“Musicianship” might be a word more commonly associated with a Chopin concerto or chamber ensemble than with the thrash metal bands Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Job for a Cowboy and High on Fire. Those bands toured North America this year as the latest incarnation of Gigantour, the annual shred-fest launched by Megadeth front man Dave Mustaine in 2005.
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“Michael Tait is the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci — an artist, an engineer, a sculptor, a true genius,” says production designer Steve Cohen. “He single-handedly raised the bar on production design in my lifetime and stewarded the growth of our little business into the gift that keeps on giving.”
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The readers have spoken. And who are we to argue with them? Not that we ever doubted their choice, but they have voted for an especially eclectic group of companies for the regional winners of the Parnelli Hometown Heroes Awards. The common thread among them is that they are all serving their clients above and beyond the call of duty, yet they all do it in their own unique way. From these six winners, one will be chosen to receive the overall Parnelli Award for Hometown Hero at PLSN’s gala ceremony Oct, 24 2008. So read about those you don’t know and reacquaint yourself with those you do. Then go to www.parnelliawards.com and cast your vote!
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If you want a peek into the corporate culture of any company, get to know its CEO. For Electronic Theatre Controls, better known as ETC, the CEO is the guy in the Birkenstocks who was once described by a family friend as “the one who talks.” (His brother and co-founder of the company was described by the same friend as “the one who thinks.”) The telling part is that the CEO, Fred Foster, is the one who tells the story. It’s a testimony to the kind of humor and humility you’ll find in this seriously successful man and the company he leads.
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You don’t have to be that old to be surprised with the fact that George Michael, frontman for the 1980s pop band Wham!, has been performing for more than a quarter of a century. The first leg of his 25 Live tour, which supports a greatest hits album by the same name, traveled though Europe in late 2006. The North American leg that began earlier this year represents the artist’s first live tour in the U.S. and Canada in 17 years.
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You may have never heard of Cody Stoltz, but if you have, then you know why this young man is special. At 13 years of age, he absolutely loves lighting. While most people his age are still playing with their friends or dealing with the changes that come with transitioning to life as a teenager, Stoltz knows what he wants to do; he wants to be a lighting designer. He’s even saved his money and invested in his own lighting rig, and he’s an intern at New Orleans-based RZI.
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As lighting designers, we need to provide lots of information in the form of lighting plots and paperwork. That hasn’t changed since the days when I was in college. But these days, two-dimensional drawings are not enough. We have to be able to draw in three dimensions, turn on the lights, capture cues as photo-realistic pictures, and we have to do this in the same amount of time it used to take to produce the light plot alone.
Read More »Imagine this scenario. You are hired as the video director for a tour, and they want to use HD. You want to display different images on seven LED screens, and you are using a media server that, at best, supports two layers of 1080p resolution media. What would you do to make this work? There is a way, and it involves creatively mapping out the raster.
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Imagine this: I was working on a stadium concert for a big rock band in an indoor stadium. We had a well known LD and were just about to start the first rehearsal with the band. Our front of house technician came walking out to the consoles wearing only his shorts. With no shirt and no shoes he paraded across the floor and right up to the LD. Then he took his seat and waited for the rehearsal to start. I am sure you can guess the LD’s reaction; no one was surprised when the FOH tech was replaced just a few days into the tour.
Read More »The next time you see projection video in an entertainment venue, think of it as also mentoring a student in elementary or high school. That’s because the projection has been discovering potentially vast new fields to till in the education sector. The penetration of digital, widescreen, HD and other advanced projection technology into education environments are difficult to measure precisely but anecdotal evidence suggests it has become a huge trend. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) estimated that at its annual convention in San Antonio the 40 projection systems manufacturers that exhibited there last July had doubled in a little over five years.
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“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.” — Robert Armstrong as
Carl Denham in the original King Kong (1933).
There’s a new movie in the making that will soon be playing in theatres and performing arts spaces everywhere. It’s about a new protocol that goes up against a monster bundle of cable. The winners in this battle are the techies and end users of large lighting systems.
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I’ve been having a lot of fun this year doing something I don’t often do — lighting heavy metal tours. While it’s not my favorite kind of music, I am having a blast. I mean, what other genre of music enables you to hit 160 cues in a three-minute song?
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