Last week I got a chance to meet in person with Justin. He was in NYC and sitting over some Five Guys burgers we talked about what we’d been seeing in the entertainment lighting industry. As we talked about some trends particularly regarding the rapid adoption of LEDs, traded stories about ancient gear we’d both seen walking into theaters around the country. That spurred a conversation into how the industry might change that. That conversation inspired this post.
First, some background – I went to college at Pace University. It was there that I was taught lighting design by the late Chris Thomas. Chris taught me that you can make a lighting design successful with any equipment, having the newest gear doesn’t make the best designer.
He was right of course, but even when I was a student (which wasn’t that long ago) the movement toward sustainability was little more than a whisper. Today if a lighting designer wishes to use less energy, the newest gear is often vital to the pursuit. Using LED technology represents a quantum leap in our ability to conserve energy, while maintaining the quality of design audiences have come to expect.
After I finished my studies, I went on to work as lighting coordinator for the university’s 700-seat theater the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts. Like many university theaters, the Schimmel Center struggled to be not only a thriving venue for the performing arts, but also a profit center for the university. As such, it was consistently asked to do more with less, including a distinct lack of updated equipment. At the time, the best we could do was replace the oldest instruments first, usually in four and five instrument batches as supplemental funds became available.
We wanted to be more cutting edge, we wanted to be more sustainable. However, reality was we couldn’t pitch the university on capital level improvements without demonstrating long-term profitabilty. It’s tough enough to argue that having the latest gear will increase revenue over the long term. There was something else holding me back from making the pitch effectively.
I wanted to change out upstage washes and cyc lighting to RGB LED sources. I wanted to add moving light sources to save on man power moving and focusing “specials” for conferences. But there was a problem…what should I recommend? While the moving light market in general is more established, the LED market then, as now was rapidly changing. There were certainly products I favored. Yet, I couldnt guarantee (or even plausibly assert) that the fixtures purchased this year would still be the best available on the market next year. This hesitation made it difficult for me to convince myself, let alone the university, that a major equipment investment would be worth it.
The point of my little story isn’t nostalgia, but rather to demonstrate an opportunity. LED techonlogy today is anaolgous to computer technology in the early 1990s. In the early nineties, the rapid improvment of personal computers made them both thrilling and dangerous. Thrilling because finally, the match of operating system and software improvement combined with the affordable availability of hardware capable of running these new programs held amazing possibilites for companies large and small. But investment was also dangerous. If you bought today, you knew in 6 months your computer would be obsolete. This wasn’t a matter of “keeping up with the joneses” often computers a little as a year old were rendered useless as new software was released requiring ever more powerful hardware. The PC comparison seems to be apt as it came up unprompted in an email I received from the folks at Cree Lighting. Michelle Murray, spokeswoman for Cree had this to say,
…compare this to another semiconductor technology—computer processors. Sure, the next level of processing power is right around the corner—but you can’t keep running a DOS-machine waiting for innovation to stop. The benefits of moving to LED lighting far offset any concerns about immediate obsolescence…
Wes Bailey of 4wall had this to say on the pace of LED innovation and adoption…
We are definitely seeing new LED products at a rapid pace, and more importantly, we are seeing the demand for these products from a rental standpoint increase faster than ever. Previously, when an LED product was launched it took a good deal of time for designers to begin requesting these products…in turn it gave us a larger window of time to investigate them before we started carrying them. In the last two years that has changed quite a bit, now it seems that new LED products are being spec’d on shows as soon as they are released to the public.
It’s hard to compare the market available to a university theater over 5 years ago to the state of LED technology today. But in an important way the situation is the same, the market for new, better lighting instruments is always evolving. How do you know when to jump in? How can we mitigate the risks of adoption?
In the computing industry, a response was developed to this consumer ill. Computer leasing programs became widely adopted across most large corporations as a way to stay current in a rapidly changing computing environment. To this day, most large corporations have some form of renewing lease with their computer vendors. This incentivizes long term investment, without the fear of obsolensence.
What I propose is rental houses create similiar long term lease offerings for clients providing repertory light plots across the country. They add up to little more than a long term rental, with additional service offerings should equipment fail. Like an auto lease, it would be expected to be returned in good working order, ready to turn around to other clients. This would promote a move toward more sustainable lighting by mitigating the risk of an ever-changing market place. It would also ensure a steady stream of income for rental houses.
