.FLYINGHEAD HOME AUTOMATION
.TITLE X-10 makes BestFest the best fest in the the West
.AUTHOR Dan Wolfson
.SUMMARY What do you do when you need to control multiple electric appliances, at different locations, and you don’t have assistants to spare? You do what author Dan Wolfson did, use the Radio Shack X-10 Mini Remote Control Module and Universal Appliance module.
.FEATURE
What do you do when you need to control multiple electric appliances, at different locations, and you don’t have assistants to spare? You do what I did at the BestFest student film festival, use the Radio Shack X-10 Mini Remote Control Module and Universal Appliance modules.
.H1 Setting the stage
The crowd trickled in and found seats in the big movie theater. Overhead, the auditorium lights slowly dimmed. The stage lights came on, and suddenly, a spotlight blazed a white disc of light on the master of ceremonies. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to BestFest, the largest student film festival in America!" The crowd applauded and the 2004 event was underway.
BestFest is a film festival for high school and college students from all over San Diego County. Over the last five years it’s become the biggest student film festival in the U.S (over 300 films were submitted in 2004). The Visual Arts Foundation sponsors it, and as with many non-profit organizations, funding is tight and a few dedicated volunteers do much of the work. The challenge is always how get the most success from the least resources.
This year BestFest was held at the all-digital UltraStar Theater in Poway, California. Students got to see their films on a full-size movie theater screen in full Surround Sound. As you can imagine, this is truly exciting for these young filmmakers, their families, friends, teachers, and the general public. In Figure A, you can see an exterior shot of the theater at night.
.FIGPAIR A The UltraStar Theater in Poway, CA hosted the 2004 BestFest event.
.BREAK_EMAIL Tap your mouse here to find out how X-10 saved the day.
.H1 Let there be light
When I arrived at this year’s event, Gerry Williams, our volunteer audio-visual technician, seen in Figure B, had set up the stage lighting.
.FIGPAIR B Gerry Williams set up all the lights and A/V equipment for BestFest.
He had placed a lighting station on each side of the huge theater screen and a spotlight in the back row of seats.
The lighting stations used to illuminate the stage area during the awards and announcements were tripods with 500-watt studio lights and adjustable "barn doors". A 500-watt spotlight in the rear of the theater highlighted the presenters, award winners and sponsors.
The stage lights were turned on as each film was introduced, and while BestFest Executive Director Dave Larson and co-chair Mark Title presented the awards, with the theater being darkened while each student film was screened. In Figure C you can see Executive Director Dave Larson with one of the winners.
.FIGPAIR C Dave Larson with one of the winning filmmaker teams.
.PAGE
The plan was for three volunteers to operate the lights, each wearing a walkie-talkie headset. A fourth volunteer, Bonnie Kristell shown in Figure D, acted as floor manager, directing the lighting volunteers when to hit the lights.
.FIGPAIR D Bonnie Kristell videotapes the BestFest proceedings along with other duties.
She also communicated with the projection booth to control the audio levels while she videotaped the entire event. BestFest volunteers wear many hats!
This setup worked fine, but it quickly became clear that it was tying up four people and four headsets, just to turn three switches on and off. We were already shorthanded due to some volunteer attrition, and this seemed like a promising application for some X-10 remote control devices.
.H1 Automate this!
Fortunately, the theater was in a shopping center with a Radio Shack store only a few doors away. I purchased two 500-watt X-10 Home Automation Appliance Modules to remotely control two of the three lighting stations, and a Mini-Remote Control Center to operate the modules.
One appliance module was connected to the stage-right lights, as shown in Figure E.
.FIGPAIR E The stage-right lights were controlled by one appliance.
The other appliance was connected to the spotlight in the rear of the theater, shown in Figure F.
.FIGPAIR F The spotlight in the back row was controlled with an X-10 appliance module.
The Mini Controller, shown in Figure G, was plugged into an outlet strip next to the stage-left lights.
.FIGPAIR G An X-10 Mini Controller and multi-outlet power strip allowed one volunteer to control all stage lights and the rear spotlight.
Luckily for us, all the outlets in the theater were on the same circuit. Had this not been the case, this arrangement would not have worked. So for this situation, X-10 was truly Plug and Play.
Programming the system was a breeze. I turned the dials on the modules and switched the controller to House code "A" and switch code 5. When I plugged everything in, it worked perfectly on the first test. Total setup time was literally a matter of a few minutes.
.H1 Pressing engagement
One volunteer with a headset sat at the front of the theater with the Mini Controller, serving as the sole lighting technician. When the floor director said, "Hit the lights!" he pressed one rocker switch on the Mini Controller which lit the stage-right lights and the rear spotlight.
At the same time, he pressed the master switch on the third lighting station at stage-left. Voila! All three light stations under the control of one volunteer. The two volunteers who were previously "stuck" turning the lights on and off were freed up to cover other duties, which helped BestFest rack up another award-winning season.
.FIGPAIR H Freed up by the X-10, BestFest volunteers man the check-in table for the student filmmakers.
.H1 Lessons Learned
Home automation is not just limited to your home. There may be a "quick and dirty", and inexpensive, technical solution to many problems if you think out of the box, and are near an electronics store!
.BEGIN_KEEP
With the X-10 devices, test everything first to find out which outlets are on the same circuit; otherwise you may need several controllers to cover your whole setup. The total cost for parts was about forty-five dollars, and we’ll re-use the system each year.
By the way, with the success of BestFest in San Diego in 2004, the decision was made to expand it nationwide. For information, go to http://www.bestfestamerica.com. See you at the movies!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the X-10 Mini Remote Control Center and Universal Appliance module, visit your local Radio Shack store, or http://www.radioshack.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.END_KEEP
