WEBVTT - It's Time to Light the Lights 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.840 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.919 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.160 tech are you? So this past weekend I ventured out 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.280 of my home in order to go to a show. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:28.720 And really it was a show that was tailor made 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.800 for old people like me because the English Beat and 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.199 adam Ant were sharing the bill. So as I filed 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.479 into the venue with many of my fellow gen xers 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.640 and y'all, it looked like it was a college reunion 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.080 in my case, not that I recognize people, but you know, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.440 it's rare that I'm out with a group of people 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.520 who are in the same age range as I am. Anyway, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:56.800 I started to do what I often do when I 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.320 go out to stuff. I started to think, how can 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.440 I mine this experience I'm having for an episode of 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.160 tech Stuff, Which was tricky because I've already done episodes 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.080 about electric guitars. We played a classic one on Monday 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.200 if you miss that, that was the episode that originally 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.959 aired back in two thousand and nine. Now I've done 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.679 episodes about microphones, I've done episodes about loud speakers. I've 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.840 done episodes about synthesizers. I might do an episode on 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.440 knee or hip replacements, because, again, based on the average 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:29.360 age of the folks who were in that building, I'm 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.360 pretty sure that would have been a relevant thing to 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.080 my experience that night. And yes, I am joking around, 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.240 but this is to remind you also I am in 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.840 that age group. I am joking about myself. But there 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.520 was a point in the show where one of the 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.160 young folks on stage, appearing with the acts, invited us 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.800 to jump to the music. About five percent of the 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.640 crowd actually made a half hearted effort to do so, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.720 and everyone else was like, you know what, no gravity 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.520 and I have reached an understanding we're not going to 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.280 potentially invite disaster with blowing out a knee or a 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.800 hip or something. So that was a real thing. But 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:06.720 while the show was going on, one thing that did 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.600 spring to mind was the lighting there. The venue we 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.760 were in was a pretty decent size here in Atlanta, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.760 it's called the Eastern It's not a huge venue, but 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.280 it is significantly larger than the tiny little clubs I 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.560 would go to when I was in college in Athens, Georgia. 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.760 Back in those days, everybody was in a band. Everybody 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.320 would get signed at some point to play one of 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.480 these small venues, and so I went to them a lot, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.720 and it was clear that this venue, the Eastern, had 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.839 a really good setup for groups coming in to rig 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.239 up their lighting and everything, and the acts had really 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:53.600 sophisticated systems controlling those lights and creating really cool effects. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.960 And you know, again, this isn't like a huge arena show. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.280 It's not like you know, Van Halen in the late 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.839 seventies or eighties. But it was really impressive. And I thought, well, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.080 you know what, I did do an episode about the 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.800 history of stage lighting, but I haven't really explored the 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.160 history of computerized lighting rigs. So that's kind of what 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.960 we're going to talk about. It is like moving lights, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.080 not just what lights were used to illuminate the stage, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.360 but how are they controlled and manipulated. What's the evolution 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.760 of the concert or show lighting rig and how do 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.200 they work. Now, clearly there's going to be overlap with 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.440 my older episodes on stage lighting. If you're curious and 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.400 you want to hear those older episodes. They include an 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:40.640 episode titled Lights Tech Stuff Action that published on June seventeenth, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.320 twenty twenty. And then there was tech stuff Steps Out 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.200 of the Lime Light that published on June twenty second, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.280 twenty twenty, but really more interested in the systems that 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.240 activate the lights and control brightness and move lights around 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.800 rather than the lights themselves. In this case, we will 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.120 talk a little bit about lights because it's kind of 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.280 hard not to, but that it's not really the pun 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.400 intended focus of this episode. So let's consider the evolution 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.600 of theater briefly, just to kind of get our minds 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.320 in the right place. If you go back just a 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.120 few centuries, as we all do on occasion, many theaters 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.400 were outdoor venues, so all of your lighting was natural 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.280 in that case, right, you had no control over it. 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.560 Generally speaking, you put up shades or whatever to kind 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.960 of shape the lighting a bit, but other than that, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.240 this was beyond your control, and no one really thought 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.839 too much about lighting effects. You just told your story 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.680 and entertained your audience, or at least you tried to 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.360 entertain them. Your success rate largely dependent upon the circumstances 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.440 at the time and the people you were playing to. