SECAUCUS, NJ — BML-Blackbird Theatrical Services named industry veteran David Oakes director of production. Oakes had spent over two decades as a master electrician/gaffer working with designers, producers and promoters on many of the top live entertainment productions in the country and around the world.
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Welcome to 2012, the start of a new year. So what will your New Year’s Resolution be? It’s the perfect time to turn a new page. (Please, wait till you get to the end of the column before turning this page!) New Years always gives us a fresh start. It’s our annual opportunity to eliminate bad habits. It’s our chance to start new routines to make us healthy, wealth and wise. Of course, resolutions are much easier to make than to keep. By the end of January many will have abandoned their resolve and settled back into old patterns. Will this be you or will this be the year your resolve outweighs your temptations?
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Protecting an asset as valuable as our hands is important in a field like ours. We work with our hands daily. We are a hands-on profession. If we have injured digits, it can cost us, not just money but our ability to work. Protecting our hands is a simple as putting on a pair of gloves.
Sure, you can pick up a cheap pair at any hardware store, but you get what you pay for. I have gone through countless pairs of simple leather gloves working focus and pushing my fair share of cases. They never seem to hold up past one season. Read More »
Although Noël Coward’s witty play Private Lives is an intimate tale told with only five characters, the set design for the latest Broadway production (which just closed), imported from London’s West End through a run in Toronto, offers impressive and visually striking sets to accompany the bedroom farce. But it makes sense to have grand sets for emotionally explosive comedy, which finds a divorced couple (Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross) accidentally staying adjacent to one another while honeymooning with their new spouses on the French Riviera. Naturally, all sorts of nostalgic sexual shenanigans ensue. Originally written in 1930, the play resonates with modern audiences in its mischievous tone and sly views on marriage and divorce.
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Twists, Turns and Automation for the Get Closer Tour
His last name doesn’t sound very rural, and, geographically, at least, his roots are Down Under. But Keith Urban has a huge following among country music fans in the U.S. and Canada. For his 2011 Get Closer tour, supported by Bandit Lites, SGPS and Chaos Visual Productions, long stretches of curving truss evoke roller coasters and Ferris wheels. And the structural elements move during the course of the show, transforming the lighting fixture positions along with the visual design possibilities.
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Koen de Puysseleir Adds Lighting and Video to the High-Energy Mix
Tiësto wrapped up The College Invasion Tour with the largest single-headliner DJ show in U.S. history, performing for 26,000 people at Los Angeles’ Home Depot Center stadium. The massive electronic dance music party underscored why Tiësto is considered one of the top DJs in the world, and the show did not disappoint. Playing off of the night’s pulsing musical mixes, creative designer Koen de Puysseleir, principal of Belgium-based Light in Motion, conceived a show of high-energy lighting, striking video and special effects that took full advantage of both the scope of the historic show and the scale of the venue.
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“Hometown Heroes” Going Strong in 30th Year
Here’s the thing: we’ll do a big American Airlines event in the convention center, or something in your backyard.”
That’s Terry Cain, speaking like a true hometown hero. And it’s not surprising: In October, in Orlando, Cain’s company, Dallas-based Gemini Light, Sound, Video, received the 2011 Parnelli Hometown Hero Award for Best Lighting Company of the Year. Read More »
A Cool Blast of Holiday Spirit on the Las Vegas Strip
Every year around Christmas, Sin City outdoes itself. The 2011-2012 season is no exception. With its holiday spectacular, “Winter in Venice,” which began November 21, 2011, and runs through January 8, 2012, The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino is currently staging its greatest outdoor show since its owners, Las Vegas Sands Corp., broke ground in 1997. Read More »
Theatre lighting designer. Concert lighting designer. Television lighting designer. Professor. Lecturer. Author.
Jim Moody has many vocations, but despite an amazing career so far, producing a head-spinning list of great rock acts he’s worked with, there’s one role that he puts above all those: Mentor.
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