The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook [Paperback]

This book isn't for beginners - but assuming you already know the basics (and the vocabulary) it's quite useful for process. What I mean is that because the subject involves very specific equipment in terms of controls and fixtures, there cannot be specifics of 'how' to do things, so the author is forced to generalise about concepts, problems and solutions that worked for them. Readers may find they already know much of what is discussed, but no doubt each reader will have a different combination of knowledge and experience. So in a sense this book is rather compartmentalised, and you pick up the bits outside of your own comfort area. This is in fact how I read it. I was able to take comments on specific equipment, apply my knowledge of how my own equipment is different and interpret my own ways of carrying out processes that Brad found worked well for him. A lot of these I had not considered, and a few I discovered my own controls did, but I didn't know what they were for, and had ignored them. Some ways of working that Brad discusses had not occurred to me and I've already tried them out and they do indeed work better than the ones I've been using for many years.

So it isn't the kind of book that shows you 'how' to do things, but it centres on achieving an aim - maybe a live tour or special event, or even an Olympic event, and explains how the author approached it, what problems surfaced and how they were resolved. To anyone familiar with the area of lighting with moving head and other clever equipment, the pathways to the end event are the important ones, and our own history makes us stay within our somewhat confined tried and tested ones. Brad's approach introduced to me alternatives that actually work.

It's somewhat American biased, which is understandable, but this isn't a problem. I rarely buy lighting books any longer, as the ones produced by authors younger than Reid or Pilbrow seldom seem to have anything new in them. This one is a bit different. Genuinely useful content and a pleasant chatty style. Don't expect to understand every word unless you are already proficient with multiple manufacturer's products - some content is necessarily specific to a brand - but to people who do know those products, the info is valid and useful. To readers like me, who are familiar with alternative products, these sections are simply skipped through until we get to the next section that applies to our own comfort zone. To be honest, I cannot see how the author could have avoided the equipment problem, so my view is that he tried very hard to make as much content as generic as he could, and the result is a readable book - even in the areas that won't be the core for the differently experienced readers.
Paul Johnson