So the church worship leader and drama director walk up to me excited because they see the lights starting to come on and begin to move and flash. Five minutes ago I turned on the breakers that power the lighting rig and it has just sprung to life for the first time ever.
“Alright, this is awesome!” says the worship leader. “Yeah, this is going to really make the drama look good this year,” adds the drama director. Then they both look at me and the worship leader says, “OK we're ready to see all of the lighting looks that you are going to use for the program.”
Of course, the look that I got when I told them to come back tomorrow was priceless. It's that look of confusion on their part as they try to figure out why I, as the lighting programmer, wasn't ready to give them the grand lighting tour. In their minds I should be ready because they know you just turn on the system and push the buttons on the console to make everything go. Little do they know the amount of time required to actually get the system set up and in a usable state once you have power and data to the fixtures.
The misconception about moving lights being intelligent doesn't help. Over the years the moving light manufacturers' marketing machines have done a great job convincing the uneducated that using moving lights is easy because of the “intelligence” of the lighting fixture, but any good programmer knows it's the intelligence of the programmer that makes the lights look good. So for those that have never really programmed moving lights before, let me share some information about using presets that will help you “intelligently” wrangle the lights into submission.
PRESETS 101
I'm going to start by listing all of the general parameters you can control in a moving light. While all moving lights have the same basic parameters, exact feature sets vary from fixture to fixture, but generally they fall into these six basic categories: intensity, position, color, gobo, beam, and miscellaneous control. Also, while some of the terms I use to describe console functions might be different for your console, all professional moving light consoles have similar functionality; you just have to figure out your particular console's syntax.
The first thing that programmers do when preparing to program moving lights is to build presets into the console. You can think of presets as the building blocks upon which all of your lighting looks are created—and one of the most underrated yet most important aspects of moving light programming.
We generally create presets for all of the parameters of the lighting system that we are going to use, such as colors, position, focus, intensity, patterns, etc. In addition, presets are not limited to moving lights; they can be used with any lighting fixture the console can control, including dimmers, LEDs, color changers, gobo rotators, and the like.
The first thing that programmers do when preparing to program moving lights is to build presets into the console.
The primary reason that we use presets is because [they] allow us to quickly access the parameters of the lights without having to dial that particular parameter up from scratch. For example, if we have 30 spot fixtures in our lighting rig and want to focus them at the down stage center vocal position, we would have to spend some time dialing on the pan and tilt of all 30 fixtures to get them focused in the correct position; let's say that to get the focus dialed in to that position takes 30 minutes. Now let's multiply that by 10 different preset positions. You have now spent five hours just dialing in lighting position presets.
Now add color presets at 28 colors, gobo presets with 60 or more different possibilities, 15 or more beam presets with different zoom and edge focus levels, add a dozen intensity and strobe presets, and you now have at least 10 hours of just building presets, and this is for only one fixture type. Add multiple fixture types and you increase the time required to build all of your presets exponentially. Yet imagine if you had to dial in each light from scratch for every lighting look you were programming. You would spend hours just getting all of the light parameters dialed in, but with presets, once the lights are preset it takes seconds to recall the parameter.
Presets also allow us to repeat the same position, color, pattern, etc., over and over again with great precision, unlike dialing the parameters up from scratch, which might not always match, as each time a preset is recalled the console sends the exact command set that was recorded to the fixtures.
Of course, you don't have to have every preset you might use before you start programming. You can add as you go along, however, you want to have a good chunk of them already in the console so you don't have to think much about building presets while programming your show.
MIXING & MATCHING
AND OTHER TIPS
Presets can also be mixed and matched as you program. While every fixture might be in every preset, you can pick and choose what presets each fixture will play back in your programing—and can even go so far as having every fixture be in a different preset if you so desire. This mixing and matching of presets allows you to have very diverse lighting looks while using the same basic presets over and over again and again.
It is also good to note that presets can generally be added to, as well as modified or updated, and when used correctly, allow you to easily change your “programming” without actually changing the programming. More on that in a moment.
So, let me give you a practical example of how we use presets in a live touring situation. During production rehearsals the lighting rig is set up in a rehearsal hall and all of the required presets are built for all of the lighting programming that will be used during the tour. Over the course of the tour the size of the stage, the height where the lighting rig is hung, and the position of the players in the band may change, changing the lighting focus positions. But it isn't a showstopper, as you just do minor updates to the preset positions of the lights to adjust for the daily changes.
Earlier I mentioned that presets allow us to change the “programming” of our programming, well this is how: Since our programming contains cues made from presets, when we update our presets our programming in the cues gets updated as well. So instead of updating what might be hundreds of lighting cues to correct for changes that happen every day on the road, we just update 35 or so presets.
What is the practical application for updating presets in the typical church setting, then? Well, one use might be to use presets for all of your musician positions, as well as your scenic pieces in the worship songs that you program, then as the scenic pieces move and the band positions change you just update the positions, leaving the programming for the worship song intact.
One time saver where I have effectively used presets is with the indecisive drama director. You know the type. They can never make up their mind where the soloist is going to stand, where they are going to put the narrators, and if the angels are going to stand over the tomb or beside the entrance until the last rehearsal. How are you going to program the lighting cues if you don't know where the actors are going to go? Here, presets are your friend.
For each song that has a solo, make a solo preset. You might have a “song No. 1 solo,” “a song No. 2 solo,” “a song No. 6 solo,” and so on. Use each individual solo preset in its corresponding songs cues, then if the director moves the solo position, just update the preset. For narrators, make a preset for each narrator and place it in your programming, then when your director locks in on what the position should be, update the position information accordingly. Do the same for your angels.
With a well thought-out set of position presets you can program a lot of your cues without knowing where people are going to be standing, since the positions don't matter as much while you are programming. Once the director figures out who is going to stand where, you can update the focuses accordingly.
Another great use for presets is for front, fill, and backlight intensities when you are shooting video. Having a preset for each allows you to dial the levels in with your video director and lock them down so that each time you recall the presets they will match what levels you had before. This is especially helpful if you have to manually set the camera iris. The scene will always appear correct on camera because the light levels will match the camera settings—because of your presets.
