or pastor before the lights are hung. The program will render a color sketch of the lighting with highlights, shadows, and textures present.
The Emphasis software will allow the operator to completely control the lighting in an “interactive” way. All the numbers normally associated with DMX control are automatically entered when the operator clicks on a light and points it to its intended focus point. When the operator “moves” the light on the screen, the automated light actually moves in real time. Instead of choosing a color by mixing the cyan, yellow, and magenta DMX attributes, the operator only has to click on a color palette and all the commands are automatically entered. If the operator wishes to change gobos, then all he/she has to do is click on the gobo menu and the gobo changes—all very cool features.
Of course, all this is fine for automated lights. But what do you do if you only have a system of conventional theatrical fixtures? Well, this software can help you “hang” your lighting fixtures in the CAD program and see what happens if you place certain colored gels in them. You can actually see if a 26- degree leko is a better choice than a 36- degree leko before you actually hang the light. You can also discover if any set pieces will get in the way if you hang the light in certain positions.
WYSIWYG is a great tool for understanding lighting angles and how they affect people’s facial features and other important objects. This program has revolutionized teaching methods I use with my students, as I now have students email me their WYSIWYG plots and I look at them on my home computer and instantly see if their lighting designs will work. All this occurs long before they take the time to hang the lights.
Earlier this year we installed an ETC Emphasis 3-D system into one of our university theatres along with six new Vari*Lite VL1000TS automated lighting fixtures and sixty conventional 36- and 50- degree ETC Source Four ellipsoidal reflector spotlights. There were no problems with the initial setup of connecting the Dell PC and Emphasis program into our existing Expression console.
One graduate student drafted the actual theatre and lighting positions into the program so that the virtual screens would be accurate. This was accomplished by importing an existing AutoCAD drawing of the theatre into WYSIWYG and assigning heights to the objects. This took only a few hours. This is a great idea for churches, also, because once it’s done, it does not ever have to change, unless your building does, and it can be used as a starting point for each new lighting design.
In our situation, we then selected the appropriate lights from the WYSIWYG library and placed them in their hanging positions in the program. We set points where the conventional lights were focused, assigned the appropriate gels, gobos, and channels, and made virtual shutter-cuts for the ellipsoidals. The software automatically interfaces with the Expression to soft-patch all the fixtures. In fact, when you select an automated fixture, the appropriate number of DMX channels are automatically assigned for that fixture’s unique attributes.
Once all this pre-production work is accomplished, you can proceed to the real fun. We turned on our system and watched as we could seamlessly control our lights and set up cues and other lighting effects simply by pointing and clicking. My students took to this system naturally as they instantly identified the light on the screen and moved it with ease. The interactive menus worked extremely well with the lights responding to any command sent to the color, gobo, and zoom palettes.
Another nice feature of Emphasis is that you can simplify your lighting control so the operator only has one button to push. This works very well for church productions so that mistakes are minimized. On the other hand, if you wish to take control of a moving light during a production, it is easy to do so by just clicking on the light and moving it with an encoder wheel.
The problems we ran into were relatively minor and could be addressed with software upgrades. As the Emphasis system is still very early in its development, not all parameters of all automated lights are supported. For example, to adjust the shutters on the VL1000s, you have to assign them to the old encoder wheels on the Expression to move them in and out. It seems logical for ETC to include the same shutter control diagram already present in WYSIWYG into a dedicated Emphasis control palette. But, alas, this is not yet the case.
Another issue seems to be the difficulty in selecting an individual fixture if many fixtures are “on”. When Emphasis turns on a light, lines drawn on the screen indicate the light beam. Unfortunately, when many fixtures are on, it is difficult to select one without accidentally clicking on the line from another. There is a similar issue with the resolution in the shaded view. With multiple fixtures on, the screen blooms to a mass of white light, rendering it almost useless in visualizing the lighting.
Also, there is a steep learning curve on the WYSIWYG software. Several days of training is required to use this software, but that is the case with many new lighting consoles. If you are upgrading your lighting system, be sure that adequate training time is included from the dealer or consultant, and adequate time is allocated before any major productions.
As Emphasis is constantly being updated, these issues may be moot by the time you read this review. ETC is known as a genuine “customer service” company—one that believes their success depends on listening to their customers’ concerns. Their track record speaks for itself: the fixtures (the Source Four), dimmers (Sensors), and controllers (Expression and Obsession) are industry–leading products. In this age of rapidly developing technology, I am confident that this product will lead the way for other manufacturers as they produce more affordable ways to upgrade lighting systems.
