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The color mixing Cascade from A.C. Lighting uses two subtractive color strings. (Photo courtesy of A.C. Lighting, Ltd.)
The most basic principle of lighting design is that you want to use the controllable properties of light—intensity, direction, movement, and color as visual information. Color is one of the easiest to change and the right color choice will help support the message that you are trying to convey. There is a lot of psychology with color; underscoring a mood or setting the tone of a moment. You can easily change the look of your scenery or backdrop from cheery to ominous; you can use contrasting colors to highlight an area to move audience focus. Today there are many options to find that just-right color solution, and this story will delve into some of the most commonly used. While LED technology has added to the options, an in-depth look at that technology requires a story of its own.
Back to the Future
Prior to the early 1980s if you wanted to change the color in your lights that usually meant climbing a ladder; taking one color out of the light, and putting another color in its place. Sure, some manufacturers made a color wheel, much like the ones used at Christmas to change the colors on houses and aluminum trees, but this was pretty crude to control. Essentially, prior to automated color changers, you had one color per light. If you wanted a six-light color wash, you needed six lights for each color, so a three-color wash required 18 lights. Then along came color scrollers. With scrollers, you could now have six lights each with a color scroller mounted on front and as many colors as you could fit onto the color string.
Interestingly, both Wybron of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a pioneer in color scroller technology, and Dallas, Texas-based Vari-Lite, an early innovator of automated lighting, evolved from a shared idea of developing new color changing options. “The idea for a color changer came from Kirby Wyatt in 1976 when he and I worked together at Showco,” comments Keny Whitright, president of Wybron. “While at Showco, Jim Bornhorst and I worked on several ideas that were not practical. After I left Showco, I finally came up with an idea that became the scroller. At Wybron we continue to refine and push the scroller technology forward. Bornhorst came up with a color changer that used dichroic filters. They decided to make it pan and tilt, and that became Vari-Lite. So really, both products and then companies came from a request for a color changer.”
Today color scrollers are commonplace, being widely available for rental as well as purchase. The color scroller uses a series of individual plastic color filters taped end- to-end to form a scroll, also known as a color string, which are connected at each end to rollers that are motorized. This mechanism is in a metal housing and fits in the colorframe holder at the front of the light. By varying the channel level, you move the string back and forth in front of the light. Most scrollers use a tab that passes through an optical sensor for position control. In the early versions, scrollers were analog, so you usually had 10 frames of color—10% for the first color, 20% for the second… When scrollers went digital, you could get more colors on a string, now up to 32 colors. Scrollers have been refined over the years with newer features including quieter fans, more color capacity, and some now provide feedback, but the basic configuration has changed little.
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Michael S. Eddy writes about design and technology. He can be reached at mseddy2900@hotmail.com. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Quick-links
Color scrollers, color string production services
www.aclighting.com | 416-255 9494
ColorFader CMY subtractive color mixing scroller
www.morpheuslights.com | 888-667-7437
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