David Cunningham - Source 4 Inventor

Lighting Technology has come a long way over the years and there have been many people who have influenced and been a part of making this industry what it is today. Among those David Cunningham has been one of the few that have made the most impact but is still not as widely known by name for his work. He has made an impact by helping to develop a variety of consoles over the years as well as dimmer systems. He changed the way that the Lighting Designer and Electricians interacted with the lighting instruments in ways that had never been done before.

David Cunningham worked for most of his career at Strand Lighting developing these consoles and dimmers. Strand was basically rebuilt due to David and his reputation of consoles and dimmers, and he is one of the reasons that the company is still around today. He however left Strand after the company became a little too “corporate” for him. He started his own company called Entertec and started licensing products to another company called Colertran as well as others. After a couple of years he wanted to start developing products with no specific company in mind and he wanted to change how lighting instruments were used, an area of theatre lighting he really hadn't touched on. This however would eventually become his most famous and worldly known accomplishment that is still being used today. 

David over the next couple of years and using a couple million dollars of his own money he would develop the Source 4 series of lighting instruments. His design of these fixtures were not designed for any company in mind however ETC eventually ended up ownership. He started this design around 1992 and these fixtures have essentially remained unchanged in design since then. This series of lighting instrument is now the industry standard around the world and has still remained the #1 lighting instrument sold to this day. It has also remained an inspiration for many other brands of fixtures, although none beating the original. The key element that made his fixture better than its competitors was the way the light from the lamp was directed, it didn't spray light in a direction that wasn’t needed. ETC was able to bring David's vision of the product to fruition. David, although now “retired” , remained part of ETC and went on to help develop more products for the company and will continue to be known as one of the most influential developers of theatrical lighting equipment on the planet.

-Written by: Jack Sears

Bibliography:

https://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/documents/lsi_2005jan_davidcunningham.pdf

https://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/archive/people/david-cunningham/

https://blog.etcconnect.com/2017/08/where-were-you-in-92/