Although the main worship centre boasts 28 moving lights and a Wholehog III control system, the intelligent lighting is only really used to add flexibility rather than for its effect. It is in the smaller Tent Two where lighting plays much more of a key role. Although having several venues allows for very different types of services to be held, the automated lighting system in Tent Two allows for that venue to be used for multiple types of service. A simple Saturday morning service with a simple static look for older parishioners is followed in the afternoon with a more information-heavy service, with lighting to match, catering to a significantly younger audience. Sunday morning in Tent Two is a rock concert and is followed on Sunday evening with a service featuring alternative college-age music.
Lighting for the inside of Tent Two consists of 30 ETC Source Four Pars with Wybron Forerunner colour scrollers, eight Coemar Panorama Cyc colour mixing fixtures and 12 Martin MAC 250+ fixtures. Control is via a Zero 88 Fat Frog console, which Griffin praises. "I love them," says Griffin simply. "I use five pages of submasters for moving light looks, and I have the two scene preset for all the conventional fixtures. With the two scene preset, users can go back and forth with stage looks and pick whatever they want from the moving light looks. I have volunteers who have never run a lighting console before in their lives. They sit there and run lights all day and love it because the Fat Frog is so easy to use. Also, the added functionality of having things like palettes and an effects generator for motion really helps. A lot of that stuff does not exist in other entry level consoles."
Griffin's consulting work ranges from completely new installations to making minor adjustments to existing installations to make them more 'user friendly.' Recently, he added four High End Technobeams to an existing installation of eight Geni Shiva scans and replaced the old conventional console with one more suited to the task of controlling intelligent fixtures. "I took the Fat Frog from Tent Two over to the church in Irvine, so they could see what it could do with their fixtures," remarks Griffin. "Suddenly, they realized just what was possible with their lights. Ultimately, we put a Leap Frog in there, so that they will have room for expansion."
Griffin believes in the right equipment for the job and he has found himself specifying and installing the Zero 88 Frog consoles more and more. "The best thing about the Frog range is the price point, which is incredible," comments Griffin. "Most of these smaller churches are staffed completely by volunteers; they are not lighting people, and they are not even particularly technical people. You don't want to put in an expensive $10,000 controller that requires a three-day training course, but at the same time, they don't want to go to the other extreme and have something that is unusable. I've been really surprised by how easy it is for people who don't have a theatrical background to pick up these consoles."
(Lee Baldock)