That’s not to say there wouldn’t be challenges. To make this a truly sustainable concept, there would need to be an end-of-life cycle for the lighting gear being returned to the vendors. If it’s all simply scrapped in favor of the newest model then the energy saved on stage doesn’t mitigate the lost embodied energy of the gear. At a minimum the gear would need to be sold at a reduced price elsewhere on the market to extend it’s useful life. The best of all possible scenarios is the gear goes back to the manufacturer where as many of the components as possible could be reclaimed and turned into new gear or otherwise put to good use.
I put this idea to the folks at 4wall and I got a thoughtful response. Again Wes Bailey,
Currently 4Wall does not offer any official leasing options. I will try to explain to you the closest scenario we have to that. We do have a number of venues (especially back east) that we do long term rentals with, and these venues are of course free to trade out rental gear for new items during the rental period, but that of course incurs differentiating costs. Because we do basically offer our entire rental stock for sale on UsedLighting.com, any of these long term rental clients are able to have the gear they currently have priced out for them from a used sales standpoint. When pricing the equipment for the used sale, we definitely take into account how long they have had the gear, and of course we also take into account the age of the gear… While these type of options are not exactly a leasing plan, it does occur frequently that venues who have been renting long term do decide to purchase from us as a used sale. Another thing to keep in mind on this is that some venues (we run into this with churches, schools, and to some extent, casinos) are forced by management into using specific monthly budgets… In these cases this can lead to a venue simply renting gear over and over that they might actually save on by purchasing….this also prevents them from being stuck with older equipment (so maybe not a bad idea after all?).
Have you designed any repertory light plots recently? Do you work for a venue which owns or rents gear? What are you doing to adopt more sustainable solutions? Have you figured out a way to mitigate risk? The comment section awaits….
I used to do some assisting work for a theatrical designer here in NYC. I was writing cues with him prior to the start of tech and after creating a dozen or so basic looks as a starting point, he said a curious thing to me.
“OK, now take the master down to 85%”
So I did.
“Leave it.”
The entire tech I had the master locked off at 85% as we made changes and re-wrote cues. As we worked the director would ask for lights to be brought to “full.” Brighter, brighter, brighter! Leaving the master locked off gave us some head room and kept us from over lighting the play. It was an artificial barrier we constructed and it got us to a better, more subtle design.
I tell this story as a lesson in relative brightness. It’s a lesson we all learn in school. Our brains are taught to seek contrast by setting a base line for whatever is the brightest thing in our visual field. As light levels diminish around the brightest thing, our brain actually makes them “darker” we perceive them as less bright by comparison.
Yet, you can’t look at the grid of fly rail of Broadway show without seeing dozens more fixtures than necessary to cover the acting areas. We all reach the same panic mode. We look over our plot, we see our areas are covered, but we worry…”Maybe this won’t be bright enough, maybe something won’t pop.” So we add lights, maybe double up. This leads to unnecessary lighting, wasted watts.
The relative brightness of Broadways shows, rock concerts, and performance in general has sky rocketed over the decades. This simply isn’t necessary. Not only are fixtures more efficient but the human eye hasn’t changed.
Trust Relative Brightness, there are other ways to impress an audience besides blinding them.
If you’ve ever been to a Broadway show, sustainability might not be the first thing that springs to mind as you watch the literally hundreds of lights burning anywhere from 300 to 2000w a piece to create spectacular effects all visible from the back of the balcony.
In a way, that’s the point. Traditionally, the purpose of big brash commercial theater is to entertain. Think of your favorite show…Phantom of the Opera, Jersey Boys, Billy Elliot, Showboat, Shrek the Musical…all of these transport the audience to another time and place. Anyone who has ever been to a Broadway show will tell you of the spectacular sights and sounds immersed within – it’s a fantasy world full of adventure and fun, and generally speaking, lots and lots of light, sound, video, and special effects. Most design professionals, myself included, entered the world of live entertainment to help create these immersive experiences. We want to find ways to use our creativity to transport the audience to another place.
