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NATEAC 2008

NATEAC 2008

The first North American Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference convened in the Michael Schimmel Performing Arts Center on the campus of Pace University in downtown New York City on July 20 and 21. More than 250 people from nine countries attended the conference and participated in a total of 18 panel discussions covering such topics as “The Future of Stage Machinery,” “The Greener Theatre,” “Design for Value” and more. In addition, keynote addresses were given by Richard Brett and Hugh Hardy and the Plenary Session was led by Steven Ehrenberg and David Taylor.

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August 2008

Anolis ArcControl 1024

Anolis ArcControl 1024 is a programmable stand-alone wall-mounted DMX controller. It fits into a 47 mm deep back box. Surface mount and frame mount options are also available. The controller includes a library of all Anolis luminaires and other effects. The LCD display and scroll-wheel,  combined with the real time astronomical clock, enable more complex sequences, timed events and colors to be added without using a computer.

Anolis • 954.615.9100 • www.anolis.eu

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The Idiot Offset

The sk8rs on Centre Street in New York City go out of their way to seek out danger. The more dangerous, the better. I know this because I witnessed it first hand. I was in the City for the maiden voyage of the North American Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference (NATEAC) last month. The conference was an excellent exchange of information and ideas about all things relating to the design, construction, and use of performing arts spaces.

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Look Solutions Unique2 Haze Machine

Look Solutions recently introduced another addition to its family of haze machines with the Unique2. It has a bunch of new features that will make anyone in this business happy. For starters, it is so compact that you could fit it in your suitcase with room to spare for your clothes. But hey, who needs a lot of clothes on the road doing this job, right?  So let’s get down to the business of talking about what this product can do for your show.

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Madrix LED Lighting Control System

The advent of the blue LED in 1993 unlocked the potential for LED technology to be used in the entertainment lighting industry for a variety of applications, one of the most important of which is the RGB LED luminaire. Creative designers quickly discovered that these luminaires could be assembled in a matrix configuration and used for low-resolution graphics. But in the beginning, there were few options for the programmer to ease the tedious task of assigning color and timing to a matrix of RGB LEDs. Today, there are many more software and hardware solutions to make it quick and easy to convert a video file to a beautiful graphic LED display.

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A&S Makes Their Case

The case brought back into A&S Case Company the other day was old — 22 years old. But it was hardly the historic artifact you might think.

 

The band that had been using it all that time had no interest in letting it go, rather, they just wanted some of the interior foam replaced. That’s not exceptional in the experience of A&S Case, but rather typical. “There are cases being actively used out there that were made when the company was first formed in 1976,” says Bill Waskey. “They may have had a caster replaced, and of course they look a bit worn, but they are still very serviceable.”

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Alicia Keys

Visual Light is a U.K.-based design house started by Nick Whitehouse in 2002. Bryan Leitch soon came on board as a design partner. Since then, the two have been working hard to become one of the most highly-regarded design teams in the world. Whitehouse and Leitch continue to collaborate on de-signs, striving to strike a balance between art and practicality. Some of their previous and current clients include Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, James Taylor, Kylie Minogue and Timbaland.

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Once There Were Giants

I had the good fortune to have met him — an honor that I cherish to this day.  During the 1970s and 1980s, I also had the good fortune to have worked at the company that he founded — the company that invented videotape recording.  At that time, the company was a powerhouse, 6,000 strong and the dominant worldwide force in the AV industry.  To this day, the work ethic that was a part of the company’s very name remains a fundamental part of my own ethic.

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Blame the Gear

It’s become painfully evident to me that this industry has been overrun with people who take too much responsibility for their actions. Every day it seems like I’m on a show where a technician double-checks his work, a programmer tests her backup console or a designer accepts the blame for an uneven front wash.

People! This has got to stop!

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Video and Lighting Keep Converging

Days before InfoComm opened mid-June in Las Vegas, one of the world’s leading projection video purveyors announced the acquisition of one of the lighting industry’s most well known brands. Barco’s purchase of High End Systems further solidifies the ongoing convergence between video and lighting and in the process seeks to redefine what had been individual sectors under the rubric of the events market. High End Systems, Inc. was majority-owned by Generation Partners, a U.S. private equity firm, which acquired the company in 1998.

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Believing is Seeing

“In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.” — Henri Matisse

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