When Green Day released their raucous rock opera American Idiot back in 2004, no one knew that the album would turn out to be one of the biggest of their career, that it would lead to a massive world tour, win two Grammy Awards and multiple MTV Video Awards and ultimately become a Tony Award-winning Broadway show at the St. James Theatre.
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Music, Lights and Video, in Four Acts
Carrie Underwood tour-goers would not be blamed for mistaking this concert for the kind that is associated with a pop diva, as opposed to a country artist who first sang her way into American hearts on a TV show just a few years ago.
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In the post-MP3 world, production values in live events are often dictated by economics. Those fat advances that record companies used to front to recording artists have gone the way of reel-to-reel tape machines and typewriters. Today, they are much more reliant on ticket sales and profitable touring, so every means of saving money on the road is of capital importance.
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Early this year I was cruising the aisles of NAMM when I came across the Elation Platinum Spot 5R. It's pretty difficult to assess a new light at a trade show, but what caught my attention was the contrast between this light and the ones right next to it. It was brighter. But the kicker was that it was smaller and it drew less power than those other lights. I had to figure out why.
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Matt Mills has been working on the Daughtry tour since March 2009 as the lighting director and programmer. It would be very easy to get complacent running the same show day in and day out. Instead, he has found ways to stay creative, changing the way the console uses pixel mapping, the way followspot cues are called, and adjusting to last minute changes to the set list.
Read More »The sine wave that is country music's fortunes periodically intersects with the boundaries of the larger mainstream pop music paradigm, and this summer, Nashville-based music finds itself all over that map. Artists like Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts and the ubiquitous Taylor Swift have kept country on the cover of People magazine and on the broader cultural radars. One other thing they have in common is major video projection systems out on tour with them.
Read More »The responsibilities of an automated lighting programmer are similar to that of an airplane pilot in several ways. We have to control expensive equipment, ensure a successful production (flight), and we must be masters of our crafts.
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A few years ago I bought a book called Standard Handbook For Electrical Engineers, but I never read it. It just sat on the shelf taunting me, making fun of me behind my back, sticking its $150 tongue out at me.
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Someone wrote to me last month asking about the term "ACL." He asked why a lot of new moving lights were being touted as moving ACLs. Outside of the lighting industry, they would think we were referring to a ligament in the knee.
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The new LSF Series Light Shaping Filters from Elation Professional can attach to a gel frame or the inside housing of an LED fixture to increase the beam angle or add a linear beam shape effect.
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ERG Lighting, a new division of Endicott Research Group, Inc., has introduced the eDriver family of LED power supplies for a variety of solid state lighting (SSL) applications.
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Upstate Case Manufacturing Company has introduced the Flylite line of hoist cases. The product line is designed solely for entertainment chain hoist transportation. The core substrate is a corrugated plastic, which is 30 percent lighter than traditional half-inch plywood.
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