© Lighthouse Productions

Middle East – Celebrated lighting designer, Terry Miranda used a Jands Vista L5 console to seamlessly synchronise his elegant lighting design with media content at the recent Al Burda Islamic Arts Awards, held at the Abu Dhabi National Theatre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Open to artists specialising in calligraphy, poetry and music from across the Middle East, the prestigious awards are held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and organised by the UAE’s Federal Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development.

For the twelfth consecutive year, Terry – at the helm of his Dubai-based company Lighthouse Productions – was responsible for designing and supplying the awards’ set and lighting design.

This year the starting point for Terry’s design was Islamic architecture – with its geometric curves, arches, complex symmetries and domed structures. The intricate calligraphy associated with individual domes was blended with a modern aesthetic. This was created by using multiple dome shapes on the set as projection surfaces, which were outlined in LED and fully mapped to receive detailed custom content. The patterning theme was also continued on the black gloss floor, so the design united all elements of the environment.

Terry chose the Jands Vista L5 as his control console, so he could deftly and easily synchronise his sophisticated lighting design and the awards’ video content. Designed to cope with the complex demands of modern shows, the powerful Vista system makes controlling a mix of lighting, LED and media server technology fast and incredibly simple.

© Lighthouse Productions

“As a lighting designer who also programs, I wanted a desk built for a lighting designer rather than a programmer,” explains Terry, who is both managing director and creative principal at Lighthouse Productions.

“I saw the first demo of a Jands Vista console back in 2011 – and realised that the design and programming format was created in a way that inspired creativity in the quickest way possible. ”
“I like a desk that allows you to be creative, as opposed to spending the first hour programming and patching. The ease of access to everything across the physical console and the Wacom screen has made my lighting designs come together more quickly on site, allowing us to be more creative in the process.”

The lighting rig was kept minimal, because low weight loading in the 30-year old Abu Dhabi National Theatre is a major challenge. A selection of small, lightweight and bright Robe fixtures were selected. Nearly 100 graced the rig, including Robin 300 Beams, ColorWash 575 ATs, MMX Spots, PARFect 100s, Pointes and CycFX 8s.

The awards’ programmer and console operator was Adrian De Guzman, also of Lighthouse Productions. As video and lighting were so interwoven, he found the Jands Vista L5 proved itself adept at connecting easily to the media server without triggering latency issues.

© Lighthouse Productions

The fact that our AV department also now uses Jands Vista consoles to trigger media tells you everything you need to know about the ease of learning the desk for people without a lighting background. The layout of the large screen and how reliable the product has been for us over the last five years speak volumes about its build quality,” says Adrian.

“The quick programming capability of the Jands Vista, as well its reliability on operating multiple cues flawlessly, has helped maintain Lighthouse Productions’ reputation as one of the best and most consistent entertainment production design companies in the Middle East.”

Lighthouse Productions originally purchased their inventory of Jands Vista consoles from dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd.

Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma has chosen an ArKaos PRO Stadium Server running ArKaos MediaMaster 4.0 software to handle the environmental projection mapping at their church. Controlled with a Vista S1, Lighting Director, Tim Ottley uses it to present some stunning visual backdrops across their 300ft wide/30-60ft tall walls enhancing both modern and traditional services.

This Christmas season sees the interior of the church awash with imagery, produced by Jason Yang of Invisible Element, based on the Christmas story and depicted in colourful visuals reminiscent of stained glass. Advent is a season of anticipation and Ottley’s theme is to present a beautiful and welcoming environment as the congregation enters each week in the build-up to Christmas.

“Our aim was to create a short video clip as an opening sequence to the services over the five week period of Advent,” he says. “We then break the video down into pieces. We use these individually as static images on each sidewall to change the appearance and mood of the room, and also transpose them in layers to build a more detailed picture, for example, adding the Wise Men or Angels to the scenic backdrop, which we can also run as a video sequence.”

