Austin City Limits gets greener

13 April 2011

USA - Austin City Limits, the longest running live music television series in America, has a new home - a modern studio at ACL Live at the Moody Theatre. Designed for a variety of live music performances KLRU-TV produces the PBS series there approximately 20 days a year. The mixed-use entertainment venue boasts has a commitment to green building standards. This commitment to greening the project, enabled the facility an opportunity to apply for LEED certification.

Walter Olden, the lighting director for the Austin City Limits television show since 1982, shared some insight into why Wybron's Cygnus LED fixtures were the first choice for the project. "During the planning and design phase of the space, there was always talk of LED lighting because of wanting to be a green project, trying to make it as green as possible."

"We wanted to go with a minimum number of lights, so to have a light that can serve multiple purposes in the same area is a huge plus. Not having to redo it each time and being able to make it a different color, that type of thing. We were really excited to be able to do something like that."

Olden incorporated 50 Cygnus LED fixtures into Austin City Limits' overall lighting plot: 10 VN100s used as backlights on the balcony rail; 25 MF200s placed as audience lights and to highlight the cityscape buildings to create a nighttime feel; 15 VN200s, including 3 sets of 4 light arrays - center up-stage, far-stage right, and far-stage left. He shared that with Cygnus LEDs, he has the ability to do more with the audience lighting - colorize, change the color, change the tone and add more dimension.

"The brightness is the biggest positive," says Olden. "The good rendering capabilities are important, especially since we are using it as daylight source shooting at night; they give us much more flexibility in that way. You can get quite a lot of punch and that's pretty exciting."

(Jim Evans)