I’m always asked how I get lighting design gigs. Half the time they are return gigs, meaning it’s the same trade show or band that goes on tour every year. Forty percent of the time I am called by production people or other designer friends to cover a gig. The other 10% are people calling because they’ve seen one of my shows and want to hire me based on what they’ve seen. You never know who’s in the crowd watching your work.
Read More »Pop quiz: What are the two most important tools of a lighting designer?
If you said Starbucks or the Internet, maybe you should consider a career in audio. If you said light and dark—congratulations, you just might have a future in this business.
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Media servers allow the lighting designer to easily call up and play back video clips in real-time via a lighting console. Another advantage, however, of using a media server is having the ability to integrate live video into the show. Since the media server is a computer, it can be simple to connect a digital video camera and incorporate live images into your lighting cues.
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If you’re from the Midwest, it’s not hard to figure out that the automotive giants in Detroit and their subsidiaries have met with economic hard times. In the land of buyouts, downsizing and exodus, Tom Bagnasco has been a fixture with the world’s largest auto manufacturer, General Motors, for more than 18 years—a feat for any designer. As an adept small business owner, he has learned plenty along the way and diversified his customer base. In our PLSN Interview, Bagnasco discusses lighting in the D.
Read More »If you’ve ever spent any time chasing down DMX data problems, then you’ll appreciate this little Gadget from Anidea Innovations, Inc. I once went to a job site at a permanent installation to program a console after being assured that all of the automated lights were installed, powered, cabled and working. When I got there I found all of that to be true except for the “working” part. Oops.
Read More »Transforming Broadway theatres into exotic locations is not a new concept; however it is rarely done to the extent found at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which has been converted into the tropical jungle home to Disney’s latest Broadway effort, Tarzan. Within this relatively small Broadway theatre, the untouched jungles of southern Africa come to life every night to tell the story of a boy left without his parents, taken in by a tribe of apes and raised as one of their own. To illustrate this classic tale, the production has utilized an extensive array of rigging and flying equipment to literally make the actors fly off the stage and in and out of the set with total grace. With the set designed by Bob Crowley, the production turned to Natasha Katz to light the show and capture the visual essence of this jungle adventure.
Read More »It doesn’t take an inordinate amount of scrutiny to see that the technical jobs in entertainment are a male-dominated domain. Look around at concerts and theatrical productions or on the credits after a television program or a feature film—the LDs, the mixers, the gaffers and the techs are overwhelmingly male. (They don’t call them best “boys” for nothing.)
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Two-thousand attendees. Dozens of high-powered executives. A cavalcade of actors and one rock star, Lenny Kravitz, topping off the night. Putting on the annual Turner Upfront event, where TBS and TNT sell their upcoming season and programs to advertisers of Turner Broadcasting, is no small feat. This year set designers Atomic Design not only transformed the Theatre at Madison Square Garden into a flashy corporate showcase, they also reinvented the lobby as a glitzy faux nightclub for the after-party.
Read More »Although programmers for film do record cues, we typically are not playing back cues like you would on a live show. We do have our… Read More »Live Lighting For Feature Films
Read More »Pop quiz: What are the two most important tools of a lighting designer? If you said Starbucks or the Internet, maybe you should consider a… Read More »It’s all Black and White
Read More »Imagine discovering an incorrect DMX assignment on a somewhat inaccessible unit. Never happens in real life, but hey, let’s pretend. Some newer intelligent lights allow… Read More »Esoteric Light Menu Functions You’ll Be Glad You Found
Read More »I was working at a now defunct lighting company in California, and we had a tradeshow exhibit for a trucking show at the Louisville Convention center. I was in New Orleans finishing up a show at the time, so I missed watching the shop fill the order and ship it out. I flew directly from New Orleans into Louisville, expecting a typical tradeshow load-in. Hardly.
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