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<strong>PLSN</strong> New Product Guide, page 22<br />
Starts Starts on on page page 55 55<br />
PROJECTION<br />
CONNECTION<br />
CONNECTION<br />
Vol. 9.8<br />
SEPT.<br />
2008<br />
Lighting More than the Torch<br />
The opening ceremonies for the XXIX Olympiad were seen by more than a billion viewers worldwide.<br />
BEIJING — The Games of the XXIX Olympiad opened with a record-setting rig in Beijing National Stadium,<br />
a.k.a. the “Bird’s Nest.” More than 2,300 DMX-controlled fixtures and 45,000 parameters were networked to<br />
three MA Lighting grandMA full-size consoles, two grandMA light consoles, plus three additional grandMA<br />
full-size consoles as backup. Forty-six MA Lighting Network Signal Processors distributed control to 2,070<br />
automated lights throughout the stadium.<br />
“These are the Games of the records; so is the Opening Ceremony,” said Sha Xiao Lan, lighting designer<br />
of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Paul Collison, who was responsible for the control system and<br />
broadcast lighting, said of the preparation for the Opening Ceremony: “I was first contacted in December<br />
2007 by Sha Xiao Lan, who offered me the task to look after the lighting control<br />
continued on page 14<br />
Parnelli Voting Open, Hometown Heroes Named<br />
LAS VEGAS — Every year is an election year here at <strong>PLSN</strong>, and voting for the 2008 Parnelli Awards<br />
is now officially underway! <strong>PLSN</strong> subscribers have already voted for the best regional production<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies in the U.S. and Canada — a profile of the winners begins on page 38. Now readers can cast<br />
their votes for the best of the best in the live production industry at www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong>/vote.<br />
The full ballot appears on page 43, and every vote counts!<br />
continued on page 8<br />
PRG Sues<br />
Martin for Patent<br />
Infringement<br />
NEW WINDSOR, NY — Production<br />
Resource Group (PRG) has<br />
filed a patent infringement lawsuit<br />
against Martin Professional<br />
A/S and Martin Professional Inc.<br />
Court documents filed on<br />
July 15 at the U.S. District Court,<br />
Southern District of New York<br />
cite 20 counts of patent infringement.<br />
They include the assignable<br />
macro functions and other<br />
user interface features for Martin<br />
Maxxyz consoles, pixel-based<br />
gobo record control format for<br />
Martin Maxedia media servers<br />
and the lamp and three-color<br />
digital gobo system for Martin<br />
MAC luminaires.<br />
Rosco Labs Names<br />
New President<br />
STAMFORD, CT — Mark Engel<br />
was named President and Chief<br />
Executive Officer of Rosco Laboratories.<br />
Engel, who had been the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany’s chief operating officer,<br />
is the third president in Rosco’s<br />
nearly 100-year history.<br />
Engel, 45, joined Rosco over 16<br />
years ago. He had served as chief<br />
financial officer before advancing<br />
to chief operating officer. A native<br />
of Connecticut, Engel earned<br />
his M.B.A. at the Kellogg School<br />
of Management at Northwestern<br />
University. He is active in many industry<br />
associations including the<br />
Technical Standards Committee at<br />
ESTA.<br />
34<br />
38<br />
52<br />
A Light Wall,<br />
Revealed<br />
The light sculpture in “Passing Strange.”<br />
Passing Strange may have been<br />
about a young musician yearning<br />
to break free from the bonds of<br />
his stifling suburban Los Angeles<br />
surroundings. It may have tackled<br />
themes of love, identity, alienation<br />
and redemption in locales as diverse<br />
as Amsterdam and Berlin.<br />
But the main visual element in<br />
David Korins’ stage design wasn’t<br />
about an iron curtain or a wall that<br />
<strong>com</strong>es tumbling down. It was about<br />
a partially-lit light sculpture that<br />
cast Rothko-esque light projections<br />
through a translucent curtain, then<br />
got revealed at full intensity as the<br />
musical reached its climax — a visual<br />
moment that strived to be “<strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
inevitable, yet surprising,”<br />
Korins says.<br />
For more, turn to page 26.<br />
Parnelli Preview<br />
Michael Tait was chosen for<br />
the first-ever Parnelli Visionary<br />
Award. Here’s why.<br />
Hometown Heroes<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> profiles the lighting and<br />
production <strong>com</strong>panies voted<br />
tops in their region.<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> Interview<br />
LD and intern Cody Stoltz is living<br />
the dream at age 13.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
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www.plsn.<strong>com</strong> SEPTEMBER December 2008<br />
WHAT’S HOT<br />
WHAT’S HOT HOT<br />
PROJECTION, LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Installations<br />
Caesars Palace’s 4,148-seat Colosseum, built for Céline Dion’s A New<br />
Day in 2003, now rotates set elements and lighting for a new set of<br />
stars — Elton John, Bette Midler and Cher.<br />
Wide Angle<br />
Video looms large for George Michael’s 25 Live tour, the first North<br />
American tour for the singer/songwriter in 17 years.<br />
28<br />
18<br />
18 50<br />
CONTENTS<br />
Features<br />
26 Inside Theatre<br />
A veiled light wall helped David<br />
Korins create some visual intrigue<br />
to ac<strong>com</strong>pany the music, acting and<br />
dancing in the Broadway production<br />
of Passing Strange.<br />
30 Production Profile<br />
Megadeth LD Brandon Webster’s<br />
goal with the latest incarnation of<br />
Gigantour was to create a big, retro<br />
rock show look that showcased the<br />
band members’ skills.<br />
34 Michael Tait: 2008 Parnelli<br />
Visionary Award Winner<br />
Michael Tait put the Roundabout in Yes’<br />
early concert tours. Next month, he’ll<br />
receive the Parnelli Visionary Award in<br />
Las Vegas for his pioneering vision.<br />
38 Hometown Heroes Regional<br />
Winners<br />
A look at the lighting and staging<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies in five U.S. regions and<br />
Canada voted the best by <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
readers.<br />
44 Company 411<br />
With an atrium that evokes a 1940s<br />
Town Square, ETC reveals how serious<br />
it is about having fun.<br />
47 Buyers Guide<br />
As a product category, lighting design<br />
software has eclipsed all others in<br />
innovation.<br />
52 <strong>PLSN</strong> Interview<br />
Cody Stoltz, an intern at RZI Lighting<br />
in New Orleans, did some of the<br />
programming for the Essense Festival’s<br />
Coca-Cola stage — at age 13.<br />
54 Road Test<br />
LD Assistant ’08 lets designers drag<br />
virtual fixtures, snap them to virtual<br />
truss, and automatically update reports<br />
and renderings with attributes like color.<br />
Columns<br />
6 Editor’s Note<br />
Want to give your career some upward<br />
momentum? Spend an hour a day<br />
reading.<br />
60 Video Digerati<br />
Cool video effects don’t have to crash<br />
the server. Give raster mapping a try.<br />
62 Feeding the Machines<br />
Common sense — and a shirt and<br />
shoes — can do wonders for your<br />
career.<br />
63 The Biz<br />
Production values keep rising, and so<br />
do school budgets for AV equipment.<br />
64 Focus on Fundamentals<br />
Can the strategic use of both Ethernet<br />
and DMX512 slay the Cable Monster?<br />
68 LD-at-Large<br />
Creating a visual mosh pit for fans of<br />
heavy metal music.<br />
Departments<br />
7 News<br />
10 Calendar<br />
10 Letters to the Editor<br />
18 International News<br />
20 On the Move<br />
22 New Products<br />
24 Showtime<br />
55 Projection Connection<br />
56 Projection Connection News<br />
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TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION<br />
EDITOR’S NOTE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
How much preparation does it take<br />
to be<strong>com</strong>e the best in the world?<br />
For Michael Phelps, the most<br />
prolific Olympic gold medalist of all time,<br />
it takes about two to five grueling hours<br />
per day, every day. That’s how much time<br />
he spent in the pool to prepare for eight<br />
Olympic events totaling less than 30 minutes<br />
in the water. His daily preparation<br />
time exceeds his performance time by<br />
more than 2,500 percent.<br />
On Top of Your Game<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
If you work 40 hours a week, then<br />
you would have to put in over 100,000<br />
hours of preparation to train like Michael<br />
Phelps. Impractical you say? Well, only if<br />
you have a life. But clearly, some preparation,<br />
training, polish, or brush up is necessary<br />
to improve your game, whatever it<br />
may be. Greatness falls in no one’s lap, not<br />
even the physically gifted Phelps, whose<br />
six-foot, seven-inch arm span is three<br />
inches longer than his height. He works<br />
doggedly to pursue his goals.<br />
You don’t have to work like a dog,<br />
but with moderate effort you can be top<br />
dog. For example, by writing for about<br />
an hour a day, you can finish an entire<br />
book in about three years. By running<br />
for about nine hours per week, you can<br />
train for a marathon in about six months.<br />
And by studying for about 20 hours per<br />
week, you can get through college with<br />
a full load. I know this because I did all<br />
of these things…with the possible exception<br />
of actually studying in college.<br />
That wasn’t my strong suit. But that all<br />
changed when I started working for a<br />
living and there was a paycheck at stake.<br />
Then I realized that the road to the top<br />
of the career ladder runs right through<br />
the library.<br />
By RichardCadena<br />
An Hour a Day<br />
Keeps the Cobwebs at Bay<br />
The brick walls are<br />
there to keep the<br />
other people out.<br />
Reading is Fundamental<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
If there is one thing you can do today<br />
— right now — to get a good grip<br />
on the next rung of the ladder, it would<br />
be to read all you can about things that<br />
relate to your job and to the industry. For<br />
some of us, that’s an obstacle that can’t be<br />
over<strong>com</strong>e because it requires effort. For<br />
others of us, it’s an opportunity because,<br />
as Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture<br />
said, the brick walls are there to keep<br />
the other people out. For those of us who<br />
want it badly enough, the brick walls let<br />
us prove it.<br />
If you’re ready to prove how badly you<br />
want to rise to the top of your profession,<br />
then crack some books, put in some extra<br />
effort and start climbing every brick wall<br />
that you encounter. Here are some specific<br />
reading re<strong>com</strong>mendations for the particular<br />
professions listed below:<br />
• Lighting Designers: A Practical Guide to<br />
Stage Lighting, by Steve Shelley; Stage<br />
Lighting Design, by Richard Pilbrow; Light<br />
Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage<br />
Lighting, by Max Keller<br />
• Lighting Programmers: The Automated<br />
Lighting Programmer’s Handbook, by<br />
Brad Schiller<br />
• Master Electricians: Overcurrents and<br />
Undercurrents: All about GFCIs, AFCIs, and<br />
Similar Devices, by Earl W. Roberts; Automated<br />
Lighting: The Art and Science of<br />
Moving Light, by Richard Cadena; Practical<br />
Dimming, by Nick Mobsby<br />
• Lighting/Sound/Video Technicians:<br />
Rock Solid Ethernet, by Wayne Howell;<br />
Practical DMX, by Nick Mobsby; Control<br />
Systems for Live Entertainment, by John<br />
Huntington<br />
All can be found at www.plsnbookshelf.<br />
<strong>com</strong>.<br />
Greatness falls in<br />
no one’s lap.<br />
There may or may not be an Emerald<br />
City at the end of the Yellow Book Road<br />
— there are no guarantees. But following<br />
the road is richly rewarding in and<br />
of itself. Reading and learning is enjoyable,<br />
satisfying and it gives you a sense<br />
of self worth. And it certainly can’t hurt<br />
your chances of ascending the steps of<br />
your career.<br />
Free Live Web Event<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
If the idea of moving up the career<br />
ladder appeals to you, then join me in a<br />
free live Web event entitled “The Future<br />
of the Live Event and Performing Arts<br />
Production Industry: Meeting the Challenge<br />
of Technology and Change,” hosted<br />
by Creative Stage Lighting on Thurs.,<br />
Sept. 18 at 3:30 p.m. (EST).<br />
To sign up, visit www.creativestage<br />
lighting.<strong>com</strong>/events/2008/rcadena_<br />
webinar.html. It will be the first in a series<br />
of Webinars designed to help you<br />
train for the Olympics…or for other career<br />
goals.<br />
The Publication of Record for the Lighting,<br />
Staging and Projection Industries<br />
Publisher<br />
Terry Lowe<br />
tlowe@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Editor<br />
Richard Cadena<br />
rcadena@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Editorial Director<br />
Bill Evans<br />
bevans@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Managing Editor<br />
Frank Hammel<br />
fhammel@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Associate Editor<br />
Breanne George<br />
bg@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Contributing Writers<br />
Vickie Claiborne, Bree Kristel Clarke,<br />
Stephen Ellison, Phil Gilbert, Rob Ludwig,<br />
Kevin M. Mitchell, Bryan Reesman, Brad<br />
Schiller, Nook Schoenfeld, Jennifer Willis<br />
Photographer<br />
Steve Jennings<br />
Art Director<br />
Garret Petrov<br />
gpetrov@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Graphic Designers<br />
David Alan<br />
dalan@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Crystal Franklin<br />
cfranklin@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Web Master<br />
Josh Harris<br />
jharris@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
National<br />
Advertising Director<br />
Gregory Gallardo<br />
gregg@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Account Manager<br />
James Leasing<br />
jleasing@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Production Manager<br />
Linda Evans<br />
levans@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
General Manager<br />
William Hamilton Vanyo<br />
wvanyo@plsn.<strong>com</strong><br />
Business and<br />
Advertising Office<br />
6000 South Eastern Ave.<br />
Suite 14J<br />
Las Vegas, NV 89119<br />
Ph: 702.932.5585<br />
Fax: 702.932.5584<br />
Toll Free: 800.252.2716<br />
Editorial Office<br />
10305 Salida Dr.<br />
Austin, TX 78749<br />
Ph: 512.280.0384<br />
Fax: 512.292.0183<br />
Circulation<br />
Stark Services<br />
P.O. Box 16147<br />
North Hollywood, CA 91615<br />
Projection, Lights & Staging News (ISSN:<br />
1537-0046) Volume 09, Number 8 Published<br />
monthly by Timeless Communications<br />
Corp. 6000 South Eastern Ave.,<br />
Suite 14J, Las Vegas, NV 89119. It is<br />
distributed free to qualified individuals in the<br />
lighting and staging industries in the United<br />
States and Canada. Periodical Postage paid<br />
at Las Vegas, NV, office and additional offices.<br />
Postmaster please send address changes to:<br />
Projection, Lights & Staging News, P.O. Box<br />
16147 North Hollywood, CA 91615. Mailed in<br />
Canada under Publications Mail Agreement<br />
Number 40033037, 1415 Janette Ave., Windsor,<br />
ON N8X 1Z1. Overseas subscriptions are available<br />
and can be obtained by calling 702.932.5585.<br />
Editorial submissions are encouraged, but must<br />
include a self-addressed stamped envelope to<br />
be returned. Projection, Lights & Staging News is a<br />
Registered Trademark. All Rights Reserved.<br />
Duplication, transmission by any method of<br />
this publication is strictly prohibited without<br />
permission of Projection, Lights & Staging News.<br />
ESTA<br />
ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES &
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Martin Reports First-Half Results, Adjusts MAC III Launch<br />
AARHUS, Denmark — Although Martin<br />
Professional sees “substantial potential” for both<br />
the delayed launch of its MAC III luminaire and a<br />
forth<strong>com</strong>ing flexible outdoor wall-hanging light<br />
product, the <strong>com</strong>pany also noted that a positive<br />
market reaction to both will be “absolutely<br />
essential” if the <strong>com</strong>pany is to reach its full-year<br />
profit target of DKK 70 million before taxes.<br />
The MAC III is now expected to be ready<br />
for the market in the fourth quarter of 2008,<br />
and Martin is pinning its hopes for achieving<br />
its 2008 revenue target of approximately DKK<br />
1.2 billion on that launch as well.<br />
Martin Professional’s profit target was<br />
lowered in part because of a less favorable<br />
rate of exchange between the Danish kroner<br />
and the dollar in the U.S., a prime market for<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany’s growth. The decline of the kroner<br />
also contributed to a dip in Q2 earnings.<br />
A recent press release detailing sales and<br />
earnings for the <strong>com</strong>pany’s first half concluded<br />
that the <strong>com</strong>pany’s overall full-year profit<br />
forecast for 2008, while lowered, is still “subject<br />
to significant uncertainty.”<br />
Martin Professional reported that its revenue<br />
for the first half of 2008 dipped only slightly from<br />
the record high from a year earlier, to DKK 558.7<br />
million, down from DKK 594.3 million in the<br />
first half of 2007. The <strong>com</strong>pany added that the<br />
decrease was in line with expectations, reflecting<br />
the divestment of its Martin Security Smoke<br />
business unit and unfavorable exchange rates.<br />
Activities in 2008 began at a high level,<br />
with sales including the final shipment of<br />
products for the Olympics in Beijing, where<br />
Martin products were used for the opening<br />
and closing ceremonies. But the <strong>com</strong>pany acknowledged<br />
that for the latter part of the H1<br />
reporting period, there was weaker demand,<br />
fewer project <strong>com</strong>pletions and the delay in<br />
launching the MAC III.<br />
First-half 2008 profits before tax were DKK<br />
35.7 million, down from DKK 39.1 million in H1<br />
2007. The first-half profit had been expected<br />
to decline somewhat at the beginning of the<br />
year. However, the H1 2008 profit includes<br />
a DKK 21.4 million profit from the sale of the<br />
subsidiary Martin Security Smoke in March<br />
2008. Adjusted for this transaction, the decline<br />
has proved to be larger than expected. Martin<br />
cited exchange rates as a key factor in that decline<br />
as well.<br />
Martin MAC III Profile<br />
NEWS<br />
CSL Supports<br />
Erykah Badu Tour<br />
Grammy-award winning singer and<br />
actress Erykah Badu recently returned to<br />
the stage with her first North American<br />
tour in seven years. Creative Stage Lighting<br />
(CSL) supplied gear and crew.<br />
CSL-supplied gear inluding a Martin<br />
Maxxyz Compact console with Playback<br />
Wing, Martin Mac 700 Profiles, Vari-Lite<br />
VL3500 Washes, Coemar Inifinity Wash<br />
XLs, High End Systems Showguns, Columbus<br />
McKinnon motors, James Thomas<br />
truss, Reel EFX DF-50 hazers and an<br />
Entertainment Power Distribution moving<br />
light unit.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
NEWS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Bandit Lites Promotes<br />
Heffernan to President/COO<br />
KNOXVILLE, TN — Bandit Lites announced<br />
that Peter M. Heffernan, a 30-<br />
year veteran with the <strong>com</strong>pany, serving<br />
the last 15 as COO, has been named president<br />
of the <strong>com</strong>pany. He will also retain<br />
his position as COO.<br />
While an undergraduate at the University<br />
of Tennessee, where he earned a BA<br />
Parnelli Voting Open,<br />
Hometown Heroes Named<br />
continued from cover<br />
The Parnelli Awards will be presented<br />
in Las Vegas Oct. 24, 2008.<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> will also honor Dennis Sheehan,<br />
recipient of the 2008 Parnelli Lifetime<br />
Achievement Award, and Michael Tait,<br />
recipient of the new Parnelli Visionary<br />
Award. (A profile of Tait appears on<br />
page 38; a profile on Sheehan will appear<br />
in the Oct. 2008 issue of <strong>PLSN</strong>.)<br />
The Parnelli Awards are sponsored<br />
this year by All Access Staging, Bandit<br />
Lites, Brown United, Dedicated Staging,<br />
Nocturne Productions, Precise<br />
Corporate Staging, Pyrotek Special<br />
Effects, Sew What? Inc., Rock It Cargo<br />
and Syncrolite (Gold sponsors) and<br />
Apollo Design Technology, ASI Production<br />
Services Inc., Littlite Gooseneck<br />
Lamps & Accessories, Martin<br />
Professional and Techni-Lux (Silver<br />
sponsors).<br />
“It’s a good networking opportunity,<br />
and a way to support the industry<br />
and bring light to the key players<br />
and the up-and-<strong>com</strong>ers,” said David<br />
Stern, president of Precise Corporate<br />
Staging (PCS), Tempe, Ariz., on his<br />
reason for sponsoring the Parnelli<br />
Awards for several years running.<br />
Pyrotek Special Effects, which has<br />
offices in Markham, Ontario, Canada,<br />
the U.K. and Las Vegas, is a first-time<br />
sponsor of the Parnelli Awards this<br />
year, even though last year was the<br />
first year in five when Pyrotek didn’t<br />
win the Parnelli for “Best Pyro.”<br />
“Our president, Doug Adams,<br />
is very proud and honored to have<br />
won the Parnelli award for so many<br />
years in a row,” said Jim Schorer, Pyrotek’s<br />
marketing and sales manager.<br />
He added that this year Pyrotek has<br />
“pushed the envelope even harder”<br />
with innovations such as the blazing<br />
“fire screen” effect that Pyrotek engineered<br />
for the Jonas Brothers’ Burning<br />
Up tour in hopes of reclaiming a<br />
Parnelli in 2008.<br />
Peter M. Heffernan<br />
in Communication with a major in Broadcast<br />
Management, Heffernan served on<br />
the campus entertainment board, where<br />
he first came into contact with the staff at<br />
Bandit Lites.<br />
Heffernan joined the <strong>com</strong>pany in 1978<br />
and has risen through the ranks, serving<br />
as lighting director and production manager<br />
for a number of artists. He first took<br />
on an administrative position in 1985.<br />
Bulbtronics Achieves ISO<br />
9001:2000 Certification<br />
NEW YORK — Bulbtronics Inc., a global<br />
distributor of bulbs, batteries and related<br />
lighting products, has received ISO 9001:2000<br />
certification by the International Organization<br />
for Standardization (ISO).<br />
As a national lighting distributor to diverse<br />
marketplaces including entertainment,<br />
medical, and scientific channels, Bulbtronics<br />
maintains multiple stocking locations in the<br />
United States and sources its products from<br />
over 150 manufacturers worldwide. Bulbtronics<br />
also maintains the LED and energyefficient<br />
bulbs and an efficient environmental<br />
recycling solution for its customers.<br />
ESTA Offers Public Review<br />
of Draft Standards<br />
NEW YORK — ESTA is offering a<br />
newly revised draft standard for lightweight<br />
streaming protocol for transport of<br />
DMX512 using ACN on its Web site. Two<br />
other draft standards, involving luminaire<br />
inspection and slippery floor surfaces, have<br />
been posted for public review as well.<br />
The draft documents will be at www.<br />
esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_<br />
docs.php through Sept. 22.<br />
Blues Event<br />
Gets Greener<br />
With LEDs<br />
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — Blues Under<br />
The Bridge, a blues event sponsored by local<br />
NPR radio station affiliate KRCC, got a little<br />
greener this year.<br />
KRCC chose lighting supplier Mountain<br />
Light Co. to provide lighting services for the annual<br />
event, and by using LEDs, the event’s carbon<br />
footprint was reduced by about 220 pounds for<br />
each of the event’s two days. (It was staged on<br />
two Saturdays this summer, five weeks apart.)<br />
Blues Under the Bridge attracts a variety of local,<br />
regional and national blues artists, and helps<br />
raise money for outdoors and arts organizations.<br />
Blues Under the Bridge switched to LEDs this year.<br />
As a sponsor and service provider to the event,<br />
Mountain Light used 30 Color Blast LED fixtures<br />
from Color Kinetics (now Philips Solid State Lighting<br />
Systems) in place of 24 traditional incandescent<br />
ellipsoidal fixtures.<br />
Each ColorBlast uses 50 watts of power <strong>com</strong>pared<br />
to about 500 watts required by most stage<br />
lighting fixtures. The wattage required for the<br />
stage lighting was thereby reduced from an estimated<br />
12,000 watts to 4,950 watts. Along with<br />
the electrical savings, performers benefited from<br />
a cooler atmosphere on stage, because the LEDs<br />
produce about 90 percent less heat as they create<br />
light.<br />
“LEDs are the wave of the future and we are<br />
proud to showcase their many attributes at this<br />
benefit show,” said John Fuller, founder and principal<br />
of Mountain Light.<br />
Global Distributor for<br />
LightFactory Named<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
HERTFORDSHIRE, U.K. — Cooper Controls<br />
has been named global distribution<br />
partner for LightFactory control software.<br />
The software had previously been sold in<br />
Europe through Cooper Controls’ Zero 88<br />
division. Existing LightFactory dealers will<br />
continue to service their markets, but with<br />
more involvement from Cooper Controls,<br />
which will now be providing marketing,<br />
distribution, service and support.<br />
Cooper Controls will sell LightFactory<br />
as a <strong>com</strong>plete boxed package. This includes<br />
the software, Cooper Controls’ USB<br />
to DMX dongles and quick start guides.<br />
All the DMX processing can be done in<br />
the dongles Neutrik 5 pin connector.<br />
Several options are offered, from one<br />
to 64 universes of DMX control. An entry<br />
level package for use in the educational<br />
sector or by registered students is priced<br />
to allow this important segment of the<br />
market to have access to a <strong>com</strong>prehensive<br />
lighting package <strong>com</strong>plemented by<br />
service and training teams.<br />
Cooper Controls also said a range of<br />
accessories for LightFactory are in development<br />
and are planned for launch at fall<br />
trade shows starting in September.<br />
8 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
NEWS<br />
In Brief<br />
The USITT-USA Exhibit Committee is<br />
preparing for the next Prague Quadrennial<br />
in June 2011 and is looking for an Exhibit<br />
Tour Director, Manager, Student Exhibit<br />
Mentor, National Exhibit Designer and Videographer.<br />
Applicants should apply by Sept.<br />
15, 2008. For more info, contact abonds@<br />
uoregon.edu … The Illuminating Engineering<br />
Society of North America (IES)<br />
has received 400 entries for its International<br />
Illumination Design Awards (IIDA) program<br />
and will present eight International Awards<br />
and 151 Awards of Merit at the IES Annual<br />
Conference on Nov. 9, 2008 in Savannah,<br />
Ga. … ETC announced its 2008 LDI Student-<br />
Sponsorship recipients: Rosemarie Cruz,<br />
Kent State University (KSU); Greg Goff, NYU’s<br />
Tisch School of the Arts; Sarah Kamender,<br />
Bob See / Norman Leornard<br />
When I read the line, “Norman<br />
Leonard single-handedly<br />
changed the industry” (<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Interview: Bob See, Aug. 2008) I<br />
was hit like a bolt with a very<br />
vivid memory of my very first<br />
THE EDITOR<br />
tour. It was the 1970s, and I was<br />
anxious to go on the road after<br />
working a couple of years as a<br />
local stagehand. The opportunity arrived in the form of the 1975 U.S.<br />
Tour of The Soviet Circus. It had been out for about two stops, and they<br />
wanted to hire a guy to set up the the small 208VAC power distro system<br />
that ran a variety of Russian props and gags and call follow spots.<br />
I was encouraged by my Local’s B.A. to grab the chance, so I did. I was<br />
greener than grass, 20 years old, no experience, but willing. The third<br />
stop after I joined the show was MSG. I will never forget meeting Mr.<br />
Leonard. It was about 8:15 a.m. and he is informing me that I, and my<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, Liverpool,<br />
U.K.; Darren E. Levin, University of<br />
Texas-Austin; Porsche McGovern, California<br />
Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Calif.; and Jeremy<br />
M. Sinicki, University of Florida…Robe<br />
Lighting is collaborating with Netherlandsbased<br />
Leasing Services to offer flexible financing<br />
to its clients and business partners,<br />
through the <strong>com</strong>pany directly or more than<br />
40 distributors.<br />
gear, are a hazard to the industry. He went on to explain what exactly<br />
he meant by that. Twecos, welding cable (undersized no less) no chase<br />
nipples in or out of the distribution boxes, and improper grounding.<br />
He read me the riot act in the middle of The Garden pretty much reducing<br />
me to a face in hands moment of <strong>com</strong>plete panic. Thank God<br />
for the IA Head there, he came over, said it would be okay. He sent his<br />
guys out to acquire all the materials Mr. Leonard had spec’ed, came<br />
back, and helped me fix the whole magilla before show time. Three<br />
years later, I’m in MSG again, this time as the Assistant Electrician with<br />
Holiday On Ice under a very talented guy who prided himself in being<br />
prepared for Mr. Leonard when we played there. Even with all the<br />
prep we did, Norman still managed to find the six inch chase into our<br />
dimmer box an inch too small. He was, as Bob See said, very thorough.<br />
I have developed a strong respect for Norman Leonard as the years<br />
have progressed and I have matured. I would agree, he did change<br />
the industry.<br />
—Jinx Kidd, IATSE Local16, ETCP Certified Electrician<br />
CALENDAR<br />
PLASA Show<br />
Sept. 7-10<br />
Earl’s Court<br />
London<br />
www.plasashow.<strong>com</strong><br />
W-DMX Wireless University<br />
Sept. 9<br />
Earl’s Court Two<br />
London<br />
www.wirelessdmx.<strong>com</strong><br />
Prolight + Sound Shanghai<br />
Oct. 9-12<br />
Shanghai New International<br />
Expo Centre<br />
Shanghai, China<br />
http://pls.messefrankfurt.<strong>com</strong><br />
LDI<br />
Oct. 20-26<br />
Las Vegas, NV<br />
www.ldishow.org<br />
Parnelli Celebrity Classic<br />
Oct. 23<br />
Siena Golf Club<br />
Las Vegas, NV<br />
www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong>/golf<br />
OBITUARIES<br />
Larry E. Nelson<br />
LAS VEGAS —<br />
Larry E. Nelson,<br />
founder of the L.E.<br />
Nelson Sales Corporation,<br />
passed away<br />
from a lengthy illness<br />
on Aug. 12. He<br />
was 65. The <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
he founded has<br />
offices in Las Vegas,<br />
Nev. and Fair Lawn,<br />
N.J.<br />
After attending<br />
the University of<br />
Southern California, where he played football<br />
and earned a degree in electrical engineering,<br />
Nelson pursued a career in the entertainment<br />
business and worked for Kliegal, Strand and<br />
Colortran. He then started the home-based<br />
lamp distribution business that formed the<br />
basis of the L.E. Nelson Sales Corp. His wife,<br />
Bernetta, also worked for the business.<br />
Heidi Dowd, Larry’s youngest daughter<br />
and current vice president of L.E. Nelson Sales,<br />
reflected on her father in the following way:<br />
“Growing up my father was a sizeable 6’4”<br />
man. Some people would find that intimidating.<br />
Instead he taught me to always stand with<br />
him and know I was equal in stature.”<br />
The family has asked that in lieu of flowers,<br />
donations be made to Jews for Judaism,<br />
9911 West Pico Blvd., Suite 1240, Los Angeles,<br />
CA 90035.<br />
Alfred P. “Al” Tasch, Jr.<br />
LAWRENCE, MA — Alfred P. “Al” Tasch Jr.,<br />
the service technician with Capron Lighting<br />
and Sound of Needham, Mass., died July 31.<br />
He was 43.<br />
Tasch had been with Capron Lighting<br />
and Sound for eight years. He previously freelanced<br />
for more than a dozen years in the<br />
lighting and sound production industry at<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies such as Bluefin Productions, Inc.,<br />
Parnelli Awards Gala<br />
Oct. 24<br />
Rio Hotel & Casino<br />
Las Vegas, NV<br />
www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong><br />
Sargent Production Services and ALPS Inc.<br />
Tasch is survived by his wife of 14 years,<br />
Paula J. (Bourassa) Tasch, his parents, Alfred<br />
and Lois (Lutz) Tasch, his son, Peter, his daughter,<br />
Allison, and other family members.<br />
A fund has been established for those<br />
wishing to make a donation: the Alfred Tasch<br />
Memorial Fund, c/o Capron Inc., 278 West St.,<br />
Needham, MA 02494.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 Rogers Cup Tennis Tournament<br />
Lights Up with Pyro Display<br />
TORONTO — In the days of white tennis<br />
balls and tiny wooden racquets, a tennis<br />
celebration meant polite clapping from the<br />
gallery and a tall glass of iced tea.<br />
These days, things are a little more exciting<br />
in the tennis world.<br />
Even though the nine-day Canadian<br />
Masters tennis tournament, which showcased<br />
the talents of 40 of the world’s top 44<br />
ranked players, wouldn’t be confused with<br />
a sporting event like Wrestlemania, Pyrotek<br />
