Conti ’ s background and experience as a touring technician proved essential in translating the practical needs to the mechanical , optical and electrical engineers . Based out of PRG ’ s New Jersey depot he held positions as a lighting crew chief , director and programmer from 1999 to 2007 . This provided him a keen understanding of what designers want and techs need for support .
When he got off the road to become a product manager , his broad range of responsibilities brought him into contact with PRG ’ s engineers and clients , training as well as operating shows for customer end users . Conti ’ s practical knowledge translated well when interfacing with the engineers on the project .
“ The core focus initially was ,” he says , “ how we get the person out of the truss .”
This turned out to be the easy part . PRG already had a lighting fixture developed ( The Bad Boy ) that , based on previous experience , the company felt confident regarding its capabilities . Data transport would not be a problem either . The company had extensive knowledge with information delivery through fiber optic in their audio , video , and lighting systems .
The camera system sought after , at first appeared to be a major roadblock , Conti recalls . Adapting a camera system on board was new territory , but ended up being an easily solvable aspect of the system after some basic research .
The hard part was coming up with a control interface that operated intuitively and required minimal instruction for the operators using the new product .
“ It proved to be the most difficult piece of the 40 puzzle ,” says Conti . “ We talked to a lot of designers about what they wanted to see in control capabilities . Their answers created some very heated internal debates on how to implement those ideas .”
In the end , Conti and his team decided it was time to ” put rubber to the tarmac , so to speak .” They parked a condor lift in the parking lot of their Dallas engineering facility , placed a light and a camera on it , cranked it 60 ’ in the air , and dropped a fiber optic cable to the ground .
“ We then proceeded to try every permutation of controller we could find .” These ranged from a yoke system , a mouse , and a trackball to a touch screen , a Wii remote , an iPad , and an Xbox remote . At one point , a member of the team , John Covington , who was an original Vari-Lite engineer , even dug out an old Vari-Lite joy stick controller he still had laying around from the early days .
Everything brought them back to the basic conclusion that follow spots are built the way they are for a reason .
The final mockup consisted of a 2x4 piece of wood with a monitor on it . This worked with both long and short throw lens , handled very intuitively , and evolved into a very rudimentary basic prototype . Next , PRG sent an invitation to a host of designers for a demonstration at their LA facility .
“ The response was overwhelming !” Conti exclaims . The designers were shocked , and pleased at the same time . We got a ton of notes on the ergonomics and after three days of demos , we had our final specifications . With those in hand , we created another prototype , which lighting designer Matt Ford rented “ as is ” on a show he was lighting for Neil Patrick Harris .”