Proteus Illuminates Fantasy Forest

Illumination: Tree Lights At The Morton Arboretum, an outdoor holiday lighting experience designed by Lightswitch, Inc., featured the first beta tests of the new Elation Professional Proteus, which launched in October at LDI 2016. Four of these IP66-rated moving lights illuminated Fantasy Forest, the grand finale of the walking trail. The Proteus fixtures shone from behind the abstract bamboo forest of polished PCP tubes as well as penetrated the night for a searchlight effect. “We found it incredibly robust and weather-resistant,” says Lightswitch principal John Featherstone. “It’s CMY40 color-mixing so, from a design point, that’s a fabulous advantage to have. The stock gobo load is fantastic. I love the optics. It’s screaming bright. We’ve been very happy with the fixture. Proteus really changed the way we design Illumination, because we have a fixture that doesn’t have the bulk of the dome.” The whole canvas of the trail comprised two wireless networks running from MA Lighting grandMA2 light consoles, with playback from MA Lighting onPC devices. Lightswitch used MA 3D for Fantasy Forest’s previz, tightly cueing it and running it off timecode, audio triggers, and MIDI. Read more about the design of Illumination here, and view the lighting plots here. Watch Fantasy Forest in the video above.

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