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November 2014

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Copyright Lighting&Sound America November 2014 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

Four years ago, Claude Binder, pro-duction manager for Joffrey Ballet ofChicago, and I started talking aboutconverting the Joffrey rep lightingplot to incorporate LED fixtures.While the fixtures that we neededweren’t available at that moment, wefelt sure that, with time, they wouldbe developed and would becomeroadworthy competitors for the exist-ing incandescent luminaires.

Jump forward four years and webelieve that the gear is now availableand we can take this transformativestep. The question: Which systemsof lights should we convert to LEDs

first and whose LED fixtures shouldwe use?

Joffrey agreed to invite Chicago-based lighting designer ChristineBinder to represent the company’sartistic interests in making the equip-ment selections, and I agreed toassemble representative equipmentfrom several manufacturers forJoffrey’s designer to evaluate.

Chris Binder is a USAA lightingdesigner with a strong background inopera and ballet production. Shedesigns for Lyric Opera of Chicago,Lookingglass Theatre, and othernational and international production

companies and is head of the lightingdesign program at The TheatreSchool at DePaul University.

We met to discuss the list ofequipment that DesignLab wouldassemble for the fixture shoot-outand how we would structure theevent. Because of their level ofdevelopment, we all agreed that cyclights and backlights were the mostlikely systems in a ballet lighting plotthat could be addressed by currentLED lighting technology, so wedecided to focus on those types offixtures. The idea was to comparethe light that they deliver to thestage. Brand names and fixture costswere not to be taken into considera-tion; a full rig of LEDs was going tobe expensive, and we at DesignLabwere ready to amortize the fixture

The performance of Altman Lighting’s Phoenix LED unit was something of a revelation to the testers.

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TECHNICAL FOCUS: LIGHTING

The Joffrey Ballet LED Shoot-OutBy: Larry Schoeneman

A team of lighting pros takes a hard lookat LED units for theatrical applications

Copyright Lighting&Sound America November 2014 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

TECHNICAL FOCUS: LIGHTING

cost over the multi-year life of theirintended use. Because ofDesignLab’s relationships with differ-ent manufacturers, I proposed toshow competing fixtures from ETC,Altman Lighting, and ChauvetProfessional. Chris had seen A.C.Lighting Chroma-Q Color Force cyclights and wanted to include them inthe shoot-out, so I agreed to bring insamples from A.C. Lighting, also.

All of the fixtures were to have atleast four colors of LED emitters—RGBA, RGBW, or some similar variety.Also, all fixtures were to incorporateDMX-512 and RDM control throughfive-pin XLR connectors and to usepowerCON connectors for AC power

in and through. We chose fixturesdesigned for a range of voltages, usu-ally from 100VAC – 240VAC, and forboth 50Hz and 60Hz. For these tests,we used 120VAC, 60Hz exclusively.

DesignLab was the lighting vendorfor all three theatres in DePaul’s newtheatre building and, given Chris’ rela-tionship to DePaul, the universityseemed to be an obvious location tohost the event. I reached out to ChrisHofmann, director for production atThe Theatre School at DePaulUniversity, and we arranged the eventso that DesignLab would deliverequipment on the morning of August18, we would run the comparison, andload out by mid-afternoon.

Lighting equipmentLED lighting fixtures were shippeddirectly from the manufacturers toDesignLab Chicago; we added anETC 48 x 2.4 Sensor 3 dimmer rack,ETC Ion controller, and City TheatricalSHoW DMX SHoW Baby wirelessDMX-512 transceivers to the rig tospeed up the load-in and minimize theamount of cable on the stage floor.

Our LED equipment list thenincluded the following:

Cyc lights:—A.C. Lighting Color Force 72: a

22kg, 660W, 72" (6') linear RGBA fix-ture with two fans, a CRI of 92 requir-ing from 1 – 36 DMX-512 controlchannels depending on its program-ming mode.

—Altman 200W Spectra Cyc: an8kg, 200W, 25" RGBA fixture withintegral cooling fan.

—Chauvet Professional Ovation C-640FC: a 10kg, 175W, “over andunder” configured pair of 15" rectan-gular RGBWA fixtures, requiring 3 –24 DMX-512 control channelsdepending on its programming mode.

—ETC Source Four Series 2,250W LED light engine with cycadapter: a 7kg profile-type lightengine with internal fan and seven-color LED array, requiring 3 – 15control channels depending on fix-ture setup. The detachable 3kg cycadapter connects to the lightengine instead of the more com-mon lens tube.

Backlights included:—A.C. Lighting Chroma-Q Color

Force 12: a 4kg, 120W, 48-emitter,12"-long linear fixture with one inter-nal cooling fan, requiring between 4 -9 DMX-512 control channels depend-ing on fixture setup. This unit is reallya 12" section of the 72" linear fixturethat was evaluated for use as a cycfixture, but we hung it to get someidea of its capabilities in anotherapplication.

—Altman Spectra PAR: a 10kg,100W fixture with changeable lensesand convection cooling. While this fix-

“Because of their level of development, we allagreed that cyc lights and backlights were themost likely systems in a ballet lighting plot thatcould be addressed by current LED lightingtechnology, so we decided to focus on thosetypes of fixtures.”

The ETC Source Four PAR outperformed against LED units for backlight.

ture was IP65-rated for indoor or out-door use, the power cord was perma-nently affixed to the fixture so thatpower could not be daisy-chained.

—Chauvet ProfessionalCOLORado 2-Quad Zoom Tour: an8kg, 205W, 14-emitter, RGBW fixturerequiring 3 – 17 DMX-512 controlchannels depending on its program-ming mode. This fixture incorporatedan 11° – 43° zoom.

