Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light in Theatre, Live Performance, and Entertainment 2nd Edition

A great history lesson and general overview of the lighting industry, protocols and components that go into any major LD production.I come from a musical background, incorporating small scale lighting for live performances and setting up basic DMX fixtures. This book was perfect for what I wanted: a more in depth study of how LARGE scale operations take place, and what kind of options are available in the low-mid level price/scale range.This is a fairly technical book, but not too technical. I have no formal training in lighting, only what I read on the net, and in manuals. I would recommend this book if your looking to take your small production to the next level. It really lays out options including specific fixture/console names and who are the major players in the industry.The intro history section was SUPER cool, a great read even for a non-technical individual.

Great book.You'll find everything you need to know about the protocols, power requirements, and the uses of automated lighting in this detailed book.I'm only long for more detailed programming advice. For example, most used macros, specific examples of difficult tasks asked of people in the industry, specific cue list setups and their executor / button assignments, and favorite custom effects.

I really like this book because it describes how the moving lights Works, it explains the electrial, electronics, data, mechanics, optics and networks.Very easy to understand and complete. It's very technical if you don't know about computers and electronics but if you have worked with the moving heads I think it's not a big deal.The book also has some tips for programming and the lighting design.

I have a background in electrical engineering and I found this book to be quite informative and entertaining. Of course, it's going to take a special someone to really enjoy learning about the difference between lamp technologies and power supplies, and if you're that kind of person, I think it's hard to go wrong with Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light in Theatre, Live Performance, and Entertainment.The book is very text-book like and is organized into nine sections. Section 1 provides the necessary background information and starts to introduce the various components of an automated lighting system. Section 2 provides an electricity physics overview and introduces electronic components. Section 3 gets into the detailed functional properties of motors, sensors, and commonly used materials. Section 4 describes the functional properties of different lamp technologies and how to manipulate light using lenses, reflectors, filters, etc. Section 5 talks about the different networking protocols and remote management methods used in the profession. The meat of the book is in the first five sections, and the remaining 4 sections: Maintenance and Troubleshooting, Convergence of Lighting and Video, Lighting Design with Automated Luminaries, and Automated Lighting Programming, should be considered to be introductory as they lack the depth of the previous 5 sections.In the end, I think this book is good for those who have an interest what goes into an automated lighting system or those who have an interest in lighting technologies and the theory of stage lighting. The book doesn't exactly talk about where to put lights to achieve a particular effect. Rather, it provides the mathematical basis and physics concepts that empower you to achieve whatever look you desire based on your requirements.If there's anything that can be improved, I think having a few summary tables and a more complete collection of the different formulas in one place would make the book more accessible and usable. While I am not a lighting professional, I've had a chance to apply some of the techniques of angles, luminescence, and depth to my personal and professional photography. This is a technical book for a technical audience. I enjoyed it and I got certainly learned a lot!

This is a great book for people wanting to learn more about Automated Lighting. The book covers tons of material from the history of automated lighting, through power requirements (including a detailed section on what power is and all of the different standards), through programming and so on. It is very easy to understand even for someone who has never touched a moving light.

I have been involved in lighting, design and programming for over 20 years. I found this book very informative without being to esoteric.I give this book to people in my company to help them better understand this industry. I can not say enough good things about it.

This was an excellent source for understanding the background, theory, and history of moving lights in the entertainment industry. As far as how to use them its a bit weak but still a very good reference work.