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Catching Up with Blizzard Lighting

From left, Will Komassa, Frank Luppino and Bob Mueller

Catching Up with Blizzard Lighting

It’s been a couple of years since we last checked in with Blizzard Lighting, the company based just outside of Milwaukee in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I was quite impressed when I checked in with them at LDI six months ago. They are no longer what one would have referred to as a mom and pop company just a few short years ago. They have expanded their business in size and the diversity of their products, at a rapid pace. They are indeed, a major player in the lighting manufacturing biz.

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Sila Sveta projection-mapped Swan Lake as part of the Circle of Light festival in Moscow.

Sila Sveta Brings Creative Visuals from Russia to America

“I think it’s magic,” says Sila Sveta’s Alexander Us from his office in Moscow. “It’s something that you could only dream about yesterday, and now it’s like creating heaven. You can transform anything into art — make a building dance. It’s really a new kind of art.” “It” is their 3D projection, and those who have experienced their visual work — or saw the eye-popping video they created to open the 2015 Parnelli Awards in Las Vegas — knows what he’s talking about. And now the company has an office in Los Angeles headed by Amy Blackman, the company’s CIO.

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The projections portray a Piazza with a screen-within-a-screen effect.Andrea Bocelli Cinema tour, photo by Todd Kaplan

Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Cinema’ World Tour

[caption id="attachment_268213" align="alignnone" width="800"]The projections portray a Piazza with a screen-within-a-screen effect.Andrea Bocelli Cinema tour, photo by Todd Kaplan[/caption]

As part of the release of Andrea Bocelli’s Cinema album, a collection of iconic movie theme songs, he performed a special one-night concert at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre. The show was taped for broadcast on PBS. The reaction to the production was so good that Bocelli and his team decided to modify the one-off production into a tourable concert. The Cinema World Tour recently completed its first leg through the U.S., including dates in Phoenix, Las Vegas, New York City, and Washington DC.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' booth at NAIAS 2016 in Detroit

Sleek Looks Shine at NAIAS in Motor City

Manufacturing an award-winning automobile involves the talents of a multitude of designers, engineers, artisans, and technicians. It requires an equally unique mix of talented people and companies to present that vision in the best possible light onto the show room floor. This year at the 2016 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) demonstrated just how far that vision could go. “Let’s put the show back in the auto show,” were the marching orders from FCA. Their vision led to perhaps the largest pixel count on any show ever, totaling 30 million.

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'Aida' at the San Francisco Opera, aided by OperaVision. Photo by Cory Weaver.

OperaVision: A New Twist on an Old Classic at the San Francisco Opera

What does the term “opera” conjure up? For me, opera is a classic art form that combines music, song, costumes, storytelling and elaborate stage sets — but it’s a genre that’s generally not accessible (or appreciated) by the average Joe. Operas were first written back in the 16th century. They reached their golden age in the 19th century, and to this day, hundreds of operas are still being performed at famous opera houses throughout the world, and a few are still being composed. Ever been to a performance?
Most would sadly say “no,” and this begs the question — how would a major opera company attract a new audience, and expose them to the wonders of Mozart, Verdi, Bizet and more?

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The pixel-mappimg software works well with curves and complex forms

Enttec LED Mapper

Enttec is no stranger to the LED and pixel-related product arena — they offer products ranging from their ultra-high-res LED pixel tape and LED pixel bars to control solutions that make it a breeze to set up large-scale LED installations. If you’re unfamiliar with the company, think back to any of the industry trade shows you may have attended the past few years, and you’ll undoubtedly recall the Enttec booth decked out in pixel products with the staff running around in odd-themed outfits. With their LED Mapper (ELM) software offering, Enttec aims to make mapping content and working with large numbers of individual LEDs easy, powerful, and affordable.

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Clay Paky Scenius

Clay Paky Scenius

Clay Paky is one of the most respected and well-established moving light companies on the planet, and they have a solid line of products going back well into the 1980s. The company seems to have a knack for releasing products that become hits — like the Sharpy, the Mythos and the B-Eye. Today we’re going to look not at the latest LED offering, but at a good old-fashioned large-format arc lamp fixture: the Scenius.

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Lightronics SC-810

Lightronics SC-810

It is easy to occasionally lose perspective in this industry. We get focused on our own areas, on the tech that we use every day, and forget that there are other areas that have their own set of unique challenges. In this Road Test, we take a step back and look at a control solution not intended for the largest touring rock shows, but for smaller venues like auditoriums, ballrooms, board rooms — any place that needs reliable yet easy-to-use lighting control that also offers sophisticated control and playback.

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The old Mirror Ball on the Floor trick

What’s Wrong with the Shelf?

I’m a firm believer that just about any light fixture is worth something to a show. I like old conventional fixtures, especially weird stuff that nobody else is using. I find big old 2K Lekos useful. I will still find uses for old moving lights that nobody else wants. Basically, I can often find a treasure chest of lighting fixtures that never get used — on a vendor’s shelf.

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Getting Focused

One of the key jobs of any automated lighting programmer or operator is to create and maintain the position of the moving lights. By utilizing console features such as palettes/presets these pre-stored positions are the basis of every look. Hopefully you know and understand the importance of palettes/presets already and know they should always be used in place of hard values for positions. Actually creating or updating these positions is an essential skill for any console programmer or operator.

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Illustration by Andy Au

The Horror

The horror… The horror.

A New Year presents itself as an opportunity to hold out the torch of understanding and tolerance with those you may have had “misunderstandings” with in the past.

Exes…Former Employers…Promoter production reps.

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