Elation ELAR Q1 Color Changing Par Debuts at Xbox Media Event

	Xbox media event with Elation ELAR Q1 color shcnging Par lights. Photo: Nadine Froger Photography

When Microsoft video gaming brand Xbox briefs the press, let's just say they know how to get their attention. On June 9th, the Galen Center in Los Angeles became the center of the gaming universe as Xbox held a global briefing for media and Xbox fans at the annual video game show, E3. Broadcast live on Spike TV and on the Internet, some 140 Elation ELAR Q1 color changing Par lights supplied by Illumination Dynamics made their debut in the elaborate stage set.

Ninety minutes of pure gaming delight, the Microsoft Xbox 2014 media briefing is used as a platform to launch new games, as well as take a look at previously announced games. Lighting design for the event was handled by Emanuel Treeson of NYXdesign, who specializes in creating immersive experiences with light and has been designing projects for Xbox since the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2005.

"For Xbox, I wanted a narrow beam fixture that could be placed in an expansive array but one where the LEDs are more spaced out than a typical Elation ELAR panel," he explains. "Our goal was to create the movement and pattern effects that you can get from an ELAR panel or other panel array fixture but with wider spacing that would flow around our scenic design."

Treeson chose the ELAR Q1 color changing Par light, which features a single 10W RGBW LED and are capable of emitting a wide palette of colors from saturates to more subtle pastels from a narrow 7-degree beam. As the main brand color of Xbox, "Xbox green" was used throughout the 90-minute live television program, but there were many other colors used during the show as well with color matching also an important must. "We used pretty much the full spectrum of what the light could produce," Treeson explains. "The color palette in the cues was inspired by the artwork from the different games that were being demoed in the show.

"Because the ELAR's were used in a grid and that grid was the primary background for all of the close up shots, color matching was critical. It was one of the criteria I looked at when considering the fixture. Months out, long before the order for the fixtures was placed, [Elation rental and production market manager] John Dunn demoed the fixture for me and at that time I looked really closely at how they matched -- both for color and response time. Then when the production units arrived at Illumination Dynamics, we again looked at the color matching."

The ELAR Q1s were used to enhance the set from two locations, the first a grid of 100 fixtures on 25" centers that was located directly behind the Xbox logo, covering most of the upstage scenic; and the other on the set's traveling scenic walls, where 36 fixtures were used to create accents and wisps of green highlights on the set structure.

With the video gaming industry one of the fastest growing mediums in the US, no doubt we can expect even more spectacular productions like this year's Microsoft Xbox press briefing.