“We achieved this using MediaMaster to put each picture on its own surface and layer them on top of each other. We can choose on a week-by-week basis which picture we want as a welcoming image on each side of the room and, using the ‘Output’ function, I can output the same image to two different places. I can then replicate the output multiple times, having first removed the foreground detail and edge-blended the background imagery, and merge the repeats so they blend seamlessly into a backdrop that fills the space.”

The ArKaos Stadium Server is controlled by a Jands Vista S3 lighting and media controller: “We put the still images on one channel and the video clip on the other and I can crossfade from one to the other directly from the lighting desk with MediaMaster running in the background over Art-Net.”

Ottley created the surfaces and masking for each area of projection in the room using MediaMaster’s video mapping function. “MediaMaster makes it easy to tinker with the idiosyncrasies of a building as a projection surface, and once I had the templates in place I simply use them as the basis for dropping in new images. It makes the whole thing very fast and easy to use and I can achieve stunning and very different effects in a very short time.”

“Environmental projection is an exciting medium for a church as it transforms the environment and mood of the services from a passive experience to an engaging one that engulfs the congregation and draws them in.”

“ArKaos makes environmental projection simple as well as spectacular. MediaMaster is an easy way to provide and control powerful images in an impactful way. It is super-versatile, looks good on entrance, engaging during performance and even takes care of some of the decoration of the room – how else could I cover a 300ft wide wall with fir and holly so easily and quickly? It’s like painting on the surface of a building and I can’t think how I would do this without ArKaos. MediaMaster does it all for you, everything you need is built into the box – simple!”

Photo © Jack Edinger

A Jands Vista S3 console and two Jands D1 Playback Processors are being used by designer, Robb Jibson of So Midwest, Inc. to provide lighting and media control for American rockers, Fall Out Boy’s current 2015 / 2016 international tour.

The high-profile US rock band are touring in support of their 2015 album American Beauty / American Psycho, currently undertaking UK and European Arena shows throughout October, following a series of US dates over the Summer.

A long-time Jands Vista user, Robb is taking the S3 and D1 combination on the entire tour. The custom setup consists of the S3 control surface, which is connected to an Apple i7 Mac Mini running the award-winning Vista v2 software, and a Wacom Cintiq Multi Touch pen tablet surface built into a custom case. The system runs with an identical back up and two Vista D1 Playback Processors, which are rack-mounted in a road-case.

“There are a total of 15,496 parameters on the tour, ” says Robb. “The Vista controls all the lighting fixtures and elements of the mBox media server that are Art-Net merged within the Time Code Controller. The D1 processors are needed due to the parameter counts, and I have to say they are performing amazingly well. They simply sit on the network and work – that is the beauty of them! ”

Photo © Jack Edinger

In addition to the massive effects lighting rig, which includes dozens of Aryton Magic Panels, Magic Rings and Clay Paky B-Eye in full parameter count modes, the show set includes a large LED screen situated high above the front of the action, a huge LED wall at the back, and LED screen strips on the three staircases centre-stage. A variety of media content appears throughout the show, including live camera feeds and striking visuals designed by Robb in his capacity as production designer, in collaboration with a creative team of animators.

“The set is custom made and faced with 6mm magnetic video tiles,” says Robb. “Being able to control all the intensity levels of the mBox map surfaces in a matrix (using Vista’s pixel mapper) gives some really cool looks and functionality!”

The Jands Vista D1 expands the DMX processing capabilities of the entire Vista range and connects via Ethernet to any Vista system – providing an additional 8192 channels (16 DMX universes) per unit.

Inside the D1 there’s a high performance Intel processor, 16GB of RAM, a Solid State Drive and dual gigabit Ethernet connections to maximise playback performance and minimise latency. Fixtures can either be connected to the D1 over a network using Art-Net or sACN, or directly via the D1’s eight DMX outputs.

Photo © Jack Edinger

“The Jands Eco system allows me to control the show with the most respect to the timings of things,” Robb continues. “It allows me to quickly dial in timings that are accurate to the musical notations, and get them right. Constraining all the parameters into timing blocks and being able to adjust them without losing the timings is a joy! I also really love the fixture selection and sorting, being able to think less of fixture numbers and ordering, and more about the overall show goal!”

