these advantages and infrastructure in the building , then let ’ s do it . Let ’ s make a fully flexible space that you can use any kind of light in and the through power module , of course , allows us to do a dimmer , a DMX control relay , or a constant current , so to be able to just send constant current to an LED fixture for example , or a moving light we couldn ’ t have afforded if we had even just a couple hundreds of thousands less — we might have had to make choices like ,’” We ’ ll only get this many dimmer modules and the rest we ’ ll do in relays or something like that . Luckily , we didn ’ t have to do that . That gives us a flexible space with arguably more circuits than it needs on an average show , which is good , and the flexibility to go with LED or incandescent anywhere in the space at the designer ’ s whim .
PL & P : What are some of the most exciting components of the new system ?
Ovington : I think the most interesting thing to figure out would be the whole network system . That ’ s not something I ’ ve done prior to coming here . And so , to be able to put everything on the network and have it controlled that way was very interesting and seeing how that worked . Through the network , I was able to customize everything exactly to how this theatre has been used . This whole season has been having the designers come in , seeing how they like to use this space for shows and taking notes . Over the summer , I ’ m going to go in and customize everything to be easier so that we ’ re able to have more shows and do quicker changeovers because it ’ ll all be up and ready for when they come in .
Hind : Well , the theatre being from the ‘ 70s , it didn ’ t have a network at all and had no network capabilities whatsoever . And so , what we did with the space was build a fairly broad common network to be used by lighting , audio program , sound program , and video . It ’ s one general network infrastructure that you can patch into anywhere and then make your connections at the rack . The idea was to make the backbone of the lighting system network-based rather than being just straight five-pin DMX-based and using things like Opto splitters and whatnot , wanting to be able to build nodes into different places , to be able to plug in the console anywhere we feel like it and not just have specific lighting infrastructure . In some of the earlier theatres that I worked on , we still did some specific five-pin DMX infrastructure , but I haven ’ t designed a theatre system like that in 10 years . We don ’ t put in five-pin infrastructure anymore .
First of all , network infrastructure is
24 | Summer 2023