Skip to content

The Religion of Control, Part II – There Is No Hog but Hog

The Religion of Control, Part II – There Is No Hog but Hog

In Part I of this article (PLSN, April 2008, page 50) I presented an argument for console agnosticism.  Hopefully, by now you’ve had some time to think about the merits of being familiar with a wide range of consoles.  These might include application specific virtues, cost factors and even political or historical reasons. So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’m going to tell you why you should forget everything I’ve said and spend your every waking moment learning one console.

 

Read More »

VectorWorks Spotlight 2008

For many production and design professionals, the VectorWorks suite of computer aided drafting software has become an industry standard platform. A highly mature group of products, the VectorWorks family includes products that cater to architects, engineers, landscape artists and lighting designers.

 

Read More »

April 2008

 American DJ Mega Pixel LED

American DJ’s new Mega Pixel LED is a color bar with 384 LEDs that produce moving patterns and chases. It measures one meter long and has 128 red, 128 green and 128 blue 5mm LEDs arranged in 24 color banks of 16 LEDs each.

 

Read More »

Looking for Some New Old Stuff

Every month I see new products on the market. It seems the latest LED and media server technology is constantly outdating last year’s cool stuff. Automated lighting manufacturers are dueling to keep up with each other in terms of lumens while trying to come up with new features. This stuff is impressive, but it makes me wonder…“Why don’t people concentrate on making new cooler versions of existing gear?”

 

Read More »

Brian Sidney Bembridge

At the age of 23, Brian Sidney Bembridge moved to Chicago, the home of more than 200 small theatre companies, to try to make a name for himself as a lighting and scenic designer. After working on various small projects, he finally got his break in the local theatre community after he was invited to work on a film featuring a little green frog and his friends. He took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about how his naivety helped him make the most important decision in his life and what he’s learned since relocating to the Windy City. 

 

Read More »

The Long Center for the Performing Arts

To the uninitiated, an elevator ride in Austin’s newly-opened Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts might give the wrong impression. The green and orange metal skin that lines the interior of the elevator is replete with dents about the size of a ball-peen hammer. It wasn’t the carelessness of the construction workers who left their marks on the elevator walls, but Mother Nature herself.

 

Read More »

Uncharted Waters

Scenic designer George Tsypin uses transparent and translucent materials to take the stage production for Disney’s The Little Mermaid under the sea.

 

Here, Sierra Boggess as Ariel ventures from a cool-lit underwater realm to bright sunshine.

 

Read More »

Getting to Green

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes.  All is a miracle.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Suppose you owned a construction company and, along with it, some big, shiny dump trucks for hauling materials. Now suppose you’re constructing a building, starting from the foundation up. So you hire some drivers to haul sand from the sandufacturer (you know, the place where they manufacture sand) to the construction site so it can be mixed with some cement to pour the foundation.

 

Read More »

The Wonders of CUE ONLY

While I was programming a show recently, I was using one of my favorite console features and I knew right then that I needed to write about it.  Most automated lighting consoles have this feature which is a holdover from standard conventional or theatrical desks.  This feature is commonly known as “Cue Only” and is used when you are recording or updating cues.  This powerful feature behaves almost as if the console knows what you really want and takes care of it for you!  However, before explaining exactly what the feature does, you must have an understanding of basic console tracking.

 

Read More »