Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998 - 25

LP-I07

LP-1/3

LP-IIS
I

)

(
I
I

COURTESY
DISNEYLAND

LP-IOO

LP-I02

LP-I04

AND BRIAN GALE

LP-IOB

LP-IIO

I I

LP-I06

LP-1/2

Small World light plot. Only three floats
fit in this location. The PARs are mostly
MFLs and WFLs.

SMAll POlE TYP.

SYMBOL KEY

1
N:.

02 SMART REPEATER
02 COLOR CHANGER DMX
02 ACS

Vl-6

PAR 64 I KW W!DICHRDIC filTER
72 UNITS
I

ELEVAnON

SfCTION

LARGE UGHTPOlE

ELEVAnON

PAR 64 IKW WICOlOR CHANGER
SECTION

72 UNITS

SMAll UGHTPOlE

Vl-6 AUTOMATED LUMINAJRE 400W HTI
56 UNITS

"Honestly, the VL6 wasn't my first choice. I was looking pretty
closely at the Clay Paky Golden Scan HPE, but it's a pretty sizable
instl1lment, and the wind load was too large. Also, the VL6 is small
and seA')' looking, and tile park liked tile look a lot better."
TIle PARs are wateltight, of course, but I wondered aloud at
tile weatherproofing of tile Vari*Utes. Lindsey chimed in. "We got
a couple early on, and removed just a vel)' few components that
we knew water could hurt, then we stepped back and soaked
them \\~th hoses. They stood up vel)' well. But you don't get much
rain in Southern c,1lifornia in summer, and all the Vari*Utes will
come down when tile summer season ends and tile show closes."
(The show closed Labor Day Weekend.)

.9he%t15'
''We talked about a lot of different options on the LPs [light
poles I," Gale said. "One of the major concerns of the park was
tilat tllC)' be as inobtrusive as possible. On Main Street, (See
Showtime #1 photo) it isn't a big issue, because tile vast majority
of the Light Pipes are what we call 'lift-up' pipes-they are located
atop tile buildings, and pivot down, out of sight, onto tile roof
when tlley aren't in use. There are just a few pennanent LPs on
Main Street, [five pennanent LPs and eighteen lift-ups at tile Main
Street location) but in tile Small World area, with no buildings,

LARGE POlE TYP.

tlley are all pennanent, [fifteen pennanent LPs) so we talked
about a solution such as was done for Fantasmic, where the light
towers store in pits, and are lifted hydraulically as part of the
preshow. But we couldn't afford it. That's tile bad tlting about deep
pockets, " he smiled. "Even the deepest ones eventually run dry."
So the LPs were themed to the look of Small World, or Main
Street, depending on location. But even then, they were hardly perfect lighting positions. To stay as inobtrusive (there's that word
again) as possible, they were kept short, at about twenty feet
apiece, \\~th some of tile instruments hanging as low as sL\1een
feet. "Not a perfect solution," said Gale. "We all know tile pel/eel
lighting angle, rigllt? Forty-five degrees. Do tllese look like they
give me forty-five degrees? It's more like twenty or thirty degrees.
Not even close to perfect. It ends up a little Oat, but you do what
you can do \\~th what you have." To further complicate matters,
tile lift-up pipes over Main Street produce a velY steep ligllting
angle-almost sL\1y degrees.
As we walked the park, Lindsey indicated the ligllt pipes at
Small World, as well as tile three new buildings. "A lot of people
will never forgive us for what we had to do to the Small World
mall area, but we had no choice. (See Small World Mall
photo.) The buildings house the three 70mm projectors, as
well as some electronics. On Main Street we put the projectors
inside the buildings. We hid the repeaters (for the Vari*Lites)
TD&T

WINTER

1998

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998