Special Effects punctuated<br />
the close of each<br />
of the three prime-time<br />
matches with a fireworks<br />
display.<br />
Lorenzo Cornacchia,<br />
Pyrotek’s vice<br />
president, worked with<br />
event coordinators<br />
to implement a new<br />
design for this year’s<br />
event. “It really added<br />
that exclamation mark<br />
for the match winners,”<br />
Cornacchia said.<br />
The displays incorporated 102 of Pyrotek’s<br />
red <strong>com</strong>ets with tail chases, 27<br />
multi-shot <strong>com</strong>et boards and 54 silver<br />
<strong>com</strong>ets with tails. The fireworks display<br />
fired from the south end of the court for<br />
each evening match.<br />
Pyrotechnicians Tristan Ford and Kenneth<br />
MacDonald set up the effects and<br />
implemented the design from atop the<br />
media booth.<br />
Pyro fired off by Pyrotek Special Effects explodes above the Rexall Centre in Toronto.<br />
10 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
NEWS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Rascal Flatts Tours with Bigger Rig, Complex Set<br />
The set included a 32-foot high, MiTrix-clad staircase and a large rectangular thrust.<br />
Andy Knighton, LD for Rascal Flatts, is<br />
in his sixth year of working with the Grammy<br />
award-winning country band, and over<br />
that time he’s seen the tour grow from one<br />
truck to a convoy of 22 semis loaded with<br />
gear. The current tour, Bob that Head, is using<br />
lighting supplied by Bandit Lites and<br />
an interactive set created by All Access<br />
Staging, lit by LEDs from Elation Lighting<br />
and Acclaim Lighting.<br />
For the tour, Knighton chose to use primarily<br />
Vari*Lite products, including 48 VL3500<br />
Washes and 60 VL3000 Spots, Color Kinetics<br />
Color Blasts and Lycian M2 truss spots, all<br />
controlled by two grandMAs and four grand-<br />
MA NSPs from MA Lighting.<br />
There are also about 1,000 color-changing<br />
LED fixtures from Elation Professional and<br />
Acclaim Lighting, and a set design from All<br />
Access that brings the band’s three performers<br />
into close contact with the crowd. “They<br />
basically had a T thrust on their last set, and<br />
this year they wanted one that would extend<br />
even further out into the audience,” said project<br />
manager Mike Bell of All Access Staging.<br />
Working with set designer Bruce Rodgers<br />
of Tribe Inc. and Knighton of Bandit Lites, All<br />
Access created “one of the most <strong>com</strong>plicated<br />
sets I’ve worked on,” said Bell. It has a 32-foot<br />
high spiral staircase that measures 14 feet<br />
in diameter and is surrounded by Barco Mi-<br />
Trix LEDs. That silo-like structure serves as a<br />
silo-like focal point for the 48-foot-by-68-foot<br />
main stage, which incorporates a runwaystyle<br />
rectangular thrust that wraps around<br />
four spectator egresses to provide audience<br />
access.<br />
The set also features a variety of staircases<br />
following the silo’s curved contours. Five elevated<br />
risers serve as platforms for the instrumental<br />
players, while numerous stairways,<br />
ramps and bridges, also lit by color-changing<br />
LEDs, connect the various sections and levels<br />
of the set.<br />
A total 730 Acclaim X-Cubes RGB LED<br />
fixtures are used along the perimeters of the<br />
thrust and those of the risers where the instrumental<br />
players are positioned. Spaced one<br />
foot apart on the elevated risers, they “draw<br />
attention to the risers and the backline guys,”<br />
said Bell. X-Cubes and MiTrix are also used to<br />
highlight three diamond-shaped decks that<br />
sit on top of two elevated audience egress<br />
bridges and on the front of the main stage<br />
and a fourth square-shaped deck at the front<br />
of the thrust.<br />
The top surface of the entire thrust is<br />
outlined with Acclaim X-Tubes on each side.<br />
More than 125 of these linear RGB LED strips<br />
are placed end-to-end so that they appear as<br />
an uninterrupted “running light” along the<br />
sides of the thrust “to really give it a runway<br />
look,” said Bell.<br />
The set also uses more than 100 39-inch<br />
Octostrip LEDs from Acclaim’s sister <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
Elation Professional. They illuminate<br />
the treads of the many stairways on the set,<br />
including the two staircases that lead down<br />
from the 32-foot silo to the main stage, four<br />
additional “screamer” staircases that surround<br />
the main stage and eight sets of stairs that<br />
lead up and down from the elevated decks<br />
on the thrust.<br />
Bandit’s Knighton, who said the Vari*Lite<br />
gear had the “horsepower” needed for the live<br />
IMAG cameras, also collaborated with Tribe,<br />
Inc.’s Rodgers on the show. The video plays a<br />
central visual role, but imposed some restrictions<br />
on the placement of fixtures. Knighton<br />
and the crew were able to work out the kinks<br />
to create the final design now seen on tour.<br />
Knighton credited the crew for keeping<br />
things rolling, giving kudos to Marcus Wade,<br />
crew chief; Adam McIntosh, master electrician;<br />
Scot Sepe, “who is responsible for the<br />
Massive RGB network and sole provider for<br />
support acts;” Stephanie Lough, floor manager,<br />
who “is in charge of the build, and adds<br />
a sense of character to the whole thing;” and<br />
Trevor Ahlstrand, who Knighton called “probably<br />
one of the single most amazing programmers<br />
in the business.”<br />
“A special mention should go to the management<br />
of Turner, Nichols & Associates for<br />
assembling the team that continues to make<br />
Rascal Flatts such an incredible live event,”<br />
said Bandit vice president Michael Golden.<br />
LEDs Play Key Role<br />
in 311 Tour Rig<br />
The band 311 (pronounced threeeleven),<br />
an alternative punk-funk/<br />
reggae-rap group which gets its name<br />
from the police code for a skinny dipping<br />
incident involving a former band<br />
member, recently wrapped up their<br />
summer tour, fully clad in lighting from<br />
a large circular rig. LED lighting, including<br />
16 Infinity Wash XLs and 36 ParLite<br />
LEDs from Coemar, played a key role.<br />
Distributed by Inner Circle Distribution<br />
(ICD), the Coemar gear was<br />
used by LD/lighting director/programmer<br />
Joe Paradise to tone the<br />
60-foot truss that ran through the<br />
circular rig, and to <strong>com</strong>plement the<br />
general illumination from the rig. “I<br />
use the ParLites as truss toners, and<br />
the Infinities for general upstage<br />
and mid stage wash,” Paradise said.<br />
“I’m also using hazebase base hazers,<br />
mounted in the circle to give<br />
atmosphere downstage.”<br />
Coemar’s Infinity Wash XL lights<br />
feature a CMY-S color mixing system<br />
with saturation mode, full range dimming,<br />
black out, synchronized or random<br />
strobe effects and an electronic<br />
strobo zap. The Coemar ParLite LED<br />
lights also offer full range dimming,<br />
synchronized or random strobe effects<br />
and a full range of color generated<br />
by a convergent RGB color system.<br />
The ParLite LEDs each have 36 1-watt<br />
luxeon units with a declared LED life of<br />
100,000 hours.<br />
“They provide good color, great<br />
output and excellent zoom features,”<br />
Paradise said. “And their patterns<br />
can’t be beat.” As for the hazebase<br />
hazers, “I had seen them in ICD’s shop<br />
and they were fantastic,” he said..<br />
“You can place them wherever you<br />
wish to. They afford really precise<br />
control of output and fan speed, and<br />
use very little fluid.”<br />
LEDs Bring Avalon<br />
Club Walls to Life<br />
TORONTO — ACS used 82 Chauvet LEDsplash<br />
Jr. wash lights to fulfill a club owner’s<br />
vision of “living walls” that could change hues<br />
at any time. The lights are wall-mounted behind<br />
diffusing domes in two distinct sections<br />
of the club. Chauvet ShowXpress software<br />
controls them via DMX.<br />
ACS owner Carlos Costa said he selected<br />
the Chauvet units for the install because of<br />
their <strong>com</strong>pact size, and reliability. “They are<br />
simply the best for this application, providing<br />
the most efficient and brightest output,”<br />
he said.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
At Avalon, lighting proves more flexible than paint.<br />
12 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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NEWS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Lighting More than the Torch<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
continued from cover<br />
system. We knew by this time that it would be<br />
an MA Lighting system. We started patching<br />
and designing the network in February 2008.<br />
One session ran the wash lights in the roof,<br />
the second session ran all the other wash fixtures<br />
in the system and the third session ran<br />
all of the profile or spot fixtures.<br />
“Once we had decided on the partition it<br />
was down to the patching business,” Collison<br />
said. “When dealing with a couple of thousand<br />
fixtures and having almost ten different fixture<br />
types, you need to be able to identify things<br />
fairly quickly. I started with trying to match the<br />
lamp model number with its ID. So for example,<br />
the Vari*Lite VL3000 spots start their fixture IDs<br />
Lighting from 2,342 DMX-controlled fixtures set the unique architecture of<br />
the Bird’s Nest aglow.<br />
at 3001, the Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200 at 1201,<br />
etc. Once this process was done it was time to assign<br />
DMX addresses.<br />
“All of the fixtures needed to be given a position<br />
in the grandMA 3D world for the pre-programming<br />
sessions,” Collison added. “This gave<br />
us the chance to use the wireframe visualizer in<br />
the grandMA as well as being ready for grandMA<br />
3D to <strong>com</strong>e online. Each session only had two<br />
user profiles. One was for the operator, the other<br />
for administration. Each session was named with<br />
reference to its color, as were the show files —<br />
red, green and blue.<br />
“We now had to set-up the pre-programming<br />
studio at the Beijing Olympic Committee<br />
Headquarters,” Collison continued. “This existed<br />
in various modes, but the one I liked the best<br />
was each session with its visualizer on a plasma<br />
The performance area and audience areas added up to close to a full<br />
square kilometer of space that needed to be evenly lit.<br />
screen in front of them. This, <strong>com</strong>bined with a<br />
projector fed from grandMA video, with each<br />
session blended in to form one picture, worked<br />
great. It allowed the team to see their programming<br />
all at work. By beginning of May we started<br />
the transition from pre-programming to on-site.<br />
NBC Olympics lighting designer Steve<br />
Brill of The Lighting Design Group utilized<br />
City Theatrical’s SHoW DMX to light the Bob<br />
Costas NBC Prime Time Studio set, which<br />
rotated 360° on a turntable. Power to dimmers<br />
mounted on the revolving set was run<br />
through a three-phase <strong>com</strong>mutator, but<br />
DMX data was sent wirelessly from a SHoW<br />
Fixture-by-fixture, truss-by-truss, the<br />
system came online. On June 12th,<br />
rehearsals began.”<br />
On August 8, the Opening Ceremony<br />
attracted the attention of<br />
more than a billion viewers worldwide.<br />
Altogether, 2,342 fixtures were<br />
used, including 980 Martin MAC<br />
2000 Wash fixtures, 162 Martin MAC<br />
2000 Wash XB fixtures, 308 Vari*Lite<br />
VL3500 Spots, 316 VL3000 Spots,<br />
180 VL3500 Wash fixtures, more<br />
than 200 Century Color 2500 and XL<br />
wash fixtures from PR Lighting and<br />
112 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200s. The<br />
first session had 15,921 parameters<br />
with 14 MA NSPs and 834 fixtures, the<br />
second 13,503 parameters with 16<br />
MA NSPs and 884 fixtures, the third<br />
session 15,987 parameters, with 16<br />
MA NSP and 624 fixtures. Eight Robert<br />
Juliat Lancelot 4kW HTI followspots<br />
and eight Robert Juliat Cyrano 2.5kW<br />
HMI followspots were also used.<br />
The video system under<br />
the creative direction of media<br />
artist Andree Verleger from Germany<br />
included 120 High End Systems Axon<br />
media servers (110 active and 10<br />
spares) being run by six Flying Pig<br />
Systems Wholehog 3 consoles (three<br />
active and three backups) on 37 universes<br />
of DMX512 using 12 DP 2000s.<br />
Eight-six Christie Roadster S+20K Projectors<br />
were outfitted with High End<br />
Systems Orbital Heads and an additional<br />
63 Christie CP2000-ZX Cinema<br />
Projectors were used without mirrors.<br />
In all, the projection circled the entire<br />
stadium and measured 1,942 feet<br />
long by 45 feet high. HP Pro-Curve<br />
2626 field switches, HP Pro-Curve 8212zl and<br />
kilometers of multi-mode fiber optic cable were<br />
the backbone of the huge network.<br />
Axon media server programmer<br />
Dennis Gardner described the<br />
Wholehog 3 console setup. “We programmed<br />
the show on one Wholehog<br />
3 network running version 2.6<br />
software. We had the network set up<br />
as one server console that was never<br />
touched and just used as the server,<br />
two client consoles at front of house<br />
for myself and (programming assistant)<br />
Steve Kellaway, and one console<br />
as a roamer for programming around<br />
the stadium to get better viewpoints. I<br />
have been using the Wholehog 3 console<br />
since its birth and I feel it’s the best tool for<br />
the job. The ease at programming lots of media<br />
servers and being able to link to timecode was<br />
a joy. The show was run on LTC timecode, which<br />
came from the music. The whole system was<br />
rock solid.”<br />
DMX Transmitter in the studio, which controlled<br />
26 key lights on a circular truss over<br />
the news desk.<br />
The SHoW DMX unit was set to output<br />
in limited bandwidth mode and to output<br />
only 30 DMX channels, thereby creating<br />
only a very small radio footprint, and not affecting<br />
any WiFi networks in the studio.<br />
The choreographed movements of 22,000 performers needed to be lit precisely<br />
for maximum visual impact.<br />
Creative Technology Shanghai provided HD<br />
content management and playback for the massive<br />
4,000 square meter LED screen that was a<br />
central feature of the event. The system consisted<br />
of six Pronto HD hard disk video player/recorders,<br />
manufactured by DVS of Germany, feeding the<br />
six main sections of the screen, with additional<br />
channels feeding the legacy screens within the<br />
stadium, as well as the video starfield that covered<br />
the entire field of play. In all, 22 channels of<br />
HD playback were utilized.<br />
The stadium’s video “membrane” circled the stadium and the images were<br />
controlled by 110 Axon media servers.<br />
Medialon Manager was used as the control<br />
system for the entire system and the<br />
interface for in<strong>com</strong>ing audio timecode and<br />
lighting DMX that provided cues for various<br />
sections of the show. Multiple channels of<br />
Barco Encore provided the ability to dim the<br />
screen when required using DMX and Medialon<br />
to convert DMX into Barco protocol.<br />
A Vista Spyder 12x4 system was also used as<br />
multi-source DVI preview. The entire system<br />
was fully redundant, with immediate switchover<br />
in the event of a <strong>com</strong>ponent failure.<br />
“I am absolutely excited about the professionalism<br />
and support I was getting, also<br />
for ‘my’ video part during all those month<br />
from MA Lighting and the entire lighting<br />
crew,” stated Verleger. “This underlines how<br />
important it is that lighting and video are<br />
going hand-in-hand. This teamwork gave<br />
trust and an ongoing motivation to realize<br />
another record in this show: the world’s<br />
largest projection screen.”<br />
NBC’s Beijing Set Relied on DMX Data<br />
Steve Brill <strong>com</strong>mented, “We needed<br />
a solid wireless DMX solution, and SHoW<br />
DMX met that need. There is a lot of RF in<br />
the facility, and SHoW DMX fit in seamlessly<br />
and reliably.”<br />
The electrician for the show was George<br />
Gountas. SHoW DMX equipment was provided<br />
by PRG Lighting.<br />
14<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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NEWS<br />
Olympics Designers Share Their Insights<br />
BEIJING — The largest single automated<br />
lighting system ever assembled for a single<br />
event was at the Opening Ceremonies of the<br />
Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The multimedia,<br />
three-dimensional display was created<br />
by director Zhang Yimou, and some 22,000<br />
people took part in the gala, including 15,000<br />
costumed performers.<br />
Lighting personnel began initial installation<br />
of the fixtures in March — five months<br />
before the event — with most of the 1,142<br />
Martin MAC luminaires rigged in the roof of<br />
the stadium and several hundred lining the<br />
upper balcony. The main lighting supplier<br />
was China Central Television (CCTV) with several<br />
lighting sub-suppliers also contributing.<br />
Sha Xiao Lan:<br />
“After knowing I would be the chief LD of<br />
the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the<br />
Beijing Olympic Games, I spent a lot of time<br />
conceiving the lighting design. The Olympics<br />
is not only for the Chinese people but for people<br />
all over the world, so we had to satisfy not<br />
only the Chinese but people from all countries.<br />
The problem is that people from different<br />
places have different tastes in aesthetics.<br />
To be specific, Westerners prefer elegant pastel<br />
colors; Chinese are fond of strong highlysaturated<br />
color, and this was the major part to<br />
be considered.<br />
“We did research on the Athens and Sydney<br />
Olympic Games and in order to emphasize<br />
the technological factor of the Beijing Olympics<br />
we decided to utilize the most advanced<br />
technologies and products to actualize the<br />
Opening and Closing Ceremony design.<br />
“You know that the Beijing Olympics<br />
gained nationwide support from the very beginning.<br />
However, the budget for the lighting<br />
design was less than that of the Doha Asian<br />
Games, yet many well-known manufacturers<br />
and suppliers promised they would do<br />
whatever they could to provide whatever we<br />
needed. I was deeply touched by their gratitude.<br />
“After we knew about the Bird’s Nest’s<br />
14-meter high by 500-meter long brim, which<br />
is perfect for positioning fixtures, we adjusted<br />
our plan accordingly.<br />
“The Beijing Olympics is being transmitted<br />
in a high-resolution digital signal, so we<br />
needed the lighting fixtures to be highly<br />
uniform in color temperature. According to<br />
our plan, we needed more than 2,300 moving<br />
lights, which is unprecedented. Martin,<br />
Vari*Lite and many other well-known brands<br />
attended the bid and we had to choose the<br />
most suitable ones. Even as the head LD, I<br />
didn’t have the authority to decide which<br />
brand would be used in the Ceremony,<br />
though my opinion was important.<br />
“The Martin MAC 2000 Wash was eventually<br />
chosen because it’s the most stable<br />
fixture with the most uniform color wash I’ve<br />
ever known. We used about 1,200 MAC 2000<br />
Washes in the Opening Ceremony, which is<br />
also unprecedented. No event has ever used<br />
so many units under the same brand before as<br />
far as I know. About 90 percent of the Washes<br />
were used to wash the performance area, the<br />
ceiling of the stadium and the audience. We<br />
also used 110 Washes to add backlighting for<br />
the audience.<br />
“Martin fixtures have the highest value<br />
for money and are quite stable with a low dysfunction<br />
rate. The nominal dysfunction rate is<br />
2 percent according to the information from<br />
the manufacturer, but the actual dysfunction<br />
rate is lower than that. Plus the uniformity of<br />
color is perfect, which can not be reached using<br />
other fixtures. Besides the foresaid merits,<br />
I am very impressed by the MAC 2000 Wash’s<br />
speed and accuracy in movement and positioning.<br />
In the Opening Ceremony we used<br />
wash light to position, that’s rare, and the<br />
Martin fixtures’ performance is excellent; this<br />
is widely acknowledged by my colleagues.<br />
“These fixtures were indispensable in<br />
achieving the goal of satisfying everyone.<br />
Without these fixtures none of our ideas<br />
would have been possible.<br />
“Even when using the white color, we<br />
needed it to be tasteful. If you watched carefully<br />
enough you noticed that the white color<br />
in the Chinese Landscape Painting scene was<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
In all, 22,000 performers took part in the opening ceremonies in a show directed by Zhang Yimou.<br />
Steve Kellaway, digital lighting programmer, and Dennis<br />
Gardner, chief lighting programmer and digital lighting/video<br />
programmer, in front of the Bird’s Nest’s globe and membrane.<br />
different from the white color in the Movable<br />
Typography scene. In the Road of Silk scene<br />
we used the amber color to simulate the atmosphere<br />
of deserts and in the Rites and<br />
Music scene we used the royal golden hue to<br />
create an atmosphere of the Imperial Palace.<br />
During the Tai Chi and Zheng He Fleet scene<br />
we used highly saturated deep blue. I dare<br />
say without the Martin MAC 2000 Wash, none<br />
of the above would have been possible. The<br />
wash effect of the MAC 2000 was so perfectly<br />
uniform; light from the 1,200 units was just<br />
like light from one single unit. And the saturation<br />
of the MAC 2000 was fantastic as well.<br />
Remember when Lang Lang and the little girl<br />
began to play piano together? The colorful<br />
light was just like an impressionistic painting.<br />
“I believe through the Opening Ceremony<br />
we successfully showcased the lighting<br />
Olympics LD Sha Xiao Lan factored cultural preferences for<br />
lighting hues into his design.<br />
design ability of China. All factors including<br />
organization, back-stage, control, and lighting<br />
design are quite satisfying and we have<br />
gained the praise from the Western media.”<br />
Paul Collison:<br />
“Lighting for television on an event like<br />
this can be quite a challenge. The performance<br />
area is huge and when you add the<br />
audience in as a background you have almost<br />
a full square kilometer of surface area to light.<br />
Even though the show, at times, is orientated<br />
to one side, the cameras can be pointing in<br />
any direction. We are very aware that every<br />
area of the stadium is a part of the show.<br />
“The MAC 2000 XBs have been great. They<br />
are bright — really bright. They sit in perfectly<br />
well with the other 900-plus standard MAC<br />
2000 Washes. We have used them out wide<br />
on the level three balcony position to get<br />
some extra kick in from the sides when the<br />
performances are orientated towards the VIP<br />
or on camera side. They also have a slightly<br />
longer throw to the center of the field from<br />
that position.<br />
“All of the Martin fixtures have performed<br />
well under trying conditions. High humidity<br />
and high temperatures are hard on lighting<br />
fixtures, not to mention the huge amount of<br />
dust that we encountered through the final<br />
stages of the construction of the Bird’s Nest.<br />
I’m sure these fixtures have seen more dust<br />
over the last four months than most vacuum<br />
cleaners see in a lifetime! Despite this the fixtures<br />
are still working well. We have a much<br />
lower fault rate with the Martin fixtures than<br />
any others in the system. Martin’s <strong>com</strong>mitment<br />
and support has been exceptional and<br />
certainly helped to<br />
continued on page 65<br />
16<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS<br />
Live Outdoor Concert<br />
Lit for Eurovision Fans<br />
A crowd of 20,000 stormed the historic fortress to attend<br />
the live show.<br />
BELGRADE — Azerbaijan hosted a<br />
free live concert at a historic fortress<br />
here to showcase singing duo Elnur<br />
& Samir and other top contenders for<br />
the Eurovision song contest. LD Robert<br />
Kelber and operator Tobias Aberg<br />
used three grandMA full-size and<br />
two MA NSPs to control the lighting<br />
for the event, which drew a crowd of<br />
over 20,000.<br />
Called Legends and Sensations of<br />
Eurovision, the event used an outdoor<br />
rig that included 94 Martin moving<br />
lights, six Space Cannons and a full<br />
<strong>com</strong>plement of conventionals and<br />
LED screens. “The grandMA provided<br />
the flexibility, versatility and safety<br />
to make this show the success it became,”<br />
said Ola Melzig, lighting project<br />
manager.<br />
The event, which took place on<br />
the grounds of the Kalemegdan<br />
Nebojsina Kula Fortress, was planned<br />
by RTS and produced by Euro Media<br />
from the Ukraine. Sky Music of Belgrade,<br />
managed by Milenko Skaric,<br />
provided stage, lighting, video, sound<br />
and crew. Procon supplied the lighting<br />
consoles, followspots and some<br />
of the moving lights.<br />
In addition to the Azerbaijani<br />
headliners, whose full names are Elnur<br />
Huseynov and Samir Javadzade,<br />
the show featured other Eurovision<br />
standouts including Ruslana, Dana<br />
International, Marija Serifovic and<br />
Zeljko Joksimovic.<br />
18 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008<br />
OSLO, Norway — The Oslo Opera House,<br />
home of the Norwegian National Opera and<br />
Ballet, has three auditoriums, and each required<br />
a lighting rig including spotlights<br />
that can perform well with throw distances<br />
ranging from 15 meters to 40 meters. London-based<br />
designers Theatre Projects Consultants<br />
specified Robert Juliat profiles and<br />
followspots for the job.<br />
The 1,350-seat Main Stage measures 16<br />
meters wide by 18 meters deep and is mirrored<br />
by the Rehearsal Stage. Stage 2 is a<br />
slightly more modest 12 meters by 12 meters.<br />
They all opened in April with a ceremony<br />
presided by King Harald of Norway and<br />
attended by Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, along<br />
with the Berliner Philharmoniker with British<br />
conductor Sir Simon Rattle.<br />
A total of 277 Robert Juliat 1.2KW<br />
600SX zoom profiles and 81 Robert Juliat<br />
2K 700SX² zoom profiles, with various lens<br />
tubes, were employed front of house, overhead<br />
and on side booms, while followspot<br />
positions were filled by four 2,500-watt<br />
HMI RJ Cyranos, four short throw 1,200-<br />
watt HMI RJ Lucys and two 1,200-watt HMI<br />
RJ Super Korrigans.<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Lighting the Oslo Opera House’s Multiple Stages<br />
Theatre Projects Consultants wrote the final<br />
specifications for the Robert Juliat equipment<br />
following consultations with the technicians<br />
at the Opera House.<br />
“We think they are solid lanterns which<br />
perform well over a very long period of<br />
time,” said Paul Vidar Saevarang, head of<br />
lighting. “You get a great light out of them<br />
and they are excellent for projecting gobos,<br />
which we use a lot.”<br />
Robert Juliat’s zoom profile products use<br />
double condenser optics with operational<br />
features such as shutter locks and a rotating<br />
barrel with a barrel lock.<br />
Robert Juliat’s Norwegian dealer AVAB,<br />
through local agents Elpag AS, supplied the<br />
Robert Juliat profiles and followspots. Other<br />
Scandinavian projects relying on Robert Juliat<br />
products include the Copenhagen Opera<br />
House and the new Royal Danish Playhouse.<br />
Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe Stays in Control<br />
EDINDBURGH, Scotland — As its name<br />
suggests, the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe<br />
is not about predictable theatrical fare. The<br />
performances include <strong>com</strong>edy, dance, theatre<br />
and music from around the world, much of it<br />
edgy. But if the element of surprise is an important<br />
aspect to the festival, it’s not exactly<br />
what the technical crew wants from the lighting<br />
and video gear that they’re using.<br />
To help keep the lighting for the performances<br />
on track, ETC supplied Congo lighting<br />
control systems to two festival venues, both<br />
run by Universal Arts. Congo and Congo jr.<br />
lighting systems were installed at Hill Street<br />
Theatre, one of the Fringe venues, and at the<br />
Universal Arts Theatre in Freemason’s Hall on<br />
George Street. ETC also sent Florian Baeumier<br />
to train the technical staff in both venues.<br />
The Universal Arts technical team put<br />
that training into practice, helping designers<br />
and technicians from the visiting international<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies to plot and operate<br />
the lighting for their shows for the duration<br />
of the festival. They helped introduce the<br />
Congo systems to 22 groups from across the<br />
world, including music acts from Mexico, the<br />
U.S. and South Korea and theatre <strong>com</strong>panies<br />
from Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Taiwan,<br />
Spain and the U.K.<br />
“We provided full size Congos for the Universal<br />
Arts Theatre and the smaller Congo jr<br />
for the Theatre and the Studio at Hill Street,”<br />
said ETC’s Jeremy Roberts. “We’re excited to<br />
demonstrate our products to lighting designers<br />
from across the world.”<br />
“I first toured with the Congo desk to<br />
Venezuela with Universal Arts in 2006 and<br />
it’s been our desk of choice ever since,” said<br />
Anthony Newton of Universal Arts. “We have<br />
used Congo for all our work in Edinburgh, the<br />
U.S., Germany and the Netherlands. The relationship<br />
with ETC has been mutually beneficial<br />
and has been developed with the full support<br />
of Stage Electrics, our supplier of other<br />
stage equipment.”<br />
LEDs Frame Visuals for Kaiser Chiefs Home<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
LEEDS, U.K. — Kaiser Chiefs Lighting Designer<br />
Richard Larkum and rental <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
Prism Lighting used over 300 Chroma-Q Color<br />
Block DB4 LED fixtures to create a different<br />
kind of lighting look for the band’s recent<br />
home<strong>com</strong>ing concert at the Elland Road soccer<br />
stadium.<br />
The show drew the band’s largest ownheadlining<br />
crowd to date, and XL Video UK<br />
supplied equipment and crew to give the<br />
35,000 who turned out for the Elland Road<br />
Stadium performance a closer look at band<br />
members as they performed with a 15-screen<br />
live video mix.<br />
LD Richard Larkum has used the Chroma-<br />
Q Color Block DB4 for the Kaiser Chiefs since<br />
2005, and the Color Block has also be<strong>com</strong>e a<br />
workhorse fixture in the rental stock inventory<br />
of Prism Lighting. For the most recent<br />
Kaiser Chiefs tour, Larkum came up with the<br />
idea of custom lighting “pods” consisting of<br />
square frames holding either strobes or Molefay<br />
strips. He then decided to ring the frame<br />
with LEDs to give a square light beam.<br />
“The size and shape of the fixture was very<br />
important — rectangular, big LED pixels, in<br />
Joan Lyman<br />
uniform rows,” Larkum said. “I didn’t want a fixture<br />
with the pixels spread out randomly. The<br />
uniformity also helps with the color mixing.<br />
Because they were forward facing, I needed<br />
the color mixing to blend evenly on the eye.”<br />
The pods, designed by Larkum and Prism<br />
Lighting and manufactured by Tomcat, are<br />
hung from a mother grid at various heights,<br />
angles and depths. Each pod features 22 Color<br />
Blocks providing a square light beam, outlining<br />
them using various colors and chasing<br />
them as whole entities, with various dimmer<br />
effects through them.<br />
Video director Jon Shrimpton, who had<br />
collaborated with Larkum in the past, cut the<br />
IMAG from FOH instead of the more conventional<br />
side-stage position.<br />
The Elland Road stage was similar in set<br />
up to the band’s arena tour, with five portrait<br />
format screens providing a key focal point<br />
above the front of the stage. At this show,<br />
these were constructed from Barco MiTrix<br />
that measured 18 tiles high and five wide,<br />
and chosen in part for light weight.<br />
On both sides of stage, offstage of the PA<br />
wings, Shrimpton added another five screens,<br />
The opera house opened with a gala ceremony attended by King Harald of Norway.<br />
each <strong>com</strong>prised of Barco OLite, two modules<br />
wide and five deep, and arranged in a quirky<br />
format that he described as an “Electric Legoland”<br />
effect.<br />
Shrimpton configured his GV Kayak vision<br />
mixer so all the screen cuts were individually<br />
controllable via its macros, and the crew used<br />
a Leitch router for additional routing “trickery.”<br />
The IMAG mix matched the lighting in<br />
energy and pace, often with screens flashing<br />
and chasing in time to the music and to Larkum’s<br />
lighting cues.<br />
XL also supplied three Catalyst digital media<br />
servers, overseen by Alastair MacDiarmid.<br />
The show was project-managed for XL Video<br />
by Phil Mercer and Jo Beirne.<br />
The home<strong>com</strong>ing show in Leeds added 84 Chroma-Q Color Blocks to the 220 units included on Kaiser Chiefs regular tour rig.<br />
Erik BErg<br />
Yllana from Spain presented PaGAGnini at the Universal Arts<br />
Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, lit with an ETC Congo console.