“Jands continues to innovate – the Vista system really is designed beautifully. ”

Following the October Fall Out Boy shows, which include dates in the UK, Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Russia, the band will return to North America for a series of dates through December, February and March.

Equally at home on tour or as a venue’s house console, Jands Vista is ideal for shows and special events, arena touring, lighting companies, AV companies, venues and rental, not to mention a fantastic investment for a designer.

Jands’ award-winning Vista lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, production & rental companies, and venues all over the world on a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there’s a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.

Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include international concert tours by Florence + The Machine, Bring Me The Horizon, Kylie Minogue, Queen + Adam Lambert, and Dierks Bentley.

UK – Jands Vista v2 has been specified to provide control for all lighting aspects of ‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’, an all-new live show spectacular which recently opened at the LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort.

‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’ is set in the Resort’ s brand new land, Heartlake City, which recreates the fun and colourful world of the popular LEGO® Friends toy range.

During the show, guests join Heartlake City’ s five female characters on an action packed adventure which is full of music, dance and special effects. Dominating the effects is the harbour’ s lighthouse, which is pixel mapped with over 700 RGB LED emitters using a Traxon Dot media string wrapped around the structure.

Lighting contractor, A.C. Special Projects Ltd. (ACSP) specified the Jands Vista S1 console to control the lighthouse LEDs in addition to the stage lighting. ACSP Director, Lance Bromhead, commented: “Vista was ideal for this project – primarily as it has an incredibly powerful FX engine capable of pixel mapping stunning shapes and animations with ease. This meant that there was no need for additional products such as a dedicated media server, which kept production costs down whilst still delivering on the client’ s requirement for striking visuals.”

Secondly, to reflect the energy and vibrancy of the action on stage, the show required complex lighting sequences played back through 100s of cues. These cues needed to be recalled accurately, without the use of external triggers such as timecode. Vista again had the answer to this. The show is utilising a feature called Learn Timing, which recorded the exact timing between cues the first time they were played back. As a result of this, the operators only have to press a single button and the sequences play back exactly as intended, allowing the technicians to concentrate on other show aspects such as the sound and stage automation.

Finally, ACSP had to take into account the limited amount of space available within the control booth. They needed a small console that didn’ t compromise on power, features or performance. All Jands Vista products run the exact same software and offer the full feature set as found in the range’s largest consoles, so the S1 connected to a laptop provided this small footprint solution.

Laura Jackson, Project Manager for the Resort’s chief production contractor, SGA, commented: “Jands Vista is really proving to be a great choice for the show’ s control requirements. Not only has it exceeded everyone’s expectations in making the lighthouse and stage area look fantastic, it actually proved just as useful during the show pre-production process – because Vista is so visual, it was possible to program part of the show ‘blind’ before some fixtures arrived on-site, saving valuable time in production rehearsals.”

‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’ runs several times daily and has been attracting packed out audiences.

© Chris Green

USA – Georgia’s Gwinnett Church has invested in four Jands Vista lighting & media consoles to provide powerful yet simple-to-use control for different zones in its recently opened house of worship site.

Gwinnett prides itself on inviting volunteers to assist in running the site operation, including technical production aspects such as lighting for its worship services.

Lighting and Scenic Director at Gwinnett, Josh Mobley, oversaw the Church’s investment in Jands’ flagship Vista L5 all-in-one console, as well as three smaller size Vista control consoles – an S3 and two M1s.

The powerful L5, which features a massive 21″ widescreen tablet for simple control of lighting and media on one screen, is installed in the Church’s main theater. The S3 is in the ‘middle school/high school’ room, and the M1s are in two smaller spaces.

As well as being very popular with houses of worship on account of Vista’s volunteer-friendly operation, all models in the hardware range run the same Vista v2 software, making it effortless for users to program, transfer and operate shows across different models being used at the same site.

“The process of using volunteers for cuelist playback on preprogrammed cues is the process that our organization has found to be successful,” says Josh. “After the volunteers watch the Jands training videos and spend some one-on-one time with me – hands-on with the various Vista desks – they catch on quickly!”

