MILAN, Italy – The Salvatore Ferragamo Fashion Show during Milan Fashion Week took place recently under no fewer than 314 SGM P-5 wash lights, each of which has 44 RGBW 10W LEDs, creating the perfect flicker-free colour output. “The show needed to have a vast homogeneous illumination”, comments LD G. Paolo Bruzzese. “The P-5 gave us that big bang of light with diffused reflection that we wanted.”
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When you design a rig, you typically use fixtures for a given look that you are trying to achieve. Say you trying to wash a stage in a color, or you are looking for something that can project gobos. You choose a fixture based on its abilities. There is a give and take sometimes with a choice of fixtures. You might want the color mixing abilities, but the shuttering of a profile is something you can live with out.
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PRETORIA, South Africa – The new auditorium at the Christian Revival Church in Pretoria, South Africa is benefitting from an all-Robe moving light rig made up of 24 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 1200s, 12 x ROBIN Pointes and 18 x LEDForce 18 PARs. The need for the lighting to be adaptable and multi-purpose was paramount to the overall design as CRC features three very different styles of Sunday service to suit the different demographic of their congregation.
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A new safety device has been introduced to our business from Scotland recently, and has been making waves on this side of the Atlantic as well. The Uplift Fall Protection System establishes a new, intelligent way technicians as well as other people in the entertainment field will work on gear hanging in the air. Designed by Limpet Technology out of Edinburgh, this unique device leads us into a new age of safety when it comes to technicians, actors and anyone whose feet leave the ground in their work environment. Upstaging Lighting, a leading innovator in touring lighting systems, is proud to be the first American company to buy and utilize the Uplift Fall Prevention System (UFPS).
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MARKTOBERDORF, Germany – The Richard Wengenmeier Hall at the Bavarian Academy of Music in Marktoberdorf, Germany, recently replaced its outdated tungsten lighting system with a new lighting rig of Elation Professional TVL Series white light LED luminaries. In addition to improved lighting, the new fixtures also save money though decreased energy usage from the fixtures themselves as well as reducing the need for air conditioning to cool the fixtures.
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Lifting stage elements, truss, speakers… our industry requires some serious lifting power it order to make our rigs work. Stagemaker hoists have a lineage that dates back decades, to when Verlinde of France launched the first inverted electric powered hoist, the Litachain L104, in 1975. Verlinde then launched the Litachain L5 and L10 range in 1990. In 1998, after the venerable French company (est. 1858) was acquired by Konecranes Plc in 1993, the Stagemaker SM series of hoists came to market.
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Have you ever been so excited about something related to work that it was all you could think about? In this business, I hope that happens a lot because we do some pretty amazing stuff. When I first learned that our very own columnist, Vickie Claiborne, was planning to write a book, I got chills! First it was the fact that one of our own was publishing another book. Doesn’t that speak highly of the columnists that we have on staff? Second was the subject of the book — Media Servers and how to program them — a groundbreaking and important topic.
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SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Chosen for their ability to stand up to the seaside environment, 75 Pulsar ChromaPoints and two Pulsar ChromaZone PSU/controllers were installed in Santa Monica’s Tongva Park. “The ChromaPoints were the right choice because their IP weatherproof rating is ideal for this salty outdoor setting. In addition to being durable, the ChromaPoint LEDs feature an exceptionally smooth color mix and excellent dimming curve,” comments Vicci Stewart.
Read More »Automated lighting programming encompasses a vast amount of processes and routines, but actually the entire practice can be broken down into four segments. Each of these segments is very complex on its own, and all four are required for any lighting programming project. Programmers do not have to master each of these areas, but they certainly need to have a good understanding and be proficient in each. All automated lighting programming projects require work in the following areas: Patching, Preparation, Parameters, and Playback.
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The ABC-TV’s hit series Nashville interlaces the grit and glamor of rising country stars with the politics of record labels and romance. The story line is fictional, but behind the scenes, the touring industry’s experts are supporting the fictional music stars in a true-to-life way. LD Steve Fallon started lighting the performances for the second season, which finished airing in May.
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A few months ago I got an email from Kim Martin, an LD I met when she toured with Ringo, some 20 years ago. I had not seen her since she was the LD for Natalie Merchant in the 1990s. She inquired why I never seem to write about female lighting designers. I honestly don’t know why, as I have met and learned quite a bit from them my whole life. Looking back, I can’t believe how many great women designers share my job in the concert biz. And they all taught me something about lighting. They didn’t make it because they are women; they made it because they have talent.
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