Ol’ Blue Eyes Tours<br />
U.K. with Custom Set<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
INTERNATIONAL NEWS<br />
Carrère Studios Equipped with Moving Lights<br />
PARIS — Studio 8 of the Carrère Studios at<br />
La Plaine St Denis has been equipped with over<br />
140 Robe moving lights at the request of David<br />
Seligmann-Forest, director of photography.<br />
Impact Evénement installed the rig,<br />
which includes 15 ColorSpot 1200E ATs, 26<br />
ColorWash 1200E ATs, three white ColorWash<br />
250 ATs, 90 ColorWash 575 XTs, two white ColorWash<br />
575 XTs and six ColorSpot 700E ATs.<br />
Most of the lights are hung in the studio’s<br />
ceiling on special trussing — also supplied by<br />
Impact Evénement. The white units are used<br />
for floor level lighting of sets and other scenic<br />
elements.<br />
The move followed Seligmann-Forest’s extensive<br />
use of Robe on the 2007 reality show, Secret<br />
Story, and also on Le Grand Soir d’Eliane et Francis.<br />
Seligmann-Forest credited Robe’s Color-<br />
Spot 700E ATs for their <strong>com</strong>pact size, 15° to<br />
60° zoom, optimized MSR 700W bulb and<br />
electronic ballast.<br />
The Carrère Studios’ Robe fixtures are<br />
rigged in the customized trussing gantries<br />
supplied by Impact Evénement, which are<br />
designed to match the layout of the studio<br />
scenery in the shape of waves, rings and<br />
curves.<br />
In the gantries, Seligmann-Forest has alternated<br />
the ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E<br />
ATs and makes use of their gobo selections<br />
and defined beams when lighting shows. The<br />
ColorWash 575s are positioned all over the<br />
trusses to ensure <strong>com</strong>plete coverage across<br />
the studio floor.<br />
The lights are<br />
programmed and<br />
run from Impact<br />
Evénement’s grand-<br />
MA console. Also on<br />
Seligmann-Forest’s<br />
lighting team are<br />
lighting director<br />
Pierre Redon, console<br />
operator Xavier<br />
Fossier, moving light<br />
tech Forward Hall,<br />
electricians Patrick<br />
Lelec, Guillaume<br />
Acani and Thierry<br />
Petit and rigger Vincent<br />
Garrick.<br />
Most of the 140 lights are hung on special trussing installed on the studio ceiling.<br />
Louise stickLand<br />
The set was built from smaller aluminum sections to make for an<br />
easier load-in at theatres where forklifts were not an option.<br />
LONDON — Karl Sydow’s Sinatra, directed<br />
by David Leveaux, is currently touring the<br />
U.K., a production based on the 2006 West<br />
End production at the London Palladium. The<br />
Art Deco-influenced set was modeled on the<br />
original West End production, and was designed<br />
by Tom Pye with significant input from<br />
his associate, Tim McQuillen-Wright. It echoes<br />
the 2006 production’s set, but was also customized<br />
for the road by staging <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
Brilliant Stages in about three weeks time.<br />
Brilliant Stages designed the rostra so it<br />
would be easy to transport and set up. “Because<br />
we are touring theatres, not arenas, fork<br />
lift trucks for loading and unloading are not<br />
an option,” said Nik Rea, Sinatra production<br />
manager. “Brilliant Stages therefore built the<br />
band rostra in smaller aluminum sections.”<br />
The video footage of Frank Sinatra himself,<br />
some of which has been rarely seen, is a focal<br />
point of the show. It carries the production’s<br />
momentum as Sinatra narrates his life story<br />
and sings his hits, “performing” alongside the<br />
live singers, dancers and musicians.<br />
Accordingly, the 13-by-9-meter Brilliant<br />
Roll view screen plays a key role in the overall<br />
set design. The projected images run as the<br />
screen is unrolled, so it was important that<br />
the surface should remain evenly tensioned<br />
and at a constant distance from the projector<br />
to maintain focus.<br />
The crew did this by constructing three<br />
4.8-meter custom truss sections containing the<br />
motor and gearbox drive shaft system and bottom<br />
gather-up pipe. The bottom gather-up pipe<br />
is driven using fire-retardant webbing, which<br />
runs in slot drums fitted to each end of the pipe.<br />
The pipe, in turn, is wrapped in a Translite white<br />
rear projection screen from Harkness Screens.<br />
The motor and gearbox drive is housed<br />
in the central truss section to make sure the<br />
drive shaft loads and turns symmetrically. A<br />
4kW Kinesys Elevation control system allows<br />
the screen to vary in speed by up to 0.9 meters<br />
per second. The webbing system remains<br />
rigged during transit, and the screen can be<br />
set up in about 25 minutes.<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
19
ON THE MOVE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
A.C. Lighting<br />
Group recently<br />
opened A.C. Lighting<br />
Asia KK, the <strong>com</strong>pany’s<br />
first office in<br />
Asia. The subsidiary<br />
is headed by Ruilin<br />
Zhang. The new office<br />
is located at 103 Ruilin Zhang<br />
Angel Building, 1-10-20 Shiba Hinotsume,<br />
Kawaguchi-City, Saitama 333-0852 Japan; tel:<br />
048.475.9377, fax: 048.475.9355, email: asia@<br />
aclighting.<strong>com</strong><br />
Cinelease Inc., a motion picture equipment<br />
rental <strong>com</strong>pany that added a theatrical<br />
division in 2001, has signed a 10-year,<br />
$14 million lease for 155,000 square feet of<br />
space in the Los Angeles area. The site was<br />
previously occupied by a furniture retailer.<br />
Creative Stage<br />
Lighting appointed<br />
Bill Kaechele as the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany’s vice president<br />
of customer<br />
services. Kaechele<br />
will oversee CSL’s<br />
sales, accounting<br />
and operations Bill Kaechele<br />
departments as well as various information<br />
technology functions. CSL has also appointed<br />
John Fieldstadt as the <strong>com</strong>pany’s<br />
manufacturing manager. His responsibilities<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
include overseeing<br />
CSL’s manufacturing<br />
department and directing<br />
the production<br />
of CSL products,<br />
including Dura-Flex<br />
cables and Entertainment<br />
Power Systems<br />
products.<br />
John Fieldstadt<br />
Event Innovation, a Washington, D.C.-<br />
based enterprise software <strong>com</strong>pany for sports<br />
arenas and performing arts theatres, announced<br />
the appointments of Frank Ganis as vice president<br />
of business development and Kent Leonard<br />
as vice president of product delivery.<br />
Fuller Street Productions has moved to a<br />
larger facility. The new address is 10702 Hathaway<br />
Drive, Unit #2, Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670.<br />
GearSource.<strong>com</strong> and LEDsource.<strong>com</strong><br />
named Betsy Torres (formerly Halpin) as CFO/<br />
COO. Torres had spent nearly 10 years working<br />
for lighting industry firms as a controller.<br />
IATSE announced the retirement of Thomas<br />
C. Short, who had been president of the organization<br />
since 1994. Matthew D. Loeb was elected<br />
by the IATSE’s board to assume the role of president.<br />
Craig Carlson has been elected vice president.<br />
Short had been a member of IATSE for<br />
over 40 years and an elected official for the past<br />
21 years. Loeb served as IATSE’s International<br />
Representative in June, 1994 and as IATSE’s first<br />
division director of Motion Picture and Television<br />
Production. He was elected International<br />
Vice President in 2002 and 2004 and had served<br />
as the chairman of IATSE’s East Coast Council for<br />
more than 14 years. Carlson, who started out as<br />
a third-generation stagehand with Chicago’s<br />
Lyric Opera in 1979, assumes the position that<br />
Loeb had held with the organization.<br />
J. R. Clancy has<br />
added two dealer<br />
project managers and<br />
a technical designer<br />
at its corporate headquarters.<br />
Geoff Stock<br />
and Bridget Cox join<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany as dealer<br />
project managers.<br />
Stock is formerly<br />
a project manager<br />
with Grand Stage<br />
Company. He will<br />
oversee the in-house<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletion of dealer<br />
projects. Cox came<br />
to Syracuse from the<br />
New York City Opera,<br />
where she served as<br />
assistant technical<br />
director. She will also<br />
work with dealers<br />
on rigging projects.<br />
Charles Rouse has<br />
been appointed technical<br />
designer for the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany. He <strong>com</strong>es<br />
to J. R. Clancy from Schott North America. In<br />
his new position, Rouse will design the plan<br />
and layout of detailed rigging systems.<br />
Kinesys has appointed two Australian distributors<br />
for its hoist controllers and control software<br />
products. The two <strong>com</strong>panies, TC Hasemer<br />
and HME, are both based in New South Wales.<br />
Lex Products,<br />
has promoted Mike<br />
Scala, the leader of<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany’s ERP<br />
i m p l e m e n t a t i o n<br />
team, from director<br />
of operations to vice<br />
president of operations.<br />
Geoff Stock<br />
Bridget Cox<br />
Charles Rouse<br />
Mike Scala<br />
Liberty Wire & Cable, a supplier of products<br />
for the AV industry, has promoted John D. Dace<br />
from vice president of sales to general manager.<br />
LSC Lighting Systems, an Australiabased<br />
manufacturer of lighting control systems,<br />
recently moved to a larger facility. The<br />
new address is Building 3, 66-74 Micro Circuit,<br />
Dandenong South, Victoria 3175, Australia,<br />
tel: +61 3 9702 8000, fax: +61 3 9702 8466.<br />
Multi-Lite International Lamp<br />
Sales announced that Lori Mehrkens has<br />
joined the <strong>com</strong>pany. Mehrkens has more than<br />
25 years of experience specifying and selling<br />
lighting and architectural lamps.<br />
Production Resource<br />
Group (PRG)<br />
has named Vickie<br />
Claiborne as a console<br />
and media server<br />
product specialist.<br />
Claiborne, who is also<br />
a contributing writer<br />
to <strong>PLSN</strong>, will be based Vickie Claiborne<br />
out of PRG’s Las Vegas office.<br />
Neo-Neon, a manufacturer of LED<br />
lighting products, has named Joe Golden<br />
as technical support manager.<br />
Proel America LLC is the name of a<br />
Miami-based subsidiary established by<br />
Proel S.p.A., an Italian-based manufacturer<br />
of AV and lighting systems. Pictured<br />
here are, from left, Melissa Zagonel, national<br />
sales manager, Massimo Signor,<br />
managing director of Proel S.p.A. and<br />
Daniel Costa Salomao, vice president of<br />
Proel America LLC.<br />
Rose Brand, has<br />
appointed Michael<br />
P. Reed as product<br />
manager. Reed has<br />
previously worked<br />
with The New Jersey<br />
Shakespeare Festival,<br />
Plays in the Park,<br />
The Whole Theatre, Michael P. Reed<br />
the George St. Playhouse and The Paper Mill<br />
Playhouse.<br />
Show Distribution Group Inc., which<br />
distributes Chain Master and Prolyte products<br />
in the U.S., has appointed Sebastien<br />
Richard as rental manager.<br />
Sparks, an event<br />
marketing and custom<br />
retail fixture<br />
agency, announced<br />
the appointment<br />
of Carol Swain who<br />
has joined as senior<br />
account director.<br />
Swain will be<br />
working from the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany’s Philadelphia<br />
headquarters.<br />
Sparks also recently<br />
appointed Brian<br />
Miller as director of<br />
strategy and consulting.<br />
Tim Hunter Design,<br />
an architectural<br />
lighting design firm,<br />
has appointed Bill<br />
Groener president<br />
and COO. Groener,<br />
currently the president<br />
of ESTA, is a former<br />
vice president/<br />
general manager of Production Resource<br />
Group (PRG).<br />
Vitec Group has<br />
named Bob Romero<br />
global customer operations<br />
director of<br />
its Clear-Com Communication<br />
Systems<br />
division. Romero<br />
will lead and manage<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany’s<br />
Carol Swain<br />
Brian Miller<br />
Bill Groener<br />
Bob Romero<br />
worldwide service and support teams, including<br />
its application engineering, technical<br />
support and service and repair teams<br />
based in the U.S. and U.K.<br />
20 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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22 22 <strong>PLSN</strong> <strong>PLSN</strong> MONTH SEPTEMBER 2006 2008<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong> MONTH <strong>PLSN</strong> 2006<br />
23<br />
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SHOWtIme<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
ST<br />
Venue<br />
Arco Arena<br />
Sacramento, Calif.<br />
American Idols Live tour 2008<br />
Video Director: Steve Ossler<br />
Set/Staging: All Access Staging &<br />
Productions<br />
Steve JenningS<br />
Crew<br />
Lighting Designer: Seth Jackson<br />
Lighting Director: Jeff Bertuch<br />
Programmer: Jeff Bertuch, Wally Lees<br />
Account Rep: Curry Grant<br />
Lighting Crew Chief: Marty Langley<br />
Lighting Techs: Vince Gallegos, Clate<br />
Stewart<br />
Production Manager: Graham Holmes<br />
Tour Manager: Geoff Donkin<br />
Video Company: Nocturne Productions Inc<br />
Gear<br />
Lighting console: MA Lighting grandMA<br />
33 Element Labs Versa Tubes<br />
2 Martin MAC 2000s<br />
1 Mbox media server<br />
2 Truss spots<br />
16 Vari*Lite VL2500 Spots<br />
13 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots<br />
18 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash Fixtures<br />
8 Vari*Lite VL5 Wash Fixtures<br />
Lighting Co<br />
PRG<br />
Steve JenningS<br />
James taylor<br />
band of Legends tour 2008<br />
Venue<br />
Greek Theatre<br />
Berkeley, Calif.<br />
Crew<br />
Lighting Designers: Bryan Leitch, Nick<br />
Whitehouse<br />
Lighting Director/Programmer: Tom<br />
Wagstaff<br />
Account Rep: Curry Grant<br />
Crew Chief: Anthony Ciampa<br />
Moving Light Tech: Jeffrey Anderson<br />
Production Manager: Ralph Perkins<br />
Tour Manager: Meagan Strader<br />
Video Company: Nocturne<br />
Set Drapery: Sew What? Inc.<br />
ST<br />
Gear<br />
Lighting console: Virtuoso DX2 with v6.0<br />
software<br />
14 Vari*Lite VL 1000 Arcs<br />
38 Vari*Lite VL5s<br />
12 Vari*Lite VL5 Arcs<br />
40 Color Kinetics Color Blaze 72 LED Strips<br />
12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12s<br />
8 Mole Richardson 2k Fresnels<br />
4 Mole Richardson 5k Fresnels lamped at<br />
2000 watts<br />
2 10k Fresnels lamped at 120 watts<br />
1 Power/data distribution system (PRG<br />
Series 400)<br />
Lighting Co<br />
PRG<br />
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24 <strong>PLSN</strong> September 2008
Steve Jennings<br />
Steve Jennings<br />
Venue<br />
Wells Fargo Center<br />
Santa Rosa, Calif.<br />
Chris Isaak<br />
Crew<br />
Lighting Designer/Director/Programmer:<br />
Lane Hirsch<br />
Production Manager: Tim Lamb<br />
Account Rep: Craig Teague<br />
Tour Manager: Doug Casper<br />
Set/Drapery: Paul Guthrie, Atomic Design,<br />
Superior Backings<br />
Gear<br />
Lighting console: Avolites Pearl<br />
11 Martin MAC 2000 Profile Fixtures<br />
8 Martin MAC 500s<br />
8 Martin MAC 250 Wash Fixtures<br />
1 Reel EFX DF-50 Haze Machine<br />
2 Antari Fog Machines<br />
Atari Strobe Lights<br />
ST<br />
Lighting Co<br />
Entertainment Lighting Services (ELS)<br />
ST<br />
Venue<br />
Various locations<br />
Widespread Panic Summer ‘08 Tour<br />
Crew<br />
Lighting Designer: Joel Reiff<br />
Lighting Director: Olivier De Kegel<br />
Production Manager: Chris Rabold<br />
Lighting Technicians: Eric Durning, Chris<br />
“Mr.” Fuller<br />
Rigger: Patrick Dickinson<br />
Gear<br />
Lighting Console: MA Lighting grandMA<br />
54 ChromaQ LED ColorBlocks<br />
9 ETC Source Four Lekos<br />
18 ETC Source Four PARs<br />
9 Four-cell blinder with scroller<br />
5 High End Systems DL.2s<br />
1 Jem ZR33 smoke generator<br />
28 Martin 2000 Profile IIs<br />
16 Martin 2000 Wash fixtures<br />
11 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes with<br />
scrollers<br />
1 Motors (1/2 ton)<br />
15 Motors (1-ton)<br />
2 Reel EFX DF-50 hazers<br />
Lighting Co<br />
Christie Lites<br />
Steve Jennings<br />
Steve Jennings<br />
Lighting Co<br />
Starlite Productions<br />
Venue<br />
Cooper River Park,<br />
Pennsauken, N.J.<br />
Crew<br />
Lighting Designer/Operator: Brandon<br />
“BC” Creel<br />
Promoter/Producer: WMGK 102.9<br />
Production Manager: Jason Danowitz<br />
Lighting Technicians: Chris Ametrano,<br />
John Andraka<br />
Rigger: IATSE Local 8<br />
Staging Company: Tri-State Staging,<br />
MSR, Starlite Productions<br />
Staging Carpenter: Chuck Oagel<br />
Randy Bachman<br />
ST<br />
Gear<br />
Lighting Console: Avolites Pearl<br />
5 ACL Bars<br />
2 Altman Explorer followspots<br />
40’ Box truss (20x20)<br />
1 ETC 48-Channel Sensor Plus Dimmer Rack<br />
60K ETC Source Four PARs<br />
1 JLG Scissor Lift<br />
1 Leprecon 208-volt distro<br />
300’ Lighting snake<br />
4 Manual Chain Hoists (1/2 ton)<br />
8 Motors (1 ton)<br />
40’ Pre-rig Truss<br />
2 Reel EFX DF50 hazers<br />
1 Stageline 250<br />
1 Stageline SAM 550<br />
12 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots<br />
6 Vari*Lite 3000 Washes<br />
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2008 September <strong>PLSN</strong> 25
INSIDE THEATRE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
A Light Wall, Revealed<br />
In addition to the light wall, revealed from behind a<br />
translucent curtain, the stage features “pods” that<br />
allow band members to rise up and descend.<br />
David Korins Takes the Wraps Off Passing Strange<br />
One of the few original musicals unleashed<br />
on Broadway in recent years<br />
— and one that will also be available<br />
in a DVD version filmed by Spike Lee — Passing<br />
Strange chronicles the life of a young<br />
musician who flees his stifling suburban Los<br />
Angeles environs to find himself and explore<br />
his musical artistry in Amsterdam and Berlin.<br />
The show, staged at the Belasco Theatre,<br />
tackles themes of love, identity, alienation<br />
and redemption. It stars Stew, the charismatic<br />
and charming singer-songwriter of the group<br />
The Negro Problem, who relives his <strong>com</strong>ingof-age<br />
adventures through his younger self,<br />
played by Daniel Breaker. Stew co-wrote the<br />
show with his longtime band mate Heidi<br />
Rodewald, with whom he also plays in an<br />
“Afro-Baroque cabaret ensemble,” also called<br />
Stew.<br />
A Giant Light Wall<br />
Veteran stage designer David Korins, who<br />
has worked off-Broadway (Jack Goes Boating<br />
and Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell), on<br />
Broadway (Bridge and Tunnel and the new<br />
Godspell) and at the Delacorte Theater in<br />
Central Park (Hamlet), immersed himself in<br />
designing a production with five musicians,<br />
seven actors and a giant light wall onstage.<br />
An added challenge was that the musicians<br />
were onstage all the time, as were most of the<br />
actors, and Stew also narrated the entire show<br />
and even interacted with his younger self.<br />
“We talked about this show for a really,<br />
really long time and didn’t have any way to<br />
crack it,” says Korins. “Every time we started<br />
to storyboard the play we didn’t know where<br />
to put the band onstage because the band<br />
wrote this thing. It wasn’t like they were an<br />
orchestra pit band that was brought on to<br />
the project. Stew and Heidi not only lived but<br />
wrote it. You can’t throw Heidi underground<br />
in the orchestra pit where most of the bands<br />
on Broadway are. So for us, the way in was<br />
when the director said to me, ‘I want this to<br />
be a show in which you basically layer a music<br />
26 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008<br />
IT<br />
track over an acting track over a dancing track<br />
over a singing track, and they need to coexist<br />
happily. One thing shouldn’t pull focus more<br />
than the other thing.’”<br />
Korins came up with the idea of placing<br />
each of the other musicians — Rodewald<br />
(stage left), guitarist/keyboardist Christian<br />
Gibbs (upstage, back to the audience), keyboardist<br />
Jon Spurney (stage right) and drummer<br />
Christian Cassan (downstage, behind<br />
Stew) — on individual “pods” that could be<br />
lowered partially below stage level. They acted<br />
as individual orchestra pits for the band,<br />
whose members could still see one another<br />
and interact with the actors during a few key<br />
moments. The ability to raise and lower the<br />
musicians was essential to the show.<br />
“There’s a moment in the show where<br />
Heidi has a bass solo and sings a couple of<br />
verses herself, and we raise her up,” says Korins.<br />
“That’s a nice dynamic to be able to<br />
control. There’s something about watching<br />
a band play together, especially a small rock<br />
band, not like an orchestra. At the top of the<br />
show they just sit down and jam like a band<br />
would, and then we actually are going to put<br />
together a theatrical evening. When they<br />
lower down in the pits they be<strong>com</strong>e more of<br />
a classic version of an orchestra. But it was important<br />
that we start the show off by saying,<br />
‘Hey, this is a rock show.’ It was really important<br />
to get that dynamic.”<br />
Lighting the Transitions<br />
Beyond setting up the musicians, the look<br />
of Passing Strange was essential in setting the<br />
tone and creating an atmosphere appropriate<br />
for each of the show’s three main locales,<br />
IT<br />
particularly as stage props were minimal. “We<br />
knew that the play traveled from Los Angeles<br />
to Amsterdam to Berlin and back to L.A., had<br />
multiple locations and needed to be sup-<br />
ported visually but not with realistic scenery,”<br />
explains Korins. “We knew we weren’t going to<br />
do ‘sets’. It needed to be more like a rock show.<br />
Nothing works better on stage for a rock show<br />
than light, as far as how to get from location<br />
to location, and nothing is more seamless than<br />
fading from one light bulb to another. As far<br />
as the color saturation and the time of day,<br />
nothing could articulate it as cleanly visually<br />
as light. We unlocked the physical space and<br />
the way that the band would relate to the performers<br />
and vice versa, so then it was about<br />
the backdrop and what could be an amazing<br />
The goal was to “basically layer a music track<br />
over an acting track over a dancing track over a<br />
singing track, and they need to coexist happily.”<br />
—David Korins, stage designer.<br />
emotional barometer and place setter for us.<br />
And the back wall was born.”<br />
Korins brought in lighting designer Kevin<br />
Adams, who, besides having a photography<br />
and set design background, is an avid rock ‘n’<br />
roll fan. Adams revisited Bob Fosse’s 1972 concert<br />
film about Liza Minnelli called Liza with a<br />
‘Z’ and suggested that Korins check it out. The<br />
set designer felt that despite being a period<br />
piece, it still looked fresh and contemporary.<br />
“We looked at it and literally light bulbs<br />
went off in our heads,” recalls Korins. “It essentially<br />
follows the A-B-A structure visually. It<br />
starts with a curtain of sorts that is painted with<br />
this beautiful, Rothko-esque thing where you<br />
can’t really tell where the sources of light are<br />
<strong>com</strong>ing from, and then in part two it reveals<br />
itself to be a gridwork of very old-fashioned<br />
lighting units that are like scoop lights pointing<br />
at this fabric. It reveals itself to be making<br />
the lighting sculpture in the first act, and we<br />
David Korins, stage designer for Passing Strange<br />
wondered what would happen if we made<br />
that but with 2008 lighting fixtures. What<br />
would happen if we <strong>com</strong>pletely updated this<br />
thing and made it totally modern? It was one<br />
of those really beautiful confluences of scenic<br />
and lighting design <strong>com</strong>ing together.”<br />
What resulted was a high wall that is initially<br />
covered by a black curtain, but through which<br />
various lights of different shapes and sizes shine<br />
through to help set the mood for Stew’s teenage<br />
years in L.A. before he journeys to Europe.<br />
“The light that you see on that curtain is being<br />
thrown at it from the front and from the back.<br />
It’s a translucent, very diffusive piece of fabric,”<br />
remarks Korins. “But it’s difficult for someone<br />
who’s not that knowledgeable about lighting<br />
design to figure out what the source is and how<br />
it’s working. We were using the fixtures on the<br />
wall very sparely to make polka dots or smears<br />
or single lines of sources, and when we reveal<br />
we basically show you everything that’s been<br />
working on the thing one at a time. When we<br />
reveal it we turn it on all at once.”<br />
The Inevitable Surprise<br />
The curtain rushes open, and underneath<br />
lies an asymmetrical wall with different types<br />
of lights of various colors and shapes that<br />
help to create the heady vibe of Amsterdam.<br />
An outer wall featuring rows of white fluorescent<br />
lights, which represent the colder, more<br />
fascistic feeling of Cold War-era Berlin, later<br />
consume and cover most of the first wall.<br />
Korins and Adams spent a lot of time testing<br />
different shapes and fixtures on the wall, and<br />
moved many of them around, to see what<br />
worked best for the layout.<br />
IT
Stew confronts his younger self, played by Daniel Breaker, amid<br />
musicians on pods in semi-lowered positions. The pods function as<br />
“individual orchestra pits,” notes David Korins, stage designer.<br />
“Kevin started with a color palette,” says<br />
Korins. “We actually started the show in Berkeley,<br />
Calif., and at first we actually had a lot of<br />
colors on the wall that we wound up taking<br />
off almost immediately. There were a lot more<br />
purples and a lot more greens, and it felt a little<br />
candy store, so we wound up really trying to<br />
more clearly define the color palette for each<br />
location. We knew that Amsterdam was going<br />
to be saturated with oranges and yellows, and<br />
we knew the Berlin was going to be a lot of<br />
white light, and we then started to pare away<br />
all the stuff that we didn’t need color- wise.”<br />
The set designer notes that Passing<br />
Strange’s light wall layout is asymmetrical<br />
within a symmetrical framework. The wall<br />
and the space are <strong>com</strong>pletely symmetrical,<br />
with a vertical green line and horizontal blue<br />
line that section off the wall into quarters. But<br />
within that framework there is an asymmetrical<br />
layout. Korins adds that the directive for<br />
the lighting and set design partially stemmed<br />
from a <strong>com</strong>ment made to him by director and<br />
collaborator Annie Dorsen.<br />
“She said to me, ‘This design needs to feel<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletely inevitable and yet surprising’,” he<br />
says. “So when you walk into the space and<br />
see those band platforms up, you think that<br />
the band isn’t going to stay up like that. There’s<br />
someone right downstage in front of an audience<br />
member; how are we possibly going to be<br />
seeing the show like that? So it’s inevitable that<br />
that thing is going to move, but it’s still surprising<br />
and rewarding when it lowers down into<br />
the ground. It’s the same thing with the wall.<br />
You walk in and see a curtain and think that<br />
the curtain is not going to be there. It has some<br />
kinetic or potential energy. You think it’s going<br />
to move, and it does. It’s <strong>com</strong>pletely inevitable,<br />
and yet when it moves it’s <strong>com</strong>pletely surprising.”<br />
Illuminating the Text<br />
Having done the show off-Broadway at the<br />
Public Theater, the production team salvaged<br />
much of the original light wall and brought<br />
in motors that ran three out of the four pods.<br />
However, “the whole rig and the mechanism<br />
had to be rebuilt,” Korins says. Once everything<br />
else got put into place at the Belasco, they<br />
were off and rockin’ once again.”<br />
Korins says that he learned a lot about collaboration<br />
on Passing Strange, particularly as<br />
someone who likes to “stay off the stage” as a<br />
designer and who tries to serve the piece and<br />
illuminate the text. “Part of it was about this<br />
light wall and breaking new ground in the way<br />
that lighting and set designers collaborate,”<br />
he says, “and also what it was like to collaborate<br />
with people who had never made theatre<br />
ever. Stew, Heidi, and the band have never<br />
made theatre. How do you make it feel right as<br />
a theatrical piece, but how do you also break<br />
new ground? I think that was the thing that<br />
I learned and that was also the biggest challenge.<br />
How do you play well with others who<br />
don’t even know the rules of the game?”<br />
Does he think that the experience was<br />
fulfilling for the band? “I know it was,” replies<br />
Korins. “I know that they had a great time with<br />
IT<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
27
INSTALLATIONS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
AFTER CeLINE, ‘ ANOTHER DAY DAwNS<br />
The Colosseum at Caesars Palace Hosts Cher, Bette Midler and Elton John<br />
Set elements like the giant pearl that opens to reveal Cher are<br />
designed for visual elegance, yet don’t distract attention from<br />
the main focus on the star.<br />
By JenniferWillis<br />
Wi thin<br />
the last<br />
two decades,<br />
Las Vegas has seen a cycle of<br />
high-stakes one-upsmanship among<br />
the casinos lining the Strip, with aging casinos<br />
imploding to make way for full-service<br />
resorts that have be<strong>com</strong>e world-class destinations<br />
for gambling, fine dining and relaxing<br />
in the sun.<br />
The <strong>com</strong>petition to fill the seats of the<br />
vast casino showrooms is no less intense. The<br />
various Cirque du Soleil productions in town<br />
now play to an audience of 9,000 or more per<br />
night, and audiences are expecting the same<br />
kind of crowd-pleasing visual spectacles for<br />
musical performances as well.<br />
Caesars Palace took note and hired former<br />
Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone for<br />
A New Day…, the musical spectacular featuring<br />
Céline Dion, which opened in 2003. It also<br />
built a new theatre specifically for that show,<br />
the 4,148-seat Colosseum, which played before<br />
sellout crowds regularly through 2007.<br />
Betting on a New Trifecta<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
So how do you top a show that enjoyed<br />
a five-year run, with a 73 percent sellout rate<br />
and ticket sales in the $400 million range?<br />
Caesars’ solution was to sign three of the biggest<br />
draws in the music biz — Cher, Elton<br />
John and Bette Midler — give each of them<br />
a spectacular set, and have them rotate their<br />
performances throughout the season.<br />
“With an artist as versatile as Cher it is<br />
important that the technology is equally as<br />
versatile,” says Baz Halpin, lighting director<br />
for Cher. “Whether Cher is on our customized<br />
longboat in a lake of smoke singing<br />
the mesmerizing ‘After All’ or belting out<br />
‘Turn Back Time’ to a screaming audience,<br />
we have tried to create a show which both<br />
captures the intimacy of a theatre and delivers<br />
the large scale punch of arena rock.<br />
Cher has the audiences dancing on their<br />
seats every night without fail.”<br />
The production and design teams for all<br />
three shows — Cher at the Colosseum at Caesars<br />
Palace, Elton John’s The Red Piano and Bette<br />
Midler’s The Showgirl Must Go On — worked<br />
in concert to <strong>com</strong>e up with plans and equipment<br />
lists that would allow the shows to rotate<br />
in and out easily throughout the 2008 performance<br />
season. Initial meetings for lighting and<br />
set design came about a year prior to the first<br />
show,<br />
with pre-production<br />
design for Cher’s show beginning in<br />
earnest about eight months before opening.<br />
“The design team spent a long time<br />
discussing the concepts before we ever<br />
put pen to paper, so there were very few<br />
changes,” says Halpin. “I think we are on version<br />
four of the plot, which is a testament<br />
to in-depth discussion and ensuring a full<br />
understanding of the vision before starting<br />
to add lights to a plot.”<br />
Doing hand illustrations and using tools<br />
like AutoCAD, Photoshop, VectorWorks,<br />
SketchUp and 3DS Max, the team went to<br />
work creating a design that would maximize<br />
the flexibility of The Colosseum and allow for<br />
quick load-ins and load-outs as the shows<br />
rotate. Cher production designer Jeremy<br />
Railton says his main goal was making Cher<br />
happy so she could enjoy herself onstage.<br />
“It’s all to make a <strong>com</strong>fortable environment<br />
for the performers that tells the story of<br />
the show,” he says. “Theatrical events should<br />
happen seamlessly and not stop the show<br />
and overshadow the performers.”<br />
Cher’s fans have <strong>com</strong>e to expect “glittery<br />
rock ‘n’ roll with plenty of spectacle,” says<br />
Railton, and he made sure his design delivers<br />
just that to Las Vegas audiences. With three<br />
different shows sharing the same venue,<br />
space had to be used as efficiently as possible.<br />
The lighting designers for Cher, John<br />
and Midler agreed on a kit list that would<br />
satisfy the needs of each performer.<br />
“Each show had to be visually polemic<br />
due to the nature of the artists, but all three<br />
shows had the same 120-foot video wall<br />
and the same stock of lighting equipment<br />
to design from,” Halpin says.<br />
A Flexible and Dynamic Rig<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
The Cher equipment list includes 95 Coemar<br />
Infinity Wash fixtures, 60 Vari*Lite VL3000<br />
Spots, 24 VL3500 Spots, 24 VL2202 Spots, 39<br />
VL3500 Wash fixtures, 46 Clay Paky Profile SVs,<br />
14 Syncrolites, six Robert Juliat followspots,<br />
one Lycian 3K followspot, 14 Martin Atomic<br />
3K Strobes, two Hungaro Strobes, 24 Color<br />
Kinetics ColorBlasts and 18 Chroma-Q Color<br />
Blocks.<br />
There are also six<br />
Pixel Range PixelLine LEDs, 34 4-lighters, 20<br />
police beacons, 120 strings of twinkle lights,<br />
12 Pathway 4-Port Nodes and one Martin<br />
Maxedia Pro media server.<br />
“The lighting is not consistent from show<br />
to show,” explains Caesars Palace Colosseum<br />
technical director Bob Sandon. “It’s a different<br />
hang for each of them. Bette and Elton<br />
are similar, but between Bette and Cher,<br />
it’s <strong>com</strong>pletely reworked. The pieces are all<br />
there, just assembled a little different.”<br />
In designing the lighting for Cher’s<br />
show, Halpin wanted to create a variety<br />
of styles within a single space. “We move<br />
from arena rock to West End theatre to Vegas<br />
glitz,” he describes, “so it was important<br />
that the lighting was flexible and dynamic<br />
enough to work within all disciplines.”<br />
Halpin uses a Studio Due Dominator to<br />
backlight a giant pearl in which Cher makes<br />
her entrance.<br />
“It’s a 6K Xenon breakup fixture which<br />
literally dominates the stage,” he says. “We<br />
also use 40 Jem Hydra smoke machines with<br />
steam fluid to create smoke chases and a<br />
faux CO2 effect for the battlefield scene.”<br />
Special Effects and Ethernet<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Smoke and confetti are consistent<br />