In the Church’s main auditorium, the L5 is controlling a performance rig including Mac Vipers, Mac Auras, Colorado Tri Tours, and Epix strips. The Vista is also being used to control 100 Chroma-Q® Inspire™ color-changing LED house lights, which can be synced via DMX to the stage lighting for a seamless look and truly immersive worship experience which transcends the usual barrier between stage and audience.

“I love the freedom of customization that Jands has, which is one of the main reasons we specified the Vista consoles throughout the Church,” Josh continues. “I have years of experience operating shows on the fly as well as programming and operating songs as a single cuelist. I typically program in the main room for reasons of consistency and detail, and freestyle in the student environments, and both styles are easy to setup with Vista. I also enjoy the freedom to access certain elements of the rig on the fly, while most of the content is pre-programmed.”

Gallery

The powerful L5 utilizes an Intel Quad-Core i7-2600 (3.4GHz) processor and 8GB of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). As well as its massive screen, the state-of-the-art desk also features a backlit keyboard, and Linux operating system. This combination is ideal for big shows where using lots of fixtures, LEDs and media servers can place significant demands on the console’s processor.

The S3 is controlling a rig which includes Mac 350s, Chauvet Legend 412z fixtures and Colorado Tri Tours. The two M1s are controlling a smaller rig of LED pars and Chauvet Intimidators.

Part of North Point Ministries, Gwinnett Church is the latest campus to adopt the Jands Vista lighting and media control solution for their operation. The Vista consoles for each North Point campus were supplied by SVL Productions in Rockford, IL, and are distributed exclusively in North America by A.C. Lighting Inc.

The Vista range includes a choice of portable, flexible control surfaces and self-contained consoles. Equally at home on tour or as a venue’s house console, Jands’ award-winning Vista lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, companies and venues all over the world on a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there’s a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.

Other houses of worship to utilise lighting or media control by Vista include Elevation Church in North Carolina, Tomoka Christian Church and Celebration Church in Florida, Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, White’s Chapel in Dallas, Lifechurch.tv in Oklahoma, Westover Church in North Carolina, and Grace Community Church in Indiana.

International concert tours include Kylie Minogue, Queen + Adam Lambert, Chrissie Hynde, Bring Me The Horizon, Dierks Bentley and Thompson Square.

Get your demonstration of the Jands Vista range at an upcoming international tradeshows in May & June

Now in it’s fifth season the Kazakh version of the international X Factor series is broadcast on the Perviy Kanal Evraziya channel in Kazakhstan.Dmitriy Karabetskiy is the Lighting Designer and Director of Photography for the show and uses a Vista S3 console to control the elaborate lighting rig.

Asked about his experience with Vista Dimitry commented: “What I can say about Vista? Creative work, extraordinary speed of light programming, unlimited possibilities of effects and reliability for use in Live Production.”

For the LED screens used on the show Dimitry created a custom project in Touch Designer with control from Vista via Art-Net.

The lighting system for X Factor Kazakhstan includes:

• 16 Clay Paky Alpha Spot 800 QWO
• 16 Clay Paky Alpha Profile 800 ST
• 8 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700
• 8 Clay Paky A.leda K20
• 8 Clay Paky A.leda K10
• 39 Clay Paky Sharpy
• 8 High End Studio Color 575
• 3 Coef MP 700 Zoom
• 8 Coef MP Wash 575
• 16 Jarag 25 lamp blinder
• 14 2 lamp blinder
• 14 4 lamp blinder
• 10 Martin Atomic 3000

Gallery – click to enlarge

Video

Hi res version on YouTube

Photo by Stephanie Brunner ©44 Designs

Jands’ flagship Vista L5 console is controlling a large rig on popular American country music duo Thompson Square’s ‘Just Feels Good’ tour, which features over 80 moving lights and a large configuration of HD video screens.

Thompson Square consists of husband and wife, Keifer and Shawna Thompson. The group have received three fan-voted American Country Awards, a CMT Music Award, and were crowned the 2012 Academy of Country Music’s Vocal Duo of the Year – the first new duo to win the award in 20 years. They are now one of America“s biggest country acts, selling more than 2 million copies of their GRAMMY-nominated hit single, “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not”.

