Kling to the Future

ADJ Lighting products with Kling-Net compatibility bring a new level of entertainment to West Orange High School’s dance marathon.

ADJ has been demonstrating its Kling-Net compatible products at various trade shows for the last year. Simply put, Kling Net technology allows low res video to be played over LED fixture with pixel mapping control. The result offers nightclubs, event producers, production companies and DJs the opportunity to provide their clients a unique experience with a new dimension in "moving lightscaping" to their lighting design.

ADJ caught up with Arnoldo Offermann, president, and his wife Monica Offermann, lighting designer, of Florida-based 4SchoolsOnly, who specialize in entertainment for schools. Arnoldo and Monica always try to push the boundaries of their lighting set up and design with the goal to offer a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience. And, they did just that as they incorporated ADJ pixel mapping fixtures with Kling-Net compatibility into a unique setup that stood out from anything else that any high school in FL had seen before.

West Orange High School in Winter Garden, Florida hosted an event, in which 4SchoolsOnly was one of the sponsors, called "Warrior-Thon." Inspired by University of Central Florida's "Khight-Thon," a dance marathon benefiting the Greater Orlando Children's Miracle Network. With multiple activities, games, a neon-esque dance hour, and stories from survivors and parents thereof. Needless to say, Warrior-Thon dance participants had plenty to do; which was a good thing since the rule was NO SITTING.

Arnoldo explains, "West Orange has been a loyal client of 4Schools Only for a while. While they offered to pay for our services, we severely upgraded them to be able to create something special. They just had three requests: lights, live Twitter feeds, and a karaoke contest using the big screen. We wanted to create something that was simple but complex at the same time. We wanted to take a light show of just floods and create a unique effect. Using Kling-Net technology, I'm pretty sure this was the first setup of its kind at any school."

With that in mind, Arnoldo discussed how the setup came to life. "I asked my wife, Monica, if she would like to control the floods and sync them to the video ambients without using DMX," Arnoldo explains. Of course, the idea intrigued her. The idea was simple: use video software to sync the video visuals and music videos up with Kling-Net to control the floods. For this, Arnoldo used 20 ADJ Dotz Pars, 4 ADJ Flash Kling 64 Panels, Media Master Pro software, and Elation's EZ Kling interface. The 14-foot wide video screen was centered inside a frame of Global Truss America F34 truss.

The process was simple, Media Master Pro (or Express) will control the video output with Kling-Net out via the Mapper. The Dotz Pars are DMX controlled with no Kling-Net input. "With the EZ Kling box, I converted the Kling-Net signal into DMX." reveals Arnoldo; "the toughest part was readdressing all the fixtures into 3 channel mode. THAT'S how easy it was!"

Elation's EZ KLING is an RJ45 to DMX, Kling-Net, and Art-Net interface, which allows users to pixel map KlingNet™ and DMX compatible fixtures through the KlingNet™ mapper included in Media Master Express and Media Master Pro (Zeus). Ideal for use with Flex Pixel Tape™ and LED Pixel controllable DMX fixtures. One EZ KLING™ interface will drive up to 600 Flex Pixel RGB pixels using KlingNet™ control protocol or 170 DMX Pixels via ArtNet™/ DMX control. Includes a magnet on the back panel for easy metal surface mounting and a mini omega bracket for clamp/truss mounting.

ADJ's Dotz Par fixtures with 30W COB (Chip On Board) LEDs offered enough punch to wash the dance floor. The pixel mapping in the Dotz Pars allowed the Offermanns to run video across the entire lighting structure.

"The results were beautiful. Video visuals made the lights come to life. The dance hour took a new type of energy as I controlled the visuals and kept changing them to match the energy Arnoldo created. During live Tweets or anything where I want the lights to do something different, I just loaded a color-changing visual and told Arkaos Media Master to send that to the LEDs only," Monica explained.

Two Flash Kling 64 Panels were set in the upper corners to create depth and two underneath the coffin to carry on the effect of the upper ones. Arnoldo reported that his client was thrilled with the effect and really liked the energy that was created with just floods. West Orange High School raised over raised over $18,000 for the Children's Miracle Network.

For more info on this event and setup, including video, click here: http://4schoolsonly.com/westorange-warriorthon-2015.html

Gear List:
20x ADJ Dotz Par
4x ADJ Flash Kling 64 Panels
1x Elation Professional EZ Kling interface
1x Arkaos Media Master Pro Software
34 feet F34 Global Truss America (DuraTruss)

4SchoolsOnly:
http://4schoolsonly.com/

Photos courtesy of 4SchoolsOnly

For additional questions, please e-mail: marketing@americandj.com

For more information Contact ADJ:
U.S. Office - Tel: 800-322-6337/+1-323-582-2650 • Web: www.adj.com