Being a lighting designer often brings up a whole slew of duties that one would not expect to have to look after. I get calls about what outfits the rock stars should wear on stage to questions about where they should be standing when playing their big rock god solos.
Read More »“You have to physically understand how the lights work inside. When someone asks you to do something, you have to be able to say, ‘Yes,… Read More »Only Say No if You Mean It
Read More »How many times have you heard lighting designers say that you shouldn't notice the lights, that they should reveal the subject, and that they shouldn't… Read More »It IS About the Lighting
Read More »Almost everyone of us has a workbox or gig-bag that goes out with us to every show. What form your gig-bag takes can vary quite a bit. For an international man of mystery or hot shot Video Director, it may be a simple computer bag, with your favorite kewpie doll sharing a compartment with the most important weapon in your arsenal, your laptop. On the other end of the spectrum, the road-hardened lighting tech may have a twelve-hundred pound fully-customized thirteen-drawer double-hardened triple-galvanized welded-steel-frame road case that is designed with the perfect truck pack in mind.
Read More »The business is still word-of-mouth, and how you behave effects the amount and type of work you get. Nook Schoenfeld says, “I call it ‘playing… Read More »You Gotta Have Heart
Read More »Once you know what you will be doing and how long you will have, it is vital to ask about the lighting equipment and the… Read More »Get the Console You Know
Read More »"If you ‘diaper’ a Fresnel (hang diffusion over the ends of the barn-doors), you increase the source size from the 10-inch lens to about 20… Read More »Diffusion’s Illusions
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Pinnacle Hills Installation Brings Church Out of the Box
Think show-stopping effects and state-of-the-art design elements are reserved for big-time Broadway shows or Hollywood sets? The Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, Ark. begs to differ. After two years and exhaustive team effort devoted to the staging installation in its new 3,000-seat worship facility, church leaders and community members alike are enjoying a high-tech, TV-ready church that boasts an integrated and responsive theatrical system as it helps to redefine production values in worship.
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Elton John’s Tour Reflects 30 Years of Touring
Elton John’s idea of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the number one platinum-debuting album Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy is to play a series of shows. With the more recent re-release of the follow-up CD to that album, The Captain & the Kid, his newest tour serves to promote the new release and closes the book on the celebration. PLSN caught the first two nights of the tour in Northern California where he debuted the album and new tour while taking a break from his on-going Las Vegas Red Piano show. We spoke with lighting designer Kevin “Stick” Bye about the show.
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Lighting theories for the working designer
This New Year’s Eve I was in Rio with LD Alex Skowron lighting the Black Eyed Peas as part of a worldwide celebration Nokia was throwing in six cities. English LD Dave Hill designed the same lighting rig for six different festivals in separate time zones with different directors. It’s a TV thing. I imagine none of them looked close to the same, and that’s the beauty of this project. Everyone has their own style of lighting events.
Read More »Just the other day I was driving along, just another contestant in the rat race, navigating all those little mazes, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a car that had been driving along in the lane right next to me swerved into my lane and almost rearranged my left front fender. The little rat that was driving had decided to make a U-turn, and he swung very wide to make the turn, very nearly denting my chariot. He looked left and swerved right when he should have looked right and stayed left.
Read More »When staging company PRG launched its video division in September, it had an interesting impetus: Broadway and Wall Street. Tim Wiley, who is heading up PRG Video out of the company’s Orlando office, cited both domains as driving the addition of a video division, giving PRG capability across the entertainment technology spectrum that also includes lighting and sound. And he’s got company on this convergent road, as he readily acknowledges — OSA International did the same at right about the same time, just a few months after adding their own lighting capability to augment their core audio services. Others are doing the same.
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