Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick and Adriana Hutton.
As the developer of the first laser-ablated gobo in 1994, founder and president Rick of InLight Gobos, is celebrating the 15th year since his company launched in August of 2002. Rick had always wanted to be part of the industry and started out doing light and sound for local bands. This was followed by tours with Journey, Van Halen, The Thompson Twins and many more as a road tech, and then eventually becoming the lighting designer for Eric Clapton.
In 1994, Rick received a Prime Time Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development for the Vari-Lite VL5 luminaire. After leaving Vari-Lite in 1998, Michael Tannemyr of Beacon AB a (Swedish company) approached him with the opportunity to open his own gobo company in Dallas. With its Central location in Dallas and focus on creating the best colored gobos, the company has thrived. InLight Gobos also chooses to keep everything in-house as opposed to going through dealers.
Rick is very hands-on on the production side, along with his wife Adriana, the V.P. of Operations. InLight deals directly with national and International high-end lighting designers and production houses. This has helped them maintain closer and more direct contact with their client base.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Starting a new business less than a year after 9/11 was challenging. People were hanging onto their money with the uncertainty of what was to come. However, we were able to navigate through those times and we are still here 15 years later.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the InLight Gobos story. Tell us more about the business.
InLight Gobos is a manufacturer and direct seller of custom and catalog gobos for the entertainment lighting and special-events industries. InLight specializes in gobos for corporate identities, branding, product launches, trade-show exhibits, sports teams and anything you want to project. Our foundation is built on an “eye for detail”. Everyone can do things; it’s the ones who pay attention to the detail that stand out from the rest.
InLight’s color matching capabilities are outstanding and our manufacturing process is efficient and scalable so that we have the ability to quickly react to orders of one to hundreds or more. InLight is known throughout the industry for High Quality Products and Excellent Customer Service.
InLight also manufactures specialty items for the scientific and imaging market segments outside the entertainment industry. The home of InLight Gobos is a 6700 sq. ft. purpose-built facility near downtown Dallas. This facility and optical research equipment are available for lease in optical product research and development investigations.
InLight’s capabilities include but are not limited to:
• Computer Graphics Manipulation, Processing and Color Separations;
• Fabrication of Black & White, Grayscale and Full Color Gobos;
• Proto-Type to Full Production Manufacturing Capabilities;
• High Resolution and High Contrast Mask Generation;
• High Resolution Thin Film Patterning via Photolithography or Laser;
• High Resolution Imaging and Analysis of Thin Film Patterning and Optical Materials used in Manufacturing.
InLight also offers a Specialty Service: (S.O.S.) “Save Our Show” Same Day Turn-Around and Delivery within the U.S.A.
InLight Gobos holds the U.S. Exclusive to the Beacon AB, U.S. Patent # 6,081,383 covering the use of ultra-thin glass color layers for forming color gobos. This allows only InLight to manufacture the thinnest color gobos in the industry. Why is that important? Color gobos are made up of 4 layers of glass. Each layer is an image plane to the projector lens. The closer the layers are to each other the better the projection lens sees them as one. Our manufacturing technique essentially places all the image planes of the gobo together in the focal plane of the projector allowing for a crisp focus and color integration in the projected image. This becomes even more important with today’s optical systems in high-end projectors. The resolution and clarity is greater than ever and integration is key.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We have been extremely fortunate through the years of having a very loyal customer base and support.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2348 Irving Blvd.,
Dallas, Texas 75207 - Website: www.InLightGobos.com
- Phone: 469-916-2910
- Email: Sales@InLightGobos.com
- Facebook: www.facebook/inlightgobos.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/InLightGobos
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