Jeff Lavallee from Nashville-based lighting, rentals and production company, 44 Designs – which holds a large fleet of Jands Vista consoles – supplied the Vista L5 to lighting designer Larry Foote for the tour.

“Jeff and I had a vision for something simple but powerful, with a different, big look – that would push the visual boundaries and be unique on the Country Music touring circuit,” says Larry. “Jeff and 44 Designs surprised me with a brand new L5 for this tour – I love the T2, which I used on last year’s Thompson Square shows, but now I’m obsessed with the L5, and especially its big screen!”

Dealing with the ever increasing use of both media and LEDs, the Vista L5’s sleek design is dominated by a stunning 21 inch High Definition Wacom display that provides a crisp, detailed image showing a huge amount of information in a flexible, clear and easy to understand way.

“One of my favorite features of the Vista system is the Timeline, as that’s where the bulk of my programming is done,” continues Larry. “Another great aspect is having multiple layouts. I have my main whole rig layout, a house rig layout, a fast programming layout (just all my fixtures in straight lines by groups), and a matrix layout. The L5’s big screen makes the job of programming using Vista even easier than before.”

Larry’s rig for this year’s enhanced Thompson Square tour is comprised of Platinum Beam 5r, Mac 301, Krypton Kr 25 and Atomic 3k fixtures. The video rig utilises PixelFlex 18mm panels on custom frames, and Ayrton Magic Panels.

“I also love the Vista’s fixture editor feature,” says Larry. “I like to go in and tweak the profiles, so that I can personalize the fixtures – for instance, giving names to macros that best suit them.”

Larry is also using the L5 to drive ArKaos Pro media servers running the new MediaMaster Pro 4 software, which output content to the HD video screens.

“We have all the Kr 25s and Magic Panels pixel-mapped through two ArKaos machines that I built specifically for this tour,” explains Larry. “We’re using a mixture of custom and found content, and the L5 is handling it all with ease.”

The L5 has an Intel Quad-Core i7-2600 (3.4GHz) processor and 8GB of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). This combination is ideal for even the biggest show, where using lots of fixtures, LEDs and media servers can place significant demands for power on the console.

The Vista range includes a choice of portable, flexible control surfaces and self-contained consoles all running the same Vista v2 software.

©Richard Rhys Thomas

London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall used their Jands Vista T4 console to provide thrilling lighting for Christmas Spectacular – the venue’s first festive show co-produced by the Royal Albert Hall and renowned popular classic music promoter, Raymond Gubbay.

One of the leading providers of concerts, opera and ballet to major venues across the country, Raymond Gubbay’s popular Christmas Festival concerts have become part of a festive tradition.

Christmas Spectacular was the perfect event for keeping Christmas spirits high – with a stunning combination of favourite music classics, breathtaking dance, thrilling lights, sensational lasers and a fantastic indoor firework finale! Special guests included West End star Kerry Ellis and acclaimed chorister, Jack Topping.

Royal Albert Hall (RAH) Lighting Design and Systems Manager, Richard Rhys Thomas utilised the venue’s Jands Vista T4 console to control the ambitious lighting production.

©Alex Griffiths

“The vision for my design was to produce an exciting and dynamic light show in conjunction with lasers and pyrotechnic effects, to complement the music, dance, ballet, and vocal performances,” says Richard. “The music programme was quite varied, with music from well-known ballets, operas, musicals and the movies, and therefore the lighting reflected this with a combination of subtle and colourful looks to more bold and dramatic lighting effects.”

The design utilised the RAH lighting rig, with extras, and consisted of some 130 moving lights – including Clay Paky Alpha Washes & Spots, Vari*Lite VL 3000 & 2500 Spots, Robe Pointes and ETC Source 4 Revolutions.

“The Vista helps by making the job of creating looks with large numbers of fixtures very quick and easy,” says Richard. “You are able to spend more time looking at the stage, focussing on the lighting and less time worrying about the programming, which for a show with a load in, a morning rehearsal and two performances in one day makes a real difference.”

