Lighting Designers love their tech toys, so what is at the top of your Christmas wish list?
In the spirit of the holidays, I finally broke down and bought myself an iPhone. It is awesome! One of the first Apps I downloaded of course was Wybron's Gel Swatch Library for the low price of $9.99. (FYI: The App got updated yesterday.) Everyone who is anyone in the industry knows how amazing the Swatch Book App is. So now I have an iPhone and a digital swatch book; what more could I possibly want for Christmas? Well...I want an iGobo Library App for my iPhone, but it doesn't exist. It would be so useful for designers and assistants to have. Santa, make my wish come true, pleeeeaaaaseeeeeeee.
What should be in the iGobo App you might ask? Perhaps the following:
1. The entire database should be searchable by SKU Number and Name.
2. Each manufacturer's gobo inventory should be viewable separately. And when I mean viewable, I mean easily viewable. Like 100 gobos per page, so I don't have to sit there and page through thousands of gobos.
2a. Each gobo should also be selectable and be viewable in a 1:1 scale on the iPhone. This drives me crazy in real life. When I pick out star gobos, I want to know the actual size of the pinhole dots, but I digress.
3. There should be standard categories like Breakups/Clouds/Rotators/Symbols etc… that have further sub-categories that contain gobos from all the manufacturers. Think like your Ipod. Music>Artist>Album>Song
4. It would be nice to have a compare gobo feature to decide if you like Gobo 1 or Gobo 2 better.
5. Allow me to add gobos to a favorites list, so I can view everything I picked at the end of my search to easily order them.
6. I want all gobos in one App…I don't want an Apollo, G.A.M. and Rosco App.
If I was smart I would use my computer science minor and make this App myself, but I'm in Grad School, and that consumes my life.
So someone please step it up…City Theatrical, PRG etc… Do the math; Wybron has sold over 1,700 copies of the Gel Swatch Library and at $10 a pop, that's $17,000. That's probably enough cash to pay some young computer science programmer to create a searchable database of gobos. Maybe it will even win some award one day. Oh, and get me a free copy of it when you do make it. Happy Holidays!