across all three shows and additional special<br />
effects for Cher include full color lasers<br />
from LaserNet. LED fixtures internally light<br />
the individual set pieces for Cher’s show,<br />
and Halpin uses ColorBlasts and DB4s to illuminate<br />
band members and band risers.<br />
“I like LEDs both for their low power<br />
consumption and low heat, which means I<br />
can position them closer to soft goods,” Halpin<br />
says. “With LED technology moving forward<br />
at such a rapid pace, I am sure lighting<br />
rigs will be<strong>com</strong>e more and more efficient<br />
and environmentally friendly.”<br />
All told, The Colosseum went from<br />
12 lighting universes for the Céline Dion<br />
show to 31 universes for the 2008 season.<br />
The Cher and Midler shows are controlled<br />
through two Martin Maxxyz+ consoles, and<br />
the Elton John show uses an MA Lighting<br />
grandMA. ETC Sensor<br />
Dimmer racks<br />
— with 1,348 dimmers —<br />
were chosen for their versatility<br />
and reliability.<br />
“It is all Ethernet based. All demultiplexing<br />
and signal processing is in-built within<br />
The Colosseum and runs throughout the<br />
building,” says Halpin.<br />
All three shows make use of the house<br />
rigging, which Halpin describes as a <strong>com</strong>bination<br />
of Niscon digitally controlled linesets<br />
and conventional hoists and trusses.<br />
The load-in for the Cher show took about<br />
two weeks, including rehearsals.<br />
Lighting a Huge Space<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
For Halpin, working in Las Vegas and in<br />
The Colosseum for the first time presented<br />
some challenges.<br />
“It is obviously much larger than a conventional<br />
theatre yet it still has more restrictions<br />
to design than an arena,” he says.<br />
Halpin was encouraged by the amount of<br />
atmospheric and ambient light control The<br />
Colosseum offers, but he still had to deal<br />
with lighting one of the biggest proscenium<br />
spaces in the country.<br />
“This is a huge performance space to<br />
light properly without overlighting,” Halpin<br />
says. “It was quite challenging in the design<br />
process to ascertain the best fixture placement<br />
in order to get big rock and roll cathedral<br />
looks while at the same time ensuring<br />
that we are not bombarding the audience<br />
consistently with high-powered lighting.”<br />
For Cher at the Colosseum, the set design<br />
calls for creating a false proscenium<br />
through the use of two 45-foot on-stage<br />
towers — designed by Tait Towers — that<br />
close the space to a more manageable 72-<br />
feet and create a visually dynamic set.<br />
“We can go from small and intimate, to<br />
action that spans 140-feet across the stage<br />
and 40-feet vertically,” Halpin says.<br />
Railton says that designing for a permanent<br />
stage is usually easier and less expensive<br />
than designing for a touring production,<br />
but this particular show has to be a<br />
blend of both.<br />
“The three shows all are sharing the theatre.<br />
Although we load out most of the scenery,<br />
some of the heavy stuff remains,” Railton<br />
explains. “The difficulty was to squeeze in our<br />
scenery on top of the other two shows.”<br />
28 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
The huge video wall, a striking feature for Celine Dion’s performances, is permanantly<br />
fixed into place. Most of the other set elements shift for the three shows.<br />
A false procenium helps close Cher’s performance space to a manageable 72-foot width.<br />
Cher’s show has a five to six week run. Bette Midler’s show runs for four weeks.<br />
Elton John’s show is limited to two to three weeks.<br />
Cher’s fans expect “glittery rock ‘n’ roll with plenty of spectacle,” notes Cher’s<br />
production designer, Jeremy Railton.<br />
For Cher, LD Baz Halpin creates a variety of looks within the big space, from “arena rock to West End theatre to Vegas glitz.”<br />
Elaborate costumes, lasers, smoke<br />
and confetti work with the video wall to add visual spectacle to Cher’s show.<br />
Now You See It…<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
For Sandon, the biggest challenge<br />
was “finding space for everyone’s production<br />
and still try to create ease of load-in<br />
and load-out so we don’t necessarily have<br />
to <strong>com</strong>pletely remove an entire show.”<br />
One solution was to leave some elements<br />
in place — like the lettering for the Elton John<br />
show that remains hanging in the grid during<br />
performances by Cher and Midler.<br />
“You leave some things behind just so<br />
you can rotate the shows quickly,” Sandon<br />
explains.<br />
The real test of the design <strong>com</strong>es when<br />
it’s time to rotate the shows — taking down<br />
one show and loading the next one in, all in<br />
just over 24 hours. The three artists rotate<br />
performances throughout the 2008 season,<br />
with Midler’s show running about four weeks<br />
at a time, Elton John at two to three weeks<br />
and Cher with a five to six week run.<br />
And each performer has a <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
different set.<br />
“The only thing that doesn’t move is the<br />
video wall. It's permanently fixed in place,”<br />
says Sandon. “There are new drops, new<br />
lighting positions, new scenery and even<br />
a different floor layout. Bette has one giant<br />
riser onstage, and then Cher has the bridge<br />
and towers and everything else. It’s a <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
different look from show to show.”<br />
And time is of the essence.<br />
“We have a day,” Sandon says. “We close<br />
on Sunday nights, and then we have a Tuesday<br />
show, all the time.”<br />
As an example, Sandon expects the Cher<br />
show to load out in about six or seven hours.<br />
“Then we’ll have to work pretty much sixteen<br />
hours the next day to put it back in,” he says.<br />
Painless Production<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
For Halpin, working in The Colosseum<br />
couldn’t have been better.<br />
“Putting together one show like this,<br />
never mind three shows, would not be possible<br />
in some venues,” he says. “Head electrician<br />
Greg Whittle and his team have made<br />
this one of the most painless experiences of<br />
my career. The attention to detail and cando<br />
attitude meant a potentially difficult and<br />
stressful situation was in fact a thoroughly<br />
enjoyable one. It was almost too easy.”<br />
Sandon is happy to host Cher, Midler<br />
and John at Caesars Palace. He believes The<br />
Colosseum and its three rotating performers<br />
— with diverse sets, styles and audiences<br />
— are a match made in heaven.<br />
“It’s such a great <strong>com</strong>plement. The building<br />
is laid out in such a way that there is no<br />
seat that’s further than 130 feet from basically<br />
the downstage center mic position,” he says.<br />
“It’s a great place to <strong>com</strong>e see a show. The<br />
shows themselves just look great.”<br />
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PRODUCTION PROFILE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Instead, Megadeth’s LD used retro lighting<br />
looks and moving truss for Gigantour 2008.<br />
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Photos & Text by<br />
Bree Kristel Clarke<br />
“Musicianship” might be a word<br />
more <strong>com</strong>monly associated with<br />
a Chopin concerto or chamber ensemble<br />
than with the thrash metal bands<br />
Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom,<br />
Job for a Cowboy and High on Fire. Those<br />
bands toured North America this year as<br />
the latest incarnation of Gigantour, the<br />
annual shred-fest launched by Megadeth<br />
front man Dave Mustaine in 2005.<br />
When they first met to discuss lighting<br />
this year’s tour, LD Brandon Webster admitted<br />
to Mustaine that he wasn’t really that<br />
well acquainted with Megadeth’s music.<br />
That, of course, has changed. “Megadeth is<br />
more than just metal,” Webster says. All four<br />
band members — guitarist/singer Mustaine,<br />
guitarist new<strong>com</strong>er Chris Broderick,<br />
drummer Shawn Drover and bassist James<br />
LoMenzo — “are incredible musicians.”<br />
Showcasing Skills<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Webster met up with Mustaine in<br />
late 2007 when Megadeth was touring<br />
Australia with Static-X, DevilDriver and<br />
Lacuna Coil. That tour, Webster says,<br />
was “a <strong>com</strong>pletely different show,” with<br />
different “backdrops, set pieces, the<br />
whole thing.”<br />
Webster calls Mustaine “a mastermind”<br />
who is able to choreograph in<br />
his head “exactly who moves where,<br />
every night.” But when it came to the<br />
lighting design for Gigantour 2008,<br />
Mustaine “gave me a lot of flexibility<br />
to do whatever I wanted,” as long as<br />
Webster was able to <strong>com</strong>e up with “a<br />
big rock show with a distinct ‘feeling.’<br />
I responded back that I wanted to do<br />
this in a way that would <strong>com</strong>plement<br />
their skills and the show, without taking<br />
away from the stage performance.”<br />
A Giant Rig<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
One of the first items to be considered<br />
was pyro. “They’ve had pyro in<br />
previous Gigantours,” Webster says, “but<br />
I was of the mindset that, ‘if you can’t<br />
give me a really big number per week to<br />
do it, I’d rather not do it at all.’ We might<br />
Aside from a false alarm, LD Brandon Webster hasn’t had any major issues with his console.<br />
as well build a giant lighting rig and go<br />
from there, instead of going halfway with<br />
everything.”<br />
With the focus shifting from pyro,<br />
Webster was able to push for his retro<br />
vision of the kind of big rock rig seen<br />
before automated lighting arrived on<br />
the scene. “I’ve always had this wet<br />
dream of doing a 1970s-style show,”<br />
Webster says, recalling the big rigs<br />
used for bands like Rush, “with 500 PAR<br />
rigs that flower out from the stage.”<br />
Moving truss also plays a big role<br />
in changing the look as the show<br />
progresses. “I wanted to change each<br />
block of the set so that it was different<br />
throughout the show,” he says, “so it’s<br />
not like you’re just sitting there staring<br />
at the four guys playing the whole<br />
time. Everything is flat in the beginning,<br />
and then the truss moves and we<br />
change backdrops and give a flow to<br />
the whole thing.”<br />
Webster doesn’t feel the need to<br />
try to visually pump up the energy<br />
with lighting by itself. “The band<br />
members are perfectly capable of<br />
spooling the crowd without my help.<br />
But it’s <strong>com</strong>pletely useless if they<br />
can’t be seen. So I just try to do big<br />
open looks so everyone can see everything<br />
that’s going on.”<br />
Music, not Multimedia<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Even during those times “when the<br />
songs are really really heavy, more often<br />
than not there’s not a lot going on<br />
onstage,” Webster notes. “They might be<br />
moving slowly, and I’m changing colors<br />
slowly, but I’m really not trying to take<br />
away from it. I didn’t want to get caught<br />
up in this whole multimedia craze<br />
where there’s so much going on visually<br />
that it takes away from the players” and<br />
the music.<br />
As for his choice of colors, Webster<br />
generally just tries to match the mood of<br />
the songs, but not necessarily their tempo.<br />
“Even if the band is playing 100 miles<br />
per hour, it doesn’t mean you have to go<br />
from color A to color B in zero seconds,”<br />
Webster says. “The biggest thing for me<br />
was for each different song to have a distinct<br />
look.” A song like “Hangar 18,” for<br />
example, will need a “spacey” look, with<br />
some alien visuals. “The music really dictates<br />
it, in the end.”<br />
Starting with Pen and Paper<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Webster always starts his designs “with<br />
pen and paper,” then when the rig is drawn,<br />
he uses VectorWorks at home, then moves<br />
on to previsualization software from ESP<br />
Vision. “They are great tools,” Webster says,<br />
but adds that he still likes to spend three<br />
days in front of the rig itself before the<br />
30 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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PRODUCTION PROFILE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
opening show and an additional two days<br />
at the first venue to <strong>com</strong>plete the looks.<br />
Despite that level of preparation,<br />
the band rarely sticks to a set song list.<br />
“Dave bases his performance on the energy<br />
and how he feels about it, so he<br />
will just change the set list, skip a song,<br />
flip it or start a song within the middle<br />
of the song without warning,” Webster<br />
says. “It doesn’t really bother me that<br />
much. He knows that we are going to<br />
work this together and make it happen.”<br />
Webster programs the lighting on an<br />
Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console, which<br />
he considers “the most flexible console<br />
on the market. I can change or rearrange<br />
a set list on the fly, or I can grab a<br />
look and do an entire song on fader. I’ve<br />
found that to be more difficult on some<br />
of the other consoles I’ve used.”<br />
A False Alarm<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
The d ay b e fo re h e s p o k e w i t h<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong>, Webster had a scare with the<br />
console, but it proved to be a false<br />
alarm. “Just last night, I go to eat dinner,<br />
and I get a call to say, ‘The console’s<br />
dead. It’s <strong>com</strong>pletely crashed.’<br />
S o I walk i nto t h e ve n u e a n d l o o k a t<br />
it, and I’m already sending people<br />
h e re w i t h p ower s u p p l i e s a n d c a b l e s<br />
b e c a u s e I h ave a ver y f i n i te a m o u n t<br />
of time to fix it. I asked, ‘Has anyone<br />
tried to turn it back on?’ Somebody<br />
had accidently hit the power switch,”<br />
We b s ter s ays. B u t i n d e fe n s e o f h i s<br />
c re w, h e a d d s t h at h e, too, h a s a<br />
tendency to jump to the worst-case<br />
conclusions when glitches arise.<br />
Webster also values flexibility and reliability<br />
in his lighting instruments. He’s<br />
particularly impressed with the Martin<br />
MAC 700s. He likes their hard edge and<br />
the ability of the units to go “from arenas<br />
to small clubs, and their ability to<br />
not overpower the club.” Relatively low<br />
power draw, brightness and reliability<br />
are other advantages, he says.<br />
Keeping the Beat<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Of all the songs Megadeth performs,<br />
Webster says his favorite one to light is<br />
Megadeth’s “Trust,” with its unabashedly<br />
crowd-pleasing beat. “I’m not really into<br />
the whole art school off-beat thing, you<br />
know,” he says. “If I can’t track a song or<br />
tap my foot and sing the song when I’m<br />
driving down the road, it kind of loses me.<br />
That song has these incredibly smooth<br />
transitions from one feeling to the next.<br />
It starts out really slow, just a drum beat,<br />
and you don’t know what to expect, then<br />
the band <strong>com</strong>es in all at one time, and it’s<br />
like, ‘Here we are, let’s do this.’”<br />
CREW<br />
LD: Brandon Webster<br />
Crew chief: Martin “Juice” Joss<br />
Lighting techs: James “JimmyMac”<br />
MacKay, Cathy Martin<br />
Lighting <strong>com</strong>pany: Premier Global<br />
Production Co. Inc.<br />
GEAR<br />
Lighting console: Avolites Diamond 4<br />
Vision<br />
13 4-Light Mole-Feys<br />
18 Chain Hoists (1 ton)<br />
2 City Theatrical Aquafog 3300 dry<br />
ice foggers<br />
24 Color Kinetics Color Blast 12s<br />
14 ETC Source Four 19° ERS<br />
12 ETC Source Four PARs<br />
1 High End Systems Axon media<br />
server<br />
4 High End Systems DL.2s<br />
30 High End Systems Studio Color<br />
575s<br />
13 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes w/ color<br />
changers<br />
24 Martin MAC 700 Profiles<br />
10 PixelRange PixelLine 1044s<br />
2 Two-stage kabuki drops<br />
For Megadeth’s song, “Hangar 18,“ Webster went with a “spacey“ look, with alien graphics.<br />
Webster doesn’t need to do much more than make sure the performers can be seen. They’re capable of “spooling in the crowd<br />
without my help.“<br />
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32 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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FEATURE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
2008 Parnelli<br />
Visionary Award<br />
Michael Tait and the Art of Innovation<br />
By Kevin M.Mitchell<br />
Michael Tait’s vision has<br />
taken him around the world.<br />
This photo was taken during<br />
a recent trip to India.<br />
“<br />
Michael Tait is the reincarnation of<br />
Leonardo da Vinci — an artist, an<br />
engineer, a sculptor, a true genius,”<br />
says production designer Steve Cohen.<br />
“He single-handedly raised the bar on<br />
production design in my lifetime and stewarded<br />
the growth of our little business into<br />
the gift that keeps on giving.”<br />
That’s just one description of Michael<br />
Tait, the visionary whose indelible imprint<br />
in the live event industry is seen on almost<br />
every concert stage today — from rotating<br />
stages to light towers, down to the guitarist’s<br />
foot pedal box. His remarkable career<br />
has helped forge an industry before there<br />
was one, and his work ethic and creativity<br />
has touched many, from contemporaries to<br />
the superstars of the concert arena.<br />
Begging Him to Stay<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
“I will always remember this moment<br />
in time,” Yes front man Jon Anderson told<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> in an exclusive interview. “Mickey Tait<br />
had been Yes’ driver, roadie, and general<br />
dogsbody for a year. He’d had enough, and<br />
was ready to return to Australia. We’d just<br />
returned from a Yes show in a pub in the<br />
north of England, where Mickey had spent<br />
the evening side stage switching lights on<br />
and off, after putting gels on them, and<br />
making the show infinitely better.<br />
“So I said to Mickey, ‘Please don’t go<br />
to Australia!’ and I begged him to stay and<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e our lighting engineer. He then<br />
started to tell me of these wonderful ideas<br />
he had for lighting the band, which would<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e known as ‘Genie towers.’ He was so<br />
excited that the following day we arranged<br />
some cash for him to get the towers built.<br />
Such was the inventiveness of Michael. He<br />
became an intricate member of the Yes<br />
experience that lasted for so many years. I<br />
cannot tell him enough how grateful I am<br />
to have had him in my life — as in ‘You bet<br />
your sweet bippy.’”<br />
34 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008<br />
“Smartest and Coolest Solutions”<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
“You always knew Michael would give you the<br />
smartest and coolest solution.”<br />
— Bruce Rodgers, set designer<br />
“From the first time I met Michael 20<br />
years ago I knew he was special,” says Bruce<br />
Rodgers, a Parnelli Award-winning set designer<br />
who worked with Tait on several<br />
Bruce Springsteen tours. “His legendary<br />
mental abilities, his positive attitude and<br />
fearlessness in solving design challenges,<br />
his awareness of the needs of the production<br />
design and the people who move our<br />
shows, and his engineering instincts always<br />
<strong>com</strong>e into play regardless of the size of the<br />
project. You always knew Michael would<br />
give you the smartest and coolest solution.”<br />
“Tait Towers has built a ton of stuff for<br />
me over the years — for tours, MTV video<br />
awards, all sorts of things,” says Parnelli<br />
Award-winning lighting designer Roy Bennett,<br />
who is currently working on Madonna’s<br />
tour. “I’m a detail man, and also totally<br />
into innovation, and the thing about Michael<br />
and his <strong>com</strong>pany is they do pay attention<br />
to the details. He thinks about everything,<br />
and everything is important on<br />
every level. And I always feel safe walking<br />
into his shop with any kind of idea knowing<br />
that they will figure out how to make<br />
it work.”<br />
Letting There Be Light<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
Tait was born in Melbourne, Australia,<br />
where he attended the Royal Melbourne<br />
Institute of Technology. There he studied<br />
electrical and mechanical engineering but<br />
he “got bored pretty quickly.” His first foray<br />
into the entertainment business was opening<br />
a nightclub in Queenland’s famous seaside<br />
town of Surfers Paradise, which was<br />
very successful right up to the minute the<br />
authorities noticed Tait hadn’t bothered to<br />
get a liquor license and shut him down. The<br />
restless young man then set off for a sixweek<br />
vacation to England, which became a<br />
permanent move.<br />
That was the<br />
year 1967. Upon his<br />
arrival he immediately<br />
found out which was the hottest<br />
nightclub in town, the Speakeasy, and<br />
got a job there. Soon he was in the presence<br />
of the likes of the Beatles, The Who<br />
and Jim Hendrix, among others. “My very<br />
first night working, my first table included<br />
two of the Beatles, who I didn’t recognize at<br />
the time,” he smiles.<br />
Not unlike other Parnelli honorees, his<br />
new career in live events would begin with<br />
those five magic words: “Can you drive the<br />
van?” The band in need was Yes, then a stillobscure<br />
group.<br />
The band was immediately drawn to<br />
Tait’s imagination, work ethic and easygoing<br />
nature. Tait, in turn, was drawn to<br />
the band’s vision and ambition, finding a<br />
unique home for his skills in electrical and<br />
mechanical engineering. “Because I have a<br />
very technical background, I started working<br />
on the gear and improving it,” Tait explains.<br />
“Yes’ music was totally revolutionary.<br />
Jaws dropped when the band played.”<br />
Primitive Days<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
In the late 1960s, the technical side of<br />
the concert industry was still in its infancy.<br />
“Those were primitive days,” Tait says. In<br />
fact, at the time, instruments weren’t miked,<br />
only vocals, and many of the pieces of gear<br />
that are <strong>com</strong>monplace today weren’t even<br />
invented. “As Yes got bigger, I started building<br />
equipment and redesigning things.”<br />
“The first system I built had auto fog lamps<br />
in coffee cans and homemade wire wound<br />
potentiometers for dimmers,” he says. “When<br />
PAR 64s came out, we made our own square<br />
cans out of sheet metal. Later on I made round<br />
ones out of air conditioning duct.”<br />
On Yes’ first American tour, Tait had only<br />
six Strand Pattern 23 lights and everything<br />
else was “homemade,” including the controller.<br />
“One of the early ones I built,” he<br />
said, “had bump buttons with micro switches<br />
that could be played like a piano. This allowed<br />
me to ‘play’ in time with the music.”<br />
As Yes grew in popularity, their lighting<br />
and stage show grew in <strong>com</strong>plexity. To enhance<br />
the concert experience, Tait began<br />
working with towers and multi-celled PAR<br />
cans.<br />
“I created<br />
self-contained<br />
units that you could roll in, put one<br />
on in each corner of the stage, push a button<br />
to raise the lamps, a quick focus and you are<br />
ready for a show,” Tait explains. The cans on<br />
the towers had four lamps each with a different<br />
color gel, which allowed focusing in<br />
one-fourth the time, which was startlingly<br />
innovative at the time. Eventually, the towers<br />
became known as Tait Towers.<br />
A Revolutionary Concept<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
In the mid 1970s, Tait devised the inthe-round<br />
rotating stage. The idea came<br />
from an unlikely source: A film canister.<br />
Tait was in the studio with the band one<br />
day while they were filming a documentary.<br />
Tait picked up a 35mm film can that<br />
was nearby and realized how easy it would<br />
be to recreate the band’s studio setup on a<br />
round stage. “We were talking about what<br />
we would do for a stage set and all of a sudden,<br />
this idea came to me,” Tait says. “If we<br />
played in the center, everyone would be<br />
closer and everyone could see better.” The<br />
financial advantage was not lost on anyone<br />
— the “front row” was now 85 seats instead<br />
of the usual 42.<br />
“So, I came over to America and built<br />
the round stage in Lancaster County, Penn.<br />
with the help of a local engineering <strong>com</strong>pany.”<br />
While building a stage in the heart of<br />
Pennsylvania Dutch country might sound<br />
unusual, it was already home to Clair Brothers<br />
Audio. “Roy Clair was on tour with Yes<br />
most of the time and we became very good<br />
friends. That’s why I decided to move to Lititz.”<br />
The decision would make the modest<br />
town, population less than 10,000, an unusual<br />
but formidable live event production<br />
haven to this day.<br />
But the rotating stage brought new<br />
challenges, like lighting.<br />
“Since the band kept moving, I had to rethink<br />
how light the band,” he says. “And there<br />
were no real production rehearsals, as I was<br />
always building stuff right up to load out!<br />
Consequentially the lighting had a more dynamic<br />
feel and it was different every night.”
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
FEATURE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
“It was a bit like Spinal Tap. If someone else had 60 channels,<br />
I needed 100.” —Michael Tait<br />
Michael Tait has been restlessly pursuing new design concepts for staging<br />
and lighting gear for four decades. This photo was taken in 1970.<br />
Jake Berry was working as keyboard technician<br />
for Yes’ Rick Wakeman at the time, and<br />
today, he is a production manager who has<br />
worked with the best talent in the business,<br />
from the Rolling Stones to U2. “When we did<br />
the Yes stage, Michael was full of ideas,” Berry<br />
says. “Because the stage was in the middle of<br />
the arena, everybody was stressed about how<br />
the building would be able to clear the chairs<br />
in time to get the show out. So Michael came<br />
up with this fantastic idea of a barricade,<br />
which, in actual fact, was a barricade with<br />
drawers, and slots that stored all the drums,<br />
the keyboards and guitars that you could<br />
pack from the inside. So you could actually<br />
work and pack away your instruments while<br />
the crowd was still in the building.”<br />
The Phone Gets Busy<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
The stage also made his phone ring.<br />
Once Yes premiered the stage in the round,<br />
Tait got a call from Imero Fiorentino and Associates.<br />
They asked him to design a rotating<br />
stage for Barry Manilow when Manilow<br />
was at the top of his popularity, packing<br />
arenas. “They asked if I could make a round<br />
stage for them that would incorporate a<br />
small orchestra and backup vocalists in addition<br />
to the band,” Tait says.<br />
Although Tait had success with the rotating<br />
stage in the round, Tait Towers was<br />
really a lighting <strong>com</strong>pany. “The <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
really consisted of all of the lights I built<br />
over the years for Yes, and, at the time,<br />
apart from FM Productions, there were<br />
very few set building <strong>com</strong>panies outside of<br />
Broadway.”<br />
It was also during this time that Tait<br />
developed the swing-wing truss — a truss<br />
system in which the instruments remained<br />
inside the truss while the sides hinged<br />
to create a safe walkway for focusing. Tait<br />
added to it a distributed dimmer-per-circuit<br />
system, which was revolutionary at the<br />
time. “There were test buttons on the full<br />
length dimmer raceway, so you could turn<br />
the lights on to focus without having someone<br />
at the control board.”<br />
Control boards were also of interest to<br />
Tait, who designed one of the first pin matrix<br />
boards in Europe. “I realized that I needed<br />
more than just the standard A and B preset<br />
scenes; I needed to be able to switch large<br />
quantities of lights to be able to keep up<br />
with Yes,” Tait explains. The pin matrix board,<br />
created in 1973, had twenty channels, A and<br />
B scenes, ten pin matrix presets and 12 high<br />
speed preset bump buttons.<br />
Bennett likes to point out that while it<br />
was years before he actually “met” Tait, he<br />
had an encounter of sorts with him when<br />
he was just another Rhode Island kid with a<br />
ticket to a Yes concert. Bennett happened to<br />
be seated in close proximity to the gentleman<br />
behind the light board.<br />
“I was 14 or 15, at a Yes concert at the<br />
Providence Center,” Bennett recalls. “I happened<br />
to have had a seat sitting across the<br />
aisle from Michael [who was running the<br />
lighting board] in a suit jacket and bow tie.<br />
He had this home made lighting console<br />
that was most impressive, especially the<br />
two cigarette lighters, one on either side.<br />
That way he could light his cigarette with either<br />
hand if the other was busy running the<br />
lights!” he laughs.<br />
Tait remembers that console well, and<br />
says it was a 100-channel monster that no<br />
one else had, if even if he didn’t need all<br />
those channels. “It was a bit like Spinal Tap,”<br />
he jokes. “If someone else had 60 channels, I<br />
needed 100.”<br />
Bennett adds that it would be years later,<br />
on a Luther Vandross tour, when they actually<br />
met. “That was the first time I got to<br />
spend time with Michael and see how they<br />
do their stuff.”<br />
If I Had a Million Dollars<br />
The 1980s kept Tait busy<br />
building his client base, which included<br />
the Grateful Dead, U2, Billy<br />
Joel and Bruce Springsteen. The<br />
concert industry had outgrown<br />
its infancy and was headlong<br />
into its proverbial teenage years,<br />
acne and growth spurts included.<br />
When automated lighting came<br />
into play, “I saw the writing on<br />
the wall, and I knew to be in that<br />
business, it would take millions of<br />
dollars.”<br />
That was when Tait seriously<br />
looked at his finances and had a<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong><br />
startling realization. “All those years, the<br />
set building had been subsidizing the<br />
lighting rental, and that’s why I had no<br />
money in my pocket,” he admits. He sold<br />
all his lights and then took his 15 years<br />
of road experience and focused all his<br />
energy exclusively on set design and production.<br />
The firm began to expand, and Tait<br />
used his experience to create sets that<br />
could be assembled quickly and easily by<br />
anyone, no matter what their level of technical<br />
expertise. Through the 1990s and<br />
beyond, he continued innovating, and a<br />
new facility, more employees, and more<br />
designers knocking on his door would<br />
create further growth. Over the years, Tait<br />
Towers clients have included Reba<br />
McEntire, AC/DC, Roger Waters,<br />
Ozzfest, Pokémon Live and Britney<br />
Spears, just to name a few.<br />
Tait also worked with noted set<br />
designer Mark Fisher on numerous<br />
projects, including U2, Metallica,<br />
AC/DC, the Rolling Stones and Janet<br />
Jackson. “Michael Tait is a clever<br />
engineer/inventor/rock-show<br />
designer who has done everything<br />
A young Michael Tait plays the drums in 1962.<br />
Born in Melbourne, Tait studied engineering, got bored, then ran a nightclub.<br />
After his Surfers Paradise club was shut down for lack<br />
of a liquor license, Tait traveled to England, worked at a<br />
club there, then met and worked for Yes. Here Tait stands<br />
before a set he designed for Yes in 1973.<br />
36 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
“I always feel safe walking into his<br />
shop with any kind of idea knowing<br />
that they will figure out how to make<br />
it work.”<br />
—Roy Bennett, lighting designer<br />
Tait got the idea for a revolving set for Yes from the round shape of a film canister.<br />
there is to do in this business except<br />
play and sing,” Fisher says.<br />
“Consequently, Michael is very<br />
wise about what works and what<br />
doesn’t. He’s been on the road,<br />
building and tearing down late every<br />
night, so he knows it’s the little<br />
things that count.”<br />
As the years passed, Tait Towers<br />
constructed some of the most<br />
notable and innovative sets in the<br />
entertainment industry. Bennett<br />
tells a story about Faith Hill’s tour,<br />
where the original idea was to<br />
hide a support structure behind a<br />
black curtain. But before the cloth<br />
could be hung, Hill saw it. “Oh my<br />
God, that’s so beautiful we have to<br />
leave it,” Hill exclaimed to Bennett.<br />
“Michael makes even the parts that<br />
people aren’t supposed to see look<br />
great,” Bennett says.<br />
As of late, Tait has taken a bit of<br />
a step back, allowing his partners<br />
“Winky” Fairorth and Adam Davis,<br />
who “have the benefit of youth,” to<br />
run the show. His hands aren’t totally<br />
clean though, as he’s still involved<br />
with tweaking designs and<br />
allowing his formidable imagination<br />
to run wild; he’s just free from<br />
the day-to-day grind that running<br />
a business that Tait Towers demands.<br />
He’s getting to spend more<br />
time with his family, too. Tait has<br />
been married to his wife Anne for<br />
27 years and has a daughter, Lucia<br />
26; and two stepchildren, Brooke,<br />
32, and Ben, 30.<br />
“Unlike other industries that go<br />
through <strong>com</strong>plete design phases<br />
to generate their final products,<br />
our industry builds from the concept<br />
phases” Rodgers sums up.<br />
“Therefore it takes a special engineering<br />
mind to create a finished<br />
product that can tour around the<br />
world from this phase. That's the<br />
reason our industry is the most<br />
exciting design industry and that’s<br />
the reason Michael is one of a kind<br />
in the world.”<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
37
FEATURE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong> readers anoint six regional lighting<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies as the best in North America.<br />
The readers have spoken. And who are we to argue with them?<br />
Not that we ever doubted their choice, but they have voted for an<br />
especially eclectic group of <strong>com</strong>panies for the regional winners of the Parnelli<br />
Hometown Heroes Awards. The <strong>com</strong>mon thread among them is that they<br />
are all serving their clients above and beyond the call of duty, yet they all do it in<br />
their own unique way. From these six winners, one will be chosen to receive the<br />
overall Parnelli Award for Hometown Hero at <strong>PLSN</strong>’s gala ceremony Oct, 24 2008.<br />
So read about those you don’t know and reacquaint yourself with those you do.<br />
Then go to www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong> and cast your vote!<br />
Hollywood Lighting Services<br />
Portland, Ore. & Seattle<br />
Dwayne Thomas, president,<br />
Hollywood Lighting Services<br />
Hollywood Lighting Services handled the lighting for the International Fight League’s mixed martial arts <strong>com</strong>petition<br />