“I love the speed and power of the Vista console as a simple interface to create exciting shows with minimal effort.”

The Vista range includes a choice of portable, flexible control surfaces and self contained consoles all running the same Vista v2 .

Jands’award-winning Vista lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, companies and venues all over the world on
a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there’s a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.

Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include ‘The Smiler’Rollercoaster launch at Alton Towers (UK) Resort, and international concert tours by Peter Gabriel, Fall Out Boy, Bloc Party, Deftones, Dierks Bentley and Little Big Town.

The Jands Vista console range will be showcased at Prolight & Sound, Frankfurt in March on the stand of UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies (stand location 9.0, E63).

A corporate event for 24,000 attendees, featuring several speakers and bands, shows off the Vista’s advanced control and networking capabilities. Regular Vista user Jeff Monuszko programmed the show.

Production Team

• Production Designer: Jeff Reeks
• Programmer: Jeff Monuszko
• ME: Jason Rosenstock
• Electricians: Greg Pfrommer and Mike Kennedy

Control

• 2 Jands Vista S3 with touch screen desktop and external touch monitor
• 1 Jands Vista S1 with touch screen laptop connected wirelessly for remote control
• 1 touch screen desktop used for tracking backup and configured to autosave
• 2 iPads running VNC for remote focus
• 4-way Pathport nodes with sACN for data transmission
• 12 universes of fixtures
• 7 universes of media servers

Fixtures

• 40 Mac Aura
• 35 Clay Paky Sharpy
• 24 Martin Viper Profile
• 30 Vari-Lite VLX
• 10 Vari-Lite 3500 Spots
• 8 Mac 2000 Wash
• 24 Mac 700 Wash
• 4 Mac 301
• 16 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze TRX
• 12 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48
• 
190 ETC Source 4 Leko

Digital Scenic

• 8 Green Hippo Grasshoppers
• 600 LED Tiles


Images – click to enlarge

Photo © Steve Jennings

A Jands Vista L5 console was chosen by Chicago based Lighting Designer, Robb Jibson of So, Midwest Inc. to control lighting and media for multi-platinum selling rockers, Incubus. Sharing the headline of the North American 2012 Honda Civic Tour were Grammy award winning rap-rock outfit, Linkin Park.

Robb was first introduced to the Jands Vista platform earlier in the year when he was supplied a Vista L5 on the Australian leg of Incubus’ tour. Although initially cautious, he was immediately impressed by Jands’ flagship console with its powerful Vista v2 software, and after using it chose to make the swap to the platform at the first opportunity.

Initially using a Vista T2 for Incubus’ spring run, then a Vista L5 for the high profile Honda Civic Tour, Robb explains that as a designer he likes his consoles “to be as intuitive and easy as possible to operate”, stating that “the Vista absolutely delivers on all levels.”

With complex timing changes, intricate programming, an extensive lighting system and multiple video content and input layers, Robb‘s design required a fast workflow, which the Vista’s simple, powerful interface helped him achieve.

Timing is central to Robb‘s designs, and he really appreciates the ability to fine tune each detail quickly and accurately using the Vista‘s timeline.

“The Vista makes it so easy to add complex timing and build intricate programming very quickly. With all the power you need and virtually unlimited possibilities – what more do you need?” Robb enthuses.

The L5‘s design is dominated by its 21 inch High-Definition TFT screen. This comfortable work-surface allows everything to be accessed quickly and clearly on the rig. Ergonomically, “It‘s a great desk” says Robb, commenting that he likes the feel and positioning of the faders plus the ’clicky-ness‘ of the flash buttons.

The L5 ran the system via ArtNet on the Honda Civic tour, which proved to be rock solid.

Following such positive experiences using the Vista control platform, Robb decided to invest in his own Jands Vista S3 console, which he used as a tracking backup on the Honda Civic Tour.

Opening for Incubus and Linkin Park were prog-rockers MUTEMATH, whose LD, Darien Koop, is also a dedicated Jands Vista fan.