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INSTALLATIONS
Designers
Transform Studio D for PBS Sound
Stage
A bright revival for a legendary
live-sound show on Chicago’s north side
By PhilGilbert
Crew:
Lighting Designer/Director: Jim
“Herbie” Gedwellas
Automated Lighting Programmer:
Dave Ambrosio
Conventional Lighting Operator:
Dan Rozkuszka
Lighting Tech: Matt McGregor
Lighting Assistants: Rich Lanza,
Paul Wright, Joe Scigouski, Alex Spect
Equipment:
18 Robe Color Spot 1200ATs
6 VariLite VL3000 Spots
12 High End Systems X.Spots
24 Martin MAC2000
Wash fixtures
64 Element Labs VersaTubes
80 Element Labs VersaTiles
36 Color Kinetics Color Blasts
35 De Sisti 2K Fresnels
8 De Sisti 5K Fresnels
62 ETC Source Fours
55 ETC Source Four PARs
24 PAR 46s
7 Pinspot Bars
6 ACL 4-Light Bars
6 MR-16 Strip Lights
12 MR-11 Strip Lights
350 ETC Sensor 20A Dimmers
110 ETC Sensor 50A Dimmers
93 De Sisti Motorized
Lighting Battens
1 MDG Atmosphere Hazer
It’s 5:00 p.m. on a gray, drizzly night on the
north side of Chicago. Surrounded by the
urban campus of Northeastern Illinois University,
the production studios of Chicago’s
PBS affiliate, WTTW 11 Network Chicago, are
deceptively still on the outside. A few security
guards and a packed parking lot are the quiet
indicators of what waits for me inside.
As I pull in, one of the security guards seems
to know exactly who I am, and quickly ushers
me inside to meet up with her “pal.” Her pal, as
it turns out, is Emmy-nominated Jim “Herbie”
Gedwellas, resident lighting designer for the
studio’s shows, including tonight’s taping of
Soundstage. Gedwellas greets me with a beaming
smile and a brightly colored Don Ho shirt.
5:15
Sound check is running a little bit long tonight,
so we roam over to Studio D, home of
music series Soundstage and Legends of Jazz.
Both series are broadcast on PBS affiliates nationwide.
As the New York Dolls work the kinks
out of a couple of songs on stage, I have the
chance to wander around in the 10,000 squarefoot
studio.
The stage apron runs at an angle through
the room, dividing the room nearly in half from
one corner to another. A sturdy platform that
was built by community carpenters, the riser
lives in Studio D year-round, and removing it
would be synonymous with destroying it.
The wall to the right side of the audience
is embellished with arches and grate work of a
non-determinate period, while the wall to the
rear of the audience includes a faux balcony
with a small amount of additional seating.
6:00
“The original Soundstage series started in, I
believe, 1972.
“It went to about 1981. After 10 years, it
went away and didn’t come back until
about three years ago.”
This is how Gedwellas begins to
narrate the history of Soundstage to
me as we sit down to dinner with the
crew. The show was resurrected in 2003,
he tells me.
“Joe Thomas, from HD Ready, approached
WTTW. He wanted to revive
Soundstage, and he wanted the name
Soundstage because it had history.”
Having been the lighting designer
for the original run in the ‘70s, Gedwellas was
tapped as the lighting director for the revival,
working with lighting designers Bob Peterson
and Mike Dalton.
“The producers had a concept that they wanted
it all in black drape, almost like in limbo, just
with silver trusses. That was pretty much it. They
wanted that intimate, nightclub atmosphere.
“At that time I was the lighting director and
a guy named Mike Dalton did exactly what Joe
said, and it just didn’t work out really well. Once
Joe found out that all of his camera angles were
pretty much just black background behind
all the singers, he goes ‘Oh, maybe we need
some scenery.’ ”
Eventually, Gedwellas took over the designer’s
chair, working closely with the producer to
embellish the backgrounds and designing custom
drapery that would react well to different
lighting looks.
7:05
The entire lighting crew seemed to favor
the brownies as tonight’s dessert of choice.
There are two techs and two programmers here
from Upstaging tonight. The regular crew will
be out for the next taping, so the fill-in crew is
getting a grip on how the show works.
Upstaging claims Gedwellas as one of
their earliest customers. Georg Slejko, an account
manager
with Upstaging,
began handling
accounts
for Gedwellas in
the early nineties
and claims that
Gedwellas might
even be customer
#003 on Upstaging’s
books.
Be prepared
to hear high
praise if you mention
Herbie to
Slejko. He says,
“Herbie is well
rooted in live performance
lighting,
always pushing
the envelope
of the studio lighting discipline to a successful
conclusion.”
The relationship goes beyond the studio,
with one of the most recent Soundstage remotes
finding Gedwellas and his team at the
Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado for four
nights with Dave Matthews. Upstaging gear
and crew could be found littering the outdoor
amphitheater and lighting up the indigenous
red rock walls.
7:25
As we make our way back in to the studio,
things are pretty quiet. As I snap off a few pictures,
Upstaging programmer Dave Ambrosio
sits at the console tweaking some of the cues
he has built for tonight’s show.
Gedwellas brought Ambrosio on after becoming
the lighting designer for the series.
“Dave and I had worked together before. I liked
the way he ran the automated lights. So we
added a lot more automated lights once Dave
came in, so we could do different layers and
things like that.”
Although the studio has a semi-permanent
set and seating area, the room is still outfitted as
a traditional studio, with wall-to-wall motorized
lighting battens and no proscenium to speak of.
Several banks of ACLs light the grid in a cautionary
hue of orange, drawing your eyes to the
massive array of fixtures used to light the performers,
the set, drapes, audience and anything
else that might be in a camera shot.
The conventional rig resides, for the most
part, on the installed battens. De Sisti 2K
Fresnels, ETC Source Four PARs, and ETC Source
Four ellipsoidals provide the bulk of the white
light in the room, with a handful of De Sisti 5Ks
and some PAR 46s thrown in for good measure.
8:00
As the ushers methodically seat the audience,
I get a few minutes to talk with Ambrosio
and Gedwellas about the automated rig.
Perched behind a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog
2 console, Ambrosio has donned a shirt to
rival Gedwellas. Watched over by an 18-inch
tall singing James Brown doll, he has access to
a wide variety of fixtures from Martin, VariLite,
Robe and High End Systems.
Aside from the smorgasbord of moving
lights, Ambrosio also feeds content to the vari-
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PLSN AUGUST 2006