Trial by Fire and Ice

“It takes a lot of light to make it look dark on stage.”

This profound observation from lighting designer Chris Rynne says it all.

Take a power-hungry tungsten fixture, place a Congo- Blue gel on it, and watch what happens. Only two percent of the light is transmitted, leaving ninety-eight percent of the light going to waste as heat.

As ETC sees it, the solution is simple. Tungsten fixtures are a wonder in white light. So why use a tungsten fixture that wastes power and light, if all you really need is blue? Not just one blue but a cool range from moody and melancholy to clear sky and ice?

Same goes with red. Always a difficult color to mix. Why not have a light fixture that specializes in fiery hot reds, the rose range, warm ambers?

ETC’s Fire™ and Ice™ high-intensity LED wash fixtures fulfill that need. Dedicated to the hot (Fire) or cool (Ice) colors you need, these fixtures rival or surpass the punch and quality of light of tungsten units, but use up to ninety percent less power. So save your white lights and let them shine where they’re needed more.

As lighting designer of the opera The Flying Dutchman – recently playing in Madison, Wisconsin – Rynne used 26 Fire and Ice fixtures, to overwhelming success. He was nervous at first. “I’m used to hanging 575s or 1K PAR cans, 2K Fresnels as backlight. I didn’t want to put Fire and Ice in my plot and then be stranded.”

It turned out to be quite the contrary. In a video interview at www.etcconnect.com, Rynne answers the questions and allays the fears of many theatrical lighting designers who want to incorporate this new LED technology into the theater but don’t know how it will blend in with their current conventional inventory.

Classic Fire and Classic Ice luminaires in striplight form were introduced in early 2010. Debuting now are the new PAR-shaped Desire™ Fire and Desire Ice arrays. Built for down-, side- and back-lighting, the Desire fixtures come in a choice of 40 (D40) or 60 (D60) LED emitters for “bright” and “brighter” needs.

Ice is a proven winner with theatrical lighting designer Jason Lyons of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages. Lyons duplicated his rig for Toronto’s version, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, but with one significant change: He replaced four Mac 2K washlights with six Classic Ice fixtures.

Lyons has employed other LED fixtures “mostly for eye candy,” he says, but specifying Ice luminaires was a game changer. “Using the Ice was really the first time I’ve felt an LED adequately replaced another fixture.”

“When we were building the Toronto production, we were treating it like a tour, and on a tour you generally have to slim the front-of-house package way down. It’s way too much to try to hang the four
Mac 2K washes when we’re doing a fast load-in, so I substituted six 22-inch Classic Ice fixtures in their place. For Toronto, we used the Ice fixtures for scenery washes and toners coming straight in at the cast from the balcony rail.”

Lyons says, “I was so impressed with both the brightness and range of color in the Ice fixtures. Even the single circuits of red and green LEDs in the fixture were punchy.”

Fire and Ice luminaires found a new home at the Pomona College Department of Theatre & Dance in Claremont, California. In an inventory changeover at the Seaver Theatre Complex, 12 Fire and
12 Ice fixtures replaced 20-year-old energy-inefficient cyc lights and wash fixtures. The power duo debuted in the November 2010 production of Marat/Sade with Lighting Designer Ian Garret. Pomona
College Master Electrician Matthew Gorka says the fixtures added tremendously to the production. “We used Fire fixtures to create incredible, blazing halos around the actors and warm, brilliant backlight for the set pieces. The Ice fixtures acted as beautiful, dark and cool toplights for the singers and band members in their pit area, and complemented the modernized soundtrack’s jazz, blues and punk rock. Ice set the mood for all of these, from sultry night club blues, to rock & roll Congo Blues and magentas.”

As a stage electrician and lighting designer for over 13 years, Gorka has used LED fixtures for set pieces and club environments. Even so, he was intrigued by the x7 Color System™ and the specialization of the units into the warm and cool palettes respectively.

“The Fire and Ice are two great fixture types that I could put into a plot as multi-use instruments and not just for accent lighting,” Gorka explains. “I was impressed with the fixtures’ output and color saturation levels, as well as their ability to blend in and complement our instrument inventory. They easily held their own in a plot full of 1000W Lekos and PARs.”

“With the Fire and Ice fixtures,” Gorka continues, “I have the ability now to replace two or three systems of
toplight or high sides that could easily eat up over half of my dimmers. As several student groups use the space for their productions, I can easily install a rep plot of the Fire and Ice fixtures and some conventionals to cover all of their needs. The college will enjoy a considerable savings on the energy the theater complex uses. So using Fire and Ice really is a win-win situation.”