2
Background
Communication and the expression of ideas is central to the art of lighting.
Creating great lighting is a team effort lead by the designer. The language a
designer uses to communicate with the team, and specifically the console
programmer, is crucial to the process of creating the art. The programmer, in turn,
must then train the console in order to orchestrate the lights to ultimately relay
the intent of the designer to the audience. There is ample opportunity in this
process for misinterpretations to muddy the waters of communication. More
recently, and at a furious pace, LEDs and multiple attribute "intelligent" lights
have entered the mainstream market and the multitude of options they provide
has complicated this process amplifying the opportunity for 'miscue' of intent.
The simple act of positioning a fader somewhere on a 0 to 10 scale will no longer
suffice.
Not surprisingly, there has been an increasing necessity to simplify the process of
lighting control. Unlike the hard and fast rules that have existed for decades, a
uniform language for designers and programmers to use when describing light
behaviors has been non-existent. Moreover, the method used by the console to
communicate to lights has never been standardized. The pioneering
manufacturers of automated lighting equipment each implemented different
philosophies of control. Historically it has been a challenge for some controllers to
turn such lights on, get them in a color and make them move about. In all
respects, these consoles were merely outputting numbers, sometimes
masqueraded by words to get the job done. But now that intelligent lighting is no
longer in its infancy a control system that meets the needs of 21
st
-century
lighting fixtures is a welcome addition to the designers' arsenal. Cognito
embraces that challenge and makes programming today's complex lighting
systems simple again.
Let's go back to the advent of computer-controlled lighting to examine the issues
that plagued communication in the theatre. Before computers entered the
theatre, the most popular dimmer controllers were known as piano-boards. These
large devices had individual handles for each dimmer and designers would ask
operators to move a handle to a position to set the light level. These 'move'
instructions were written down as cues and with each one executed in succession
you had a show. The advantage of this system (which was only realized fully after
the obsolescence of piano-boards) was that each move could be controlled at
different rates and multiple moves could be executed simultaneously by different
operators.
