I just finished Block One of the serial we are filming.  The DP was fascinating and one of the most specific DPs I’ve ever worked for with both how he worked with me and how fine detail he wanted to control every light on set.  So we spent a LOT of time adjusting individual pixels on our lights.  A typical command would be:

“Pixellate the Litemat 4 and kill a pixel to find out which is which.”

The first part of the command meant I would run a macro that would take the current value of the Master Intensity, copy it to the Cells, and set the Master to full.  The second part is what I want to talk about.

I think I should start labeling the pixels on our lights if we are working on this kind of project.  Having a piece of black tape on the back of the light that clearly marks where each pixel is could move this part of the process along.  Sadly, this idea didn’t occur to me until the last day of the Block, but there’s always Block Two!

Does this strike a chord with anyone?  Anybody already doing this?  Tell me about any sort of workflow efficiencies that have helped you with your programming work flow in the comments.

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Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film, television and theater based out of Albuquerque.  He grew up in live entertainment and has been a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate.  Mark is a proud member of IATSE Local 28 and 480, an ETC Eos trainer and an enthusiastic trainer of many other platforms and subjects.  He offers remote console coaching in 30 minute to 4 hour times as well as a full range of training in person.  If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts on the website to appease the Algorithm.