PLASA Publishes Makeup Mirror Lighting Standard, Launches "Our Common Goals Initiative"

PLASA's Technical Standards Program (TSP) announces two actions to widen the program's benefits in the entertainment industry. The first is a new standard, one that will help performers and performance venue designers; the second is a program to extend the benefits of the TSP to other organizations in the entertainment and special events industry.

The first is the publication of a new standard, ANSI E1.55 - 2015, Standard for Theatrical Makeup Mirror Lighting, which was developed at the request of Actors' Equity Association to help their members. The standard was approved by ANSI's Board of Standards Review on August 25 and published two days later, on August 27. The lighting market's move away from incandescent lamps has complicated the job of providing good makeup mirror lighting. ANSI E1.55 helps clarify what good makeup mirror lighting is by describing the topology of a compliant makeup mirror lighting system, the quantity of light, the distribution of light from those sources, apparent source size, brightness, color rendering, and correlated color temperature. The standard can be purchased from ANSI and IHS, or downloaded for free, courtesy of Prosight Specialty Insurance, from the published documents page on the PLASA website at http://tsp.plasa.org/.

ANSI E1.55 was developed at the request of Actors' Equity, the US labor union that represents more than 50,000 actors and stage managers; on August 24 PLASA's Technical Standards Council approved a formal program to expand the TSP's services to other organizations in the broader entertainment industry. Entitled the "Our Common Goals Initiative," the plan lays out what services the TSP can provide to other groups to help them develop American National Standards. The TSP has been remarkably successful over its 19 years as an accredited standards developer in writing standards to help make the entertainment industry conduct business safely, efficiently, and profitably. However, every season brings new technology, bigger events, and more severe weather; there is always more work to be done.

For more information about ANSI E1.55 and the Our Common Goals Initiative, please contact:
Karl G. Ruling
PLASA Technical Standards Manager
630 Ninth Avenue, Suite 609
New York, New York 10036 USA
standards.na@plasa.org
1-212-244-1505