Hollywood Lighting Services has a long, rich history. Founded in 1948 by Don<br />
Cameron and George Howard in Portland, the <strong>com</strong>pany went through several<br />
owners and partners before Tom Neal joined in 1969. Neal holds a BS<br />
degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University with a background<br />
that includes R&D engineer for Boeing. He worked his way through college as a<br />
humble stagehand.<br />
Then came Richard Fuller, who started in the <strong>com</strong>pany’s rental department in 1973.<br />
In 1978 Fuller bought into the business, and in 1989 he became sole owner. In 1994,<br />
the Seattle office was opened. Today the <strong>com</strong>pany boasts 9,200 square-foot showroom<br />
and warehouse.<br />
Dwayne Thomas, president of Hollywood Lighting Services, would love to show<br />
you pictures of some of their most recent work, a military assignment. But then he’d<br />
have to kill to you.<br />
“We just finished lighting the product rollout for the [censored], and new type of<br />
[censored] that [may or may not] float,” he doesn’t say. They weren’t allowed to photograph<br />
it, though it involved a “shock and awe” unveiling, which is what they got with<br />
the help of a couple of tons of trussing. Lots of Martin MAC moving lights may or may<br />
not have been involved. The roll out was just for the hard working employees who did<br />
or didn’t build whatever it is we’re not talking about. Not only was there no press at the<br />
event, but also no generals or government officials.<br />
Some things Thomas is a tad chattier about include work they do for the large number of<br />
apparel <strong>com</strong>panies in the Northwest, including Macy’s, Nordstrom and “every shoe <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
in Portland, which is, like, all shoe <strong>com</strong>panies.” Adidas recently brought in 1,000 associates for<br />
a spring sales meeting and Hollywood Lights was on hand to help motivate the crowd.<br />
Thomas is a musician who transitioned to lighting, and has been running the <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
since 2005. “It <strong>com</strong>es down to creative design,” he says. “We believe great lighting<br />
is not just about gear, but the people behind it. I like say we have a pretty darn ingenious<br />
design staff. Not to say we’re just about big. If you’re only required to hang two<br />
PARs, hang them right. We take it all seriously.<br />
Precise Corporate Staging (PCS)<br />
Phoenix, Ariz.<br />
David Stern, president of Precise Corporate Staging<br />
“ It’s the quality of the equipment,” says David Stern, president of PCS, when<br />
asked why readers of <strong>PLSN</strong> nominated the <strong>com</strong>pany for a second time in a row<br />
as best lighting house in the Southwest. “That’s what makes a <strong>com</strong>pany grow<br />
so large in eight years.”<br />
But of course, Stern makes it look easy when it’s not. He doesn’t blindly buy everything<br />
that <strong>com</strong>es off the line. “If a <strong>com</strong>pany pushes something that they say is cool but<br />
the clients aren’t asking for it, I don’t buy it,” he says. “I’m careful about the selection and<br />
what ends up in our warehouse.”<br />
Right now he’s got equipment on the road with Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Elton John,<br />
Tina Turner (“I have 148 lights out with her”), Alice Cooper and Madonna. He says that<br />
lighting designer Roy Bennett paid him a big <strong>com</strong>pliment when his gear was used on<br />
the Spice Girls reunion tour. “He said that he had never seen cleaner moving lights out<br />
on a tour before,” Stern says. “That’s another aspect that has really driven our growth.<br />
You look at our gear, and it all looks brand new. We maintain it that well.”<br />
Stern got into the business as a musician and was a sought-after keyboard tech<br />
for Bon Jovi and Van Halen. When he tired of the road, he formed PCS with his wife<br />
Marla, and they’ve been successful since founding the <strong>com</strong>pany. “We were both<br />
brought up in the age of ‘the customer is always right’ and that is hard to find these<br />
days.” A belief in mutually beneficial relationships with the clients allows for their<br />
growth and success as well.<br />
Today they have two offices — one in Tempe, Ariz., and another in Marietta, Ga.<br />
Last year, they moved into more spacious digs: a 36,000 square-foot building that they<br />
bought. They needed a place that would to hold all their gear, and that’s a lot.<br />
38 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
Blue Planet Lighting, Inc.<br />
Hollister, Mo.<br />
Mike Gormley and Kelly Koster, partners, Blue<br />
Planet Lighting<br />
Blue Planet Lighting was formed<br />
out the Branson, Mo. -based Koster<br />
& Associates. Partners Kelly<br />
Koster and Mike Gormley received<br />
Parnelli honors last year, and have<br />
since re-branded themselves as Blue<br />
Planet Lighting.<br />
“We’ve all been lighting designers<br />
and tour techs, and we wanted to go<br />
to the next level with Blue Planet. And<br />
man, are we glad we did,” says Kelly<br />
Koster. “We’re right in the center of<br />
the country, and being near Branson<br />
doesn’t hurt, though it only accounts<br />
for about a fourth of our sales. We’ve<br />
sold to Sweden and Mexico. We’ve<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e a world-wide <strong>com</strong>pany very<br />
fast.<br />
“One huge advantage is our location.<br />
We don’t have local <strong>com</strong>petition,<br />
so we can carry High End, Clay Paky,<br />
all the big brands. Go open a lighting<br />
shop in L.A. and good luck getting<br />
a High End dealership,” Koster adds.<br />
He says another advantage they have<br />
is their service department, which is<br />
run by John Hurst. “He takes care of all<br />
our lighting repairs, and I’ll put him up<br />
against anybody. Andy Evans is a great<br />
service tech as well.<br />
“We’ll be expanding and hiring a<br />
few more people because business<br />
has been going through the roof and<br />
we’re crazy busy,” he laughs.<br />
One of their recent big projects<br />
was “just up the road” in the St. Louis<br />
metro area. Lindenwood University<br />
built a new Performing Arts Center, a<br />
venue for students and professional<br />
acts <strong>com</strong>ing through. Koster says it’s<br />
a beautiful space made even better<br />
by the Vari-Lite, Martin, Color Kinetics,<br />
and pretty much everything but the<br />
kitchen sink. He almost sounds jealous<br />
when he talks about the new tools the<br />
students have. “Those kids have it all!”<br />
he laughs.<br />
Another big project they worked<br />
on was a church in Upper Marlboro,<br />
Md. Closer to home, they have done<br />
a lot of work for the local Silver Dollar<br />
City theme park in Branson.<br />
The <strong>com</strong>pany has even recently<br />
launched Light Nation Radio, an online<br />
radio station dedicated to lighting<br />
industry professionals. Blue Planet also<br />
has a lighting forum on their Web site<br />
(www.blueplanetlighting.<strong>com</strong>).<br />
Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound<br />
Charlotte, N.C.<br />
Jack Kelly, Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound<br />
There are many professionals in<br />
the live event industry that take<br />
an unusual path into this business,<br />
and that’s certainly the case with<br />
Jack Kelly. The son of a preacher, he was<br />
slated to be<strong>com</strong>e a church music director.<br />
He would be<strong>com</strong>e a professional<br />
musician, restaurant manager, sound<br />
engineer, lighting designer, dance instructor,<br />
movie consultant…<br />
Kelly got his start as a “copy tape<br />
boy” recording his father’s sermons.<br />
He graduated with a degree in music<br />
<strong>com</strong>position, but shifted gears. He<br />
tried many different things before volunteering<br />
to work for a new lighting<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany in Wilmington, N.C. in 2002.<br />
“It lasted a New York minute,” he says.<br />
He bought the equipment from the<br />
defunct <strong>com</strong>pany for “pennies on the<br />
dollar,” and started running lights for<br />
friends sometimes for $50, and more<br />
often just for free drinks.<br />
His gift for lighting design was<br />
getting noticed, and was then doing<br />
Christian rock bands, youth confer<br />
ences, and “edgy” churches. At one point<br />
he asked to design Charlotte’s hottest<br />
club, the Sky Lounge, which brought him<br />
national acclaim. Then he was asked to<br />
do the Ménage Lounge, which was the<br />
biggest install in Charlotte at the time.<br />
The LED revolution was in full swing,<br />
and Kelly realized he couldn’t <strong>com</strong>pete<br />
with <strong>com</strong>panies that had conventional<br />
lights, nor did he want to. He taught<br />
himself everything about LEDs by reading<br />
manuals online and reading <strong>PLSN</strong>. He<br />
kept picking up more clients, and Eye Dialogue<br />
Lighting & Sound was on its way,<br />
formally being founded in 2004.<br />
Today it is a lighting, sound, special<br />
effects and video <strong>com</strong>pany. The <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
boasts the largest stock of LED color fixtures<br />
in the area. They serve clubs, houses<br />
of worship, live events of all kinds including<br />
corporate and educational events,<br />
and some very imaginative parties.<br />
Kelly believes that there is no such<br />
thing as <strong>com</strong>petition. “In a market that<br />
is underdeveloped, you can’t really have<br />
<strong>com</strong>petition. In sound, you’re not developing<br />
new clients, you’re trying to take<br />
away others,” but he believes LEDs can<br />
and should be used everywhere. “People<br />
throwing $3,000 parties used to spend<br />
$1,500 on decorations, but now they are<br />
spending that money on lighting.”<br />
The young <strong>com</strong>pany already boasts<br />
seven full-time employees, and seven<br />
part-timers, and offers health benefits.<br />
He keeps overhead low: “My office is still<br />
a red barn next to my house in the center<br />
of the ‘hood.’ ”<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
39
FEATURE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Earl Girls Inc.<br />
Egg Harbor City, N.J.<br />
Don Earl, president of Earl Girls Inc.<br />
“ That our customers have voted and made us winners of the Northeast Hometown<br />
Hero award for lighting five years in a row assures us that we must be<br />
achieving our primary objective, which is satisfying our clients,” says Don<br />
Earl, president of Earl Girls. “We have been growing at a tremendous rate and we<br />
realize that it is primarily because of the word-of-mouth praise that we receive<br />
from our existing customers. We try to view every customer as our friend and colleague, and<br />
we try to satisfy every concern from the client’s point of view, since our experienced staff<br />
knows first hand what it’s like to produce events.”<br />
For those of you at home keeping score, Earl Girls is five for five on the regional<br />
award. The <strong>com</strong>pany has in recent years expanded into a larger warehouse, adding an<br />
addition 15,000 square feet to their needs.<br />
When Don Earl was a kid growing up in Connecticut, his parents were active in <strong>com</strong>munity<br />
theatre, and he was on the stage at the tender age of seven. But luckily for the<br />
lighting clients in New England, he didn’t get bit by any acting bug.<br />
“I remember looking up the stairwell at the theatre, and there was this board with<br />
all these lights and dials,” Earl recalls. “And I was thinking I had to find out more about<br />
that…”<br />
He did. He earned a college degree in technical theatre, then moved to Atlantic City<br />
and worked on the lighting in casinos opening there. In 1991 he founded Earl Girls in<br />
honor of his wife and two young daughters.<br />
“This past year has seen remarkable growth in our video and rigging departments,<br />
as well as the moving light area,” Earl says. “Video installations have been increasingly<br />
interesting, and we are particularly happy with a unique installation that we did with<br />
Hollywood Casino in Pennsylvania, using a holographic screen.”<br />
The tougher times haven’t phased Earl either: “This is presently a challenging economy;<br />
however it provides Earl Girls with the opportunity to show our customers how to<br />
get the most for their dollar.”<br />
Metalworks Production Group<br />
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
Owen Whitehead, left, and Bob Spencer of<br />
Metalworks Production Group<br />
The Metalworks people have it<br />
figured out.<br />
First, they have an awardwinning<br />
studio that draws the talent<br />
to record their projects (Prince<br />
recorded his Musicology there most<br />
recently). Once they have their ear,<br />
they introduce them to their live<br />
event division. Then a third <strong>com</strong>ponent<br />
is their education facility, where<br />
hundreds of students learn about live<br />
event and recording arts. This creates<br />
a talent pool from which to draw.<br />
Founded 30 years ago by Triumph<br />
guitarist Gil Moore, who is still very<br />
much involved in all aspects of the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany, they handle concerts, live<br />
theatre, corporate, and special events.<br />
“What we did was develop into a<br />
one-stop shop approach,” says Owen<br />
Whitehead, production manager.<br />
“We were good at multitasking and<br />
be<strong>com</strong>ing experts all kinds of events.<br />
And with all our clients we’re able<br />
to take an event from conception to<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletion.”<br />
“We supply LDs, stage managers,<br />
the CAD equipment — down to the<br />
paperwork necessary to have a show<br />
go on,” president Bob Spencer adds.<br />
“We’re the first supplier to [arena] Rogers<br />
Center here in Toronto, and our assortment<br />
of Stage Line mobile stages<br />
allows us to do almost all the big festivals<br />
that Canada has.”<br />
Metalworks has a full inventory of<br />
products that relies heavily on Martin<br />
products. “We have 150 moving lights<br />
and 150 LEDs,” Whitehead says. “And I<br />
believe a couple of miles of truss. And<br />
everything we have is new, as we selloff<br />
product when it gets old.”<br />
Spencer says what attracted him<br />
to the organization is that it’s not just<br />
“a bunch of good-old boys” but is<br />
staffed with forward-thinking people.<br />
“The <strong>com</strong>pany is well-financed and<br />
has a proper attitude. We have great<br />
international support for the organization<br />
because of all three of our <strong>com</strong>ponents.<br />
Consumers see our state-ofthe-art<br />
approach as a positive.”<br />
A few recent highlights for the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany include handling all of<br />
Alice Cooper’s Canadian tours, “as<br />
we’ve done for the last seven years,”<br />
Spencer says. They handled some especially<br />
large concerts by Queen of<br />
the Stone Age and Blue Rodeo. And<br />
they reach beyond the border, too.<br />
Last year they took on the two week<br />
Seventh Day Adventist convention<br />
held in St. Louis, with 60,000 people<br />
in attendance. They built the mammoth<br />
set in Toronto.<br />
Whitehead’s highlight of the<br />
year is more personal. “I was setting<br />
up a Steve Winwood gig and he was<br />
on stage practicing,” he smiles. “I<br />
snuck on stage and played drums<br />
with him.”<br />
Ah, the perks of the biz!<br />
40 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
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42 <strong>PLSN</strong> August 2008
and the Parnelli goes to...<br />
Below are the nominees for the 8th Annual Parnelli Awards. Cast your vote to honor those<br />
individuals and <strong>com</strong>panies who have done outstanding work in the past year. Voting for the<br />
Parnelli Awards is limited to subscribers of Projection, Lights & Staging News and Front of House.<br />
To cast your vote, go to www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong>/vote<br />
Sound Company<br />
Audio Analysts — Linkin Park<br />
ClairShowco — Police<br />
Firehouse Productions — Radiohead<br />
Rat Sound Systems — R.E.M.<br />
Sound Image — Rascal Flatts<br />
Special Event Services — Coldplay<br />
FOH Mixer<br />
Scott Boorey — Steve Miller Band<br />
Dirk Durham — Toby Keith<br />
Jon Garber — Rascal Flatts<br />
Pete Keppler — Nine Inch Nails<br />
Ken “Pooch” Van Druten — Linkin Park<br />
Jim Warren — Radiohead<br />
Monitor Mixer<br />
Jules Aerts — Bob Dylan<br />
Kevin Glendinning — Justin Timberlake<br />
Chris Lantz — Seal<br />
Kevin “Tater” McCarthy — Linkin Park<br />
Troy Milner and Monty Carlo — Bruce Springsteen<br />
Mike Sprague — Rage Against the Machine<br />
System Tech<br />
Ted Bible — Def Leppard<br />
Brett Dicus — Bruce Springsteen<br />
Russell Fisher — Toby Keith<br />
Matt Naylor — Kenny Chesney<br />
Lee Vaught — R.E.M.<br />
Mike Wolf — Elton John<br />
Hometown Hero<br />
Sound Company<br />
Midwest — Great Lakes Sound, Toledo, OH<br />
Southeast — Atlanta Sound & Lighting, Atlanta, GA<br />
Southwest — LD Systems, Houston, TX<br />
Southwest — HAS Productions, Las Vegas, NV<br />
Northeast — MHA Audio, Hagerstown, MD<br />
Northwest — Morgan Sound, Lynnwood, WA<br />
Canada — Tour Tech East, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia<br />
Production Manager<br />
Omar Abderrahman — Hannah<br />
Montana/Miley Cyrus<br />
Jim Digby — Linkin Park<br />
Bill Leabody — Nine Inch Nails<br />
Robert Long — Rage Against the Machine<br />
Mark Spring — George Michael<br />
Ed Wannebo — Kenny Chesney<br />
Tour Manager<br />
Mike Amato — Linkin Park<br />
Scott Casey — Bon Jovi<br />
David Farmer — Kenny Chesney<br />
Andy Franks — Coldplay<br />
Chris Littleton — Steely Dan<br />
Brian Ormond — Radiohead<br />
2008 Parnelli Ballot<br />
Lighting Company<br />
Bandit Lites — Rascal Flatts<br />
Ed & Ted’s Excellent Lighting, Inc. — Bon Jovi<br />
Premier Global Production Co. — Gigantour 2008<br />
Q1 Production Technologies —<br />
Trans-Siberian Orchestra<br />
See Factor — Various<br />
Theatrical Media Services — Dave Matthews Band<br />
Upstaging — Police<br />
Lighting Designer<br />
Roy Bennett — Nine Inch Nails<br />
Bryan Hartley — Trans-Siberian Orchestra<br />
Mattheiu Larivée — Chantal Chamandy: Beladi - A<br />
Night at the Pyramids<br />
Mark Jacobson — Tool<br />
Sha Xiao Lan — Summer Olympics<br />
Opening Ceremony<br />
Andi Watson — Radiohead<br />
Staging Company<br />
Accurate Staging — Linkin Park<br />
All Access Staging Productions — Rascal Flatts<br />
ASI Production Services — NCAA Final Four<br />
Brown United — Billy Joel at Shea Stadium<br />
Mountain Productions, Inc. — 2008 Papal U.S. Tour<br />
Stageco — George Michael<br />
Set/Scenic Designer<br />
Justin Collie — Beyoncé<br />
Seth Jackson — Toby Keith<br />
Jason Robinson — Wrestlemania<br />
Bruce Rodgers — Dave Matthews Band<br />
Mike Swinford — Kenny Chesney<br />
Willie Williams — George Michael<br />
Set Construction<br />
Accurate Staging — Linkin Park<br />
All Access Staging Productions — Wrestlemania<br />
B and R Scenery — Superbowl<br />
Show Group Production Services — Keith Urban<br />
Tait Towers — Bon Jovi<br />
Hometown Hero<br />
Lighting Company<br />
Northwest — Hollywood Lighting Services,<br />
Portland, OR & Seattle, WA<br />
Southwest — Precise Corporate Staging<br />
(PCS), Tempe, AZ<br />
Midwest — Blue Planet Lighting, Inc., Hollister, MO<br />
Southeast — Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound,<br />
Charlotte, NC<br />
Northeast — Earl Girls Inc., Egg Harbor City, NJ<br />
Canada — Metalworks Production Group,<br />
Mississauga, ON<br />
Be front and center as the<br />
industry salutes its finest <strong>com</strong>panies and<br />
practitioners at the 8th Annual Parnelli Awards<br />
www.parnelliawards.<strong>com</strong>/vote<br />
Video Rental<br />
I-Mag Video — Rascal Flatts<br />
Moo TV — Brad Paisley<br />
Nocturne Productions — Nine Inch Nails<br />
Pete’s Big TV’s — Bruce Springsteen and<br />
the E Street Band<br />
Screenworks NEP — Kenny Chesney<br />
XL Video — Foo Fighters<br />
Video Director<br />
Steve Cohen — Billy Joel<br />
Mike Drew — Rascal Flatts<br />
Mark Haney — Eric Clapton<br />
Tony Bongiovi — Bon Jovi<br />
Bailey Pryor — Brad Paisley<br />
Christine Strand — Return to Forever<br />
Rigging Company<br />
Atlanta Rigging<br />
Branam Enterprises<br />
Five Points Production Service<br />
Show Group Production Services<br />
Stage Rigging<br />
Pyro Company<br />
Advanced Entertainment Services — Poison<br />
Pyro Spectaculars by Souza — Fourth of July<br />
Pyrotek — Trans-Siberian Orchestra<br />
Strictly FX — Avenged Sevenfold<br />
Zenith Pyrotechnology — Wrestlemania<br />
Tour Manager<br />
Mike Amato — Linkin Park<br />
Scott Casey — Bon Jovi<br />
David Farmer — Kenny Chesney<br />
Andy Franks — Coldplay<br />
Chris Littleton — Steely Dan<br />
Brian Ormond — Radiohead<br />
Coach Company<br />
Diamond Coach<br />
Four Seasons<br />
Hemphill Brothers<br />
Music City Coach<br />
Roberts Brothers Coach<br />
Senators Coaches<br />
Trucking Company<br />
Ego Trips<br />
ES Transport<br />
Janco<br />
Roadshow Services<br />
StageCall<br />
Upstaging, Inc.<br />
Freight Forwarding<br />
Acme Global Logistics<br />
Epes Freight Management<br />
Horizon Freight System<br />
Rock-It Cargo<br />
Show Freight Industries<br />
Sound Moves
COMPANY 411<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
People, Products,<br />
Philanthropy<br />
Define Company<br />
By RichardCadena<br />
If you want a peek into the corporate<br />
culture of any <strong>com</strong>pany, get to know<br />
its CEO. For Electronic Theatre Controls,<br />
better known as ETC, the CEO is the<br />
guy in the Birkenstocks who was once<br />
described by a family friend as “the one<br />
who talks.” (His brother and co-founder<br />
of the <strong>com</strong>pany was described by the<br />
same friend as “the one who thinks.”) The<br />
telling part is that the CEO, Fred Foster,<br />
is the one who tells the story. It’s a testimony<br />
to the kind of humor and humility<br />
you’ll find in this seriously successful<br />
man and the <strong>com</strong>pany he leads.<br />
On the surface, it might seem that the<br />
success of the <strong>com</strong>pany is entirely due to<br />
the success of its products. After all, 2.3<br />
million of the <strong>com</strong>pany’s Source Fourbrand<br />
fixtures have been sold. You can<br />
hardly find a performing arts space today<br />
that doesn’t have them, and for good<br />
reason. The Source Four spotlight totally<br />
redefined the industry’s expectations of<br />
the ERS and changed a <strong>com</strong>monly used<br />
1000-watt fixture into a more efficient<br />
575-watt fixture that produces more<br />
light. Their introduction in 1992 started<br />
a virtual transformation of the entire industry,<br />
one shipment at a time.<br />
And if all the 1.5 million ETC Sensor<br />
dimmer modules that have been<br />
shipped were stacked one on top of the<br />
other, they would reach a height of over<br />
36 miles. Most of those dimmers are<br />
controlled by one of the many consoles<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany has manufactured over the<br />
years, starting with the Concept in 1982<br />
and culminating, to date, in the Eos, Ion,<br />
Congo, Congo jr, SmartFade and Smart<br />
Fade ML consoles.<br />
2MHz to 2MS4s 411<br />
There was a time, however, long before<br />
the Eos and Congo, when the Foster<br />
brothers could only dream of making a<br />
living designing and selling technologically<br />
advanced theatrical lighting equipment.<br />
While they were attending the<br />
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the<br />
brothers and friends Gary Bewick and Jim<br />
Bradley built a <strong>com</strong>puter-based controller<br />
with the dream of one day selling it to<br />
the Metropolitan Opera. The four friends<br />
built the hardware and programmed the<br />
software around an Intel 8080 microprocessor<br />
running at 2 MHz. That was in<br />
1975, and this prototype would be the<br />
44 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008<br />
first seed of what would grow to be ETC.<br />
Bill Foster was the first president of<br />
ETC, but he soon answered a different<br />
calling, pursuing a physics Ph.D. and<br />
later a political career. This year he was<br />
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives,<br />
after working as a scientist at Fermi<br />
National Accelerator Laboratory for 22<br />
years. Fred Foster, on the other hand, left<br />
school to continue his entrepreneurial<br />
dreams, developing and marketing his<br />
lighting products. Since day one, he has<br />
been busy in the ETC offices, building<br />
the <strong>com</strong>pany with the help of his talentheavy<br />
staff.<br />
Through a series of acquisitions, ETC<br />
has be<strong>com</strong>e a highly regarded, internationally<br />
recognized brand. In 1990, ETC<br />
acquired Lighting Methods, Inc (LMI),<br />
taking them from a controller <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
to a dimming and control manufacturer.<br />
Two years later, ETC acquired the intellectual<br />
property for the Source Four fixture<br />
and suddenly became an end-to-end<br />
provider of theatrical lighting systems.<br />
The acquisition of Arri GB in London<br />
established their European presence in<br />
1995, and they expanded into Asia in the<br />
same year.<br />
The astute observer in the late 1990s<br />
might have speculated that the one<br />
missing piece of the puzzle was automated<br />
lighting. And indeed, rumors<br />
swirled around the industry about the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany’s plans to enter that market.<br />
In 1998, ETC acquired the Irideon line<br />
of exterior color-wash fixtures and architectural<br />
moving-yoke fixtures. Never<br />
living up to ETC’s technical standards<br />
however, the line was eventually discontinued.<br />
Instead, ETC went to work on its<br />
own, unique Source Four-based automated<br />
fixture. Noted programmer Tom<br />
Littrell (first ever to use moving lights,<br />
1981 Genesis tour), came on board to<br />
shepherd ETC’s Source Four Revolution<br />
to market in 2003.<br />
Corporate Mission: Fun 411<br />
But ETC’s products are only part of<br />
the picture. Dig a little deeper and you’ll<br />
find a <strong>com</strong>pany culture inspired by genuine<br />
concern for employees, customers,<br />
the industry, and the environment alike.<br />
It is perhaps the only lighting manufacturer<br />
whose mission statement contains<br />
the word “fun.” It reads brightly: “ETC<br />
David Lincecum, marketing manager, left, with Bill Gallinghouse, vice president of business development and marketing.<br />
“In the past few years, ETC has listened<br />
harder than ever to what the industry<br />
was saying about the need for innovation in<br />
control systems.”<br />
— David Lincecum, ETC marketing manager<br />
will develop great new products for the<br />
lighting world, listen to customers and<br />
give them more than they expect, have<br />
fun and make money.”<br />
ETC’s Web site captures the philosophy<br />
of the <strong>com</strong>pany in a few lines. There’s<br />
a bit about Company Management (people),<br />
Company History and Awards (products),<br />
Corporate Philanthropy (giving),<br />
and the Environmental Policy (caring).<br />
What the Web site doesn’t reveal is<br />
how ETC recruits and retains its talent.<br />
Many of the almost 700 employees are<br />
long term, very talented people who actively<br />
contribute not only to the <strong>com</strong>pany,<br />
but also to the industry. Steve Terry,<br />
vice president of R&D, has been a leader<br />
in the industry and helped develop many<br />
of its standards since his days as the coowner<br />
of Production Arts in New York. Today,<br />
he sits on several ESTA-related <strong>com</strong>mittees,<br />
as does Dan Antonuk, ETC R&D<br />
network products development manager,<br />
who chaired the ACN Task Group.<br />
Two of ETC’s marketing product<br />
managers, Sarah Clausen and consultant<br />
Anne Valentino, came to ETC having<br />
worked with other console manufacturers.<br />
Dennis Varian, R&D senior technical<br />
product manager, came from Light<br />
& Sound Design. The three were instrumental<br />
in bringing ETC’s recent Eos and<br />
Congo console lines to market, and these<br />
are among the first brands to readily support<br />
ACN, the newest control protocol in<br />
the industry.<br />
“In the past few years, ETC has listened<br />
harder than ever to what the industry<br />
was saying about the need for innovation<br />
in control systems,” says David<br />
Lincecum, ETC marketing manager. “As a<br />
result we’ve overhauled our control offerings.<br />
It’s been big change, and we’re<br />
very pleased with how the market has<br />
responded.”<br />
Going to Town 411<br />
If you visit ETC’s new 328,000-squarefoot<br />
headquarters, you will immediately<br />
get it. The “fun” that was put in the mission<br />
statement is more than just a philosophy;<br />
it’s a way of life for this <strong>com</strong>pany,<br />
starting the moment you set foot inside.<br />
The atrium is a full-blown Town Square<br />
straight from the 1940s, <strong>com</strong>plete with a<br />
life-size recreation of the café in Edward<br />
Hopper’s Nighthawks painting. A 40-foot<br />
façade features a theater marquee and an<br />
art deco skyscraper, masking the <strong>com</strong>pany’s<br />
offices and various departments. Every<br />
scenic-designed detail brings Town<br />
Square to life.<br />
Foster directed the design group that<br />
included architects, builders and ETC em-
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
COMPANY 411<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
ETC CEO Fred Foster, “the one who talks.”<br />
The <strong>com</strong>pany’s atrium features a 1940s-styled Town Square with theatre marquee and cafe.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
ETC marketing product manager Sarah Clausen with the <strong>com</strong>pany’s Eos console.<br />
ployees to conceive a facility that would<br />
serve the culture of ETC. The first phase<br />
of the building — 250,000 square feet —<br />
was <strong>com</strong>pleted in 2004. The headquarters’<br />
dual purpose is to act as hub of the<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany’s global operations and as an<br />
homage to the art of lighting and entertainment<br />
technology. The second phase,<br />
<strong>com</strong>pleted this August, added another<br />
78,000 square feet of manufacturing,<br />
shipping and inventory space, plus more<br />
parking to help keep up with the ever expanding<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany.<br />
“With this expansion, we’re extending<br />
our original design principal to continue<br />
to draw the ever-growing ETC <strong>com</strong>munity<br />
together,” says Foster.<br />
As fun as the Town Square is, it is only<br />
one piece of the puzzle. The rest of the<br />
ETC headquarters houses a large manufacturing<br />
area plus the <strong>com</strong>pany’s offices<br />
for administration, sales, tech support,<br />
and R&D. It’s impressive to witness the<br />
scope of the operation firsthand, and to<br />
see how upbeat the employees seem to<br />
be. They seem genuinely interested in<br />
the jobs and are eager to tell you about<br />
their latest projects and ac<strong>com</strong>plishments.<br />
And it’s not un<strong>com</strong>mon for Foster<br />
himself to give you a tour — serving as<br />
your personal guide through ETC’s console<br />
museum, which is a long hallway<br />
filled with every model of board ever<br />
produced by ETC, most of which are still<br />
working.<br />
Hard Work, Vision and Fun 411<br />
ETC has enjoyed a real measure of<br />
success in its 33-plus years in business.<br />
But success was not handed over on a sil-<br />
ver platter; it was wrought by a talented<br />
staff, with hard work, vision, and fun. And<br />
the continued success of the <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
could be put to the test when the patent<br />
for the Source Four expires in a couple<br />
of years. The <strong>com</strong>pany could be facing<br />
the biggest challenge yet, and how it responds<br />
could determine its future.<br />
But ETC also has reason to be very<br />
confident. “At a time when many indus-<br />
tries have been threatened or challenged<br />
by the economic downturn, ETC is enjoying<br />
sustained growth,” says Foster, “and<br />
that is allowing us to develop new technologies<br />
and explore new markets.”<br />
It seems that ETC has always been a<br />
leader, and they’ve never been afraid to<br />
seek out the new. They were one of the<br />
first to jump into the ACN pool, and the<br />
odds are in favor of their continued suc-<br />
cess. If you ask Fred — the one who talks<br />
— he’ll probably tell you so.<br />
46 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Lighting Design Software By<br />
BUYERS GUIDE<br />
RichardCadena<br />
LightConverse screen shot detail<br />
When AutoCAD was first being used<br />
by lighting professionals, a software<br />
license was almost as much a status<br />
symbol or a badge of honor as it was a useful<br />
tool. To the uninitiated, it seemed terribly<br />
advanced and hopelessly impossible to learn.<br />
There were <strong>com</strong>mands and syntax that were<br />
totally foreign to the untrained masses, and<br />
the price tag alone was enough to convince<br />
you that it was not child’s play. And when<br />
someone was serious enough to invest in<br />
a pen plotter, you just knew they were in a<br />
league of their own.<br />
Today, there’s a different mystique<br />
about <strong>com</strong>puter-aided design. With many<br />
very good lighting design <strong>com</strong>puteraided<br />
design software packages, the<br />
game is about speed, efficiency and<br />
quality of work. And the work can be<br />
many things — lighting plots, schedules,<br />
magic sheets, photo-realistic renderings,<br />
visualization, video renderings, and more.<br />
In the world of software, things move fast,<br />
and last year’s products are old news. This<br />
year’s models are better than ever, with<br />
more features and more offerings than<br />
ever before.<br />
In the eight years that <strong>PLSN</strong> has been<br />
<strong>com</strong>piling these types of product <strong>com</strong>parisons,<br />
no single area of the industry<br />
seems to advance as rapidly as lighting<br />
design software. The developers have<br />
been busy expanding the horizons and<br />
the possibilities of working on a <strong>com</strong>puter<br />
and in virtual reality. If the trend<br />
continues, in no time at all we’ll all be<br />
totally immersed in the virtual world of<br />
live event production up until the first<br />
downbeat of the show.<br />
Sometimes it’s challenging to keep up,<br />
but with the help of this month’s Buyers<br />
Guide you can quickly get up to speed on<br />
the latest offerings. But pay close attention<br />
because there’s more on the horizon.<br />
Until then, here are the listings.<br />
Light Grid from Stage Research<br />
Microlux Professional from LuxArt<br />
Screen shot from FocusTrack<br />
Design & Draftings’ LD Assistant PL 08<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
47
BUYERS GUIDE<br />
Manufacturer<br />
Web Address<br />
Capture Sweden<br />
www.capturesweden.<strong>com</strong><br />
Product Name<br />
Capture Polar, Basic<br />
Edition<br />
Capture Polar,<br />
Extended Edition<br />
Stand-alone?/<br />
supporting software<br />
CAD Paperwork Rendering<br />
Real-time<br />
Visualization<br />