Yet, as a design community we are faced with a new challenge. It is not enough any more to simply create a world that is satisfying to the audience. It’s not enough to fulfill the director’s vision, it’s not even enough to come in on time and on budget. No, I posit the challenge of the 21st century will be to do all of those things, sustainably.
This challenge stems approaches on two fronts…the first moral, the second economic. Allow me to state the problem simply and combine these two fronts. If we want there to be live entertainment for our kids and grand kids to enjoy we must begin producing it sustainably or it will disappear. I’m not describing some existential crisis in which the world ends due to global warming and with it our ability to produce theater. I’m speaking about a world in which the costs of materials and energy have run so high, tickets have become so expensive, that it simply becomes economically untenable to produce live entertainment any more. The rising cost of energy threatens all of American industry, but the arts and entertainment world could feel the effects most acutely. The performing arts are the most sensitive to the running cost of production, that is, it might have cost $65 million to bring Spiderman to the stage, but just as importantly, it will cost $1 million a week to continue running. Any increase in running cost will either cut into profits, or will raise ticket prices further pushing elite live entertainment out of the reach of middle class families.
The challenges are real and are manifesting themselves every day. Take for instance, the cost of electricity, commercial electricity rates have risen 40% from 1999 to 2009. As global demand for energy increases…what can we expect to happen to cost of electricity?
Of course, that only speaks to the economic argument. I believe there is a deeper need for sustainable practice in theatrical design. It’s the same need we see across the culture and indeed across the planet. It is no longer enough to simply create beautiful or luxurious things. The things/experiences/places we create must ultimately be sustainable in both material and process. In short, everything we make must be of minimal impact impact on the planet or reap only positive impacts. Anything else is only half of a victory. We don’t have enough resources to go around, and they are shrinking quickly. No artist, no creator can endeavor to continue their craft knowing they are contributing to the end of all things. The stakes are simply too high.
These challenges are real and they must be faced by all design disciplines. The challenge must be won if we are to have a thriving show business for decades to come. The process to sustainable theatrical production will be painful and often stunted. The lighting department can’t be seen as separate from the process of growing theatrical design to include sustainable best practices.
It’s that challenge, that process that brings me to iSquint. Here at iSquint I will post opinions, ideas, field observations, articles and all other relevant information I can find to help advance sustainable practice in lighting design for the entertainment world.
I fell in love with theatrical lighting 12 years ago when I hung my first lights in a tiny garage in a village theatre in NYC. Through college and afterward, I designed lighting off and off-off Broadway and still do today. It was 4 years ago that I turned my day-to-day attention to architectural lighting, and that’s when I really began to realize the impact lighting can have on sustainable design. This realization prompted me to begin Build2Sustain, a consultancy that would guide the renovation of existing buildings and make them more sustainable while increasing their value. After working on the project for about 18 months, I’ve come back to lighting design full time. But what I have learned in creating B2S is invaluable to how we must approach the entertainment world. The challenge to work sustainably is the challenge of our generation and we are just getting started. Please join me here and I look forward to sharing what I learn…
For the last 10 years, James Bedell has been a lighting designer based in NYC. He developed a love for the theater and theatrical lighting while attending Pace University. There he was mentored by Obie-award winning lighting and scenic designer Chris Thomas. Nearly 4 years ago, James shifted focus from lighting in the entertainment world to lighting architectural spaces. In 2008, James launched Build2Sustain, a consultancy dedicated to making the business case for sustainable design in commercial spaces. Learn more about Mr. Bedell by reading his complete author bio.
Today, not only brings us one day closer to 2011, but the addition of a new columnist here on iSquint.net. I would like to introduce and welcome Mr. James Bedell to iSquint. You may recognize this name from not only on twitter, (jamesbedell), but Mr. Bedell was also interviewed late last year here on iSquint about Where Our Industry is Heading.
Mr. Bedell brings years of knowledge and experience in the lighting design field. Mr. Bedell’s knowledge on the subject reaches past entertainment lighting into architectural and more importantly, sustainability. Mr. Bedell will bring his knowledge of lighting design and vast understanding of reasonable and effective methods of sustainability with in our industry to here on iSquint.
Please join me in welcoming Mr. Bedell to iSquint.net!