Rosco Spectrum: The Aronoff Center is a performing arts center in downtown Cincinnati comprised of three multi-purpose auditoriums. The largest venue, Procter & Gamble Hall, features a beautiful fiber optic star ceiling that was recently upgraded with LED illuminators. Theatre Consultants Collaborative (TCC) worked alongside Vincent Lighting Systems and The Black Tank to conceive and implement the theater’s new fiber optic lighting system using nearly one-hundred Rosco Pica Cube™ 4C fixtures. Below, Paul Sanow from TCC explains how and why they used the Pica Cubes as fiber optic illuminators to create a bright and colorful starlight effect.
2 comments:
This is a pretty cool gadget. It appears to be one of those small lighting instruments that doesn’t really do a whole lot, Unless it used in mass. Often this means a relatively inexpensive fixture becomes a very expensive package. I am sure this is the case especially once you add in all the hours it took testing, mocking up, and installing those lights into the actual space. However, it is well worth it from what I can see in the pictures that were provided. It really gives the space something. It adds another layer to the space. It is also very cool and important that it works with the system infrastructure as to allow the lights to be controlled by the operating system. This is great because that means they can actually use it as they house lights and change color as well as reliably be able to dim them for show start and end. Overall, a really great product for a bad situation.
I found this article surprisingly interesting. Whenever I see lighting effects like these in the house of these big theatres, I always assumed that they are individually controlled LEDs, not fiber optic. Fiber optic lighting is something that I have always found interesting and think that it is an underutilized method of lighting in the theatrical world. While you will not be throwing any front light with fiber optics, the ability to weave the fibers into scenery for special effects really seems to be limitless. This article does a really good job of breaking down a complicated problem. I will admit that I skimmed the article the first time and was hopelessly confused but after a second look, the concepts flowed and I was able to follow along in the journey of finding this solution. One thing the article brings up that I find is a problem as well is the low-end fade performance. It is really disappointing to find a good lighting brand that has an established name and using one of their fixtures only to find it fades to 15 percent and then snaps off because the low end is not sensitive enough.
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