no. of Elements in<br />
Symbols Library<br />
3D drawing?<br />
Compatible File Formats<br />
stand alone Y Y N Y 2,500+ Y GIF,JPG,BMP<br />
stand alone Y Y N Y 2,500+ Y GIF,JPG,BMP,DXF,DWG<br />
Cast Software<br />
www.wysiwygsuite.<strong>com</strong><br />
or www.viviendesign.<strong>com</strong><br />
Design & Drafting<br />
www.LDASSISTANT.COM<br />
www.AutoBLOCK2000.COM<br />
Field Template<br />
www.fieldtemplate.<strong>com</strong><br />
FocusTrack<br />
www.focustrack.co.uk<br />
WYSIWYG Report Y Y Y N N 18,000 Y<br />
WYSIWYG Design Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y<br />
WYSIWYG Perform Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y<br />
WYSIWYG Console<br />
Edition<br />
Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y<br />
Vivien Y Y Y Y<br />
Conceptual<br />
ONLY<br />
6,000 plus<br />
unlimited access<br />
to Sketchup’s 3D<br />
Warehouse<br />
LD Assistant Ac 08 stand alone Y Y Y Y 8,000 Y<br />
LD Assistant PL 08<br />
Plug-in Requiring<br />
AutoCAD2008<br />
AutoCAD2009<br />
Y<br />
WYG (WYSIWYG), VVN (Vivien), SKP<br />
(Sketchup), DXF, DWG, Lightwright,<br />
Excel, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG<br />
WYG (WYSIWYG), VVN (Vivien), SKP<br />
(Sketchup), DXF, DWG, Lightwright,<br />
Excel, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG<br />
Native AutoCAD; DWG, DXF, wmf,<br />
eps, dxx, 3ds, avi, mov, mpg, wmv,<br />
ASCII, xls, ies, txt, bmp, jpg, png<br />
Y Y Y Y 8,000 Y Native AutoCAD DWG & DXF<br />
AutoBlock2000 AutoCAD & AutoCAD Lt Y Y N N 8,000 Y Native AutoCAD DWG & DXF<br />
SoftSymbols V3<br />
Symbol libraries for<br />
VectorWorks<br />
Y light plots N N 3,500<br />
2800 hybrid<br />
symbols<br />
FocusTrack stand alone N Y N N N/A N<br />
native to VectorWorks and SoftPlot,<br />
can be used with Spotlight or<br />
AutoPlot<br />
Import from Lightwright, VectorWorks<br />
Spotlight, Strand 300,500-series<br />
showfiles, ETC Eos showfiles (beta), soon:<br />
MA grandMA & Strand Palette showfiles<br />
Future Light by<br />
West Side Systems<br />
www.future-light.<strong>com</strong><br />
Virtual Light Lab 3<br />
stand alone but needs<br />
current version of<br />
Quicktime<br />
N N N Y n/a JPEG<br />
John McKernon Software<br />
distributed by City Theatrical<br />
www.mckernon.<strong>com</strong><br />
www.citytheatrical.<strong>com</strong><br />
Lightwright 4 Stand alone N Y N N N<br />
Microsoft Windows® 98 NT/2000/<br />
ME/XP or later; Mac OSX 10.2<br />
(Jaguar) or later<br />
LightConverse Ltd.<br />
www.lightconverse.net<br />
www.atfull.<strong>com</strong><br />
LightConverse stand alone Y Y Y Y<br />
500+ 3D fixture<br />
models; user can<br />
also add their own<br />
Y<br />
DXF, X (DirectX file), 3DS, 3DL; all<br />
picture and movie formats (jpeg,<br />
bmp, avi, etc.)<br />
Microlux Light stand alone (PC) Y Y N N 1,250+ N<br />
MLX(Microlux), DXF, DWG, BMP,<br />
XML<br />
LuxArt Conception Inc<br />
www.luxart.<strong>com</strong><br />
Microlux<br />
Professional<br />
stand alone (PC) Y Y Y N 1,250+ Y<br />
MLX(Microlux), DXF, DWG, BMP,<br />
XML<br />
Microlux Vision stand alone (PC) Y Y Y Y 1,250+ Y<br />
MLX(Microlux), DXF, DWG, BMP,<br />
XML<br />
Martin Professional A/S<br />
www.martin.<strong>com</strong><br />
Martin<br />
ShowDesigner<br />
(MSD)<br />
stand alone Y Y Y Y 14,000+ Y .scn, .mlb, .dxf, Xfile<br />
Nemetschek North America<br />
www.vectorworks.net<br />
Vectorworks<br />
Spotlight<br />
stand alone (Mac & PC) Y Y Y Y 2,500+ Y<br />
VWX, MCD, DWG/DXF, <strong>PDF</strong>,<br />
Lightwright, ESC, SketchUp, KML,<br />
3DS, XML,Excel, Filemaker, ASCII,<br />
PSD, EPS, BMP, TIFF, JPG<br />
Stage Research, Inc.<br />
www.StageResearch.<strong>com</strong><br />
SoftPlot stand alone Y Y N N 3,000+ N<br />
SoftPlot 3D stand alone Y Y Y Y 3,000+ Y<br />
LighShop Online stand alone N N N N 3,000+ N<br />
Light Grid stand alone N N Y Y n/a Y<br />
DXF,DWG, JPG, BMP, GIF, EMF, PLT,<br />
HTML<br />
DXF,DWG, JPG, BMP, GIF, EMF, PLT,<br />
HTML<br />
ZZYZX, Inc.<br />
www.espvision.<strong>com</strong><br />
Vision 2.3 stand alone N Y (patch data) Y Y<br />
hundreds (new<br />
ones added “almost<br />
daily”)<br />
some<br />
native: ESC or v2s/<strong>com</strong>patible: max,<br />
mcd, DWG, DXF, 3DS<br />
48 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Latest Features Retail Price Comments<br />
Realistic realtime visualization featuring realtime shadows, volumetric<br />
beams, realistic color mixing, color temperature and HDR mapping<br />
(preventing whiteouts and improving contrast).<br />
Enhanced beam visualization in shaded views, soft-edge beams, beam<br />
flare, realistic color-mixing; new shadows, improved beam footprints/<br />
wrapping and fixture’s POV in shaded views; variable soft focusing of beam<br />
footprints; atmospheric smoke; improved lineweights; boolean functions;<br />
pixel mapping support for LES grids; import items from SketchUp and 3D<br />
Warehouse; enhanced render engine<br />
ruler tool for visual point of reference; custom gobo wizard for importing<br />
images/logos; “improved” beam visualization in Virtual Views; “improved”<br />
custom library features/control; file <strong>com</strong>pression; 1000+ new library items;<br />
“enhanced” Render Engine; boolean functions; “improved” lineweights<br />
1089€<br />
1815€<br />
(726€ to upgrade from Basic)<br />
$999<br />
$2,499<br />
$4,999<br />
Bundled with Console. Contact<br />
Manufacturer.<br />
$1,845<br />
- Available for Mac OS X by end of 2008<br />
- No limitations in number of universes<br />
- Supports ArtNet, BSR E1.31 (Streaming DMX), CITP, ETCNet2<br />
- Compatible with AVAB, Avolites, Compulite, EntTec DMX USB Pro, Hog2PC, Hog 3, LanBox, LT-Light<br />
and SandNet<br />
38 manufacturers in the RWD program; previz one to hundreds of lights; plotting to previz to photorealistic<br />
rendering; streaming video; runs on Microsoft XP, and now Vista, as well as MAC (with BootCamp)<br />
WYSIWYG CE is installed using software currently available at the date of installation. To receive new releases<br />
and updates, CE customers must upgrade to a regular WYSIWYG which offers membership benefits.<br />
Vivien is for event planners, designers, caterers, venues and meetings marketplace working for the<br />
special events industry. A new APEX menu item contains information about Accepted Practices<br />
Exchange (APEX) standards.<br />
2D drafting & 3D modeling, scenery design, entertainment lighting, event planning, play movies on<br />
Real-Time walkthrough with video playback, moving scenery, XREF, sight<br />
$2,495<br />
any object, create animations as you walkthrough your design with video playing in real-time and<br />
line camera; no dongle required for 64 universe access; support for Art-Net,<br />
pre-cue the show; export dimmer & channel information to USITT ASCII text patch.<br />
Pathport, ENTTEC both USB and Ethernet; FX Rendering, Volume Light, Lens<br />
Effects; use any JPG or BMP as gobo/texrure; library of 8,000 symbols (19<br />
Scenery design, Entertainment lighting, Event planning, play movies on any object, Create animations<br />
manufacturers, truss, fixtures, video projectors, plasma & LCD monitors, drape,<br />
as you walkthrough your design with video playing in real-time and Pre-Cue the show. No other<br />
tables, chairs, doors, windows, IES file supports Incandescent, low pressure<br />
$1,495<br />
programs or dongle needed to connect your console using Art-Net/ENTTEC or Pathport’s Ethernet.<br />
sodium, high intensity, fluorescent lamps; built-in online suppoort and updates<br />
Export dimmer & channel information to USITT standard ASCII text patch. Easily move fixtures labels,<br />
create new instruments and rotate truss. LDI2002 Lighting Tools and Software Product of the Year.<br />
LD Content; Share the Power; save 70% on CAD design times. $499 Plug-in to AutoCAD and AutoCAD Lt 2004, 2005, 2006<br />
New data conversion plug-ins convert symbol data from imperial to metric and back<br />
Professional grade alternative to VectorWorks’ Spotlight symbols; phsically accurate and data-filtered;<br />
again. New libraries: CCT, Diversitronics, GAM, Nexxus, SeaChanger, Reich & Vogel,<br />
$120<br />
eliminates need for metric fixture libraries; now integrated into Stage Research’s SoftPlot.<br />
Robe, and USITT 2007. The remaining 34 fixture libraries are all <strong>com</strong>pletely updated.<br />
New FocusFinder and FocusMatch tools for rationalizing focuses for tours;<br />
Tool for documenting lighting for theatrical and other productions including moving light and<br />
new Cue Summary for examining how lights are used in cues; new Fixture<br />
conventional focuses, cue states, rig set-up, rig changes and more. Available for Mac or PC; in use<br />
UK£400<br />
Data Library; new weight and power totals; new tools for re-numbering or<br />
worldwide including Billy Elliot, Equus, Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Miss Saigon, Never Forget,<br />
changing rigs; new FocusGrid for quick notation of focus positions in cues.<br />
Young Frankenstein and at English National Opera, Glyndebourne Opera and the Royal Opera House.<br />
Version 3 added the ability to have multiple models “on stage”, more lights,<br />
cyc groundrow, 4 circuit cyc & groundrow, multiple models on stage at the<br />
same time having same or different lighting, slide show feature that does<br />
time fades between stage pictures. v3.2.1 added platform feature, vertical<br />
model placement, exporting pictures, updated color library.<br />
62 Universes of DMX; 100 Moving Light libraries per show; Stores<br />
accessories, weights, symbols and template holder sizes; Focus chart<br />
database; Work notes database<br />
Direct connectivity with Hog3, plus Hog3PC, Avolites, LightFactory, Chamsys<br />
and Pangolin Laser software. Bi-directional with Zero88 consoles. Imperial/<br />
Metric measurements.<br />
High-res High End Showgun visualization.<br />
Allows creating a <strong>com</strong>plete and exact plan with all the necessary paperwork.<br />
Comes with an extensive manufacturer specific library. *** Improved<br />
libraries<br />
Has everything you need to create professional Lighting plans and<br />
schedules with the ability to view your plan, either in 2D or 3D, visualize the<br />
lighting and test every aspect of your design. Focus and see the beams of<br />
light, find out the exact illumination, calculate the weight on your truss and<br />
more. *** Improved bill of material and equipment rental management<br />
MICROLUX Vision is an add-on to Microlux Professional to allow you to visualize<br />
the intensity of spots on screen as it is controlled by the console in real time. The<br />
intensities can be shown with a beam representation on the plan or they can be<br />
displayed in a table format, thus allowing MICROLUX Vision to pre-program a<br />
lighting board without the spots. ***Compatible with more DMX devices<br />
Newly designed 3D engine, moving objects, live video input, real-time 3D rendering w/<br />
real beam intensity curve, camera animation, timeline control, true HD video rendering,<br />
Fast Net-Render, new drag-drop objects/fixtures, new sidebar controls and more.<br />
Library of instruments and accessories from 30 manufacturers; define and manage<br />
labels and label formatting for lighting instruments; define lighting positions,<br />
hang instruments, and create instrument position summaries; create multi-circuit<br />
instruments, gang instruments, and add accessories; assign instruments to focus<br />
areas and show light beams in 2D and 3D; track instrument and accessory data<br />
used in light plots and automatically generate paperwork; import data directly<br />
to Lightwright; export dimmer and channel information to a USITT standard<br />
ASCII text patch; automatically calculate and display the illumination values; over<br />
3,000 gobo patterns from leading manufacturers or create custom gobos; create<br />
animations of scene changes or virtual tours clients can navigate in real time;<br />
simulate your Spotlight models in real time with ESP Vision<br />
$239 individual, $599 site license (4<br />
users)+$99 per additional user. New<br />
additional human model set for $25<br />
individuals or $100 for site licensee.<br />
Individual Lightwright 4 - $449.95;<br />
Institutional Lightwright 4 - $899.95;<br />
Individual Upgrade* from LW3 to LW4-<br />
$184.50; Institutional Upgrade from<br />
LW3 to LW4 - $449.00; Student Version<br />
LW4 - $135.00; Student to Individual<br />
LW4 Upgrade - $314.95<br />
$400-$1900.00, depending on the<br />
level of DMX or ArtNet connectivity,<br />
and if laser, pyro, 3D view video, or<br />
vector plotting is needed.<br />
$70<br />
$809<br />
Current version 3.2.2 and is free update to v3 owners.<br />
LDI Software Product of the Year in 1998 and 2003, Eddy Award winner in 2004. Lightwright was<br />
written by John McKernon, a professional designer and an associate designer to Ken Billington.<br />
Emphasis is on making changes quickly and easily while helping to spot potential errors with a<br />
minimum of effort. It is used every day on Broadway, in opera houses, ballet <strong>com</strong>panies, regional<br />
theatres, <strong>com</strong>munity theatres, and universities. In the United States, Canada, England, France, Italy,<br />
Germany, Sweden, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Asia.<br />
Instant real-time photorealistic rendering; run hundreds of moving lights off a laptop w/ no lag time;<br />
object and texture libraries; no subscription or renewal fees, student and educational discounts<br />
available.<br />
2D Plan view only but 3D information is present making it <strong>com</strong>patible with Microlux Professional<br />
and Microlux Vision. A free version is also available.<br />
Significant rebates are also available for peoples interested in contributing to the maintenance of<br />
libraries or software improvements.<br />
$499 Compatible with many USB-DMX Interface, Artistic DMX Dongle and others<br />
Silver version: $2.010; Gold version:<br />
$3.900<br />
Field Template SoftSymbols; CAD Drawing Importer; “improved” editors $349<br />
Silver = Drawing package only; Gold = Silver + rendering and visualization. MSD-5 will be introduced<br />
in September 2008 and will be sold in 5 different packages: Gold, Live Full, Live 4, Silver and<br />
LightJockey Edition.<br />
$1,395 Compatible with Mac an PC hardware. Rendering add on Renderworks is $400<br />
CAD application specifically for lighting. Plot lighting, manage paperwork for all levels of<br />
entertainment from theatre to film to TV.<br />
Field Template SoftSymbols; CAD Drawing Importer; “improved” editors $449 CAD application specifically for lighting; includes a 3D views; USB-DMX interfaces to console.<br />
web-based<br />
High dynamic range textures, moving truss and set pieces, <strong>com</strong>plete<br />
modification within Vision, one-button renders, MOV and AVIL creation,<br />
software console for conventional fixtures (shutters, iris, bottle rotation, etc).<br />
Live video capture from media servers for use in moving head projectors,<br />
video screens, LEDs, incl. new transparent tubes, screens (such as G-LEC).<br />
$79<br />
Single source for every category of photometric information with thousands of lighting fixtures, gels<br />
and filters, gobos, and bulbs from industry manufacturers, web enabled, web deployable application<br />
$99 Simulate and experiment with virtual lighting fixtures.<br />
$750 per universe/port up to $7,500,<br />
which is considered unlimited<br />
Compatible with an expanding list of consoles and protocols. Live Design 2004, 2006 Product of the<br />
year. InfoCOMM 2005 Software Product of the year.<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
49
WIDE ANGLE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
George Michael<br />
25 Live Tour<br />
Photos & Text by SteveJennings<br />
You don’t have to be that old to be surprised with<br />
the fact that George Michael, frontman for the<br />
1980s pop band Wham!, has been performing for<br />
more than a quarter of a century. The first leg of his 25<br />
Live tour, which supports a greatest hits album by the<br />
same name, traveled though Europe in late 2006. The<br />
North American leg that began earlier this year represents<br />
the artist’s first live tour in the U.S. and Canada in<br />
17 years.<br />
Benoit “Ben” Richard, lighting designer and director,<br />
and Richard Shipman, video programmer/director/<br />
department head, say Michael played a significant role<br />
in <strong>com</strong>ing up with the ideas for the tour’s visuals, where<br />
video dominates and lighting plays a supporting role.<br />
“I’m sad that the tour is almost over,” Richard said.<br />
“All great things must <strong>com</strong>e to an end. But I’m ready<br />
for the next big challenge.” In little more than a blink<br />
of an eye, that might just be a George Michael tour<br />
called 50 Live.<br />
George Michael marked 25 years in the music biz with a tour that lasted almost two years longer.<br />
Video Steals the Show<br />
Benoit “Ben” Richard: “Late in 2005, Vince Foster was the original lighting and set designer<br />
for the show but when he had to leave for another tour, I was brought in to take over after the<br />
first dozen shows in Europe in Oct. 2006. Willie Williams and Ken Watts worked with Barco to<br />
develop the MiStrips for this highly visual show. George Michael himself actively participated<br />
in all aspects of the design process and everything you see during the show <strong>com</strong>es from his<br />
original ideas. There’s no doubt that the video screens are the main highlight of the show. The<br />
lighting system serves as a ‘supporting role’ to pump the beat in the dance numbers and make<br />
the slower songs more theatrical. We also programmed the show to time code, which makes<br />
the whole experience even more impressive.”<br />
The tour represented the artist’s first tour in the U.S. and Canada in 17 years.<br />
Support from the Crew<br />
Benoit “Ben” Richard: “To my right at<br />
front of house is Blake Rogers, who has been<br />
my right hand man forever. On this tour, I<br />
needed him to be at front of house during<br />
the show to monitor the system and to deal<br />
with me moaning about broken gear. Thanks<br />
to his hard work and dedication to the project,<br />
we’ve had great shows during this North<br />
American leg. Kevin Forster, the account rep<br />
at Ed & Ted’s Excellent Lighting put together<br />
a great crew for us on this tour. Richard<br />
Shipman started at front of house and used<br />
Zookeeper to <strong>com</strong>municate with his three<br />
Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers backstage.<br />
Once everything was programmed<br />
and locked to code, he moved backstage and<br />
monitored the show from a SpyCam feed at<br />
the front of house.”<br />
A large video wall dominated the center of the multi-level set, flanked by video screens on both sides. Lighting played a supporting role.<br />
50 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
A Political Juggling Act<br />
Richard Shipman: “I joined the U.S. leg in<br />
May for pre-production to iron out some previous<br />
issues. I’m the department head for video<br />
and the graphics programmer/editor and final<br />
vision mixer for all screen content. I liaised with<br />
the software suppliers on formats, pixel ratios<br />
and general formatting of any content for the<br />
screens. During the show I vision mix between<br />
the graphics and the camera cut, inserting<br />
camera pictures with the visuals as agreed<br />
with George directly. I’m responsible for all<br />
aspects of the visual look of the show and act<br />
as a bridge between tour production, artist<br />
production and software producers, so you<br />
could say I am a ‘politician.’ I am the bridge for<br />
tour artist and content providers to ensure the<br />
screen hardware is built and working, that the<br />
material is synched and correct with cameras<br />
inserted to George’s brief, and that the current<br />
or revised edits of any content are being<br />
used and managed for the software providers<br />
or content production. Before the tour in preproduction,<br />
I specified the graphics units from<br />
XL Video, liaised with the content providers,<br />
Bikini Films, and received an artist brief from<br />
George regarding final overall looks for the<br />
tour. It was quite a juggling act.”<br />
Richard Shipman vision-mixed camera footage with graphics during the shows, incorporating ideas for the visuals from George Michael himself.<br />
Serving Up the Video Content<br />
Richard Shipman: “I’m using Hippotizer<br />
V3 units running from MIDI time<br />
code triggering three independent<br />
timelines, one for each screen, managed<br />
by a Zookeeper PC at front of house via<br />
a Cat 6 Ethernet link to the servers backstage.<br />
The PPU camera cut by Paul Eggerton<br />
is fed into the Hippos live and any<br />
DVE sizing and mirror effects are via the<br />
Hippos, thus eliminating delay down<br />
to two frames to the screen. This final<br />
vision mix is done uniquely via a MIDI<br />
map on the Zookeeper system onto a<br />
Berringer BCF2000 unit. So all I had at<br />
front of house was a laptop PC and the<br />
BCF. Nigel Saddler at Green Hippo, who<br />
wrote some specific code required for<br />
this MIDI map and timecode display,<br />
was a big help.”<br />
CREW<br />
Lighting Designer/Director: Benoit “Ben”<br />
Richard<br />
Video Playback Programmer/Director/<br />
Dept. Head: Richard Shipman<br />
Video Staging Designer: Willie Williams<br />
Tour Director: Ken Watts<br />
Production Manager: Mark Spring<br />
Lighting Crew Chief: Kevin Tyler<br />
Syncrolite/Moving Light Tech: Jeremy<br />
Knight<br />
Lighting FOH: Blake Rogers<br />
Dimmers: Jerry Smith, Rhane Rhodes<br />
Lighting Techs: Moss Everhard<br />
Lighting Company: Ed & Ted’s Excellent<br />
Lighting<br />
Account Rep: Kevin Forster<br />
Video Company: XL Video (Belgium, U.K.,<br />
L.A.)<br />
Live Director: Paul “Eggy” Eggerton<br />
Video Engineer: David Cruz<br />
Video Screen Technician: Frederick<br />
Opsomer<br />
Design: Innovative Design<br />
Video Content: Sam Pattinson<br />
(Onedotzero Industries), Willie Williams<br />
(Neal Street Studios)<br />
Set Construction: Chris Cronin, Merv<br />
Thomas, Total Solutions Group; Adrian<br />
Brooks,<br />
Lite Structures: James Fairorth, Adam<br />
Davis, Tait Towers<br />
Soft Goods: Megan Ducket, Sew What? Inc.<br />
Stage Engineering: Neil Darrocott, Andy<br />
Prescott, Xolve Ltd.<br />
GEAR<br />
Lighting Consoles: Flying Pig Systems<br />
Wholehog 3, 2 Catalyst v4 w/ PixelMad<br />
Media Servers, 3 Hippotizer V3 Media<br />
Servers<br />
22 4-Light DWE Mole — Feys<br />
2 Arrisun 4kw HMI 40/25 Fresnels with<br />
Eclipse DMX dousers<br />
21 Color Kinetics Color Blaze 72 LEDs<br />
24 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 LEDs<br />
4 Lycian 2.5kw truss spots<br />
32 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes with<br />
color changers<br />
45 Martin MAC 2K Profiles<br />
74 Martin MAC 2K Wash fixtures<br />
28 PAR 16s with MR16 flood<br />
16 PixelRange PixelLine 1044s<br />
22 Robe REDBlinder 2-96 LED Fixtures<br />
14 Syncrolite SXB-5/3 Fixtures<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
51
INterVIeW<br />
Living the Dream at Age 13<br />
As a young child, Cody Stoltz knew he wanted to be an LD when he<br />
grew up. He decided not to wait until adulthood to get started.<br />
By RobLudwig<br />
You may have never heard of Cody Stoltz,<br />
but if you have, then you know why<br />
this young man is special. At 13 years<br />
of age, he absolutely loves lighting. While<br />
most people his age are still playing with<br />
their friends or dealing with the changes that<br />
<strong>com</strong>e with transitioning to life as a teenager,<br />
Stoltz knows what he wants to do; he wants<br />
to be a lighting designer. He’s even saved his<br />
money and invested in his own lighting rig,<br />
and he’s an intern at New Orleans-based RZI.<br />
<strong>PLSN</strong>: How did you get interested in lighting<br />
at such a young age?<br />
Cody Stoltz: I’ve been interested in it for a<br />
really long time. When I was younger I wanted<br />
to design a show with moving lights and design<br />
the stage from the ground up. I think a lot<br />
of that — buying a lighting rig, and getting to<br />
do what I am doing now, would be the NOCCA<br />
— the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.<br />
The school is one of the best in the world for<br />
pretty much everything. They have a good setup<br />
on their stage; it’s a very expensive system.<br />
But, what made me buy my lighting system<br />
was that they wouldn’t let me play with the<br />
console when I took theatre classes there.<br />
Your parents work in the industry. Did you<br />
parents take you to a lot of shows when you<br />
were younger and did that influence you?<br />
It might have somewhat. Doing that,<br />
I learned more about what the equipment<br />
does and the brand names of the<br />
equipment, but as far as me being really<br />
interested, I’ll pay $50 or $60 for a ticket to see<br />
a good light show.<br />
Did you go to a lot of live shows when you<br />
were younger?<br />
A lot of festivals but not a lot of big<br />
lighting shows. One of the first ones I can<br />
remember that had a good light show was<br />
Duran Duran. Steve Rehages’s younger<br />
sister brought me on stage to see them. I<br />
didn’t know who they were but my Dad (Erick<br />
Stoltz) told me to go see them because they<br />
were good.<br />
Being in the business is kind of in your<br />
blood, isn’t it?<br />
My mom (Ashley Boudreaux) does it, my<br />
step-dad (DJ Boudreaux) does it, and my<br />
dad used to go out on tour. But I never really<br />
experienced any of that. But, since I started<br />
with this, my step-dad’s always giving<br />
me a heads-up on things that I should<br />
and get.<br />
How old were you when you thought this<br />
was something you wanted to do?<br />
Probably about five or six years ago.<br />
Did your school have classes that exposed<br />
you to lighting?<br />
The last school I went to had eight PAR<br />
cans and dusty, decrepit followspots that<br />
hadn’t been used in years.<br />
Were you interested art or other creative<br />
studies?<br />
I’ve been interested in pottery and art<br />
class, but it wasn’t really anything that fulfilled<br />
me.<br />
Cody Stoltz, who has already worked as an intern at RZI in New Orleans, got his start with a $350 investment in a 16-channel console and eight PAR cans.<br />
But you do have a creative side to begin<br />
with, and then you discovered lighting.<br />
When did you start going to NOCCA?<br />
I started going to the Saturday classes<br />
right after Mardi Gras.<br />
What did you have to do to take those<br />
classes?<br />
For Saturday classes, you had to fill out<br />
a form and list some references. There was<br />
also a fee for Saturday and summer classes.<br />
For summer classes, which I did for two<br />
weeks, it was $100, and for Saturday classes,<br />
it was like $10.<br />
“Whenever they have something new<br />
there, I just go up and take a couple of<br />
minutes to pull some moving lights out<br />
and hook them up to the console.”<br />
—Cody Stoltz<br />
From what I understand, you worked with<br />
audio and pyro systems during the NOCCA<br />
production of Tommy.<br />
I helped with pyro. But I got to learn how<br />
to handle it and how it worked. I watched<br />
them do it and learned about the controllers<br />
they use for it. And I was doing backstage<br />
microphones and I got put on the audio gear.<br />
But didn’t you really want to do lighting?<br />
Yeah. The first day or so, I did nothing but<br />
prepping and hanging some lights.<br />
Since you couldn’t work with light more<br />
extensively, was that an incentive to buy<br />
your own system?<br />
I’m not really sure if that was before or after<br />
Tommy. I think it might have been before.<br />
Did you save your money to invest it in a<br />
lighting rig?<br />
Yeah, I did. I think on my first order I invested<br />
about $350.<br />
What did you buy?<br />
Eight PARs, a little 16-channel console<br />
from Elation, and clamps and stuff like that. I<br />
didn’t know a lot about conventional systems<br />
at the time, so on my next order, I bought<br />
dimmer packs for the PAR cans. Since then<br />
I’ve kind of grown from there. I got a couple<br />
of hazers and some followspots. I really didn’t<br />
have enough money to get anything like<br />
moving lights, but I’m tying to save my money<br />
to get Martin MAC 250s and three Atomic<br />
strobes for my rig.<br />
That’s impressive. I heard that in addition<br />
to saving your money to build a bigger<br />
lighting rig, you’re doing an internship<br />
so you can continue to learn more about<br />
lighting.<br />
Yep. At RZI Lighting, with Ray Ziegler.<br />
What are you doing there?<br />
I’m doing a lot in the warehouse. I’m<br />
learning a lot about different fixture personalities<br />
and how lighting systems are built. I’m<br />
learning about new lighting equipment and<br />
different brands and other equipment that<br />
will be good for my rental <strong>com</strong>pany. I’m also<br />
helping load and unload trucks. For the past<br />
three weeks, I’ve been learning about consoles.<br />
The first console I learned was the Pearl<br />
from Avolites. Then, the Jands Vista came in<br />
and I’ve kind of learned that. And, I just got<br />
a chance to program some preset cues that<br />
were used on the Coca Cola Stage at the Essence<br />
Festival using an Avolites Pearl. They<br />
actually used all them, too. And one of them<br />
was the walk-in look.<br />
52 <strong>PLSN</strong> September 2008
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
With a dad, mom and step-dad in the lighting business, lighting is in Stoltz’s blood.<br />
Stoltz learns as much as he can from classes, internships and industry<br />
connections. He would sit down and learn every board he could, “if I<br />
had the chance,” he says.<br />
“even when I see<br />
lighting shows designed<br />
by the best of<br />
the best, I still have a<br />
few things I’d add.”<br />
—Cody Stoltz<br />
Do they set up the board for you and give<br />
you some lights and let you run with it?<br />
Whenever they have something new there,<br />
I just go up and take a couple of minutes to pull<br />
some moving lights out and hook them up to<br />
the console. No one really shows me anything<br />
unless I really can’t figure it out, so I had to learn<br />
everything from a manual, which can be hard.<br />
I used to proof manuals, so I feel your pain.<br />
If you could, though, would you sit down<br />
with every board and learn it?<br />
If I had the chance.<br />
Do you see yourself as more a lighting programmer<br />
or do you want to be a designer?<br />
Even when I see lighting shows designed<br />
by the best of the best, I still have a few things<br />
I’d add. I want to design a system from the<br />
ground up and run it.<br />
To that end, didn’t you recently attend a<br />
training session at High End Systems?<br />
Everyone at High End was really cool and<br />
friendly. They say down and taught me oneon-one.<br />
Mitch Peebles was the one who was<br />
teaching me and he hooked up a console to<br />
visualizer and he showed almost everything<br />
on the Hog console. It was a great.<br />
I also heard that you had a good experience<br />
when Rush was in town. Can you tell<br />
me about that?<br />
Howard Ungerleider, the lighting designer,<br />
put me on the headset and I got to<br />
listen to all the cues. It was great and I learned<br />
a lot. And if it wasn’t for Howard, I probably<br />
wouldn’t have gotten to go to High End.<br />
You’re already networking. You’ve got a<br />
bright future in this industry.<br />
I hope so.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 September <strong>PLSN</strong> 53
ROAD TEST<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
LD Assistant ‘08<br />
By Stephen Ellison<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
As lighting designers, we need to provide<br />
lots of information in the form of<br />
lighting plots and paperwork. That<br />
hasn’t changed since the days when I was<br />
in college. But these days, two-dimensional<br />
drawings are not enough. We have to be<br />
able to draw in three dimensions, turn on<br />
the lights, capture cues as photo-realistic<br />
pictures, and we have to do this in the same<br />
amount of time it used to take to produce<br />
the light plot alone.<br />
Fortunately, lighting design software has<br />
<strong>com</strong>e a long way since my college days. In fact,<br />
lighting design software didn’t exist back then.<br />
We learned to draft by hand, and used Microsoft<br />
Excel to try to manage our paperwork.<br />
One of the major challenges of working<br />
that way was remembering to update all<br />
the documentation whenever you’d make a<br />
change. If a color changed in a fixture, you<br />
would have to change it on several schedules,<br />
on the plot and on all the detail drawings.<br />
Today’s software lets you make changes<br />
once, and all of your paperwork and drawings<br />
get updated automatically.<br />
The latest version of Design and Drafting’s<br />
LD Assistant integrates the drafting and<br />
the paperwork in a <strong>com</strong>prehensive program.<br />
The software lets designers drag a truss block onto the page set the height then drag in fixture<br />
blocks and snap them to the truss.<br />
But the basic elements for creating the plot<br />
and paperwork are only the beginning.<br />
Start Your AutoCAD Engine<br />
RT<br />
At its heart, LD Assistant 08 is a CAD<br />
(<strong>com</strong>puter-aided design) program that uses<br />
an Autodesk AutoCAD engine for third-party<br />
developers. LD Assistant 08 starts with the<br />
basic platform of lines on the virtual page<br />
used to create sophisticated drawings and<br />
expands to other levels to allow the designer<br />
to produce 3D renderings of the lighting<br />
design, connect a lighting console and previsualize<br />
your show, and even add real time<br />
video projection as well.<br />
The program has a suite of drafting tools<br />
that are <strong>com</strong>mon to all CAD programs, 2D<br />
and 3D drawing tools. The software also<br />
works in native DWG format so any drawings<br />
you get from the architect can be opened<br />
without having to import the file. That can<br />
reduce the risk of losing valuable information<br />
like blocks — pre-drawn items stored<br />
in libraries (which can be real time-savers<br />
when creating a design) or dimensions.<br />
A Wizard’s Wand<br />
RT<br />
The program has all the tools required<br />
for a <strong>com</strong>plex drafting project, but you don’t<br />
need to be a CAD wizard to produce good<br />
results. It has some built-in features to make<br />
lighting design easy, including several dropdown<br />
menus just for lighting and production<br />
applications. In these menus you will<br />
find tools to help create professional looking<br />
drawings with minimal training.<br />
LD Assistant <strong>com</strong>es with an extensive<br />
library of ready-to-use blocks, and there are<br />
more are available online. These let you, for<br />
example, drag a truss block onto the page,<br />
set the height then drag in fixture blocks<br />
and snap them to the truss.<br />
Each block has associated attributes that<br />
can be edited and used in the report generator.<br />
Take a fixture, for example. Certain attributes<br />
are already supplied, such as “Type,”<br />
“Frame Size,” “Candle Power,” etc. Other attributes<br />
require your input — “Filter Color”<br />
and “Channel,” for example. These details will<br />
automatically appear in your reports, and attributes<br />
like color will also show up in your<br />
renderings.<br />
You can also add a stage, curtains and set<br />
pieces and also apply images to the surface<br />
of any object. To render a stained glass window,<br />
for example, you can draw the shape of<br />
