O'Farrell Community School - San Diego, ca

5 Words Media was approached by O’Farrell Community School (San Diego, CA) to design and build a new stage lighting system for their 600 seat theatre that would be safe and flexible for a wide range of theatre and public events that the school offered for students and the surrounding community. The project was designed and completed within the required 2 month construction schedule during summer break to be ready in time for the fall performance schedule.

The project was a renovation of an existing theatre space consisting of an unsafe manual single purchase rigging system.

The school administration deemed the rigging system a hazard to the school’s operation and asked for all rigging electric and scenic pipes to be replaced with a fixed rigging configuration and repaired according to industry standards.

5 Words Media technicians removed all existing line-sets and created new rigging points with solid, safe connections utilizing engineered drawings, certified rigging mounts and grade 8 hardware rated for overhead use. An additional 4th electric position was created along with a cyc drape position to allow the theater to create dynamic back drops as necessary for the varying performances of the space.

The state-of-the-art lighting system is comprised of an ETC Smart Switch panel allowing control of all lighting circuits throughout the space. DMX lighting control is distributed via Pathway Connectivity DIN-Rail mounted opto-splitters providing DMX outputs to all overhead, catwalk and stage boxes as required. Architectural control is accomplished by Interactive Technologies Scene Stations allowing entry panel, front of house (FOH), and house panel control over the entire lighting system as necessary.

The existing houselights in the space utilized inefficient 500w tungsten bulbs that the school could no longer source to replace burnouts. 5 Words Media replaced the inner elements of the fixtures with flexible 12mm LED sheets by Cooledge Lighting. The low profile LED sheets allowed an efficient LED solution that reduced the 14,000W existing solution to only 1,120W solution saving the school thousands in utility costs each year. 5 Words Media also provided an ETC element 40 console to control the lighting system consisting of 36 Altman PHX 250 LED Profiles, 24 Altman Spectra Par 100’s, and 8 Altman Spectra Cyc 100 LED fixtures.

Equipment:

Altman PHX LED Profile
Altman Spectra Cyc 100
Altman Spectra Par 100
Altman 450 Distribution
ETC Smart Switch Panel
ETC Element 40 Console
Pathway Connectivity eDin Opto
Pathway Connectivity Snap Panel
Interactive Technologies Scenestations
Cooledge Lighting 12mm Sheets
Rosebrand Seamless Cyc