Stage Lighting the CD-ROM by Danor

From The Press

^{Overview by Brad Dickson,
The Canadian branch of The Society of Television Lighting Directors}

^{Dan Redler has created a very informative CD-ROM, based on his book "Stage Lighting".}

<sup>The CD caters to stage lighting and many of the graphical backgrounds keep this theme. This does not mean that Stage Lighting the CD-ROM will not be a benefit to people in other fields of lighting. Many aspects of Lighting theory and technical details are contained in this program. In fact, I feel the majority of the CD pertains to everyone working in the entertainment lighting field.

The CD covers lighting fundamentals, Lighting History, Light and Vision, Light Sources, Theatrical Luminaries, Color, Dimmers and Control, Special Effects,Dynamic Lighting and The Process of Stage Lighting. A CAD program that allows you to hang lights in a virtual stage and then turn them on to see their affect, is included on the CD. (This CAD program does require Windows 95 to run). These main topics are divided into specific sub-topics. You can view these topics in progressive manor or go to the Navigation map and go directly to the Topic or Sub-Topic of your choice. Subjects are described in text form, graphics, movies and interactive displays. As a Lighting Instructor myself I am often faced with the challenge of demonstrating visual aspects of light. Workshops that require set up,equipment etc. are beneficial but have their obvious restrictions. With the Stage Lighting CD-ROM the visual aspects of light can be demonstrated on your own computer. The CD may not replace a hands on tutorial, but how many people have the ability to see how dichroic colour mixing is achieved in a moving light? How do you experiment with lighting positions without having lights, a stage and a subject? These are only two topics the CD-ROM presents in a visual and interactive format.

Stage Lighting the CD-ROM is a good primer for anyone beginning in the lighting field. Advanced lighting personnel may already be aware of the topics covered in the CD but they can benefit from the presentation format the CD-ROM offers. The advanced lighting person will appreciate the CAD rendering demo program.</sup>

^{Overview by Patrick Finelli,
Stage Directions Magazine, May 1997}

THE CD-ROMS ARE COMING.

A number of theater-related CD-ROMs are in development.

Some are hybrids, meaning they work as stand-alone multimedia applications and also connect to the Internet (such as my own Theatre History Cybercourse CD-ROM, released last year at the American Society for Theatre Research). And now there's Stage Lighting - The CD-ROM, developed from a textbook written by Dan Redler and edited by Ben Tzion Munitz, head of stage lighting at Israel's Tel Aviv University. It's the first of its kind in the stage lighting field. Although it does not connect to the Internet (perhaps future versions will include links to sites with information about lighting console manufacturers, professional societies, and theater companies) it does offer features not possible with a conventional book.

These include animated illustrations of optical properties, and video, sound, and CAD demonstrations of the properties of light.

The CD-ROM comes the closest yet to giving the student the experience of light and space outside the theater. If you are enrolled in a lighting course, it could be valuable as a study guide. If you are a professional lighting designer, it might serve as a handy reference. If you are just getting started, it would serve as a useful tutorial to develop a lighting vocabulary and familiarity with the principles of stage lighting.

The opening screen of Stage Lighting - The CD-ROM, produced by Danor Theatre Systems, shows an image of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu at the Palais de Versailles viewing an animated montage of contemporary scenes, light beams, and color changes behind the proscenium with Mozart's Barber of Seville as musical accompaniment. After this clever introduction, you go to the Main Menu screen, which lists the nine chapters: History; Light R Vision; Light Sources;

Theatrical Luminaires; Color; Dimmers R Control; Projections 5c Effects; Dynamic Lighting, and The Process of Stage Lighting.

There is also an extra feature for Windows95 users that require an application included on the CD-KOM. It is lighting CAD program that lets you try out different lighting effects, angles, and positions. You can make your own theater template or use the sample provided. You can create a stage with proscenium, thrust, audience sightlines, and objects, then view the stage from a number of different angles. This nifty application also includes some basic wireframe rendering features, but since it is a demo version, you can't save or print. The information provided during the CAD demo set up suggests it is based upon an Intel product called "Graffiti Renderer," but it is included with the CD-ROM.

Follow That Thread the learning paths of Stage Lighting - The CD-ROM are structured so the chapters lead to further threads under the headings "Topics" and "SubTopics." There is a toolbar at the bottom of the Main Menu, which gives you more options, such as quick access to the glossary and help utilities. The glossary also serves as an index and reference to related reading material for selected terms. You can search for any term related to stage lighting.

When you select the "Navigation Map" button, you see a schematic layout of the chapters, topics, and subtopics. From there, you can examine a list of the topics and the subtopics and then enter any section of the CD-ROM directly. Here are some examples of how the learning modules work. The chapter titled "Light5cVision" lists five topics: Stage Lighting and Vision, The Visual Process, Processing Visual Data, Stage Lighting and Visual Perception, and Atmosphere and Lighting. Six sub topics under "Processing Visual Data" include Optical Illusions, which then leads to a couple of animations of familiar illusions.

There are screens for most of the material found in the college-level textbook. You can find excellent descriptions of illumination angles, modeling by light, and use of shadow. The Stage Lighting chapter contains nine topics and 28 subtopics. Here is information on lighting styles such as symbolism, expressionism, and other 20th-century "isms".

