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Earth-shaking? Hardly. Innovative? Definitely!

Nook Shoenfeld

Earth-shaking? Hardly. Innovative? Definitely!

As I wandered the halls at 2015’s Prolight + Sound show in Frankfurt last month, I once again looked for the unusual items. I’ve come to expect the large manufacturers to show off some great stuff to augment their wide array of fixtures. But I am more impressed at these trade shows with the little things that are original. I’m talking about stuff so cool and simple that I have been wondering where this item has been my whole career. And it’s not necessarily something that everyone can use. I found three companies I was unfamiliar with, that showed me gear I can really use.

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Gigi on Broadway features a set design by Derek McLane. Photo by Margot Schulman.

Derek McLane: All The Worlds On Stage

Derek McLane has traveled to many different places through his scenic design work for Broadway and beyond. As he takes PLSN on a tour of the Manhattan studio space that he shares with director Doug Hughes and costume designer Catherine Zuber, the charming Tony Award winner waxes enthusiastic about his work in the theater. He shows us his wall-length library of art and design books that stands in the common conference room as well as the gallery of quarter scale models lining the shelves and the perimeter of his main work space where the drafting and model crafting happens. From the gloomy, decaying theater of Follies to the bright and cheery steamship of Anything Goes, McLane knows how to fully flesh out a set and draw audiences into the world of each story he helps to tell.

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Maroon 5 V tour photo by Todd Kaplan

Maroon 5 “V” Tour

“The whole idea of the show is essentially building from zero,” says lighting programmer Jason Baeri. “It begins without giving anything away — just a simple stage. Then as the show unfolds, there’s a little bit of Magic Blades, and then video, and then we lower the ‘V’ trussing, and then we push out to the B stage. It’s a linear progression upwards and forward, expanding in the space as the songs go by.”

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Pitbull tour photo by Steve Jennings

Michael Smalley and Pitbull

Global pop star Pitbull is out on tour where we caught up with lighting designer & director Michael Smalley and Team Pitbull on the sold-out co-headline date with Enrique Iglesias. We got some background on Smalley who says “I was always playing with lighting and sound gear since I was a child.” He got involved in those aspects in school, and when he got to college, he pursued a degree in technical theatre. His focus quickly changed to concert lighting and set design after seeing a few notable concerts, such as Phish and Chris Kuroda’s lighting design. Smalley worked shows in local bars, and then, in early 2004, hit the road with a band called Moonshine Still.

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Ethan Weber, who directed the lighting on the last Rolling Stones tour, will be joining the band again in 2015.

A Chat with Ethan Weber

Ethan Weber is gearing up to start yet another Rolling Stones tour. This marks the 21st year he has been on the road with these guys, but in reality it’s only a fraction of his career in stage lighting. Along with designing some top-notch shows on his own for bands such as Green Day and Fall Out Boy, he is often entrusted with running larger-than-life productions, such as U2, for other designers. I caught up with Ethan to chat for a spell.

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Joey and Joe Gallager in the shop at Gallager Staging

The Latest Stage for the Gallaghers

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It. And there are few players in the staging business better known, even legendary, than Joe Gallagher. In 40 years, he has built a reputation as solid as his stages for working magic for bands, clubs, corporate and sports events, even churches, with everything done “as you like it.” Even during our phone interview, he was as busy as an air traffic controller, solving issues brought into his office, checking truck locations and tour schedules, taking other calls, getting ready for the next tour taking off in a week.

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Bob Seger tour photo by Steve Jennings

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band

Real World Lighting, Inc. was founded in 1989 when Bob Peterson shifted his energy from vending to design. His primary focus has been television lighting for music, comedy and special events, with clients including Garth Brooks, CMT Crossroads, a bevy of comedy specials for Showtime, HBO, Comedy Central and the POTUS [President of the United States]. Real World recently designed lighting for the concert segments of Pitch Perfect 2, the feature film, which gets released this month. Rascal Flatts and The Band Perry have also used Real World Lighting’s tour design consultation services.

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Han theater ext lit (c) Wanda Wuhan Central Cultural Tourism District Development Co., Ltd

The Han Show Theatre

It seems the designers of the new water-based Han Show, in Wuhan, China, have things a bit backwards. Instead of brainstorming on the conceptual basics of a theatrical show and securing the proper venue for it, the leading designers of the production have gotten support from Dalian Wanda Group, a large Chinese commercial property developer and cinema operator that constructed an entire theater for the specific purpose of housing The Han Show..

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Rob Darcy, directing at a Tim McGraw concert

So, You Want to be a Video Director

At a concert, the director controls what the audience sees on the I-Mag. At a professional sports event, the director controls the visual story that’s seen on television, or on a stadium’s huge video screen. Here, we’re talking about directing for live events, with multiple cameras, media servers and various other video sources at the director’s fingertips. There are certainly other types of directors, such as the Kubricks and the Coppolas — but that’s a different breed of cat entirely.

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MADRIX control page

Madrix LED Lighting Control Solutions

With the popularity of LEDs on the rise and the increasing need for better tools to program them, the boundaries of existing software solutions is constantly being tested. Take, for instance, the world of pixel mapping. Once upon a time, pixel mapping more or less was confined to a 2D flat plane on which an image would be displayed. That has changed in the last several years. With products like Pixel Tubes (Eurolite) and LT 100/200 3D Graphic Tubes (SGM) being used to create three-dimensional structures of pixels, traditional 2D pixel mapping software quickly falls short of the task.

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