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Designing with Green in Mind

Wired Pop-Up Store in Times Square

Designing with Green in Mind

On Feb. 27, the Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) held a Green Lighting Workshop at the Loews Theater at New York University. For the uninitiated, the BGA is a New York-based group of working theatrical professionals who are dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of theatrical productions, including front office planning, day-to-day front-of-house operations and pre- and post-production activities. Last year, the BGA held a workshop on greener scenic design and construction. This year, the discussion turned to lighting.

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Left, Rendering using Vectorworks Spotlight and Renderworks; Right, Screen Capture from the geneME Long Form Commercial “afters” segment

Lighting Cross-Pollination

Transcending the Odd Walls that Separate Lighting and Set Design for Live Performance and TV/film.

As designers, our practice is diverse. We design sets and lighting for television, theatre, film, events, museums and public spaces. The challenge is remembering what mindset we need to use at any given time, allowing for the possibility of crossover when appropriate.

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Smith Center, view from the Reynolds Hall stage, photo courtesy of Geri Kodey

Finding the Eternal in Las Vegas

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts Opens and Gives Las Vegas a Hall for the Ages

Say Las Vegas, and many things come to mind. Talk about seeing a show in Las Vegas, and a few other things come to mind. What probably doesn’t come to mind is a stand-alone, performing arts center dedicated to serving the local community as a home to the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Nevada Ballet Theatre, a Broadway touring house, classical music venue, jazz speakeasy and rock or country roadhouse. The Smith Center for the Performing Arts aims to change all that, and to place Las Vegas alongside Vienna, Paris and New York as a city with a world-class performing arts center built for the ages.

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Martin EC-10 LED Panels

Martin EC-10 LED Panels

In today’s video production industry, vendors and designers have been looking for an impressive, all-purpose LED video panel. A number of video panel manufacturers have answered the call with products that are brighter, more durable, easier to work with and higher-resolution than ever before.

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Point and Shoot

Shooting Video with DSLRs (Part Two)

By now, having read my last column, I’m convinced that you ran out and spent your federal tax return on a new Canon or Nikon DSLR, and you’re gearing up to shoot videos and roll-ins for that big national touring company. Since you’re on a budget and a Red Epic (or equivalent high-end camera) is not in the cards, the DSLR offers a great alternative. With a high-resolution sensor (beyond HD), portability, superb depth of field, interchangeable lenses, excellent low light performance and affordable pricing, it also produces gorgeous pictures. All in all, today’s new-generation DSLRs offer a great way to shoot high-quality video on a budget.

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Welcome to Storm Season

The 2012 summer touring season kicks off this month, a year after one of the most violent weather years on record: tornadoes in 2011 started the earliest ever — New Year’s Day — and went on to kill 550 people, injure 5,400 and cause $10 billion in damage, the most in U.S. history. Some of the biggest weather disasters in the touring business also took place last year, most notoriously the collapse of the stage, due to high winds from an approaching storm, at the Indiana State Fair last August that killed seven and injured dozens. And as I write this, people in Illinois, Kansas and Missouri are picking up the pieces from twisters that passed through on Leap Day, killing 14.

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Brad Schiller scribbled these notes, just prior to the LDI show in 2000.

A New Programming Paradigm

There is a new programming paradigm that is gaining acceptance in our industry.  As lighting continues to converge with video, we are seeing more and more specialization of equipment and skill sets.  While automated lighting consoles are fantastic for lighting tasks, they are not ideal for programming media servers and other video devices.

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Illustration by Andy Au

A Punk Rock Eyeful

Last fall, I heard from my friend Missy. She manages the Chicago-based rockers “Rise Against.”  They had been on tour last year and were looking to revamp their look and wanted some ideas. Their production guru is Jon Dunleavy, a man I had gigged with before. I reached out to him to inquire what they were looking for. They had a few requirements they wished to base a design around. First and foremost, they were a punk band. They didn’t need a lot of hoopla. Just a few backdrops and some rock ‘n’ roll lighting. They had some set carts that they would carry around the world this year, and they wanted a lighting package that could attach to the carts. They also wanted some “light boxes” that could spell out the letters, “R-I-S-E.”

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Capture Polar

Capture Polar v2.7

SAN ANTONIO, TX – Significant advancements have been made in the new release of lighting visualization software Capture Polar Version 2.7. The new software is packed with improvements focused mainly on paperwork and documentation. Plus, a new Free Student Edition is now available.

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