For the many designers who still prefer to work at the traditional drawing board rather than in front of a laptop computer, White Light have introduced three new lighting stencils. The first two, designed by White Light with computer aided design specialist Modelbox, cover the conventional lighting equipment in common use today, including symbols for low-wattage profile spotlights such as the ETC Source Four and Strand SL ranges, accessories such as scrollers and effects such as smoke machines - and includes the venerable Patt 23 for good measure! One set features the symbols at 1:25 scale, the second at 1:50.
The third set, designed in association with The Moving Light Company, features symbols for the most common types of automated lighting equipment, including moving mirror units, moving spotlights, moving washlights, theatrical-style moving lights such as the City Theatrical AutoYoke and Strand Pirouette and more unusual products such as the DHA Digital Light Curtain. This stencil includes the symbols at both 1:25 and 1:50 scales.
All of the stencils are formed from translucent plastic, with raised feet to prevent smudging of the plan when drafting in ink. The edges of the stencils include rulers in the appropriate scale, and they are sized for easy storage in an A4 ring binder or similar folder. The stencils are priced at £7.50+vat each, and are available now from the White Light Sales Department. All three sets are also included as part of the White Light Training Initiative Resource Pack, available for £30+vat.
For those who have moved to drafting on computer, the symbols used in the stencils, and many others, are now available for free download from the Modelbox website at www.modelbox.co.uk. Created in AutoCAD release 14, the symbols are in .DWG format and so are also compatible with AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD2000 amongst other programs. The symbols show the lantern in outline and also include attributes for information such as channel, dimmer and colour. Once a plan has been completed, lighting designers can take advantage of Modelbox's plan plotting service to produce paper copies if required; plans can be submitted on disk or by email, and Modelbox can even distribute copies of the plan directly to other show personnel.
White Light also offers other products to those using computers in their lighting work as the UK distributors for both MacLux Pro and Lightwright 3. For Macintosh users, MacLux Pro offers a neatly integrated environment for producing the plan and creating the show paperwork and can run efficiently on just about any model of Macintosh. And for lighting designers or production electricians who need to manage complex paperwork for shows, Lightwright 3 is the industry-standard paperwork program that is used to manage the information about practically every large-scale theatre production in the world. Lightwright 3 is available on a CD-ROM that contains both PC (Windows 95/98/NT) and Macintosh versions of the program.
And if you're not sure whether computer aided design is right for you, or are not sure which products you need, why not get in touch with Modelbox? As pioneers in the field of CAD for theatre, they have over ten years experience in this area and are always happy to offer advice.
For further information about the stencils, MacLux or Lightwright, contact the White Light Sales Department on their new direct number 020 7348 6888 or visit the White Light web site at www.whitelight.ltd.uk. For further information about Modelbox or other queries regarding the use of computers for theatrical lighting design, contact Modelbox on 020 7731 0110. To download the Modelbox lighting symbols, visit their website at www.modelbox.co.uk.
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The New Stencils:
Conventional Lanterns, 1:25
Conventional Lanterns, 1:50
Automated Lanterns, 1:25 and 1:50