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I started in lighting way
back in 1993 with a friend that own a company called X-Treme
Tech. I was just a helper then with very basic stuff like an
8-channel lighting board and a few DJ cans. But that didn't stop
my curiousity...
In 1998, I joined the lighting
team at Bethel Church of San Jose under the direction of Terry
Harnish. Their lighting console was an ETC Express 24 that was
able to handle 96 channels of dimmers. No automated fixtures
were available at that time, and any productions we held at the
church had to be rented by Musson Theatrical with Linnie McIntyre
as the LD (lighting designer).
However, that all changed
when Terry Harnish stepped down and retired in 2008...
2009 rolled around and the
church needed a person to program the services. Someone suggested
they ask me, and so I stepped up and took charge of the lighting
dept. In late 2009, the dept transfered to the direction of Jared
Stefani and was placed under the Multimedia Dept. Jared also
wanted to upgrade the entire lighting system and buy new automated
fixtures to expand the capability of our production seasons.
The Jands Vista T4 became a part of the Bethel family and I was
placed as the Chief Lighting Technician and Jands Vista Chief
Lighting Programmer. This was fun!
I had control of four universes
(512 channels of dimming control per universe), each having over
350 static fixtures and 22 automated fixtures, and all were operated
on an ArtNet digital networking system. This meant that anywhere
the system had a network port, I was able to place an ArtNet
node there and open a new universe on that port. To give you
an idea of the flexability I had, there were over 15 DMX universe
nodes available in the house to connect to.
Productions were now easier
to design, the house was given new trussing, our old static fixtures
were rebuilt and relamped, and I could walk around the stage
with a laptop and program the console wirelessly! No longer did
we need to rent out production companies to design our shows;
we could do this ourselves! We still rented lighting fixtures
for the shows, but plugging in and patching them was a breeze!
From 2010 to 2013, I designed,
programmed, and operated all shows for the Christmas Spectacular
and Celebrate America productions at Bethel Church. It was fun,
but also very tiring, tedious, patient-testing, and a lot of
man-hours were put into each production. For example, I logged
in well over 183 hours of rigging, designing, programming, and
operating in 2013 from October-December just for the Christmas
Spectacular production alone! But in the end, it was all very
rewarding!
In January, 2014, I hung my
lighting hat at Bethel Church and transfered over to the audio
dept under the direction of Jeff Miller. After only five years
of serving in the lighting dept, it was time to step down and
move on to other areas that needed my expertise and assistance.
But I regret nothing; I loved every moment of that position,
even the grueling hours it required, and in the end I could say
that I accomplished all that I wanted to and expected nothing
more.
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