the window, take a picture of the real thing,<br />
apply it to the object and it will look real. It’s<br />
a feature that works especially well for backdrops<br />
or corporate logos.<br />
Virtually There<br />
If you change an attribute, like color, it will automatically show up in your reports and renderings.<br />
RT<br />
Once you have the 3D model constructed,<br />
you are ready to turn on the virtual<br />
lights and use the really fun features<br />
that differentiate this program from a<br />
standard CAD program.<br />
Pre-Visualizing Cues<br />
RT<br />
After focusing your virtual lights, putting<br />
in color and possibly gobos, you are<br />
ready to start pre-visualizing your cues. You<br />
do this by using the LD Control Window<br />
with a built-in fader console that allows<br />
you to create scenes and record cues for<br />
playback just as if you were actually in the<br />
theatre. If you have a DMX interface, you<br />
can connect your lighting console to the<br />
<strong>com</strong>puter and record the cues directly to<br />
the console. The program supports eight<br />
standard interface devices.<br />
Video projection that has be<strong>com</strong>e an<br />
increasing part of our designs, and this software<br />
lets you drop a video projector block<br />
onto the page and attach a video file, which<br />
will play back in real time. In the time it takes<br />
to read this paragraph you can have a projector<br />
playing back video in your visualizer.<br />
After you have a series of cues, you can<br />
add an audio file, capture the cue sequence<br />
as you walk through the space and save it for<br />
playback as an animation file. This software<br />
gives you plenty to work with, and it will take<br />
some time to fully realize its potential.<br />
LD Assistant 08 is a feature-packed<br />
program that starts with drafting and ends<br />
with full motion video movies of your design.<br />
The program can be used by people<br />
well trained in CAC drafting to create sophisticated<br />
drawings, or by up-and-<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
designers with limited training. The tools<br />
are available for the novice to start producing<br />
designs quickly, but it also has powerful<br />
features for pros.<br />
What is it: A CAD program for lighting design,<br />
documentation, presentation and previsualization.<br />
Who it’s for: All levels of lighting designers,<br />
event planners, scenic designers and technical<br />
directors.<br />
Pros: Built-in content library, great rendering<br />
capability, native CAD files and Autodesk<br />
CAD engine, powerful features.<br />
Cons: Needs a good “Dummies”-style howto<br />
book.<br />
Retail Price: $2,495.<br />
54 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
Edinburgh Castle Animated with Projected Images<br />
HD Projection Adds to<br />
Alicia Keys Tour’s Visuals<br />
The large-format projection animated the 2008 Edinburgh Military Tattoo.<br />
WILSONVILLE, OR — InFocus Corporation<br />
reported second quarter revenues of<br />
$72.7 million and a net loss of $3.8 million,<br />
or $0.10 per share, <strong>com</strong>pared to a net loss<br />
of $1.8 million, or $0.05 per share in the<br />
first quarter of 2008 and a net loss of $7.8<br />
million, or $0.20 per share in the second<br />
quarter of 2007.<br />
Included in the second quarter results<br />
is a restructuring charge of $0.9 million,<br />
which accounted for $0.02 of the net loss<br />
EDINBURGH Scotland — The projection area<br />
for the 2008 Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an annual<br />
part of the Edinburgh Festival, expanded from 60<br />
to 90 meters, spanning the full width of Edinburgh<br />
Castle’s walls at the far end of the Esplanade/Arena,<br />
where the performance took place.<br />
E/T/C London provided the large format image<br />
projections for the fourth consecutive year, using<br />
four of E/T/C’s PIGI 6K projectors fitted with double<br />
rotating scrollers. Three covered the width of the<br />
Castle wall area. The fourth provided “drop-ins” in<br />
the area around the Castle gates where the performers<br />
made their entrances.<br />
The projection ran on an E/T/C OnlyCue system,<br />
programmed and operated by Karen Monid.<br />
Adam Masters joined Monid for the load in, and<br />
Paul Highfield coordinated the project’s logistics.<br />
E/T/C’s Ross Ashton designed and produced the<br />
artwork for all the key strategic points in the show,<br />
accented by additional projections. He worked on<br />
the creative content in conjunction with the show’s<br />
producer, Major General Euan Loudon.<br />
For the Indian Army Chief’s Military Band, Ashton’s<br />
artwork cast thousands continued on page 59<br />
InFocus Posts 2Q Loss in Earnings<br />
per share, <strong>com</strong>pared to a restructuring<br />
charge of $2.1 million, or $0.05 per share<br />
in the second quarter of 2007. There were<br />
no restructuring charges included in the Q1<br />
2008 results.<br />
The <strong>com</strong>pany reported total cash, restricted<br />
cash, and marketable securities<br />
as of June 30, 2008 of $69.8 million, a decrease<br />
of $3.1 million from the first quarter<br />
of 2008, and an increase of $2.5 million<br />
from the second quarter of 2007.<br />
The set included a 54-foot-wide curved and backlit projection screen.<br />
Moving lights, video panels and a 54-foot-by-20-foot<br />
curved projection screen all played a role on the touring<br />
set for Alicia Keys’ As I Am tour. The gear list supplied by<br />
Montreal-based Solotech wouldn’t be <strong>com</strong>plete, of course,<br />
without projectors. Six Christie Roadster S+20K 3-Chip DLP<br />
projectors were chosen for the job.<br />
The curved screen creating a back projection surface<br />
to project HD video content, which is synchronized in real<br />
time with live camera shots and special effects during<br />
Keys’ performance. Two towers of triple stacked Christie<br />
Roadster S+20K projectors produce a <strong>com</strong>bined 120,000<br />
lumens of brightness to display the HD video imagery,<br />
which is interspersed with live mixes of Keys and her musicians<br />
and dancers.<br />
continued on page 56<br />
56<br />
60<br />
Inside...<br />
360° Foo View<br />
Over 5,000 LED panels were used for<br />
a Foo Fighters concert at Wembley<br />
Stadium in London.<br />
Video Digerati<br />
Raster mapping in three easy steps.<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
55
NEWS<br />
LAS VEGAS — It’s not easy to <strong>com</strong>pete for visual attention<br />
on the Las Vegas Strip, but Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino,<br />
which re-branded the resort formerly known as the Aladdin,<br />
upped the visual ante by working with Panasonic Systems<br />
Integration. The resulting LED large screen displays set the<br />
tone for the resort as a whole, backed up by numerous Panasonic<br />
projection systems, plasma and LCD displays within the<br />
100,000 square-foot resort <strong>com</strong>plex.<br />
The resort’s exterior is hard to miss with its array of multidirectional<br />
digital signage. It includes a curved LED large<br />
screen system that’s over 57 feet high and a 180-foot-high<br />
pylon with back-to-back LED boards measuring 40 feet by 30<br />
feet. Two additional curved LEDs are also found on the face of<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Planet Hollywood Casino Ups the Visual Ante<br />
The 57-foot-high curved LED screen on the exterior is joined by ribbon<br />
LED panels that run the 600-foot length of the building.<br />
the casino, along with a curved ribbon LED display that runs<br />
approximately 600 feet — the full length of the building.<br />
Keith Hanak, group director, Panasonic Systems Integration,<br />
said the design and installation of the indoor and outdoor<br />
digital signage system and network involved a team of<br />
Panasonic and Planet Hollywood staff working together with<br />
local contractors and other specialists.<br />
“This was a massive deployment of digital signage technologies<br />
that was on the fast track to meet the scheduled<br />
opening,” he said. “An additional challenge to the installation<br />
process was the fact that we had to implement the design<br />
while Planet Hollywood remained open, all without impacting<br />
any of the Casino’s security, shows or events.”<br />
Under its new management, Planet Hollywood Resort &<br />
Casino was opened in November 2007, with some attractions<br />
and venues phased in later over a period of several months.<br />
Video is consistently used to heighten the resort’s Hollywood<br />
celebrity motif. It also extends the visibility of the resort’s red<br />
carpet events to areas far from the red carpet itself.<br />
The casino area of Planet Hollywood is outfitted with<br />
about 200 Panasonic plasma displays, <strong>com</strong>plemented by<br />
a variety of other Panasonic display technologies. Several<br />
of the slot machines are also equipped with Panasonic LCD<br />
displays that provide information on specific slots, and vertically<br />
mounted Panasonic plasma displays are found at the end<br />
caps and in multiple arrays on surrounding walls and facades.<br />
Ceiling-mounted projectors from Panasonic also display dynamic<br />
graphics on the walls.<br />
LONDON — With the help from an array<br />
of LED video panels, the Foo Fighters played<br />
before 230,000 fans with just three performances<br />
in the U.K. The band had been on<br />
tour for six months, then played before Wembley<br />
Stadium’s 86,000-capacity audience for<br />
two dates, with a third sell-out show in Manchester<br />
added to the group’s busy schedule.<br />
Production Designer Nathan Wilson<br />
took on the challenge of simultaneously<br />
designing, programming and building<br />
the two separate stadium shows while still<br />
handling the touring version nightly, and a<br />
joint effort between XL Touring Video Los<br />
Angeles, XL Touring Video London and XL<br />
Video Belgium helped with the fabrication,<br />
LED and labor requirements.<br />
The Wembley shows used over 5,000<br />
individual Barco MiTrix panels divided up<br />
into three different screen configurations.<br />
A circular screen above the stage had 3000<br />
of the MiTrix panels, and above that, a roof<br />
surround screen had 300 more. In addition,<br />
750 MiTrix panels were configured into four<br />
zipper screens to add to the 360° visuals.<br />
The City of Manchester show used 648<br />
MiTrix and 60 Lighthouse R16s on a rotating<br />
stage. The Lighthouse R16s were divided<br />
into two side screens. The MiTrix panels<br />
were split into three LED screens<br />
“We are blessed to have a band, management,<br />
design, and production team that gets<br />
it,” said XLTV’s John Wiseman. “They think big<br />
and act bigger. This is the kind of client and<br />
Located in the center of the three-acre casino floor is the<br />
Heart Bar, which has 32 of Panasonic’s 65-inch plasma displays.<br />
Arranged in two video walls, each with 16 plasmas, these multiscreen<br />
displays feature sporting events and hotel promotions.<br />
In the front lobby, 15 Panasonic plasma displays deliver<br />
promotional programming, including six interactive kiosks<br />
with touch screen technology to highlight hotel amenities<br />
and provide directions. Once guests find their way to hotel<br />
elevators, they can see ceiling-mounted Panasonic plasma<br />
displays, which also feature promotional messaging.<br />
Hanak noted the Panasonic system behind the scenes that<br />
drives the entire design. “Our NMstage content management<br />
software is an advanced system that lets Planet Hollywood’s<br />
management schedule and deliver targeted messages in real<br />
time,” he said. “Using this technology, we were able to create<br />
the kind of video-centric environment that owner of Planet<br />
Hollywood, Robert Earl, wanted.”<br />
NMstage content management software provides all of<br />
the HD video feeds and scheduling of all of the recorded<br />
and/or live video over a 1GigE fiber backbone networked<br />
system. At Planet Hollywood, Panasonic Systems Integration<br />
designed and installed a central server and 90 media players<br />
that store and play the video content throughout the resort.<br />
The central server also monitors all system <strong>com</strong>ponents to<br />
keep glitches to a minimum.<br />
“It was Mr. Earl’s vision to use video to reinforce the Hollywood<br />
theme, and Panasonic’s digital signage technologies<br />
have allowed that vision to be<strong>com</strong>e a reality,” said Hanak.<br />
Video Panels Give Foo Fighters Visual Assist<br />
LED video helped 86,000 fans in Wembley Stadium see the band.<br />
team guys like me dream about working for.”<br />
Mark Ward, Phil Mercer and Jo Beirne<br />
handled overall video project management<br />
for stadium shows on behalf of XLTV. Rob<br />
McShane also played a role, touring on behalf<br />
of XLTV Los Angeles.<br />
The technical crew also included Rodney<br />
Johnson, production manager, Brian<br />
Kountz, stage manager and Clair Van Herck,<br />
production coordinator. The road manager<br />
was Gus Brandt.<br />
Splinter Films filmed the Wembley Stadium<br />
shows for an up<strong>com</strong>ing cinema and DVD<br />
release produced by Emer Patten and directed<br />
by Nick Wickham. The executive producers<br />
were John Cutcliffe and John Silva, with<br />
management by S.A.M.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
HD Projection Adds to<br />
Alicia Keys Tour Visuals<br />
continued from page 55<br />
VYV Corporation, a staging-dressing<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany based in Montreal, created the<br />
technical design and video elements of<br />
the set. Emric Epstein, co-founder and<br />
technology developer for VYV and lead<br />
technical designer of the set, said the projected<br />
images were able to “<strong>com</strong>pete in<br />
brightness with LED screens but with better<br />
resolution and quality. The projectors<br />
deliver a super bright and extremely clear<br />
image with no rainbow effect, which is<br />
crucial for live performances. They really<br />
add another dimension to the show.”<br />
Emric added that “because the show is<br />
moving very fast with a lot of back-to-back<br />
performances on the road, quick set-up,<br />
alignment and blending of the projectors<br />
is essential.” The Christie projectors, he said,<br />
“are easy to use and set up with our Photon<br />
systems and software that automatically<br />
blends the triple stacked projectors and also<br />
manages all of the content for the show.<br />
With Christie’s latest remote control Road-<br />
Tools software, we have even more flexibility<br />
to do things like shutter the lenses and even<br />
write our own applications to control the<br />
projectors using ChristieNET protocol.”<br />
56 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
NEWS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Giant LED Video Screen for F1 Race Course in Germany<br />
The screen measured in at 23 meters by 13 meters and weighed only 2.5 tons.<br />
HOCKENHEIM, Germany — It was probably<br />
the biggest LED video screen ever used<br />
at a major motor racing event, and one of the<br />
largest systems ever<br />
supplied by G-LEC<br />
— a 23-meter-by-13-<br />
meter assembly of 299<br />
Phantom30 frames<br />
which gave race-goers<br />
at Hockenheim Ring<br />
something akin to a<br />
ringside seat to the<br />
Formula 1 Santander<br />
Grand Prix.<br />
Some of those<br />
spectators were viewing<br />
the screen, positioned<br />
inside the track, from up to 400 meters<br />
away. But the screen was big enough to<br />
give them a television view of the race.<br />
Built specifically for the three day<br />
event, the screen needed to be easy to<br />
construct and de-rig, but also needed to<br />
withstand inclement weather, and the G-<br />
LEC screen withstood the strong winds<br />
and torrential rains that hit Hockenheim in<br />
the pre-race days.<br />
Using a system that <strong>com</strong>prised 52 PSUs,<br />
two S-Drives and two Folsom video converters,<br />
the video feed was supplied by the Ring<br />
as <strong>com</strong>posite video over 150 meters of cable<br />
into the Folsom units.<br />
These then converted the signal DVI for the<br />
Phantom 30 S-Drives, which transmitted the LED<br />
drive signals over optical fiber daisy-chained to<br />
each of the 276 frames. Despite such a long feed,<br />
the video display performed as expected.<br />
“As well as showing the race on the day itself,<br />
the screen was also used with a solid white signal<br />
for announcements, timetables and weather<br />
forecasts,” said Lars Wolf, managing director of<br />
G-LEC. “I was delighted at how well the system<br />
performed, and we have received a lot of inquiries<br />
as a result. This is absolutely the best screen<br />
for outdoor events and I am sure we will see G-<br />
LEC used more and more at events of this type.”<br />
The freestanding truss structure, supplied<br />
and designed by Megaforce, included three<br />
levels of flooring on each side of the screen for<br />
special guests. The screen itself hung from a<br />
23-meter-wide single span truss frame. It was<br />
able to do so because it was 2.5 tons in weight,<br />
relatively light for a screen that size.<br />
With a level of brightness that exceeded<br />
the high-resolution screens used at the pit<br />
stops, the screen required no more than a<br />
100kW/150A power source. The structure as<br />
a whole was engineered to pass Germany’s<br />
TÜV standards, written with temporary building<br />
permits in mind.<br />
The project was managed for G-LEC by<br />
Achim Lehrke, who was assisted by Stephan<br />
Gerber, Markus Soroberto, Dario Santos and<br />
Stefan Jung.<br />
Video Helps All Points<br />
West Rock the East<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
All Points West is named for a train station from yesteryear,<br />
not for the Statue of Liberty’s pointy crown.<br />
JERSEY CITY, NJ — Rumors about a<br />
“Coachella East” festival staged in 2008<br />
might have proved false, but only nominally<br />
so. The festival, held for three days<br />
in August at Liberty State Park, just behind<br />
the Statue of Liberty, was called “All<br />
Points West.”<br />
The event, organized by Coachella<br />
host Goldenvoice and AEG Live, included<br />
Radiohead, Jack Johnson and about 40<br />
other well-known indie bands. The festival’s<br />
name refers to an old Jersey rail yard,<br />
and the three stages were train names<br />
from the golden age of rail travel: Blue<br />
Comet, Bullet and Queen of the Valley.<br />
Video images from Upstage Video<br />
helped amplify the visuals, with images<br />
appearing on an 18-foot-by-32-foot video<br />
wall made from 48 Daktronics PST-12HD<br />
panels. Other gear onstage included two<br />
Toshiba 15-foot-by-23-foot 15mm video<br />
displays on stage left and right, five Sony<br />
DX50 triax camera chains and three New-<br />
Tek VT5 video switchers.<br />
There were also three mobile LED<br />
video screens in use: two Barco B10s,<br />
measuring nine feet by 12 feet, and one<br />
Daktronics ProTour 13mm screen measuring<br />
nine feet by 16 feet.<br />
58 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
NEWS<br />
Video and Lighting Loom Large in Singapore<br />
SINGAPORE — The Opening Ceremony<br />
at the Beijing Olympics may have taken<br />
the global spotlight this August (See story,<br />
cover), but there were other large spectacles<br />
fusing video and digital lighting in<br />
Asia last month, and one of the biggest<br />
took place just the next day, in celebration<br />
of Singapore’s National Day, Aug. 9.<br />
The National Day Parade marked the<br />
43rd year since Singapore gained its independence<br />
in 1965, beginning the tiny<br />
island state’s transformation from its<br />
humble origins to one of the world’s great<br />
cosmopolitan cities.<br />
The Show Company was the official<br />
LED Display & Multimedia Control Systems<br />
vendor for The 2008 National Day Celebrations<br />
and was appointed the task of providing<br />
everything to run the visual aspects<br />
of the show. Jo Gan, <strong>com</strong>pany director of<br />
The Show Company, specified the Barco’s<br />
T-20 outdoor LED display to meet the requirements<br />
of the show.<br />
‘‘Given the magnitude of the show<br />
and the stringent benchmarks associated<br />
with a national event like this, where the<br />
entire nation from the president, cabinet<br />
ministers to the <strong>com</strong>mon citizen is in attendance,<br />
the show demands nothing but<br />
the very best the industry can offer,” Gan<br />
said. In her view, “there was no alternative<br />
to a Barco system.’’<br />
The T-20 system was installed on site<br />
and subjected to operational tests for<br />
two months prior to the show. “The stage<br />
was located just meters from the bay and<br />
we were wondering if drastic changes in<br />
temperature and humidity levels in our<br />
hot tropical weather might cause system<br />
stability issues.” Despite those concerns,<br />
the T-20 performed without fail through<br />
eight weeks of field testing through heat,<br />
humidity and occasional stormy weather.<br />
The Show Company’s 192 module T-20<br />
System was assembled quickly due to the<br />
large tile size and easy-assembly mechanics.<br />
Measuring 15.4 meters wide by 11.5<br />
meters high, it stood as the largest single<br />
daylight LED Display screen ever built for<br />
the National Day Parade celebrations.<br />
A Lesson in Streaming Media, Learned the Hard Way<br />
The recording studio at St. Olaf College faces fewer server<br />
capacity issues than it did in the past.<br />
NORTHFIELD, MN — St. Olaf College<br />
is relying on StreamGuys, Inc., a streaming<br />
media and content delivery provider,<br />
to manage its live and on-demand video<br />
streaming for live concerts featuring<br />
many of the college’s music ensembles,<br />
including the St. Olaf Choir and Sing For<br />
Joy, a weekly half-hour radio program.<br />
StreamGuys also hosts live and on-demand<br />
streams for daily chapel services,<br />
guest lectures and <strong>com</strong>mencements<br />
among other events.<br />
St. Olaf is a liberal arts college founded<br />
in 1874 by the Evangelical Lutheran<br />
Church in America, which is known for its<br />
programs in music and academics. Jeffrey<br />
O’Donnell, the college’s director of<br />
broadcast media and the executive producer<br />
of Sing for Joy, turned to Stream-<br />
Guys after experiencing server capacity<br />
issues with a live concert stream that<br />
had an unusually high audience demand<br />
<strong>com</strong>pared to previous events.<br />
“We learned the hard way,” O’Donnell<br />
said. “We held a big concert for a building<br />
re-dedication on campus and were using<br />
our own servers to stream the event live.<br />
There was so much demand for bandwidth<br />
that the entire campus network shut down.<br />
“I knew of StreamGuys from their reputation<br />
in the public radio industry, and<br />
our campus IT department found their<br />
pricing <strong>com</strong>petitive and reasonable,”<br />
O’Donnell added. “They have focused<br />
specifically on our technical needs, and<br />
the server capacity they provide allows<br />
a large volume of users to access our<br />
streams around the world. They have<br />
eliminated any problems we had before<br />
in ac<strong>com</strong>modating our online audience.”<br />
A Barco T-20 LED video display measuring 15.4 meters by 11.5 meters helped Singapore celebrate its 43 rd year of independence.<br />
Edinburgh Castle Animated with Projected Images<br />
continued from page 55<br />
of tiny dots of projected light out onto<br />
the architecture of the castle. This design<br />
gave the castle shapes a visual overlay of<br />
traditional Indian iconography, supplemented<br />
by a red lighting wash across the<br />
structure.<br />
Ashton also created a visual backdrop<br />
of Viking ships and warriors for<br />
the King’s Guard of Norway. They made<br />
their entrance amid smoke, flares and<br />
projections of two over-sized Viking<br />
styled sentries on both sides of the<br />
castle gates.<br />
The Queen Victoria School from<br />
Dunblane, founded to <strong>com</strong>memorate<br />
Scottish soldiers and sailors who fell<br />
in the Boer War, celebrated its centenary<br />
at the 2008 Tattoo with a display<br />
of piping, drumming and dancing. This<br />
was ac<strong>com</strong>panied by projections of the<br />
school’s first pupil and its crest.<br />
More crests, taken from the castle itself,<br />
were projected during the Massed<br />
Military Band’s performance, which led<br />
to the show’s finale.<br />
The Evening Hymn precedes the<br />
Lone Piper who closes the show. For<br />
that performance, Ashton used images<br />
of the bronze friezes surrounding<br />
the shrine in the Scottish War Memorial,<br />
which is located at the top of the<br />
Castle.<br />
That frieze, designed by Morris and<br />
Alice Meredith Williams, contains about<br />
60 representations of men and women<br />
from all ranks and services who served<br />
in World War I. PIGI artwork created<br />
from the photos was projected across<br />
the castle walls, helping to make a closing<br />
statement.<br />
“The Edinburgh Military Tattoo is<br />
one of the highlights of E/T/C’s year,<br />
and of mine as a designer,” said Ashton.<br />
“It is a world class event.” The visual projections<br />
have be<strong>com</strong>e an annual part of<br />
the Tattoo since projected media were<br />
first added in 2005.<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
59
VIDEO DIGerAtI<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
The Master Raster Mapper<br />
Imagine this scenario. You are hired as the<br />
video director for a tour, and they want to<br />
use HD. You want to display different images<br />
on seven LED screens, and you are using<br />
a media server that, at best, supports two<br />
layers of 1080p resolution media. What would<br />
you do to make this work? There is a way, and<br />
it involves creatively mapping out the raster.<br />
The Effect<br />
VID<br />
The desired result is for each screen to<br />
display different content. How in the world<br />
can we do that? Start with the raster. The raster<br />
could be described as the usable area of a<br />
projection or image display. It is simply that<br />
— an easily divisible area of pixels that can<br />
be broken up into as many areas as necessary.<br />
Once the areas are defined and carefully<br />
plotted out, video clips can be dropped into<br />
each area and scaled according to the available<br />
pixels in that specific area. When it is rendered,<br />
all of the movie clips will play simultaneously<br />
as long as they are at the same frame<br />
rate, and the result will be the equivalent of<br />
layers of multiple video images.<br />
The Raster<br />
VID<br />
An HD 1080p raster refers to an area<br />
with 1920 x 1080 pixels of resolution and<br />
progressive scan (non-interlaced). Few media<br />
servers can play more than one or two<br />
layers of 1080p-rendered content currently,<br />
so the need for creatively breaking up the<br />
space can be<strong>com</strong>e an issue on large tours<br />
using multiple screens. But what goes into<br />
that usable area does not have to be all one<br />
image. It is possible to size your content<br />
accurately enough so that when the video<br />
signal is output to the display system, sections<br />
of the overall image are displayed on<br />
each screen instead of the entire image on<br />
every screen. This is a very creative use of<br />
the pixels being sent to the output.<br />
Advanced Pixel Mapping<br />
VID<br />
In a standard pixel mapping system, a<br />
single image would be projected on the<br />
display(s) with specific areas of the image<br />
aligned to fit precisely on the display. By<br />
using pixel mapping software, grids are<br />
drawn and the grid represents the usable<br />
areas of the image that are to be projected<br />
using the pixels. The example above differs<br />
from the typical pixel mapping application<br />
in that it doesn’t just map certain areas of<br />
one image to any number of displays. Instead,<br />
multiple images are mapped across<br />
multiple displays. But the multiple images<br />
are rendered into one image, so it actually<br />
appears that there are multiple images on<br />
multiple layers being output by the media<br />
server when the reality is that it is still only<br />
specific areas of one “image” being mapped<br />
to multiple displays.<br />
Content Preparation<br />
VID<br />
The secret to using pixel mapping in<br />
this fashion is in the rendering of the content.<br />
All of the content has to be carefully<br />
scaled so that once it is <strong>com</strong>piled into a<br />
single image, it doesn’t appear distorted<br />
or stretched. This is crucial because once<br />
the individual clip has been embedded<br />
into the master <strong>com</strong>pilation, you won’t<br />
be able to edit its scale without affecting<br />
the entire image. The only option if you<br />
needed to adjust the scale of a specific<br />
piece of content would be to have each of<br />
Raster mapping in three easy steps:<br />
By VickieClaiborne<br />
the original individual pieces of content<br />
available and use one of them on another<br />
scaled layer on top of the original image.<br />
But that involves playing more than one<br />
layer of 1080p, which could cause the performance<br />
of the playback across the entire<br />
output to suffer, not to mention the very<br />
difficult task of keeping two layers <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
in sync with each other while playing<br />
the same movie.<br />
Adding Live Video<br />
VID<br />
A huge advantage of using a media<br />
server is that most servers allow for live<br />
video to be input and mixed with the display.<br />
Since the media server was designed<br />
to put video at the controls of a DMX512<br />
lighting console, that means that the LD<br />
has the ability to output a live video input<br />
at any moment. Continued on page 63<br />
First, you divide the pixel map of the raster into separate areas. Here, the total 1920-by-1020 pixel raster area is divided into<br />
seven separate areas ranging in size from 400-by-300 pixels to 500-by-600 pixels.<br />
Next, you size the media to the areas. Here, the programmer has sized content to fit the pixel-mapped areas, taking care to<br />
avoid image distortion.<br />
The final result is a <strong>com</strong>posite image of the original media. By saving these scaled layers as palettes or presets, the programmer<br />
can trigger live video on any screen in the multiple screen system at the touch of a button.<br />
60 <strong>PLSN</strong> September 2008
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info
FEEDING THE mACHINeS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
No Shirt, No Shoes?<br />
By BradSchiller<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
No Way!<br />
Imagine this: I was working on a stadium<br />
concert for a big rock band in an indoor<br />
stadium. We had a well known LD and were<br />
just about to start the first rehearsal with the<br />
band. Our front of house technician came<br />
walking out to the consoles wearing only his<br />
shorts. With no shirt and no shoes he paraded<br />
across the floor and right up to the LD. Then<br />
he took his seat and waited for the rehearsal to<br />
start. I am sure you can guess the LD’s reaction;<br />
no one was surprised when the FOH tech was<br />
replaced just a few days into the tour.<br />
Presentation is Key<br />
FTM<br />
When you’re working on any production,<br />
it is important to understand what is expected<br />
of you. Sometimes this means dressing a<br />
certain way and other times it means turning<br />
off your cell phone at certain times. A professional<br />
lighting programmer should always<br />
present him or herself in the best manner<br />
possible. While this may seem obvious, I am<br />
afraid that to some people it is not. Unfortunately<br />
many programmers let their position<br />
of “control” go to their heads and they forget<br />
about how they are presenting themselves to<br />
the audience, client, LD, producer and others.<br />
The Dress Code<br />
FTM<br />
I have worked on many different types<br />
of productions from heavy metal concerts<br />
to church events and I have learned that the<br />
dress code varies. Some corporate events<br />
may ask you to wear certain clothing if you<br />
will be operating the console and mingling<br />
with the audience. Other formal events may<br />
even require a suit or tuxedo. Of course when<br />
you are working a rock concert you can pretty<br />
much wear whatever you want (as long as it<br />
includes a shirt and shoes), but I do not suggest<br />
wearing a “Shout at the Devil” Mötley<br />
Crüe shirt when you’re programming the<br />
church’s Easter pageant.<br />
Earlier this year I was working a large corporate<br />
event. I asked the client ahead of time<br />
if there were any dress requirements and I<br />
was told there weren’t. Even so, I made the<br />
choice on the show days to wear slacks and<br />
a nice button down shirt. Although I was not<br />
required to dress up, I felt it was important<br />
to match the attire of most of the attendees.<br />
Since I would be walking through the audience<br />
and standing where many of them could<br />
see me, I did not feel it would have been appropriate<br />
to wear shorts and a T-shirt.<br />
When a client does ask you to dress up<br />
even more than normal, you need to consider<br />
the cost as well as any problems that could<br />
occur. For instance, I was on a show where<br />
they were going to have all the crew wear tuxedos<br />
during the performance. The producers<br />
were going to rent tuxedos for all of us until<br />
they decided to save the money and asked us<br />
to wear standard “blacks.” (“Blacks” are black<br />
clothing with no print.) When dressing up for<br />
an event you need to consider if the clothing<br />
will interfere with your job. For example<br />
a necktie will usually get in the way of console<br />
operations and cufflinks may interfere<br />
with button pressing. In these situations you<br />
should explain to the client your reasoning<br />
for not fully <strong>com</strong>plying with their request.<br />
Creative Clothing<br />
FTM<br />
Dave Rat is the audio FOH mixer for the<br />
Red Hot Chili Peppers and on a recent tour he<br />
came up with a cool idea. He decided to sell<br />
the back of his shirt during a concert! He is<br />
standing in the middle of the crowd for every<br />
show and figured that everyone behind<br />
him can see his shirt. So he created a page<br />
on EBay and sold the rights to the back of his<br />
shirt for one night. The winner could choose<br />
the message (certain wordings were banned),<br />
but they would still have to buy a ticket to the<br />
concert to see the shirt in person. I don’t suggest<br />
following<br />
his plan<br />
unless you get<br />
permission from the band or<br />
producers first. In a fun twist, I<br />
have seen many creative shirts<br />
with sayings like The Top 10 Answers<br />
to LD FAQs that you can<br />
find on the <strong>PLSN</strong> Web site.<br />
Avoid Distractions<br />
FTM<br />
In addition to being considerate<br />
with your attire, you<br />
should also always pay attention<br />
to non-lighting distractions.<br />
Most LDs will tell<br />
the programmer what to<br />
program and then go back<br />
to working on the plot for<br />
his next gig while the programmer<br />
is busy creating<br />
the look. This is acceptable<br />
for an LD, but a programmer<br />
should not spend<br />
spare time at a console<br />
working on another gig.<br />
I have heard stories of programmers who<br />
made an LD wait while he finished a phone<br />
call with a client for another show. Cell<br />
phones, e-mails, Blackberries, video games<br />
