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Spring Awakening: Lighting for the Deaf

Spring Awakening production photo by Joan Marcus

Spring Awakening: Lighting for the Deaf

The Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening has been revived on Broadway after six and a half years, but unlike many resurgent productions on the Great White Way, this one has had a whole extra dimension added to it. What started as a story about teenagers and adults (parents, teachers, and clergy) clashing over the way they communicate (specifically dealing with sexual repression) has now become a tale of deaf students and speaking adults at odds with each other over the same issues.

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CTC Wizard of Oz production photo by Dan Norman

Children’s Theatre Company’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’

A Look Into an Amazing Institution in Minneapolis

I just witnessed L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz last night, my fourth play at this state-of-the-art theater in Minneapolis. Once again, I cannot believe the production values I just witnessed for a children’s show. But one should expect no less from Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) as they celebrate their 50th year in existence. In 2003, they were awarded a Tony Award for an “Outstanding Regional Theater,” and they strive for excellence with every performance.

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Zac Brown Band Jekyll and Hyde Tour Photo by Steve Jennings

Zac Brown Band’s Jekyll + Hyde Tour

The Zac Brown Band winds down their seven-month tour Dec. 12 with their last show of the year in Columbus, OH. It’s been a fun ride for all involved on the visual side. The Georgia-based country act played various sized venues from stadiums to amphitheaters. The three-tiered set featured a video wall behind the band measuring 6 by 52 feet (HxW). Perched atop that were the drums, percussion and ample space for various band members to walk up stairs and ramps and play. It’s clear from the start that the 12 band members like to move around. Accurate Staging provided the set.

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Chris Cornell and Bryan Gibson perform. Photo by Debi Moen

The Higher Truth of Lighting Chris Cornell

Grunge rocker Chris Cornell, frontman of bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, is on an intimate acoustic world tour showcasing those songs and new ones from his Higher Truth CD. Perched on a stool in front of a mic on a bare stage, Cornell sings folksinger-style and from the heart. Suddenly, over his shoulder, a beam of violet hits the plain backdrop, bringing to light the appearance of a big scarlet heart.

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Dead & Company photo by Paul Guthrie

Dead & Company Hit the Road…And the Music Never Stops

While the Grateful Dead officially called it a career last fall at 50 years old, nobody really expected them to fade away. For this side project, they brought in John Mayer to take the place of the late Jerry Garcia while going by the name of Dead & Company. Guitarist Bob Weir shared the playing and singing duties with Mayer as they plowed through two sets of Grateful Dead music. Original drummers Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart handled the rhythm section.

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Twenty One Pilots 2015 Blurryface tour photo by Steve Jennings

Twenty One Pilots’ 2015 Blurryface Tour

Twenty One Pilots’ Tyler Joseph founded the band in 2009 near Columbus, Ohio with two college friends. The band’s name is linked to a 1947 Arthur Miller play, All My Sons. That play is based on a real-life scandal. In the 1940s, aviation company Curtiss-Wright, which traces its lineage to the Wright Brothers, was caught selling defective parts to the U.S. military. In the play, a character who at first thinks of his actions as being for the good of the company and his family takes his life after recognizing that his misdeeds caused the deaths of 21 pilots.

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The “Field of Hope” display at China’s national pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo featured thousands of thin, single strips of LEDs.

CreateLED

CreateLED has emerged as one of the world’s most advanced LED display screen suppliers, rising in prominence along with the popularity of LEDs — and LED screens — themselves.

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The new DMXpix from RC4 Wireless. The unit is just slightly larger than an average thumb drive

RC4Magic DMXpix Pixel Controller

RC4 Wireless is a company that focuses on a small segment of products consisting of wireless dimming and control. I had the opportunity to review their complete Series 3 wireless system earlier this year, and was really impressed with the product’s feature-set and power in doing such seemingly simple things as improving the ability to wirelessly control and dim lighting devices of all sizes.

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Figure 1: The Original Image

Visual Effects in Media Servers

When we watch a music video, a commercial, or an interesting piece of cinematography, our eyes are often treated to unique visual effects meant to capture our attention and possibly evoke a response. The content creator of the media used in these genres has a wealth of tools and plug-ins available to create these types of effects as well as a creative eye that’s been trained to use these effects.

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ImageCue Media Playback Controller

ImageCue Media Playback Controller

ImageCue, from Southern California-based ImageCue LLC, is the new media playback controller developed by CEO Bill Hewlett and distributed by A.C.T Lighting. Launched at InfoComm 2015, the ImageCue is a media server option that is particularly well suited for projects with small budgets that require DMX controlled media playback but not the real-time compositing features of a full-featured media server.

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QuikScan App from Database Works

QuikScan App from Database Works

For a production house, one of the most tedious — yet mission-critically important — tasks is keeping track of the gear that goes out on a gig and then comes back in from it. So what if that cable could tell you it was there? It’s actually not that far-fetched…

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End of the Rainbow

A natural rainbow is a beautiful sight to behold. We have all marveled at the ethereal glow of colors arching across the sky. For as long as man has existed, the rainbow has triggered a sense of awe and inspiration. For centuries, humans tried to recreate the colors of the rainbow through various devices. Today’s modern automated lights and LED based products make recreating rainbow looks as simple as the press of a single button. But this magic comes at a cost. We are slowly losing our creativity and settling for simplicity as we accept rainbow chases into many facets of our lives. I am hereby calling for an end of the rainbow!

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