This is pretty cool.  A retractable car door that slides under the car. Click here to find out about the technology and the Company, JATECH, LLC.

Here’s a quick link to a video display showing the door in action:

Disappearing Car Door

“Art without passion is mechanical drawing“.

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Yes, TED talks are now available on Roku as a private channel.

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Here’s the link to the info:

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=26446

and here in a nice summary format:

http://alanhouser.posterous.com/beta…channels-on-yo

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We’ve been looking for a freeware sound effects player for a while now, but what we found was either too DJ oriented, too slow to learn, or not free.  Microsoft Media Player is ok, but clicking on icons and then mousing over to the small controls wasn’t working with novices, or if for some reason our playback location was not on a desk.  Yep, we sometimes have someone crouching behind a set… not a good location to sit with a mouse.  iTunes has the same issues as Media Player, plus it does not stop between tracks/cues.

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But we just found Harvest Sounds “Sound Effects Player for Theater”.  This tool has been on SorceForge for a long time now (2004), but we missed it until now.  It’s simple, has big buttons, allows sounds to be organized in acts/scenes, supports multiple file formats, loops, simultaneous playback (overlapping), and saves the project file in editable XML format.  About the only downside is that adding files is not drag and drop.  You have to navigate through several dialogs to add each sound file.

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From the Harvest page on SourceForge:

HarvestSounds is a sound effects player, designed for live drama performances by churches, schools, etc.

The current version supports the following features:

Sounds are organised into scenes User can write notes about each sound and each scene Simultaneous playback Hotkey assigned to each sound Sounds are loopable Volume and pan are adjustable for each sound Plays mp3, wav, ogg, aiff, flac, mod, s3m, XM and IT sound files

Harvest Sounds “Sound Effects Player” has not been updated since it’s release in 2004, or at least we can’t find such.  If anyone knows the author, or can share the source code, please post a reply.  We would be happy to help with small changes such as drag/drop and user-selected cue names.  Right now version 0.5 just counts the cues and numbers them sequentially.  The ability to create 2A and 2B instead of 1, 2, 3 would be a benefit.  But hey, it’s a really simple, effective program that we will be using often.  Thank you to the author!!

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Our Town by Thornton Wilder follows the small town of Grover’s Corners through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Death and Eternity.” Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, audiences follow the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually–in one of the most famous scenes in American theater–die. Our Town is representational of small American towns at the turn of the century, including Penfield. This presentation will include a video diorama of “Our Town Penfield” as slides of Penfield appear as a backdrop to this poignant historical play.

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Performances are free and are held at Penfield Amphitheater, Veterans Memorial Park, 3100 Atlantic Avenue. Performances begin at 8:45 pm.

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WindWorks Design is providing lights and sound for this production.  Please come see the performance!

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Northern Virginia Community College has a simple summary document outlining the history of theater lighting.    While the information is pretty basic and there are few pictures, it’s a good time line overview.

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A History of Stage Lighting

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Future posts will look at some of these early technologies, including limelight (pix above).

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When considering power consumption for audio or lighting, you need to think about more than just WATTS.  You would be better served to think about VA (or kVA).  Watts are commonly thought of the multiplication of voltage x current.  But this formula only works for purely resistive loads, or more complex loads that are “power factor corrected” (PFC) to very close to 1.  Regulations in the US and Europe require most heavy current drawing devices to be power factor corrected, so watts are fairly close to VA, but it’s still not a perfect measure, especially for smaller devices.  A better measure is VA (or kVA).  VA is also computed by multiplying volts x current (amps),  but it’s the complex current that accounts for phase delay between the voltage waveform and the current draw.  Ewwwww!   Say what?!?!?!?

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In a practical situation, use the measured current draw (think clamp-on current meter) and multiply by the voltage.  This is your VA (not Watts).  If plugging into a line powered distro, you will be fine if you just watch the nameplate amperage and stay below ~85% of the breaker rating.  But if plugging into a generator or UPS, then that source device will be rated in VA.   If you do see it’s rated in Watts, look closer at the label to find the generator or UPS to find the rating in VA or kVA (kiloVA).  That’s the true power delivery for a non-power factor corrected load.

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For an excellent discussion of Watts vs kVA, see Richard Cadena’s article “That’s a Load of Watts” in the May 2010 issue of PLSN magazine.  It’s the best, most straightforward discussion I’ve read about power factor correction and it’s practical implications.  I’ve wanted to write about VA for a while now, and was inspired by Mr. Cadena’s article.  It’s well written!!

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For more about Power Factor Correction, click on the image above to go to a nice description at Wikipedia.

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Last week I had the pleasure to see “Love Never Dies” at the Adelphi theatre on London’s west end.  This musical is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to “Phantom of the Opera”.  While many things can be said about the music, acting, and story, my interest is in reviewing the lighting.  As expected for any production of this magnitude, it’s a great visual spectacle.   While none of the effects are as genuinely stunning as the boat ride scene from “Phantom”, the Phantom’s Lair set and it’s lighting are the primary eye candy of the show.  Lit with deeply saturated colors and some evidence of LED backlights behind the large eyes in the background set, it’s a wonderful mix of amber tones, proper front/side lighting to see the actors, and deep blue and cyan to make the background tone.    Green accents on some of the automated set pieces complete the scene.

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In other scenes, the lighting is very well done and not an orgy of eye candy.  The overall tone is early electric lighting, and the set/lighting designer, Bob Crowley has done a marvelous job.  The colors are a nice warm pallet, with plenty of accents and enough white to bring out the costume colors.  I especially liked the stage set scene of Christine’s aria, with it’s vintage light fixtures visible on the rotating set, and the nice side beams from the upper pairs right and left.

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While the story and music were not at the same level of past Webber shows, the staging and lighting are very well done.  Crowley certainly has the experience and credentials to justify this level of work, and he has done well.  I enjoyed his work.

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That said, the lighting design for “Next to Normal” by Kevin Adams is still some of the finest work I’ve seen on Broadway or the West End.  And I’m not talking about the colored bulbs and LEDs in the set, but the seemless front and side lighting on a reflective set with multiple rooms and levels.  No follow-spots and very few movers.  Just damned fine lighting and perfect fades from one leko to another.

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