Stage Directions

Wybron’s new and expanded Mobile Light Lab has hit the road, and Stage Directions has a video tour of its new digs. The Mobile Light Lab is a 48-foot, pop-out-equipped trailer that’s set up to feature Wybron’s products in a more dedicated, educational environment than a trade show floor. Complete with a screen for product shoot-outs the trailer features many Wybron products, including their new Cygnus LED wash lights, all easily controllable via iPads so users can put the products through their paces. More details and a video tour after the jump.

Lighting designers are encouraged to submit their designs using wysiwyg version R33 to the wysiwyg Lighting Design Video Challenge by Cast Software. Entrants will create a two-minute video of their lighting design in wysiwyg version R33, post it to YouTube and share it on Cast Software's Facebook page. Unlike previous years, entrants will have to follow a "budget," i.e., an equipment limitation list. The first place winner will receive a full year's subscription to wysiwyg. The deadline is September 26. 

ImageBuilding on CAST Software’s WYSIWYG, the new version R22, a free download for WYSIWYG members, has many new enhancements including the new 3D beams.

TORONTO—Cast Software is wrapping up beta testing on the latest release of wysiwyg – R23. More than 300 wysiwyg members applied to be in the beta testing group. Testers were asked for feedback on every new feature of the software, from the new graphics engine to the improved designer tools.

LONDON—From among 62 products entered, Cast Software won a PLASA09 Award for Innovation at Earls Court in London. The Award ”recognizes products which advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice, or taking a key step forward in terms of safety,” according to the Professional Lighting And Sound Association.

Cast Software Ltd. of Toronto, Canada, will release wysiwyg R27 on 11 July 2011. Available for “members” (users who have bought the full license to wysiwyg), the release promises visualizations that run five times faster.

The Lightronics XC Series of Compact Dimmers is introducing a new line of compact dimmers with a new look and new features.

 

You know I’m a sucker for high-tech productions, and this one sounds fantastic. The National Theatre of Scotland did a production of Macbeth set in an asylum, with Alan Cumming playing all the roles, interacting with virtual versions of himself. In order to pull all this off, Ian William Galloway of the video design group Mesmer created original visuals, and worked with Salvador Bettencourt Ávila and the National Theatre of Scotland design team to create a camera and video system that could record and playback Cumming live so he could interact with himself. XL Video’s Catalyst media servers were used to control all video, control the cameras, capture the live video, manipulate it and send it out to the monitors on set. The icing on this tech cake? Ávila uses his own custom-made iPad app to control everything.

 

 

In what can only be described as a plot to make me feel old, the musical Rent celebrated a 20^th birthday of sorts this year: It was first workshopped in NYC in 1993. To commemorate this birthday, a new concert production of the show toured the U.K. The production designer on the show was Ben M. Rogers, who made extensive use of LED video panels, mainly from Pixled, supplied by XL Video.

This is a really cool story. Jon Driscoll was asked to design digital scenery and projection elements for a 25^th-anniversary celebration of Phantom of the Opera in London. Driscoll spent about two months compiling source video material, mostly from the late Maria Björnson’s original designs, which he treated to appear digitally and work in a new setting. XL Video supplied the LED screens and all things video for the celebration, which took place at Royal Albert Hall and was broadcast to theatres around the world.