September Issue - PLSN.com

TECHNOLOGY ASSOC IATION
EDITOR’SNOTE
The Publication of Record for the Lighting,
Staging and Projection Industries
Publisher
Terry Lowe
tlowe@plsn.com
Twenty-five years ago, I didn’t own
a television. But I did own a bass
guitar and amplifier, which afforded
me the opportunity to crash on
the couch of a friend who also happened
to be the drummer in our band. And since
he not only had a television but cable, too,
that’s where I first
saw MTV when it
was launched on
“ C
August 1, 1981.
Unbeknownst to
me at the time, there
was something going
on a mere 200
miles up the road from where I was in Austin
that would change my life even more
than MTV. Jim Bornhorst, John Covington,
Tom Walsh and Brook Taylor, all employees
of Showco in Dallas, were frantically building
55 automated lights for the upcoming
Ad info: www.plsn.com/rsc
{
Bass Doesn’t
}
Genesis Abacab tour. When Vari*Lite operator
Tom Littrell pushed the button to trigger
the first cue on the first show of the tour on
September 27, 1981, it changed the course
of the entire lighting industry.
There’s a new movie called Before the
Music Dies (www.beforethemusicdies.
com) about the “faceless machinery of the
American music industry and the increasingly
bland mediocrity it produces.” In it,
a man named Questlove—and that alone
makes it intriguing—who is the drummer
for a band called the Roots, says about the
RichardCadena
ommerce may come and go,
but art endures.”
music industry; “People get art and commerce
mixed up. Once you can separate
the two, and see that art is art and commerce
is commerce,
and understand that
this business is commerce,
then it makes
that much more
sense.”
It’s very difficult
to separate art from
commerce. Commerce can exist without
art, but art—real art—will always be in demand.
And in a free market, demand drives
commerce. Commerce may come and
go—remember Enron? Worldcom? Braniff
Airlines? Lotus Development? DeLorean?
Packard Motor Car? Studebaker? Digital
Equipment Corporation?—but art, true art,
endures. There are artists who are merely
the tools of commerce for music industry
moguls—the Monkees, Milli Vanilli, Vanilla
Ice and many, many more—and then there
are the enduring icons for the ages—Bob
Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, U2,
Mozart, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse,
Alfred Hitchcock...
Twenty-five years later, MTV is still thriving.
But where are the music videos? They’re
been relegated to VH1, CMT and part-time
work on MTV in favor of reality television.
Is reality television art or is it merely commerce?
Time will tell. My guess is that reality
programming will fall out of favor sooner or
later, and it will be replaced by a “new” art
form called music video, because music is
art and, unlike my bass playing, art endures.
Twenty-five years later, automated lighting
is also thriving. Like MTV, it has evolved.
It’s now smaller, lighter, cheaper and more
reliable than it once was, and the lamps
come with a lot more features as standard
than they once did. Virtually every show
you see today, whether it’s on Broadway, in
a local nightclub, a large arena, sports venue,
stadium, theatre or cruise ship features
at least some automated lighting.
I think it’s a testament to the vision
of the creative people at Showco, and
those who preceded them who tried but
failed to make automated lighting a reality.
The fact that the vast majority of
entertainment lighting has some form
of automated lighting is evidence of its
demand, a demand that stems from appreciation
not only of great art, but of
the marriage of art and technology. Automated
lighting is the enduring icon of
the entertainment lighting industry, and
will be for some time. Whether or not
digital lighting will supplant automated
lighting as the ultimate in lighting is yet
to be decided. But automated lighting
already has a place in the Hall of Fame,
very unlike my bass playing.
Editor
Richard Cadena
rcadena@plsn.com
Editorial Director
Bill Evans
bevans@fohonline.com
Associate Editor
Jacob Coakley
jcoakley@plsn.com
Contributing Writers
Vickie Claiborne, Phil Gilbert,
Cory FitzGerald,Rob Ludwig,
Kevin M. Mitchell, Richard
Rutherford, Brad Schiller,
Nook Schoenfeld, Paul J. Duyree
Photographers
Steve Jennings, Bree Kristel
Art Director
Garret Petrov
gpetrov@plsn.com
Production Manager
Linda Evans
levans@plsn.com
Graphic Designers
Dana Pershyn
dpershyn@plsn.com
Josh Harris
jharris@plsn.com
National
Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
gregg@plsn.com
Advertising Representative
James Leasing
jleasing@plsn.com
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
wvanyo@plsn.com
Executive Administrative
Assistant
Dawn-Marie Voss
dmvoss@plsn.com
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Projection, Lights & Staging News (ISSN:
1537-0046) Volume 07, Number 08 Published monthly
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