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.559 But when theatrical productions began to move into buildings, which 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.200 happened throughout history at different times, but there were challenges 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.080 that you had to overcome. So how do you light 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.440 a scene so that people can see it, because before 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.279 the era of electricity, light would have to come from 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.799 sources like lanterns and torches and candles. And to be clear, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.159 the era of indoor theater itself has a lot of 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.240 overlap with outdoor theater. It's not like everything was outdoors 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.520 and then one day everybody said, you know, let's pound 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.000 sand and go indoors. In Shakespeare's time, for example, there 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.159 were both kinds of theatrical houses. So the Globe, one 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.360 of the most famous theaters in Shakespeare's time, had a 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.839 large stage exposed to the elements, and then you had 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.760 smaller theatrical houses that were indoors, like the Blackfriars that 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.680 was an indoor house. Interestingly, in Elizabethan times, at any rate, 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.679 the indoor theater houses were seen as places for younger 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.680 theatrical troops. By that, I mean like the actors were 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.240 often boys or very young men, often school boys. So 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.200 the adult actors would perform on the much larger outdoor 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.839 stages generally, and the indoor stages were used for people 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.160 who were still learning their craft. The difference in stage 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.279 size also meant the subject matter and indoor venues was 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.320 often far less action oriented. They were more talky, in 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.480 other words, a lot more talking than acting, like in 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.440 big fight sequences, So you just didn't have the room 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.600 to do something like a big battle scene that you 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.400 would find and say Richard the third or Henry the fifth. 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.440 But that indoor lighting, while initially a challenge, also presented 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.560 opportunities because a clever theatrical company could come up with 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.719 new ways to light a scene in order to add 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.760 to the effect that scene would have on the audience, 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.320 or at least they might try to do that. As 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.800 it stood, you often had to pause between scenes so 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.000 that members of the company could do things like trim 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.800 back the wicks of lanterns or replace burnt out candles, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.400 because you know they would be consumed over time. So 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.520 sometimes it just meant that the show would kind of 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.840 come to a brief stop, not like a full intermission 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:56.840 like you would have in a modern show, but it 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.279 would stop for a minute or two while people would 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.400 change out light. One early proposed design for an indoor 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.520 lighting system that could be done while a scene is 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.440 in play, so sort of a dynamic system where you 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.480 could adjust the light. Was this concept of a pulley 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.760 where you would feed a line through the pulley and 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.440 you'd hold one end of the line. The other end 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:25.280 would hold up one or more cans, and the can 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.960 would have its opening facing downward, and you would position 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.760 this over a candle so the candles lit, and then 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.520 you could lower the rope or lower this can down 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.480 by using the pulley, and you would allow the can 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.600 to lower down and cover or partially cover the candle. 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.400 This would allow you to dim the scene. Obviously, you 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.200 couldn't go too far down or you would extinguish the candle, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.920 as the candle would burn out all the available oxygen 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.640 inside the can and then just sort of sputter out. 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.400 But yes, you could do this to actually dim the scene. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.600 At least that the concept. It wasn't exactly high tech. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.040 It was literally a rope holding a canister that could 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.040 be lowered over a candle. And I didn't see any 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.880 indication that such a thing was ever actually used. It 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.600 was proposed. There are sketches that show this, obviously no 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.120 photographs or anything. I mean we're talking about like the 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.640 sixteen hundreds here, but it showed that people were thinking 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.240 about this about ways to affect the lighting while a 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.320 performance is underway in order to convey a mood or 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.920 emotion to an audience. But it would take some time, 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.000 quite some time for this concept to really become practical, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.000 and honestly, we have to jump way, way way ahead 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.079 beyond the discovery of electricity and our ability to harness 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.079 electricity and the creation of electrical lighting. Now that's not 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.520 to say that people in theater did an experiment with 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:57.240 different methods for lighting and getting across a certain feeling 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.440 through lighting effects. They did try lots of different stuff, 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.120 but some of those were really gimmicky or they were 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.319 one offs and not indicative of a larger movement, nor 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.080 did they really build toward the technologies that ultimately would 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.160 replace them. So we're just gonna skip them instead. We're 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.000 going to talk about some early attempts to motorize and 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.720 then automate lighting controls for stage work. So one patent 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.640 filed way back in nineteen twenty five and awarded in 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.040 nineteen twenty eight was something that a guy named H. F. 