Other topics include rehearsals, lighting plots, and paperwork. The definitions and illustrations are often simple but effective. For icon reveals a photo of a light over a table in what appears to be an actual production.

Looking Backwards there is also an excellent assortment of historical material, such as old engravings and drawings depicting candles and chandeliers. There is even; depiction of tallow candle production and an engraving showing the use of "Cressets" (torches) on the title page to Thomas Kidd's 16th-century work, "The Spanish Tragedy." Material of historical importance is also in other sections, such as the "Patt. 731000W mirror spot by Strand (1935)" in the Theatrical Luminaires section. Cross referenced "HotWords" are sprinkled throughout the text. You can click on the word highlighted in red and up pops a definition. A little camera icon indicates an illustration, photograph, or diagram. Click the box to see the picture and an icon that looks like a video camera connects to a video or animation sequence. Click on the icon to see the sequence. For example, an illustration in the Theatrical Luminaires chapter under the topic "Reflection and Reflectors" shows an animated view of the laws of reflection. A yellow ball traces the path along the angle of incidence and reflection as it strikes a mirror. Overall, I was impressed with the design and approach. The learning path is well structured and you can get to the navigation map whenever you want. The wide variety of material combines history, properties of light and design, and use of light sources. I shared the demo with several students and professionals and asked their opinions. A stagecraft lighting instructor wished there were more specific lanip and base data. I found some pictures of lamps and bases, but it is not nearly as complete as the photometric resource included with Crescit's lighting software ("A Control Board in Your PC," SD March).

And there was one disadvantage: Stage Lighting - The CD-ROM takes control of your system, so the hidden Windows and Microsoft Office Toolbars are inoperable. I usually like to bounce back and forth between the program and my document while critiquing a new software program. With this one, I had to open and close the software each time I wanted to check a link or reference.

What Kind of Hardware? Another question concerns the level of computing required to best explore the CD-ROM. I tested it using a 200MHz Pentium and it worked quickly and smoothly. This might not be the case with less powerful platforms, those with processors slower than 100MHz. Some of my students tried the CAD demo with Windows95 and 80MHz processors and for them it was agonizingly slow. To get the most out of the new CD-ROMs make sure you have sufficient computing speed and power to accommodate the requirements.

If you do, you'll find there is nothing else to compare to the CD-ROM could a lighting student learn more from a CD-ROM than from reading chapters in a traditional textbook? Lighting, like other theater crafts, is best learned by doing, by working on crews, apprenticing to other designers, working your way up from crew to Master Electrician to Lighting Assistant and finally to Designer. Stage Lighting the CD-ROM gets you closest to that experience.

It's exciting to think about the possibilities of this kind of software. Instead of static, shadowy renderings, we could see changing intensities, shifting emphasis, and fluidity. This is the promise of the CD-ROM for lighting education.

^{Overview by Rob Halliday,
Lighting+Sound International, March 1997}

STAGE LIGHTING - THE CD-ROM

The lighting textbook moved into the digital age at last year's PLASA show with the launch of 5tage Lighting - The CD-ROM, created by Dan Redler of Danor and Compulite in Israel. Now anyone with a 486DX/100MHz or better PC with at least 8Mb of RAM, 4Mb of free disk space, Windows (3.11 or 95, 95 required for the CAD demo to run) and a CD-ROM drive can learn about stage lighting on-screen.

The CD-ROM follows the basic format of a book, being divided into chapters on lighting history, light and vision, light sources, theatrical luminaires, colour, control, effects, dynamic lighting and the process of stage lighting. The chapters are divided into sections, which in turn lead to lists that can be clicked on for extra background information. The author has also used the strengths of the CD-ROM medium to add cross-referencing, whereby clicking on technical words will lead to an explanation of the expression (these definitions are also available directly through a glossary) and to include a huge range of illustrations and even short 'movie' animation clips. This is the CD's real strength over a conventional book: lighting is a dynamic medium, and the ability to see a film of a lighting cue running (albeit at the colour and resolution limits of a PC) is wonderful. The 'interactive' images, wherein buttons can be pressed to change the way the scene in an image is lit, are also fun.

Fortunately, the creators haven't concentrated on the graphics in favour of the text: apart from the occasional slight spelling, grammatical or formatting slip, this is clearly written, accurate and informative - even referring to such practicalities as the lighting designer's fee! If anything, the text is too over-divided: the main sections are fairly short, and you end up clicking at lots of sub-references to find out more. While this means that you can filter out information you're not interested in, it also makes stumbling across something interesting by accident much less likely. And it's a shame that there's no way of moving straight from one subtopic to the next without stepping back to the subtopic list each time.

All in all this is a very useful product for anyone learning about stage lighting. It's not a replacement for existing textbooks, but with its mixture of artistic and technical information, its glossary and its graphics, it does complement them very well.

Hopefully, future editions will build upon those strengths, perhaps adding more equipment reference information to help people when they start applying the lighting techniques the CD teaches for real, rather than just experimenting in the interesting, but rather tricky-to-operate, demonstration CAD package that is included on the CD.