ProMaster’s Light Attendant App Takes the Guesswork Out of Lighting

Apr 24, 2024

A person using a smartphone to photograph a haunted house scene with two eerie figures in a dimly lit, blue-toned room. the photo features a prominent "petapixel showcase" watermark.

Lighting on cinematic photo or video production sets can sometimes be an overwhelming experience. While lighting companies continue to improve both the ease of use and quality of the light lights, mastering and adjusting the setups can take a lot of time, effectively slowing production to a halt when changes need to be made. Thankfully, creatives that leverage the power and simplicity of the ProMaster Light Attendant App can quickly and easily master all of their on-set lighting needs.

Full disclosure: This sponsored article is brought to you by ProMaster.

As the technology behind LED lighting gets better and more compact, the apps built around them seem to get better and easier to use with even more significant leaps forward. With a selection of six (five of which are fully RGB) LED Bluetooth-enabled lights (and growing), ProMaster’s new Light Attendant App (Available for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices) makes it easier than ever before to make snap adjustments to even the most complicated lighting scenarios.

Yes, even I was skeptical about how good and useful the app could be once you are on set and filming. But I was pleasantly surprised after taking these lights to use on a series of actor reels and short video projects. The excited feedback from the director and crew sold me on the app’s usefulness.

According to the company, ProMaster has spent the past year and a half making an effort to build out its ecosystem of lights that work with the Light Attendant App. The goal was to have numerous LED options that work seamlessly under one roof, giving the user lighting fast control over adjustments. Under the ProMaster umbrella, users can find an array of options, from small on-camera LEDs to larger LED panels, and the company has plans to continue expanding the line, making it a very future-proof lighting system.

Getting Started With ProMaster Lights and The Light Attendant App

The RGB and Bi-Color lights supported by the Light Attendant App offers temperatures ranging from 2500 to 8500 Kelvin, 360 hues, a wide variety of special effects modes, and have their own brightness and saturation level adjustments controllable per each light individually or mass adjusted in a group or multiple groups.

When I asked about the simple user interface of the mobile app, ProMaster responded, “The simpler a tool is to use, the more likely and effectively it will be utilized.” This short and to-the-point statement holds true since the app was designed with the creator in mind. Once opened, the system will immediately display all of the connected lights. If the lights are also already powered on, the Light Attendant will automatically connect with the lights — as long as they were previously added — allowing the user to get up and running instantly.

Screenshots of a smartphone app interface for adding and controlling lights. one screen shows a qr scanner option and the other displays a list of light types like chroma and ultrasoft.

Adding new lights is simple: power up the light(s) and then click the “+” symbol in the upper left corner of the app. Once the light is detected, users simply have to click “add,” and everything is ready to go. There are no additional menus, no frustrating or confusing channels, groups, settings, or configuration pages. The app and light(s) are ready to work.

Setting the lights up into groups is done locally on each light through its built-in menus. For example, you could set several lights to group A, channel 1, and use them for your primary light source. Then you could set up another bunch of lights and set them to group B, channel 1, or group A, channel 2 (basically anything other than the main A-1). You can start adding accent, stylization, environmental, or special FX lighting and controlling each group individually or as a whole.

Two men stand in a dimly lit room with an orange glow, one holding a camera and the other holding a sledgehammer, both looking intently to the side.

Why Use The ProMaster Light Attendant App To Control Your Lights?

A dimly lit, blue-toned room with a thatched roof, featuring a birdcage, wooden furniture, and a spotlight casting shadows, giving a mysterious, cinematic feel.

All it took was one test to have the epiphany of just how useful the Light Attendant app is. Being able to control (potentially) dozens of lights for production while sitting back behind a monitor comfortably sipping a coffee was an eye-opening experience. I was out of the way of the cast and crew, I was able to make lightning-fast adjustments to each light’s settings, and I was able to kill/power up additional lights with just a quick click on the app.

Screenshot of a digital light control interface with various adjustment settings including brightness, color temperature, hue, saturation, and effects like "candle" and "fire." icons and sliders are clearly visible.

The simple interface makes accessing all the settings you need easy, and it even has some presets available for single-click adjustments. A simple-to-navigate color wheel is available to adjust colors in the HSI mode along with the brightness and saturation level sliders, and the effects tab even includes a selection of speed (Slow, Medium, Fast) presets to make your scene feel as natural as possible.

A woman in a red sweater and black beanie stands inside a dimly lit room, looking contemplative. the room has a large window showing a snowy landscape outside.

The ProMaster LED light collection and the Light Attendant App have evolved to allow photographers and videographers to create practically any look imaginable on set. There are no other pieces of equipment, routers, wifi extenders, or third-party hardware to get the system running. It’s as simple as downloading the app, pulling the lights out of the box, adding them to the system, and then start creating.

Using a Bluetooth connection, the ProMaster Light attendant gives creatives the freedom to move around on set, even large, complicated ones, with the confidence of knowing they can make adjustments at a moment’s notice.

A person wearing traditional attire holds a staff, standing amidst blue fog in a dimly lit, mysterious setting.

While Light Attendant has been designed for intuitive use, help screens are also available within the app and can be accessed at any time for further instruction. Simply touch the HELP button at the bottom of any screen to receive full instructions regarding how to use that particular screen in the app.

What Lights are Supported By The Light Attendant App?

Two people having a conversation on a film set with another person checking the camera setup. the scene is dimly lit and takes place in a room with wooden walls.

As mentioned above, ProMaster currently has six different LED lights (five fully RGB and one Bi-Color) compatible with the Light Attendant system, with plans to add more. These include the Ultrasoft US1014B LED Light – Bi-Color 10″x14″, the Chroma CL68RGB LED Light – RGBWW 6″x8″, the Ultrasoft US1014RGB LED Light – RGBWW 10″x14″, the Chroma CL33RGB Connect LED Light 2.0, the Chroma CL36RGB LED Light 3.0, and the soon to be released Compact TL9RGB 9″ RGB Tube.

A packaged "promaster led light 3.0" on a bed, featuring a pocket-sized rgb led light with 360 colors, bi-color mode, special effects, wireless control, and a light attendant app.

Each light is available on its own, but some are available as part of a kit that can include a travel case, light stands, and more. The lights have various sizes and mounts, including the newly released pocket-sized CL36RGB Version 3, which has proven to be ideal for guerrilla-style filmmakers and content creators. Its small size makes it easy to travel with, and it can fit in some small and odd locations for accent lighting. It can also be mounted directly onto your camera. It even has a soft white snap-on diffuser or a heavy-duty rubber honeycomb grid for more directional light control.

A person is capturing a photo of another individual standing in front of a dimly lit, blue-colored atmospheric scene with a smartphone. the setting appears eerie and mystical.

During my testing with the ProMaster LED lights, we used a combination of all five of the RGB lights, including a pre-release version of the LED Tube light, to create some very memorable scenes for the actors involved. On set, we tucked the CL36RGB and the Tube lights into a fireplace, behind a piano, and in the ceiling rafters to create custom, unique accent lights for a couple of actor reel scenes.

Using the app to quickly switch between CRI color modes at daylight balanced for an interview, to a fire scene during a monologue, to a variety of RGB colors for some creative fantasy-style scenes left both the actors and the director impressed with how fast and easy changes could be made to keep production running smoothly.

A lively scene inside a castle chamber where an actor in colorful medieval costume performs dramatically on a small stone stage, while another person captures the performance on a digital camera. stained glass windows enhance the ambiance.

Pricing and Availability

Users can download the ProMaster Light Attendant app for free on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. All Light Attendant compatible ProMaster LEDs are on sale for 10% off until April 28th, 2024.

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