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.360 King filed for, and it was he just called his 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.960 invention a light projector. In the description of the invention, HF. 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.640 King writes, quote, the principal object of the invention is 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.000 to produce a light projector which may be moved automatically 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.480 to cause the stream of light beams to move through 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:51.199 a predetermined path and spot successively a plurality of objects, 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.080 and hold the spot for an interval on at least 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:59.480 one of said objects. End quote. Okay, let's break that down, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.360 make it plane English. Essentially, what HF. King is saying 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.160 is that the invention he proposed is for a light 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.560 that on its own could move through a predetermined path 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:16.160 and then it could stop on one or more spots 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.199 for however long it was that you had programmed the 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.600 light to do. This. Programming is being used not in 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.880 the computer sense in this case. It's more like setting, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.640 like making a setting where the light will hold on 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.760 this position for whatever given amount of time you need. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:38.760 The illustrations accompanying the patent really helped me understand King's invention. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.800 Like a lot of patents, the language gets to be 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:46.240 pretty like obtuse, but the illustrations help a lot, and 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.520 he illustrated electric lamps mounted on a housing that could 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.800 pivot either vertically or horizontally, so they could tilt or 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:59.360 pan essentially or vertical motion. The tilting, an electric motor 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.360 would connect to a gear and this gear, in turn 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.480 would connect to a second gear attached to the yoke 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.040 the housing for the light itself. So you had an 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.520 electric motor turning a gear and it would be connected 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.680 to the second gear via a chain. So it's a 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.320 chain drive kind of like what you would see in 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.319 a bicycle, right, So the gear would engage the chain 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.240 and that would in turn move the other gear to 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.040 adjust the tilting of the light. So turning the motor 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.280 in one direction would allow you to tilt the light upward. 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.840 Turning the motor and the other direction would have you 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.920 tilt the light downward, and very clever and I thought 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.760 it was a really neat kind of of concept. Now, 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.600 horizontal movement, the panning, so panning left or right was 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.440 using just a simple gear system. There was no chain 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:53.920 drive for this. It was a gear system connected to 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.840 the overall mount for the lamp. So again you would 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.840 have like the teeth of these gears engage and turn 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:01.960 the lamp either to the left or to the right, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.800 and it just be connected to the larger motor for 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.319 the overall lamp. So Kings patent describes a potential use 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.319 case for his invention that brings in the automatic part 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.040 of this concept, because so far you're talking about these 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.560 gears and motors. You could just rig up a control 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.240 system that allowed you to manually adjust where this light 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.320 was pointed. Right. Maybe you have like a dial, for example, 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.199 to control panning, and maybe a second deal to control tilt. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.720 And by adjusting the values, you could engage the motors 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.640 and turn the lamp to point to wherever you needed. 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.840 But he wanted an automated system. He describes a store 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.800 window behind which you might have several items that the 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.840 store wants to highlight to the window shopper, one after 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.920 the other. So just imagine that you've got this display, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.800 but it's in the dark, it's behind a shop window, 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:51.760 you're on the street, you're looking in, and then a 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.560 spotlight turns on and it shines on let's say, let's chair, 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.720 and then the light suddenly swivels and moves to highlight 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.960 a cl and then it moves again to show a 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.520 radio and so on. Now, eventually the light finishes its 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.960 tour of consumer goods. And goes back to the beginning 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.080 of the sequence. So King explains that his idea was 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.720 to create this gadget that can focus on any specific 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.319 spot within a physical space for a given amount of time, 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.680 and you would essentially program the lamp to shine on 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.800 a point for let's say five seconds before moving to 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.800 a separate specific point and then staying there for like 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.160 ten seconds and so on. So how did King handle 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.480 the timing? Well, again, you know, this is in the 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.280 early nineteen twenties, mid nineteen twenties, So he used mechanical 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.120 action with a series of gears that could be set 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.920 so that the light would stay at any particular spot 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.800 for a particular amount of time, and the electric motor 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.480 would provide the power for the system, and the gears 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.320 and the chain drives and all that stuff would do 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.160 all the mechanical work. And it was very clever, but 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.280 obviously something that was best suited