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In the days of incandescents, it was easy -- almost anything you could get your hands on that made light, you could usually make work. I was not happy with the lighting that our theatre used as curtain warmers -- par cans mounted above the orchestra pit aimed at the center of the screen. My curtain was a cream-colored satin that center lighting made look flat. I wanted the folds to be more pronounced -- having light come at angles hitting the folds in the curtain would make them more pronounced. So I just got two 300w scoops with barn doors, I gelled the scoops with Rosco "Surprise Pink," built a two-sided box painted black so the instruments weren't visible to the audience and viola and put one on either side of the proscenium and viola -- perfection. When that curtain opened or closed, the folds caught the side light and it was 10 times more dramatic than with just the center pars.
But that was then, this is now. Now you have no choice but to use LEDs and they can be tricky. You have to be VERY careful what LEDs you connect to what dimming system. Our 2500 seat, beautiful art deco single screen was built in 1955 so the house light fixtures in the ceiling soffits were just ordinary household sockets (E26s). There were six soffits across the ceiling in an arc -- actually they were supposed to mimick the Radio City ceiling ceiling arcs -- each of the 6 soffit containing 75 bulbs -- standard 32w long-life screw-in bulbs. In accordance with the green mandate from the city, someone securocrat in the Procurement Office purchased 500 dimmable LEDs for the PAC. After they were installed, out House Manager called me and said I needed to come to the theatre...there was something I needed to see. I met him back stage at the stage manager's console where there was a Crestron touch control panel that controlled the House Lights. He told me he wanted me to check my Cinema settings with the new LEDs installed. With a weird half-smile, he said, "You may need to tweak them a bit. So I selected CINEMA on the panel and my 5 simpl presets came up -- FULL, HALF, ATTNS, SHOW, SYS OFF. My "full" for movies is not 100% but something like 80%. So I pressed FULL and, strange...nothing happened. OK, thinks I, so I guess I need to trim that preset. Next I press HALF and that did fade down a bit, but not nearly enough, so another adjustment, no problem. But then I hit ATTNS, the level I use for the attraction reel which keeps the lights for the isles up more than the rest of the room. And that's when the lightshow started. All the lights started to STROBE, all randomly, some going completely out, others just flashing at all different speeds. Next I hit SHOW, which was supposed to keep the house at just a glow, and all the LEDs went completely out -- total darkness. This, of course, is totally, completely unacceptable. Turns out, the replacements LED bulbs (labeled as "dimmable") are Low Bid, but that isn't necessarily the full problem. The problem is the dimmers and they probably will need to be replaced and/or the LED bulbs. Or, maybe we need they will have to abandon using E26 socket LED bulbs entirely; whatever they wind up doing, it won't be cheap.
All that just to warn that not all LEDs are created equal.
But that was then, this is now. Now you have no choice but to use LEDs and they can be tricky. You have to be VERY careful what LEDs you connect to what dimming system. Our 2500 seat, beautiful art deco single screen was built in 1955 so the house light fixtures in the ceiling soffits were just ordinary household sockets (E26s). There were six soffits across the ceiling in an arc -- actually they were supposed to mimick the Radio City ceiling ceiling arcs -- each of the 6 soffit containing 75 bulbs -- standard 32w long-life screw-in bulbs. In accordance with the green mandate from the city, someone securocrat in the Procurement Office purchased 500 dimmable LEDs for the PAC. After they were installed, out House Manager called me and said I needed to come to the theatre...there was something I needed to see. I met him back stage at the stage manager's console where there was a Crestron touch control panel that controlled the House Lights. He told me he wanted me to check my Cinema settings with the new LEDs installed. With a weird half-smile, he said, "You may need to tweak them a bit. So I selected CINEMA on the panel and my 5 simpl presets came up -- FULL, HALF, ATTNS, SHOW, SYS OFF. My "full" for movies is not 100% but something like 80%. So I pressed FULL and, strange...nothing happened. OK, thinks I, so I guess I need to trim that preset. Next I press HALF and that did fade down a bit, but not nearly enough, so another adjustment, no problem. But then I hit ATTNS, the level I use for the attraction reel which keeps the lights for the isles up more than the rest of the room. And that's when the lightshow started. All the lights started to STROBE, all randomly, some going completely out, others just flashing at all different speeds. Next I hit SHOW, which was supposed to keep the house at just a glow, and all the LEDs went completely out -- total darkness. This, of course, is totally, completely unacceptable. Turns out, the replacements LED bulbs (labeled as "dimmable") are Low Bid, but that isn't necessarily the full problem. The problem is the dimmers and they probably will need to be replaced and/or the LED bulbs. Or, maybe we need they will have to abandon using E26 socket LED bulbs entirely; whatever they wind up doing, it won't be cheap.
All that just to warn that not all LEDs are created equal.
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