ETC’s Source Four brand has reached a new historic industry mark, with two million+ fixtures having been shipped worldwide.
The Source Four family includes over 10 different versions—including Source Four juniors, PARs, zooms, PARNels, MultiPAR™ striplights, and HIDs, as well as a moving light, the Source Four Revolution®.
The two-million+ mark is one of two milestones for the Source Four this year. In November, at LDI 2007, the brand will celebrate 15 years since the spotlight was introduced to the industry at LDI 1992. Says internationally known lighting designer, theatrical consultant and author Richard Pilbrow, “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, accurate, and easy. Each 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.”
According to fixture product manager Tom Litttrell, since 1992 Source Fours have continued to undergo a refinement process which has ensured that they are always the most technologically advanced lights of their kind. “We consider the entire Source Four-fixture 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, shipping each fixture with a 24-frame-capacity color 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 color scroller for pinpoint precision every time and at much higher speeds. The new “Wybron Inside” Revolution also features a new complement of colors in its standard 12-color 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 lighting color that 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 their website and will include a select group in a grand-finale montage to be unveiled on their Web site during LDI 2007.
To participate, send the video clips to ETC’s webmaster [email protected]. ETC will accept .mov, .avi, and .mpg files.
Or, videos may be sent on CDs, postal mailed to:
PR Dept., ETC
3031 Pleasant View Rd.
PO BOX 620979
Middleton, WI 53562
USA