and the like should not interfere with your<br />
programming tasks. You are being paid for<br />
Top 10 Answers to LD FAQs<br />
10. No, I cannot get anything signed for you.<br />
9. Yes, I do know what all the knobs and buttons do<br />
(And yes, it took a long time to learn).<br />
8. No, I don’t know where the next show is<br />
(I’m not sure where I am right now).<br />
7. Yes, the “No Drinks” signs actually do apply to you!<br />
6. Yes, I travel with the band and talk to them every day.<br />
(Whether I want to or not).<br />
5. No, I’m not going to tell the band you’re here.<br />
(You know them, you call them).<br />
4. No, I don’t know where your seat is.<br />
3. No, I don’t know exactly how many watts we’re using.<br />
(We have more important @$!& to figure out).<br />
2. No, we don’t do birthdays, anniversaries or dedications.<br />
(After all, this isn’t a Bar Mitzvah!).<br />
1. Why would I want to take you backstage?<br />
the gig you are on, so you should give it<br />
your full attention.<br />
But It’s Really Boring!<br />
FTM<br />
When you’re running the lights on the<br />
third day of a corporate event, listening to<br />
doctors drone on about the latest medications<br />
might make you want to play a DVD<br />
on your laptop or surf the Internet and<br />
read <strong>PLSN</strong>’s breaking news. But you need<br />
to consider whether the distractions will<br />
cause you to miss a cue and consider who is<br />
watching you. If your FOH riser is backed up<br />
against the wall and no one can see, then<br />
surfing the Internet might be okay (check<br />
with your client first). However if you have<br />
audience members surrounding you, then<br />
it might be best to turn off the Simpson’s<br />
DVD and look interested in the production.<br />
Plus, if you happen to miss an important<br />
cue because you were not paying attention,<br />
then you will likely have lots of time to surf<br />
the Internet at home because you will not<br />
be working much longer.<br />
Common Sense Pays Off<br />
FTM<br />
Hopefully this is <strong>com</strong>mon sense for most<br />
of you. If it has given you new ideas then I am<br />
pleased to have helped. The important thing<br />
to remember is to act and dress as you would<br />
expect an employee of yours to do. Showing<br />
respect for your environment, audience,<br />
clients and LD are of the utmost importance<br />
when working as an automated lighting programmer.<br />
And remember, there is always<br />
something magical that happens when you<br />
allow your own light to shine.<br />
Brad Schiller can be reached at brads@plsn.<strong>com</strong>.<br />
62 <strong>PLSN</strong> September 2008
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
THE BIZ<br />
Lighting Up Education<br />
The next time you see projection video<br />
in an entertainment venue, think of it<br />
as also mentoring a student in elementary<br />
or high school. That’s because the projection<br />
has been discovering potentially vast<br />
new fields to till in the education sector.<br />
The penetration of digital, widescreen, HD<br />
and other advanced projection technology<br />
into education environments are difficult<br />
to measure precisely but anecdotal<br />
evidence suggests it has be<strong>com</strong>e a huge<br />
trend. The International Society for Technology<br />
in Education (ISTE) estimated that<br />
at its annual convention in San Antonio<br />
the 40 projection systems manufacturers<br />
that exhibited there last July had doubled<br />
in a little over five years.<br />
Doing the Math<br />
BIZ<br />
John Glad, product manager at Hitachi’s<br />
business group, says that projection<br />
in the education market now accounts<br />
for 70 percent of the group’s revenues, up<br />
from about 30 percent a decade ago, with<br />
most of the growth <strong>com</strong>ing in the last five<br />
years. At an average of $800 to $1,000 for<br />
a 2,200- to 3,000-lumens projector, and<br />
some school districts putting bids out for<br />
as many as 500 units, the numbers are significant.<br />
Glad says that schools often synergize<br />
their buying power into collectives<br />
in search of high-volume pricing, and the<br />
growth in the education projection market<br />
has significantly increased the number<br />
of <strong>com</strong>panies making products for<br />
that sector, which adds to the downward<br />
pressure on pricing.<br />
Phoenix-based Troxell Communications,<br />
the largest privately held audiovisual<br />
distributor in the U.S., specializes<br />
in educational installations and has seen<br />
the level of projection in school environments<br />
increase steadily in the last decade,<br />
accelerating in the last couple of years.<br />
“The classroom is like every other kind of<br />
environment — it’s be<strong>com</strong>ing interactive<br />
out of necessity, and projection systems<br />
are critical to that,” observes Dave Johnson,<br />
Troxell’s eastern regional zone manager.<br />
“Once school administrators see<br />
that you can engage an entire class of 40<br />
students looking at a projected slide of a<br />
plant cell on a 50-inch screen instead of<br />
having to line up to look through a microscope<br />
one by one for 10 seconds, there’s<br />
no turning back.”<br />
projection into every one of its classrooms,<br />
Johnson estimates. “One thing<br />
that we’re seeing is that the projectors,<br />
which used to tend to be on carts that<br />
could be moved from one classroom to<br />
another, are now being permanently<br />
mounted in classrooms,” he says. “It’s<br />
another way you can tell the trend is<br />
be<strong>com</strong>ing entrenched, so the money<br />
has to be there one way or another.”<br />
Networking capability is increasingly<br />
being requested by school districts,<br />
both because the projection systems<br />
are increasingly be<strong>com</strong>ing extensions of<br />
server-based learning content systems<br />
rather than closed systems within a single<br />
classroom and because a LAN’s ability to<br />
monitor usage and bulb life offers administrators<br />
a way to add value through costeffectiveness.<br />
Manufacturers are also<br />
touting the cost-effectiveness of placing<br />
bulbs and screen filters in easily accessible<br />
locations on the projector to minimize<br />
maintenance time.<br />
A Higher AV Standard<br />
BIZ<br />
But while the decision to implement<br />
advanced projection in schools is a financial<br />
one at its core, the trend is also<br />
being driven by a strong cultural force:<br />
when there’s a 52-inch high-definition<br />
plasma screen in the home, the standard-issue<br />
27-inch CRT still found in<br />
most classrooms looks dowdy by <strong>com</strong>parison.<br />
It’s the same dynamic that has<br />
driven projection, along with better<br />
audio and automated lighting, in the<br />
house-of-worship market. “Once you experience<br />
these kinds of systems in entertainment<br />
venues, it creates a demand<br />
for them in other markets,” says Scott<br />
Walker, CEO at Waveguide Consulting,<br />
an Atlanta systems designer that works<br />
often with university clients. “It’s not<br />
unusual in the last couple of years to<br />
go to a trade show like InfoComm and<br />
see educators and entertainment venue<br />
owners looking at the exact same projection<br />
systems.”<br />
Though the metal halide-illuminated<br />
projection technology currently in use<br />
will likely stay dominant for years, one<br />
alternative technology that is starting<br />
to be a factor is interactive whiteboards:<br />
the typically 77- to 82-inch surface is<br />
actually an active tablet-type interface<br />
for a <strong>com</strong>puter that routes the image to<br />
an ultra-short-throw projector mounted<br />
above the whiteboard. This configuration<br />
eliminates shadows found in conventional<br />
projection.<br />
The education market promises to<br />
be huge market for projection in <strong>com</strong>ing<br />
years. How the credit crunch will impact<br />
capital budgets for school districts<br />
remains to be seen, and that impact will<br />
be considerable in some regions like Nevada<br />
and Florida, which are already deferring<br />
maintenance, let alone buying<br />
1280 X 900-resolution screens. But once<br />
the economy is over that hump, it will<br />
be looking at a significantly changed infrastructure<br />
in education, and one with<br />
plenty of opportunities.<br />
Dan Daley can be reached at ddaley@plsn.<strong>com</strong>.<br />
The Master<br />
Raster Mapper<br />
Continued from Video Digerati on page 60<br />
You might be thinking, “Yes, I know<br />
this.” But have you thought about using<br />
live video images in your pixel<br />
mapping? It is entirely possible. Using<br />
the pixel map, you simply need<br />
to create a layer on top of the raster<br />
image for each of the usable “screen”<br />
areas in the raster and scale it to fit<br />
each of the screen areas in the pixel<br />
map. By saving these scaled layers as<br />
palettes or presets, this provides the<br />
ability to trigger live video on any<br />
screen in the multiple screen system<br />
at the touch of a button. (Okay, two<br />
buttons.)<br />
These are just a few of the advantages<br />
of rendering a single piece of<br />
content from multiple clips if the intention<br />
is to play it back at HD resolution.<br />
As most professional media<br />
servers begin to adapt to HD content,<br />
the need for multiple layers of<br />
images requires the programmer to<br />
be creative in how those images are<br />
physically managed. Any time a single<br />
piece of content can be used for<br />
display, it makes the workload easier<br />
on the media server, not to mention<br />
the programmer. Also, by using<br />
a single piece of content instead of<br />
many layers of images playing simultaneously<br />
means that the playback<br />
performance will be optimum and<br />
as the client expects. And everyone<br />
likes a happy client.<br />
Vickie Claiborne is a trainer at PRG. She<br />
can be reached at vclaiborne@plsn .<strong>com</strong>.<br />
Installed, Not on Wheels<br />
BIZ<br />
Projection systems are less expensive<br />
than a decade ago. They are also<br />
brighter, easier to operate and more reliable,<br />
thanks to refinements and economies<br />
of scale derived from <strong>com</strong>mercial<br />
applications like corporate and product<br />
presentations. Nonetheless, they’re<br />
still relatively costly for school districts<br />
that depend to a significant extent on<br />
property taxes, which have been spiraling<br />
in the wake of residential foreclosures<br />
and other credit-crunch fallout.<br />
It’s costing a single county in Georgia<br />
about $13 million to install networked<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
63
FOCUS ON FUNDAmeNtALS<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Streaming DMX<br />
By RichardCadena<br />
Taming the Cable Monster<br />
“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty<br />
killed the beast.” — Robert Armstrong as<br />
Carl Denham in the original King Kong (1933).<br />
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.<strong>com</strong>/instant-info<br />
There’s a new movie in the making that<br />
will soon be playing in theatres and<br />
performing arts spaces everywhere. It’s<br />
about a new protocol that goes up against a<br />
monster bundle of cable. The winners in this<br />
battle are the techies and end users of large<br />
lighting systems.<br />
The movie is actually a sequel. The original<br />
version came out in 1986 when 0-10V analog<br />
control was getting out of hand. Lighting<br />
systems went from tens of dimmers to hundreds<br />
of channels of control, not only for dimming,<br />
but also for automated lighting. What<br />
once was a very manageable bundle of cable<br />
because a huge ugly beast that terrorized<br />
roadies and techies everywhere. Along came<br />
DMX and suddenly there was a new hero who<br />
conquered the analog cable bundle beast. In<br />
its place was a single twisted pair that could<br />
control up to 512 channels — enough for<br />
even the larger lighting systems of the day.<br />
But as we all know, in the movies, even<br />
when the evil villain dies that’s no guarantee<br />
they’re gone forever. And that’s why<br />
we have sequels.<br />
Cable Monster — The Sequel<br />
FOF<br />
In this case, the monster cable bundle<br />
started rearing its ugly head again in the<br />
late 1990s when lighting systems reached<br />
epic proportions. But the thing went positively<br />
steroidal after 1998 when the monster’s<br />
sidekicks, the DMX-controlled media<br />
server and the RGB LED luminaire, entered<br />
the stage. Suddenly we went from hundreds<br />
of control channels to thousands<br />
of control channels. The single twisted<br />
pair was overthrown by a massive bundle<br />
of DMX universes and the monster cable<br />
bundle was back in power.<br />
Fortunately<br />
for us, the smart<br />
people in the<br />
Controls Protocol<br />
Working<br />
Group of ESTA<br />
saw the proverbial<br />
writing on the<br />
LED wall. The cavalry<br />
mounted and rode<br />
to meet the monster<br />
head on. Several years<br />
into the battle, ACN was<br />
born and the industry had<br />
a standard by which many<br />
DMX512 universes could be<br />
transmitted over a single cable.<br />
They had slain the cable monster<br />
once again. Or had they?<br />
In an unexpected plot twist,<br />
manufacturers stayed on the sidelines<br />
in droves while the ACN train pulled out of<br />
the station. While it’s too early to say that<br />
few of them are on board with ACN, it’s not<br />
too early to say there’s not a lot of evidence<br />
to the contrary (other than ETC’s Eos console,<br />
which outputs ACN). Meanwhile, several third<br />
parties built their own platforms to slay their<br />
own cable monsters by streaming DMX over<br />
Ethernet with a proprietary protocol. Some<br />
of these solutions including Artistic Licence’s<br />
ArtNet, Pathway Connectivity’s Pathport,<br />
ETC’s Net2, Strand’s ShowNet and probably a<br />
few more.<br />
Streaming to the Rescue<br />
FOF<br />
So, while there are plenty of white knights<br />
ready to slay cable monsters everywhere,<br />
there is no single solution that plays well with<br />
all systems. If you were on a big job with lots<br />
of nodes, it would be much easier if you could<br />
mix and match across manufacturers. With<br />
proprietary protocols, that’s not an option.<br />
But the folks at ESTA aren’t satisfied to sit<br />
on the sidelines and watch the parade go by.<br />
Instead, they re-mounted their trusty steeds<br />
and they are now working on a standard to<br />
stream DMX over ACN.<br />
The draft version of BSR E1.31 — Lightweight<br />
streaming protocol for transport of<br />
DMX512 over ACN is out for public review, and<br />
it promises to slay the monster cable bundle<br />
once and for all (or at least until the next sequel<br />
— Streaming DMX512 Versus ACN: The<br />
Cable Monster’s Revenge). As the title says,<br />
this protocol will allow the transmission of<br />
DMX512 data over an Ethernet network using<br />
part of the ACN suite of protocols. It can also<br />
send and receive RDM data as well.<br />
New Cables, Old Gear<br />
FOF<br />
The advantage of streaming DMX512<br />
over Ethernet is that an Ethernet network is<br />
a much bigger pipe than a DMX512 network.<br />
Ethernet can handle dozens and dozens of<br />
DMX512 universes across a single cable,<br />
which is how the monster cable bundle is finally<br />
put to rest. You’ve heard of Cat5 cable,<br />
no doubt. A Cat5 cable can support data<br />
rates of 100 megabits per second, which can<br />
reliably run up to 200 DMX512 universes, or<br />
1,000 megabits per second, which can run<br />
up to 2,000 DMX512 universes. Cat5e cable<br />
is a better choice for 1,000BASE-T, or “gigabit”<br />
Ethernet, which is what we call Ethernet<br />
running at 1,000 megabits per second.<br />
The disadvantage is that Ethernet networks<br />
can only be run a maximum of about<br />
300 feet before they run out of gas. Ethernet<br />
also has a star topology, meaning that a cable<br />
has to be run to each device, negating the advantage<br />
of slaying the monster cable bundle.<br />
The best of both worlds is to use a <strong>com</strong>bination<br />
of DMX512 and Ethernet infrastructure.<br />
We start by using an Ethernet network<br />
over which we stream DMX512, but then we<br />
change it back to DMX512 before we distribute<br />
it to all the devices on the network. This<br />
allows us to take advantage of off-the-shelf<br />
hardware like routers, switches, hubs and Wi-<br />
Fi, but we still get the advantages of DMX512,<br />
the biggest of which is probably the fact<br />
that there are millions and millions of dollars<br />
worth of DMX512-<strong>com</strong>patible gear already in<br />
use every day. We don’t have to trash our gear<br />
to take advantage of the new technology,<br />
as was largely the case in the original movie<br />
when DMX512 supplanted analog control.<br />
The Beast — R.I.P.<br />
FOF<br />
For these reasons, DMX512 will probably<br />
be around for a long, long time while<br />
the monster cable beast might rest in peace<br />
for as far into the future as our crystal ball<br />
will allow us to see. Is streaming DMX512<br />
over Ethernet for everybody? Not necessarily.<br />
But for applications where there are multiple<br />
universes of DMX512, like the Opening<br />
Ceremony of the Games of the XXIX<br />
Olympiad in Beijing where over 2,300<br />
DMX512-controlled devices used more than<br />
45,000 parameters — the equivalent of 88<br />
DMX512 universes — it’s a an Oscar-winning<br />
technology.<br />
What does a bundle of 88 DMX512 cables<br />
look like? Thanks to Ethernet, we may never<br />
know.<br />
Stream an e-mail to the author — rcadena@<br />
plsn.<strong>com</strong>.<br />
64 <strong>PLSN</strong> September 2008
Olympics Designers<br />
Share Their Insights<br />
continued from page 16<br />
make this project run smoothly.<br />
“Personally, this has been an amazing<br />
experience. Even though culturally China<br />
is very different from many other countries<br />
I have worked in, the level of knowledge<br />
and willingness to learn has been quite<br />
refreshing. Everyone I have <strong>com</strong>e in contact<br />
with on this project has been friendly,<br />
caring and above all most professional.<br />
I’d <strong>com</strong>e back to China in a heartbeat to<br />
work on another project…if only for the<br />
fantastic food!”<br />
Beijing Olympics<br />
Opening Ceremony:<br />
CREW<br />
Lighting Designer: Sha Xiao Lan<br />
Programmers: Feng Bin, Wu Guoquing,<br />
Huang Tao<br />
Control System and Broadcast Lighting:<br />
Paul Collison<br />
Followspot Director: Xiao Lihe<br />
Lighting Assistants: Quan Xiaojie, Zhang<br />
Wei, Wang Zhiyi, Wang Tong, Ma Jiebo<br />
Artistic Director: Zhang Yimou<br />
Scenic Designer: Mark Fisher<br />
Lighting Production Companies: CCTV –<br />
Central China Television in conjunction with<br />
Quan Jiang, Shang Hai Television, Gong Ti,<br />
Bei Ao, Feng Shang Shi Ji<br />
Projection Production Company: Leifull<br />
Creative: Andre Verleger<br />
Projection Operators: Dennis Gardner,<br />
Stephen Kellaway<br />
Assistants: Zhang Shi Qian, Steven Cai, Zach<br />
Technical Realization: Advanced Communication<br />
Equipment Co Ltd.<br />
Axon Media Server Programmer:<br />
Dennis Garner<br />
Projection Design: Scott Chmielewski<br />
Manufacturer Support: Mark Ravenhill, Vice<br />
President of Television & Theatre Lighting;<br />
Søren Storm, Managing Director of Martin<br />
Singapore; Claus Jensen, Product & Application<br />
Specialist (all of Martin Professional);<br />
Zach Peletz (High End Systems)<br />
GEAR<br />
980 Martin MAC 2000 Wash<br />
162 Martin MAC 2000 Wash XB<br />
112 Clay Paky Alpha Wash<br />
308 Vari*Lite 3500 Spot<br />
316 Vari*Lite 3000 Spot<br />
180 Vari*Lite 3500 Wash<br />
12 High End Show Gun<br />
200+ PR Lighting Century Color 2500 and<br />
XL Wash Fixtures<br />
20 Ushio 2K Xenon Followspots<br />
16 Kupo Super Sol 3K Xenon Followspots<br />
204 PureLight City Color<br />
32 FineArt LED PAR Cans<br />
46 Sliver Star LED banks<br />
3 MA Lighting grandMA Full-size Consoles<br />
plus 3 backups<br />
2 MA Lighting grandMA Light Consoles<br />
Visualization Software: E.S.P Vision, MA3D<br />
Visualization Hardware: MA Media<br />
PCw/ Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX<br />
HP Pro-Curve 2626 Field Switches<br />
Main Switch HP Pro-Curve 8212zl<br />
Kilometers of Multi Mode Fiber<br />
110 High End Systems Axon MediaServers<br />
86 Christie Roadster S+20K Projectors<br />
with H.E.S Orbital Head<br />
63 Christie CP2000-ZX Cinema Projectors<br />
High End Wholehog 3 Control System<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
The fireworks display was designed by Cai Guo-Qiang, who teamed up with pyro expert Phil Grucci to create the 29 aerial “footsteps” that led to the “Bird’s Nest” from Tiananmen Square.<br />
NEWS<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong><br />
65
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66 <strong>PLSN</strong> SEPTEMBER 2008<br />
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COMPANY PG# PH URL<br />
4 Wall Entertainment 8, 62 702.263.3858 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-181<br />
A.C.T Lighting 29 818.707.0884 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-100<br />
AC Lighting 53 416.255.9494 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-101<br />
Advanced Entertainment Services 30 702.364.1847 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-266<br />
Apollo Design 59 800.288.4626 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-104<br />
Applied Electronics 37, 55 800.883.0008 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-105<br />
Atlanta Rigging Systems 40 404.355.4370 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-107<br />
Bulbtronics 27 800.227.2852 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-110<br />
Chauvet Lighting 7, 45 800.762.1084 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-111<br />
Checkers Industrial Prod. 22 800.438.9336 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-112<br />
Christie Lites 64 214-637-3535 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-279<br />
City Theatrical Inc. 10 800.230.9497 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-114<br />
Clay Paky 21 609.812.1564 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-115<br />
Coemar C3 39 0376.77521 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-295<br />
Cooling & Power Rentals/ CPR 4 888.871.5503 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-216<br />
Creative Stage Lighting Co., Inc. 12 518.251.3302 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-118<br />
Daktronics 39 800.843.5843 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-217<br />
Doug Fleenor Design 32 888.436.9512 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-119<br />
ADVERTISER’S INDEX<br />
COMPANY PG# PH URL<br />
Precise Corporate Staging 41 480.759.9700 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-207<br />
PRG 13, 33, 61 845.567.5700 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-275<br />
Pyrotek 57 905.479.9991 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-196<br />
R&M Materials Handling 27 800.955.9967 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-140<br />
Robe Lighting s.r.o. 5 954.615.9100 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-141<br />
Roc-Off Productions 23 877.978.2437 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-142<br />
Scharff Weisberg 16 212.582.3860 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-174<br />
Selecon 56 410.638.0385 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-239<br />
SGM 2, 3 +39 – 0721 – 47 64 77 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-271<br />
Stage Tops USA/ World Show International 46 818.765.7527 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-261<br />
Staging Dimensions 25 866.591.3471 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-145<br />
Strong Entertainment 32 800.262.5016 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-142<br />
Swisson 7 805.443.7834 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-242<br />
Syncrolite 11 214.350.7696 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-176<br />
Techni-Lux C2 407.857.8770 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-147<br />
Tyler Truss Systems 19 317.485.5465 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-148<br />
USHIO 47 (800) 838-7446 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-280<br />
Xtreme Structures & Fabrication 20 903.473.1100 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-159<br />
Edirol by Roland 58 800.380.2580 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-155<br />
Elation/ American DJ C4 866.245.6726 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-121<br />
ESTA 60 212.244.1505 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-123<br />
Full Sail 54 800.226.7625 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-124<br />
GE Specialty Lighting 9 800.435.2677 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-167<br />
High End Systems 15 512.836.2242 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-126<br />
Leprecon/ CAE 24 810.231.9373 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-130<br />
Leviton 17 800.736.6682 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-230<br />
Light Source, The 6 803.547.4765 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-305<br />
Lightronics 1 757.486.3588 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-132<br />
Martin Professional C1, 31 954.858.1800 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-135<br />
Mega Lite 23 210.684.2600 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-202<br />
Milos Structural Systems 14 800.411.0065 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-186<br />
Ocean Optics 65 727.545.0741 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-137<br />
Osram Sylvania 51 888.677.2627 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-139<br />
Philips Lighting 63 800.555.0050 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-187<br />
PR Lighting/ Pearl River 35 253.395.9494 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-138<br />
MARKET PLACE<br />
4 Wall Entertainment 66 702.263.3858 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-181<br />
Arena Drapery Rental 67 404.713.3742 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-221<br />
City Theatrical Inc. 67 800.230.9497 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-114<br />
DK Capital 66 517.347.7844 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-151<br />
Light Parts 67 512-727-2885 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-278<br />
Light Source Inc. 67 248.685.0102 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-180<br />
Lightronics 66 757.486.3588 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-132<br />
New York Case/Hybrid Case 67 800.346.4638 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-298<br />
On The Mark Creative 67 818.294.1000 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-277<br />
Production Toolbox 66 954.463.4820 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-269<br />
RC4 Wireless Dimming/ Theatre Wireless 66 866.258.4577 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-153<br />
Roadshow 66 800.861.3111 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-154<br />
Special FX Lighting 66 435.635.0239 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-161<br />
Theatrical Lighting Systems, Inc./ TLS 66 866.254.7803 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-157<br />
Upstaging, Inc. 67 815.899.9888 http://plsn.hotims.<strong>com</strong>/18519-158<br />
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2008 SEPTEMBER <strong>PLSN</strong> 67
LD-AT-LARGE<br />
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS<br />
Heavy Metal Thunder<br />
By NookSchoenfeld<br />
I’ve been having a lot of fun<br />
this year doing something<br />
I don’t often do — lighting<br />
heavy metal tours. While it’s<br />
not my favorite kind of music, I<br />
am having a blast. I mean, what<br />
other genre of music enables<br />
you to hit 160 cues in a threeminute<br />
song?<br />
Every year I am hired to design<br />
total productions for music<br />
festivals. This summer I designed<br />
a touring metal festival called<br />
Mayhem. Lots of up-and-<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
rock artists showcased their talents<br />
before the bands Disturbed<br />
and Slipknot hit the main stage<br />
after the sun went down. When I<br />
design these festival shows I usually<br />
have to speak to LDs from all<br />
the bands and then design something<br />
that everyone is happy<br />
with. It was helpful that I already<br />
had spoken with Disturbed and<br />
had been asked to program their<br />
lights for the up<strong>com</strong>ing year-long<br />
tour. Now I just needed to talk to<br />
Slipknot’s designer so we could<br />
design something. The problem<br />
was that they did not have an LD<br />
— or a production manager.<br />
Designing the Rig<br />
LD@L<br />
The first thing I had to do was<br />
to figure out if we could afford<br />
any video elements. I tried to<br />
talk the tour sponsors into using<br />
some Martin LC Series low-res<br />
LED display panels. From 30 feet<br />
away they look great. The plan<br />
was to use them for all the bands<br />
to play media content and then<br />
advertise the sponsors between<br />
acts. But they nixed it, so I went<br />
back to thinking about 1980s rock rigs.<br />
I did have a budget before I sat down to<br />
draw up my ideas, which made life easier.<br />
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Intocable<br />
Mega production from<br />
down south puts lighting<br />
and video on the road.<br />
I love the old huge PAR rigs the metal bands used to<br />
have, but they’re not cheap anymore.<br />
I like to use a lot of lights for rock bands.<br />
They don’t have to be expensive moving<br />
lights, but a lot of them with a 30-foot trim<br />
height works great. The next thing I did<br />
was look into using a bunch of moving LED<br />
fixtures. These things can throw some light<br />
these days and they move incredibly fast.<br />
I got about 70 modified Martin MAC 300s<br />
with LEDs out of Chicago’s Upstaging Inc. I<br />
chose to put bunches of them in traveling<br />
pods that could roll in and snap into place.<br />
Plus, one multi-cable can power 24 of the<br />
things.<br />
I used these fixtures in place of PARs. I<br />
love the old huge PAR rigs the metal bands<br />
used to have, but they’re not cheap anymore.<br />
To use PARs, you need massive amounts of<br />
cable and dimmers, building power, guys<br />
to put it up, and hours to focus each light,<br />
everyday. It’s just not economical to run a<br />
festival that way. Korn proved that last year<br />
on their own festival tour. The lighting crew<br />
went to work every morning and didn’t get<br />
a break until the headliner hit the stage. My<br />
guys loaded in at 9 a.m. and had little to do<br />
from noon until load out.<br />
For the remaining lights, I put bunches<br />
of Robe Color Spots and Coemar Infinity<br />
Washes into Swing Wing truss and scattered<br />
them around. The secret to making it<br />
look big is to use a bunch of metal. Truss is<br />
cheap. If you spread your lighting fixtures<br />
a few feet apart, you can make 25 moving<br />
lites look a whole lot bigger than it is.<br />
Spotlights<br />
LD@L<br />
I love calling spotlight cues and using<br />
them in place of a front truss. Unfortunately,<br />
the two headline acts on this bill<br />
would rather never use them. But they are<br />
okay with being lit by lights on the front<br />
truss. So I came up with a viable solution.<br />
I hung 13 Martin MAC 2000 Washes from<br />
the front truss to front light the band and<br />
set, and then I overhung some spot seats<br />
with another four MACs. I put handles on<br />
them and disconnected the pan and tilt<br />
motors. I now had spotlights controlled<br />
by my console and the band was not<br />
blinded like a deer in the headlights.<br />
Focus Time<br />
LD@L<br />
Focus? There is none. We load into outdoor<br />
amphitheaters and the show starts<br />
before the sun goes down. Each band wants<br />
a house drape to block their set during set<br />
change, so focusing during set change is not<br />
an option. So I put the majority of lights into<br />
Swing Wing truss and designed something<br />
where the rigging points would be the same<br />
in every gig. By not hanging each fixture every<br />
day, they remain in the same place, hung<br />
at the same angle every gig. We focused<br />
one night during rehearsals and have not<br />
touched a moving light focus since.<br />
Backdrops<br />
LD@L<br />
With no video, every band has to have<br />
at least one backdrop. You can count on<br />
this just as you can count on the<br />
fact that each singer will use<br />
the word mother f@#$%r every<br />
time they talk to their audience.<br />
I ended up with three separate<br />
traveler tracks and a bunch of<br />
kabuki solenoids. For reliability,<br />
I ended up renting solenoids<br />
made by Chabuki, a “little guy”<br />
with his own <strong>com</strong>pany from the<br />
Northwest, who guaranteed his<br />
gear to work every night. They<br />
performed flawlessly.<br />
Visual Assault<br />
LD@L<br />
Two weeks before the tour<br />
started, I got a call from my old<br />
friend Loz Upton. He had been<br />
hired by Slipknot. This is great<br />
since we are friends, but we<br />
have never worked together.<br />
Loz loves the rig, but wants to<br />
add his own package of floor<br />
lights and set lights. This is<br />
wonderful because it will make<br />
his show look different than<br />
mine. I already have a bunch of<br />
MAC 700 Wash fixtures and extra<br />
strobes for Disturbed. Now<br />
Loz adds in bunches of Color<br />
Kinetics Color Blaze LED strip<br />
lights as well as strobes and<br />
movers to his massive set. All<br />
these fixtures face the crowd<br />
head on.<br />
It’s quick to see that the two<br />
separate bands have distinctly<br />
opposite looking shows. We<br />
both chose MA Lighting grand-<br />
MA consoles, but that was the<br />
only similarity. Disturbed’s light<br />
show was all written in tight<br />
sequential cue lists with lots of<br />
extra bump cues for flashes and<br />
eye candy. Everything was well scripted<br />
and tight. I hired Rob Smith to direct<br />
the show because of his pinpoint timing<br />
and the fact that the band would be on<br />
tour for a year and I can’t <strong>com</strong>mit to that<br />
schedule.<br />
Loz didn’t have much programming<br />
time with Slipknot. He had three days to<br />
throw his show together so he chose the<br />
punt path. He had a programmer <strong>com</strong>e<br />
out and help him get started. But after<br />
a week, that didn’t pan out and the kid<br />
quit, leaving Loz in a lurch. So I helped my<br />
buddy out and ended up cleaning up the<br />
programming he was left with and getting<br />
his cues set up correctly.<br />
The best way to describe Slipknot’s<br />
show is that it is a visual assault. The band<br />
desired a flashy bright show where they<br />
could see the audience most of the time.<br />
So Loz placed Mole Fey blinders all over<br />
the place. He also pointed all the strobes<br />
and heaps of Color Blazes directly at the<br />
audience. We wrote about five different<br />
looks for each song and relied on about<br />
40 variations of cues to overwhelm the<br />
audience’s visual senses. He did exactly<br />
that. For the first time, I left a heavy metal<br />
show where my ears didn’t ring, but my<br />
eyes hurt.<br />
Nook Schoenfeld is a freelance lighting<br />
designer. He can be contacted at<br />
nschoenfeld@plsn.<strong>com</strong>.
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