ARRI Academy launches a new course called “Lighting Systems Control” which is a comprehensive technical course that you can watch for free. Read more below.

Lighting Systems Control by ARRI Academy

The course, which is free by the way, teaches the basics of digital lighting control technologies. According to ARRI Academy, this 11-lesson video course is the ultimate guide to get you up and running with digital lighting control, using DMX, RDM, Wireless DMX, and ethernet-based networks. The course contains a lot of technical details regarding lighting control newly established and emerging digital technologies, so keep in mind that it takes time to ingest all this practical knowledge. 

This 11-lesson video course is the ultimate guide to get you up and running with digital lighting control

ARRI

Who should take this course?

According to ARRI Academy, the course is designed for all levels of lighting and video production professionals. Course attendees will gain a working knowledge of standard and emerging technologies and will be trained on the latest lighting technology.

The educator

The educator of the course is Richard Cadena, which works as a professional in the live event production industry as a tech, designer, consultant, and electrician. Praised for his classes and workshops internationally, Richard has written highly acclaimed books, such as “Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light,” “Electricity for Entertainment Electricians & Technicians.”

The course is designed for all levels of lighting and video production professionals. Course attendees will gain a working knowledge of standard and emerging technologies and will be trained on the latest lighting technology

ARRI

Structure of the course

The course length is 2.5 hours which are divided into 11 modules that are ranging in length from 5 minutes to 34 minutes. Explore the topics below:

1. DMX: Basic applications and facts.The standardization of lighting control protocol for digital communication networks. The usage for controlling effects, stage, studio and set lighting.
2. Building a DMX network: How to build a bulletproof DMX network, along with the essential terms and tools, such as DMX universe, fixture personalities, and more.
3. Troubleshooting: An in-depth overview of the best practices of setting and troubleshooting the DMX network.
4. RDM: Remote Device Management protocols that can be used to streamline lighting workflow.
5. Wireless DMX: Best practices for setting your own wireless system and explores the most common issues.
6. Intro to ethernet-based networking: Concept and necessary equipment for building ethernet lighting networks for live events, broadcast studios, and big movie sets.
7. Testing ethernet-based networks: PING and IPCONFIG commands are demonstrated to test and troubleshoot ethernet-based networks.
8. Art-Net: In this module, you will get a deep dive into one of the open ethernet protocols – Art-Net.
9. sACN: Learn the difference between ArtNet and Streaming ACN, and how to choose a protocol that will be right for you.
10. Consoles: Types of consoles, software, and basics of console programming to start creating lighting designs.
11. ARRI LED Ecosystem: ARRI’s Systems Engineer Patrick Schulze introduces the ARRI LED ecosystem that consists of four elements: software, hardware, communication, and control. You will learn about SkyPanel and L-Series fixtures’ software, wireless DMX system SkyLink and a control app for iOS and Android – Stellar.

Final thoughts

Gaining a practical knowledge of standards and emerging digital lighting control technologies can be a huge advantage in almost all types of productions. This knowledge is relevant for directors, cinematographers, and of course lighting technicians. Furthermore, it’s a free piece of essential education. All you have to do is to signing up to explore the videos. Click here to try it on ARRI’s website. In case you’d like to get highly educated by ARRi Academy, there are more options like ARRI’s certified courses about its camera systems (read our review) and its large format cameras (read our review). Moreover, ARRI offers 25% on its certified courses for a limited time. Click here to read more about it.