—ETC Selador Desire D-60 Lustr+:a 9kg,161W, 60-emitter fixture withchangeable secondary lenses and avariable-speed cooling fan.

Fixture evaluationIn agreement with Joffrey Ballet andTheatre School at DePaul Universityfaculty and staff, we invited represen-tatives from a variety of area schools.These included John Culbert, dean ofthe Theatre School at DePaulUniversity and a USAA lighting andscenic designer, and representativesfrom Columbia College, NorthernIllinois University, NorthwesternUniversity, and Lookingglass Theatre.We were also joined by representa-tives from each of the manufacturerswhose equipment was shown so thatany technical questions could beanswered on the spot.

All cyc fixtures were placed on theground upstage of the cyc andfocused using a muslin bounce. Weevaluated color intensity and even-ness of distribution from positions inthe audience. Standing onstage andlooking directly at the emitters alsoallowed us a far more critical compar-ison of low-end dimming curves.

This was the first chance any of ushad to directly compare brands ofcyc fixtures in a theatrical environ-ment. Chris Binder was impressedwith the marked improvement withdimming at the low-end of each fix-ture’s curve. Just a couple of yearsago, low-end dimming was frequentlymarked by “steppiness,” but that wasnot apparent in any of these fixtures.Obviously, a great deal of attentionhas been spent by all manufacturersin addressing this concern.

As a direct-view fixture, the AltmanSpectra cyc didn’t come on until alevel of approximately eight wasreached (based on a scale of 0 – 100),although this was not really apparentwhen viewed from the audience. BothJohn Culbert and Chris Binder felt thatthe Source Four Series 2 cyc fixturehad slightly more critical control ofcolor but failed to deliver any “punch”on the cyc. The real winner, though,was the Color Force 72. This fixture’slight was bright and crisp and clean.We were also able to get an even colorwash moving from one Color Force fix-ture to another without scalloping, andthe light was far even up onto the cyc

even while only lighting the cyc fromthe floor. Chris Binder felt that, fordance, in which bright, clean color castevenly across a cyc was required, theColor Force 72 units met their require-ment better than any of the competingcyc lights. That part of the comparisonwas a clear-cut decision.

For the comparison of backlight, wehung four different manufacturers’ LEDfixtures along with a number of 750WSource Four PARS with scrollers sothat we could compare color intensity

and punch between LEDs and tradi-tional quartz light sources.

No one was surprised when theLED fixtures delivered good, cleanlight in the deep, saturated colors.However, everyone was surprisedthat, when we started mixing colorsinto paler pastels, the LED fixturesstarted to deliver a less crisp lightand the quartz PARs consistently pro-duced a more satisfactory light. Wetried each LED fixture individually andalso ran the Chauvet ProfessionalCOLORado fixture through its zoomfunction, but we all agreed that thequartz units delivered a superior look;none of us were comfortable in

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TECHNICAL FOCUS: LIGHTING

The Chroma-Q Color Force 72 was deemed the best-performing cyc light.

“No one was surprised when the LED fixturesdelivered good, clean light in the deep, saturat-ed colors. However, everyone was surprisedthat when we started mixing colors into palerpastels, the LED fixtures started to deliver a lesscrisp light and the quartz PARs consistently pro-duced a more satisfactory light.”

selecting an LED fixture to useinstead of the Source Four PARs thatJoffrey has in its rig for backlight.

In addition, DesignLab recentlyadded Altman Phoenix “ellipsoidal”LED units into our rental inventoryand, just to play with them, we hadhung three RGBA units in an 8' sec-tion of 12" x 18" single-drop truss,setting it up as an example of color-changing sidelight without scrollers.Chris Binder and I decided early onthat we didn’t intend to evaluate shut-tered fixtures for sidelight, becausewe didn’t think it likely that they couldhold their own against LED cyc andbacklight fixtures, so we hadn’tsolicited fixtures from other manufac-turers—these were just from ourrental inventory.

We were evaluating the backlightswhen Casey Diers, our board opera-tor, brought up the Phoenix units andone of the electricians walked throughthe light. We were all shocked at howbright and crisp the light was. Chris

called the electrician back onstageand had him stand in the light whilewe looked at different colors and real-ized that the Altman unit could deliver

the punch, color control, and effectiveshutter cuts that Joffrey needed forits sidelight, and high sidelight, andother applications. We had thoughtthat these requirements were beyondthe capabilities of current technology

in theatrical LED fixture optics andcontrol and had been shown to bewrong. We were all shocked.

We spent some time reviewingwhat we had seen and learned aboutLED cyc-light, backlight, and sidelightfixtures for use by a major ballet com-pany: Cyc and shuttered LED fixturescould hold their own in a large-theatredance rig, and backlight (wash light)fixtures (based on what we had seen)could not. Then we broke the rigdown and packed it up, thankedChris Hofmann and John Culbert fortheir hospitality and the use of theirnew and well-appointed theatre,loaded our gear out, and drove backto DesignLab to end a very produc-tive and educational day.

Larry Schoeneman is a USAA LightingDesigner, is President of DesignLabChicago, DesignLab Charlotte andInteresting Products, and is active onseveral PLASA Technical StandardsWorking Groups.

TECHNICAL FOCUS: LIGHTING

149 • November 2014 • Lighting&Sound America

“We were evaluatingthe backlights whenour board operatorbrought up the Phoenixunits and an electricianwalked through thelight. We were allshocked at how brightand crisp the lightwas.”

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