for a static display, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.920 not for a stage play. You know, you couldn't theory 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.720 design a performance round this kind of technology. But think 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.560 about that, the light would be pre set to go 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.320 through this sequence, which means your performance would have to 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.120 match the timing that was pre set on this Because 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.320 you couldn't adjust the lighting on the fly. It was 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:14.840 going to do what it was going to do because 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.160 that's what the gears had been set to. So there 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.560 was no real room for artistic improvisation. So this lighting 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:25.360 system would not be ideal for a live performance. Instead, 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.400 you would just probably end up missing your cue or 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.440 being in the dark or whatever. But the ideas that 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.360 King suggested would evolve to find their way into stage 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.360 systems down the line. We'll talk more about those in 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.040 just a moment, but first let's take a quick break 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:56.360 to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. So the physical 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.200 components that would move lights, clearly, they would evolve. But 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.040 what about controlling banks of lights? Right, so we're stepping 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.360 away from the system that would actually make the lights 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:12.600 pan and tilt. Let's talk about the larger aspect. Instead 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.520 of an individual light, you have to control a whole 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.600 series of lights and make them do what you need 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.960 them to do. How do you do that? Well, you know, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:23.840 it's one thing to have a light capable of changing 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.840 direction or dimming or brightening or whatever, but it's another 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.680 thing to just have a whole mess of these lights. Now, fortunately, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.360 there was another technology that was evolving around the same 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.160 time as the tech that would allow us to make 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:40.240 a lamp move physically, and that would be the control 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.720 console or the electrical switchboard. And these switchboards were essentially 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:50.120 circuit managers, with the early ones were just using resistance dimmers. 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.920 So resistance refers to the tendency of a particular material 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.960 or component to resist the flow of electricity through it. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:01.680 Either current or voltage just depends upon the nature of 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.040 the resistor. Some materials have very little electrical resistance. They 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.240 are good conductors. In other words, they very much allow 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.400 facilitate electricity to flow through them. Some materials have very 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:18.160 very high resistance. They serve as good insulators. Some materials 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:23.680 or some components have variable resistance, which changes under certain conditions. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:25.840 I might have to do a full episode about variable 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.640 resistors in the future because that does require a lot 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.120 more explanation and would get us way off track. But 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.560 the important thing to remember is that if you increase 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.760 the resistance on a circuit, you can change the value 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.080 of the current or voltage of that circuit. And with 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.240 the case of resistance stemmers, we're really talking about the current. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.440 So the switchboard would allow an operator to manually switch 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.760 a light circuit so that the circuit flowed through a resistor, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.760 and that meant the output would be reduced. The amount 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.120 of current output by the circuit would reduce, which meant 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.400 the electrically powered light the load on the circuit would 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.160 mean that the lights would produce less light. They would 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.679 dim in other words, so essentially the operator was denying 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.359 the lamp the juice it needed to shine on like 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.119 a crazy diamond. So resistance dimmers they're obsolete now, we 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.760 don't use these anymore. They were used on Broadway Way 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.800 Way longer than they were used in other parts of 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.920 the theatrical world because Broadway was really stuck in its 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.679 ways for a very long time. And also, like you 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.399 had people who had spent a huge amount of money 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.960 establishing these theaters, and they weren't super keen on the 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.040 idea of having to rip out the systems that were 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.520 working okay, just to upgrade them to something better, because 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.800 that's money that they could use to I don't know, 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.800 wlpe their cigars or whatever. I've got this weird idea 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.600 of what theater owners are like. I don't know any personally, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.000 so it's all just based off the stereotypes scene in 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.560 media anyway, they were a very early means of giving 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.679 theatrical light operators some control over the lighting of scenes 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.560 beyond just switching lights on or off. They could now 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.679 dim the lights by using these resistance dimmers. And they 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.240 date all the way back to the eighteen hundreds actually, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.399 but they would be used in Broadway really up to 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:20.040 the nineteen seventies. Kind of crazy that Broadway would rely 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.480 on this old technology for so long while other theaters 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.800 would upgrade much faster. Michael Mell, president of a company 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.280 called Theater Design, has an article about lighting equipment in 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.720 which he reveals that the dimmer switchboards on Broadway got 