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Dessert Anyone?

Dessert Anyone?

[In the last two columns, lighting designer Nook Schoenfeld and a posse of LDs including Bob Peterson, John Featherstone and Olivier Ilisca sat down for lunch to discuss how they got into the industry and what makes them successful. What we’ve learned so far is that, of the four designers, none of them were formally educated, but they all recognize the value of a good education. But when it comes to work, nothing can replace experience and handson training. And, if you really want to excel, there’s one more very impor tant ingredient. To find out what that is, read this, the last installment of the three-par t series, “Sushi in Chicago.”-ed.]

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Selecon Performance Lighting

Who:
Selecon Performance Lighting

What:
Design and manufacture of theatrical and entertainment lighting fixtures.

Where:
Auckland, New Zealand — HQ, R&D, manufacturing; Forest Hill, Maryland — sales, stocking and distribution; Enschede, The Netherlands — sales, stocking and distribution; with additional market support personnel located in the UK, Germany, Australia and Asia.

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The Illusion of Diffusion

A couple of months ago, I came face to face with the realization that all I had known to be true about diffusion was little more than illusion. For several years I put those little square pieces of plastic in front of my luminaires to magically transform the subject by changing the quality of the light. But by sheer accident I found it wasn’t changing it as much as I thought.

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Visionary, Visualizer, Visualist

Working for UVLD, Cameron Yeary has the opportunity to work with some great minds in our lighting industry, including the company’s principal partners, John Ingram and Greg Cohen.

But as the resident visualist, he brings something special to the team. In our PLSN Interview, he explains the importance of previsualization, media servers and why better results are a function of how much control we have of the production.

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Sixth Annual Parnelli Winners Revealed at Gala

On a perfect Las Vegas evening, a recordbreaking audience gathered in a Venetian Hotel Ballroom to pay tribute to the very best of the year in our annual “Oscars of the Live Event Industry” affair.

“When you think about it, it’s against our very nature to attend an event like this,” observed master of ceremonies and president of Timeless Communications Terry Lowe during the ceremony’s opening moments. “We tend to be the kind that shuns the spotlight. We’d rather be pointing it. We’d rather EQ than speak into a mic.”

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Capturing the Magic of the Grinch

Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a classic children’s book that was adapted into an animated television program, and in recent years has also become a hit movie with Jim Carrey and a popular musical theatre production in San Diego for eight years running. Now Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical is tantalizing Broadway in its first limited holiday run.

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Back To the Future

A Historic Clock Tower Is Lit Using Modern Methods.

Dr. Emmet Brown: Don’t worry! As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely eighty-eight miles per hour the instant the lightning strikes the tower, everything will be fine!

In the climax of the movie Back to the Future, Doc Brown and Marty McFly attach a steel cable to the town’s clock tower in order to harness the electricity of a pre-destined lightning strike. They then proceed to mispronounce the word “gigawatt,” and send Martyback to the future.

In a neighborhood near to Chicago’s Wrigley Field, another clock tower is lit up — without the need for a time machine or a guy named Biff. 

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Curvy and Sexy, and That’s Just Her Lighting Rig

LD Daunte Kenner captures the essence of Mary J. Blige in design.

She’s the soulful queen of hip-hop, an embattled figure who has recently emerged victoriously from bouts against alcohol and drug abuse to become a successful and happily-married entertainer. Her concert sounds like a battle cry for troubled women everywhere, leading the charge against the emotional distress of everyday life in the trenches. She is Mary J. Blige. And the responsibility for lighting her shows falls squarely on the shoulders of Daunte Kenner. And if MJB has gone through a series of changes, Kenner can certainly relate. Talk to him about the show and the constant theme that emerges is one of change. Take, for example, the design process.
“Nineteen,” says Kenner with a smile. 

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