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ZZ Top

ZZ Top

Lighting designer Chris Stuba tells the story of how he was once riding around in a car with legendary bandleader Billy Gibbons. It was early in his tenure as the designer for ZZ Top, and Gibbons wanted to talk to him about an upcoming tour. So he drove to Stuba’s house in Houston, where they both live, and picked him up. They were driving around, talking about the upcoming tour, when a ZZ Top song came on the radio. It was one of those moments when time stands still, and Stuba’s thoughts turned inward. “I grew up listening to ZZ Top, and here I was, driving around with the man, listening to his music on the radio,” Stuba recalls.

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The Evolution of Brightness

I recently programmed the lighting for Gospel Superfest, a nationally syndicated television show aired on gospel cable channels. For the past couple of years, the executive producer has been increasing the use of video in the show by adding video walls and plasma screens to the stage. This year, however, he asked Set Designer and Show Technical Director Rene Lagler to incorporate video projection into the design, and the result was impressive. My quest to find out how it was accomplished and what equipment was being used led me on a little backstage investigation of my own.

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Slaying the Beast: A Modern Tale of Timecode

In the deepest and darkest regions of your console, a demon exists that some will never dare to battle. In a place where many fear to tread, it has been cursed and reviled by many would-be heroes. In the beast’s lair, the measurement of the fourth dimension takes on an uncanny accuracy oth-erwise unknown to many humans. The periods known as Hours, Minutes and Seconds are joined by a unit of diabolical accuracy known as the Frame.

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Chauvet Elan

Chauvet’s new Élan fixture

Now that LEDs are dropping in price a little, we’re finally seeing some products come to market that take advantage of low-heat, long-life LEDs without breaking the bank. Chauvet’s new Élan fixture aims to bring LEDs to the masses by incorporating a three-color LED bank into an other-wise standard club lighting effect. Let’s see how they did it…

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Latin Grammys Get Lucky in Vegas

Latin Grammys

 

An integration of set, lighting and video technologies created a flashy, pulsating design worthy of the Las Vegas Strip.

The 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards got a dose of Vegas pizzazz. Not that the live award show needed any spicing up, as it is arguably the hottest night in Latin music, attracting audiences with its passionate, pulsating performances from today’s top artists, including Ricky Martin, Regaetón recording artist Daddy Yankee and Dominican singer/songwriter Juan Luis Guerra — the night’s showstopper, winning a record five awards, including Album of the Year. This year’s show reached a record 12.6 million viewers nationwide; in several major markets, it was the number one program in its time slot. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” need not apply here.

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It’s the Product, Stupid

It’s winter again, which means t’is the season for trade shows — the time of year when new products like automobiles, housewares and electronics fill the convention centers of America. And somebody has to light them.

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Seth Thiesen: Lighting Shows, Changing Lives

Heartland Community Church, Rockford, IL

Seth Thiesen has been a techie since he was in the fifth grade. At an early age, he worked for his church, helping to light concerts in an outdoor amphitheatre. After graduating from college with a degree in recording industry management, he returned to his calling at Heartland Community Church in Rockford, Ill. We caught up with Thiesen to discuss his work at the church, its growth since it was built a year ago, how it differs from others and why it’s important to enhance, not distract from, the message.

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Why Albert Can’t Add

Figure 1

“Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.” – Albert Einstein

When it comes to math, Albert Einstein would have us believe that he’s no Einstein. Do you suppose he was exaggerating just a tad, or was he serious?

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Choices for the New Year

The first of the year makes me think about people starting out in automated lighting programming. One of the concerns for a newbie is deciding on a console to master. There are many things to consider when shopping for a lighting console. Essentially, in the United States there are only a few popular brands of automated lighting consoles. There are also many other lesser-known ones at various levels of cost and industry acceptance. As a freelancer, you often will be asked to make the console decision for a production or venue. While this can be overwhelming, it also can be fun.

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Alice Cooper’s Christmas Pudding 2007

Alice Cooper performs

Shock rocker with a big heart and a lofty goal teams with former pastor to help kids at risk

Just as he’s done thousands of times before, Alice Cooper was onstage preparing to rock the house with his unique brand of heavy metal. But this time, instead of the usual opening acts, there’s a twist. Alice and his wife Sheryl are starting the evening’s event, a charity fundraiser, with an open-ing prayer. It’s a seemingly odd juxtaposition of the persona of the shock rocker, who gained notoriety in the late ‘60s by reportedly biting the head off of a live chicken, and the prayerful Christian about to launch into an evening of merriment for a good cause.

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Happy Belated Holidays Blog

Hey everyone I got some time to get this new blog out to you now. Well the past month of December has been pretty crazy. Between working and doing the whole holiday season too, the days tended to run into one another which are the cause of this delayed blog. We last left off with the Bonerama shows from earlier this month. Afterwards I snagged a couple extra shows with my local clients in Baltimore (Basshound, Damn Right, and Earthtone). It was definitely a lot of fun running around with these guys spanning from Newark, Delaware to Annapolis, MD. Let’s just say I got to rekindle some old memories with my friend Jim Beam after the gigs.

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Busy Bodies

Butch Allen

At first blush, it seemed like a really good idea — get all the busiest lighting designers of 2007 to contribute a quote or two about their recent work. What were we thinking?

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