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:41.280 the name piano boards because the actual board that housed 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.560 these resistance stemmers kind of looked a little bit like 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.439 an upright piano. So, as he writes, quote, running on 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:53.400 DC current, each six kilowatt or three kilowatt quote unquote 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.439 plate introduced resistance into the circuit. To dim the lights, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.320 a Broadway musical might use six PM boards, eighty two 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.960 dimmers controlling a total of two hundred eighty two kilowatts 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.520 of light, and five fourteen slash three kilowat boards, typically 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.760 one stage hand operated two piano boards end quote. Now, 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.040 as I said, control consoles would evolve over time, and 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.240 by the mid twentieth century, at least outside of Broadway, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.879 you were looking at boards that would have dozens or 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.680 even more than one hundred channels. So channels in this case, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.280 essentially it refers to separate dedicated circuit pathways. You can 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.760 think of these as like alternate paths that electricity can 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.200 take in order to do whatever it is needs to do. Now, 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.360 obviously keeping all the channels organized is important. You know, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.359 knowing that channel one controls a specific light or bank 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.840 of lights versus channel five. That's the difference between a 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.320 scene being bathed in light appropriately or a scene being 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.840 performed in darkness while an empty part of the stage 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.399 is really well lit. You don't want that second thing 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.040 happening unless it's meant for, like a comedy, like the 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.560 Play that Goes Wrong or something. As early as nineteen 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.560 thirty four, the Royal Opera House in London was using 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.639 a Grand Master board, which had one hundred and thirty 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.199 channels that in turn could connect to up to one 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.080 hundred and seventy five dimers. Obviously, some demers would share 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.320 a single channel. By the nineteen fifties, lighting systems were 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:23.359 making use of magnetic amplifiers rather than the old demer 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.280 resistance method. Again assuming you weren't on Broadway. So now 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:31.159 instead of putting a load on an electronic circuit to 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.720 reduce current outflow, you could use an amplifier, and you 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.359 would use an amplifier to boost a signal. If you 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:39.920 boost a signal, then you'd get brighter lights, or you 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.399 could ease off on the amplifier to allow a weaker 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.440 signal to go for demmer lights. And one big advantage 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:47.080 of this approach is that the board didn't have to 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.879 be super close to the load. So the old resistance 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.640 demers the ones that would control lights like on Broadway 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.199 or whatever, typically these had to be fairly close to 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.800 the lights that they controlled. So that meant that, you know, 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.040 you had to have operators at various points around the 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.520 stage to control that specific group of lights and to 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.560 allow them to dim or brighten, and you couldn't have 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.199 like one centralized light operator station. And it was a 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.760 very collaborative effort in order to be able to control 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:25.000 lights appropriately for performance. Now back to moving lights. A 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.560 European company called Pani built a moving lighting system in 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.680 the nineteen fifties. Some of the references I saw said 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.359 it was Austrian company, some said German. And I tried 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.240 to find more information about this, to get actual details 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.520 about how did the system work, how is it invented? 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.040 And I could find a lot of presentations and articles 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:47.840 that mentioned Pani and mentioned the moving lights, but they 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.479 didn't have a whole lot of details, Like I couldn't 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.199 really follow that up with information about who was responsible 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.479 for creating the system and how did it work, you know, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.840 or how a controller could provide input that would control 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.679 the movement of the connected theatrical lights. So it's interesting 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.800 that we're talking about the nineteen fifties here, where maybe 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:11.240 you would have like an electronic panel in front of 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.320 you with dials and faders and that kind of thing, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.720 and that by changing these controls you could you manipulate 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.119 these lights without having to actually set your hands on 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.359 the lights themselves. But you know, we're also still talking 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.760 about an era where computerized controllers are still a couple 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.680 of decades off, because in the nineteen fifties, you weren't 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.440 using computerized systems. Computers in the nineteen fifties, were these 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.240 these systems that took up entire floors of buildings. You 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:42.399 wouldn't have one just to use for a stage production. Now, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:46.120 I don't know if the Ponte lights had any automated 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:50.920 aspects to them, or if truly it was just electronic 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.080 movement systems, but a human operator had to manually change 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.359 everything around, Like I don't know if there were any 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.600 preset from those eras. I mean, later Ponti lights definitely 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:01.919 have precas, but at that time I just don't know. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.040 So it did, provide, however, a lot more flexibility and 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.400