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Controlling Light – with Light

Controlling Light – with Light

Crew Chief: “What’s this note on your plot about a 500-foot snake?”

LD: “Well…I think I need a 500-foot snake.  Oh, and it needs to have at least eight DMX lines.”

Crew Chief: “We don’t have one. Can you make a 400 work?”

LD: “Did you look at the plot?”

Crew Chief: “Mmmm. Yeah. Okay, we’ll send out the fiber snake.”

LD: “???”

Crew Chief: “It’s no big deal.  Don’t worry about it.”

Knowing Your Limitations
This is a simplified version of a conversation I recently had with someone at Upstaging Inc., a company I work with frequently on corporate events. With FOH stuck at the back of a gigantic Vegas ballroom and a snake run that had to go all the way around — not through — the room, I suddenly found myself very pleased to have a lighting provider that specialized in fixing these types of problems.

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Rush

Snakes and Arrows is a culmination of 33 years of Ungerleider’s designs

By the time Howard Ungerleider was 20 years old, he was in his second year with American Talent International agency in New York. Already traveling the world with famous bands, his job was to ensure that the contracts he negotiated for their performances were upheld. While he was hanging out with these bands, they often asked him questions, the most common of which was, “What did you think of our show tonight?

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311 Summer Unity Tour at the Pearl

 

Pick a song…any song

The lighting direction for Billboard-charting rock band 311’s Summer Unity Tour was nothing short of a guessing game. With a collection of 210 songs, none of which sound the least bit similar, 311 covers virtually every music genre: alternative rock, punk, ska, reggae, hip hop and even the occasional, gasp, mushy ballad (they cover The Cure’s classic melodrama “Love Song”). Lighting Designer Joe Paradise paused long enough to speak to us during the tour’s Las Vegas show at the Pearl Concert Theater, The Palms’ new concert hot spot.

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Syncrolite Series 3 with OmniColor 2

Over the last three years, while their Series 2 Syncrolites were out generating revenue on seemingly every production with a budget, the Dallas-based company was busy developing and patenting the next generation of Syncrolite products. Now they’re ready to trot out their Series 3 line of high-powered xenon, moving yoke fixtures with what are possibly the most innovative new features in an automated light in several years.

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Daft Punk

From silly punk to serious vibes

When the U.K.’s leading weekly music newspaper, Melody Maker, panned a performance of Thomas Bangalter Guy and Manuel de Homen-Christo — who were performing back then under the moniker Darlin’ — they thought it was amusing that the paper referred to their music as “a bunch of daft punk.” Today, the drum machine and synthesizer duo perform under that name —Daft Punk — and they are known as much for their visual shows as their aural performances. They have a penchant for rousing an audience to a frenzy of dance, and if you happen to look at the FOH position during a show, you just might have seen the band’s lighting and set designer, Martin Phillips, getting into the act himself.  

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In Life or Death, the Show Goes On

The hardest thing about our business is maintaining a balance between work and the rest of our life, as most of us spend time working away from home. Being away from home for long periods of time can be stressful for anyone, but what happens when we have to deal with a sudden change in routine? What do we do when something happens to interfere with the gig? Whether it’s a new child or a death in the family, how do you adapt while maintaining the old adage, “The show must go on?”

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Generation 2

The evolution of structural technology forges a new partnership

In 1980, John Brown founded Brown United by combining Mike Brown Grandstands and United Production Services. At that time, both compa-nies were owned by Mike Brown  — John’s father and 2002 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award winner — who had given John his first experience in the business back in 1975, working for Elton John at Dodger Stadium.

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Behind the Scenes with David Oakes and the Branton Team

Behind every good lighting designer, there is a team of people responsible for making the vision turn into reality. When it comes to concert lighting and lighting for television, Allen Branton is one of the best in the business. In this month’s interview, we speak with Lighting Director/Gaffer David Oakes, who tells us about the folks who make up the “Branton Team” and how they work together to make his award-winning designs come to fruition.

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Lighting Rig at JET NightclubTakes Off

MIDI pilots lighting to new heights

In the world of nightclubs, there are certain ingredients that ensure immediate success — a booming sound system, a top-notch staff and an exclu-sive guest list. JET nightclub in The Mirage, one of the hottest nightclubs in Las Vegas, has added a fourth: a dramatic and exciting lighting system. Ever since JET opened in 2005, the club’s main room has boasted a lighting system designed by the team at John Lyons Systems.

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Herrick Goldman, Kamikaze Lighting Designer

Quick and dirty on a budget for NYMTF

Think your plate is full? Try being Herrick Goldman for a week. A veteran LD with two decades experience, he recently designed three shows at the New York Musical Theatre Festival — he’s done 16 shows for them in four years — while also handling gigs for the Grammys and Emmys that same week. His company, HG Lighting Design Inc., handles “any live events,” although the company’s focus is on theatre and larger corporate events. And they are constantly working.

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Only the Changed Survive

Knowing Your Place in the Production Environment

I was on a plane home from a trade show when I was struck with a thought: I am constantly reminded of knowing my place on the very different shows on which I work. My job as a lighting designer has crossed over into so many other areas that I need to change my job description for each particular client. After 23 years in the lighting biz, you have to see and roll with the changes in everything, from technology to politics.

We have talked for years about lighting people becoming entrenched in the video field, while video has become more of a lighting element. It is like talking politics or religion — there is no defining answer, we just have to adapt and accept some things on faith. Those who do not adapt seem to fade away. I went from touring with rock shows to now doing trade shows and corporate gigs. I see many old faces from those days following the same path. They adapted from the fast-paced, “work hard, play hard” attitude of the concert touring industry, to the kinder, gentler world of corporate production.

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The Power of Three

“If some day they say of me that with my work I have contributed something to the welfare and the happiness of my fellow men, I shall be satis-fied.”  — George Westinghouse

The three little pigs. The three branches of government. The holy trinity. The number three is an interesting number. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

 

Long ago, Nikola Tesla recognized something special about the power of three. He started out working on a solution for an AC induction motor, and in the process, he ended up defining the familiar three-phase system of alternating current that we’ve come to know. We’ve been using three-phase power ever since. Now when you hook up power in most venues, there are three hot phases, a neutral and a ground. 

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