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ETC Celebrates 2m+ Source Fours Shipped
Look up into any professional lighting rig, and you’re more than likely to see ETC Source Four spotlights. The luminaire is a standard tool in performance and architectural use across the globe and when lighting professionals think “spotlight” they picture the now iconic look of the Source Four. Today, the brand has now reached a new historic industry mark, with more than two million having been shipped worldwide.
The Source Four family comprises over ten different versions – including Source Four juniors, PARs, zooms, PARNels, MultiPARs and HIDs, as well as an automated profile, the Source Four Revolution. From school theatres, churches and museums to casinos, touring shows, TV studios, West End theatres and opera houses, Source Fours are preferred for their powerful lighting punch, precise imaging and the savings they provide in energy efficiency.
The 2m+ mark is one of two milestones for the Source Four this year. In November, at LDI 2007, the brand will celebrate its 15th birthday – 15 years, that is, since the classic spotlight was introduced to the industry at LDI 1992. Lighting professionals recall the event as having changed the art and work of lighting. Internationally known lighting designer, theatrical consultant and author Richard Pilbrow says: “Until the Source Four, the Leko was always the workhorse of modern stage lighting. The Source Four suddenly took the principle of the ellipsoidal reflector and made it dramatically better, in every way. The optics are clearer, it’s a tough, well-built instrument that can be thrown around without breaking – it has simply been the most revolutionary improvement on anything that had gone before.”
Pilbrow has employed the Source Four almost since its introduction. “I remember one of the first shows I used it on – Busker Alley. We had 25 or 35 rectangular backlit posters on a huge cyclorama. The old-fashioned Leko would have taken two to three minutes each to focus – with a lot of fiddling and getting the shutters to line up properly. The Source Four was so fast and accurate and easy. Each one took less than a minute to focus. That was a real shock. The Source Four is a quantum leap forward – the most extraordinary advance upon something that was the staple lighting instrument in the industry.”
As fixture product manager Tom Litttrell points out, Source Fours have undergone a continuous refinement process which has ensured that they are always the most technologically advanced lights of their kind, saying: “We consider the entire Source Four line a work in progress, always subject to improvements and updates that ensure it is state of the art and the best technology available.” Most recently, ETC added ‘Wybron Inside’ technology to their moving light, the Source Four Revolution, packaging each fixture with a 24 frame capacity colour scroller based on Wybron’s industry-standard Coloram technology. Always soliciting and responding to the feedback of their customers, ETC worked with Wybron engineers to refine the Revolution’s pioneering cartridge-style colour scroller to give pinpoint precision every time and at much higher speeds. The new ‘Wybron Inside’ Revolution also features a new complement of colours in its standard 12-colour scroll.
The Source Four has also been ahead of its time in continuing to be a ‘green’ light – not in the sense of that infamous colour which students are told to shy away from in their stage work, but as an environmentally-conscious technology that provides unmatched brightness while consuming far less electricity.
To kick off a six-month campaign celebrating the Source Four and its achievements, which will go from now until LDI 2007, ETC is inviting Source Four fans worldwide to express their spirit and tell their own Source Four stories by sending in testimonial video clips. ETC will then feature some of those Source Four clips on www.etcconnect.com and will include a select group in a grand finale montage to be unveiled on its web site during LDI 2007. To participate, send the video clips to ETC’s webmaster at webmaster@etcconnect.com. ETC will accept .mov, .avi, and .mpg files. Alternatively, videos may be sent on CDs through the post to PR dept, ETC; 3031 Pleasant View Rd; PO Box 620979; Middleton, WI; 53562; United States.
14th June 2007
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