Skip to content

Collaboration is the Heart of Design for BET’s ‘Black Girls Rock!’

The entire set was painted with various video elements. Photo courtesy BET/Black Girls Rock 2016

Collaboration is the Heart of Design for BET’s ‘Black Girls Rock!’

For the past six years, Black Girls Rock, Inc., an organization that promotes empowerment and mentoring for young women of color through the arts, has partnered with BET Networks to broadcast their annual awards event. The Black Girls Rock! production is an inspiring evening of performances, awards, speeches, and celebration. The 2016 show included appearances by Lauryn Hill, Gladys Knight, Brandy, Corrine Bailey Rae, Rihanna, Monica, Shonda Rhimes, Danai Gurira, and Hillary Clinton.

Read More »
Cleaning a processor fan

Keeping Things Clean in Our World of Dirt

“My house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.”

That quote was on an etched-wood plaque that hung on my mother’s kitchen wall for years, and for the longest time, I’ve used it as my personal philosophy concerning cleanliness…..at least in the kitchen and house. When it comes to gear, it’s a whole different game.

Read More »
elektraLite elektraBar Mini

elektraLite elektraBar Mini

I’m staring at a shiny silver/chrome looking piece of love here as I open the case containing a scaled down version of the elektraBar strip light. I easily lift this miniature 11-pound fixture out with one hand and gaze at this architectural model. They make a black one for theatrical use, but this one just looks so stealth. The fixture itself is just under two feet long and about seven inches wide. It has a built-in power supply that is permanently attached to the back.

Read More »
ADJ Vizi Hybrid 16RX

ADJ Vizi Hybrid 16RX

Despite their name and long association with lighting primarily meant for clubs and smaller venues, ADJ Lighting has released a number of professional touring fixtures recently. Their Vizi line includes lights with feature sets normally seen on larger-format lights, but with attractive price points set to be within reach of houses of worship and other facilities or productions that need to be conscientious with their budget.

Read More »
Chris Lose

To Timecode, or Not To Timecode?

Whether “Tis Nobler” Is Not the Question. Here’s a Roundtable Discussion of When It’s the Answer.

For some, timecode is the auto tune of lighting designers — a lazy choice. Others insist that timecode is doing the job of the operator, freeing him or her up from being chained to just punching the “go” button for each and every cue. But the truth is that when properly implemented, it can be used for a show’s greater good.

Read More »
Brad Schiller

The Art of Negotiation

Most automated lighting programmers work as freelancers meaning that they have to not only program shows, but also are responsible for negotiating the terms of their payment and services. Usually this negotiation is done with the production manager, producer, or lighting company. It is very important for lighting programmers to understand basic negotiation skills and to know when to make changes to their standard agreements.

Read More »
Guns N' Roses at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. (Axl Rose borrowed Dave Grohl's 'Throne.') Photo courtesy Chris Lose

Reunited, and it Feels So Good; Quick Cues; More

LD Philip Ealy has designed the much anticipated reunion tour for Guns N’ Roses. Aptly titled “Not In This Lifetime” — referring to the fact that nobody believed it would actually happen — Ealy is working with lighting programmer Rob Koenig and content programmer Chris Lose on the stadium tour.

Read More »

Energy

For a creative and expressive field like live music production, it’s amazing how jaded some people can be at times. But I’m not going to talk about that; I am going to talk about the exact opposite of that. I want to talk about the energy that pushes you to keep moving to create something almost beyond this world. If there is a single word for it in English, I don’t know what it is. It’s beyond enthusiasm. It comes over you like a spell until you see the project through, then it goes somewhere else for a while. It comes back again later. This energy, as I know, it can manifest in at least three different ways.

Read More »

Entertainment Electrics Workshop Offered at EMPAC

TROY, NY — Richard Cadena, an ETCP-Certified Entertainment Electrician and Trainer, will lead the first professional-development seminar to be held at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. The workshop will be conducted in EMPAC’s Studio Beta from June 27-29, 2016.

Read More »
ADJ Asteroid 1200

ADJ Asteroid 1200

ADJ’s new Asteroid 1200 is designed to send super-tight beams and distinct pixel-mapped patterns hurtling through the air and down onto the dance-floor. Packing limitless dual-directional continuous rotation and quad-color LEDs into one portable source, the Asteroid 1200 promises a full array of pixel-mappable visual effects.

Read More »
Lightwright 6 Is Now Shipping

Lightwright 6 Is Now Shipping

John McKernon and City Theatrical have announced that Lightwright 6, the newest version of the industry leading, multi award winning software for managing entertainment lighting paperwork, is now shipping and is available through City Theatrical dealers worldwide. Lightwright is an iconic industry standard on Broadway and in other areas of live entertainment, and was created to help designers and electricians record and keep track of the vast amount of data needed to install and maintain a lighting installation. As the lighting world has increased in complexity due to the proliferation of moving lights and LEDs, the organizational demands on lighting designers, design assistants, and electricians has continued to grow.  Lightwright 6, for the first time, fulfills a longtime industry dream of controlling the flow of lighting data from design to console without needing to enter data multiple times by hand, while documenting up to 45,000 universes of data.

Read More »
Blizzard Lighting ThunderStik

Blizzard Lighting ThunderStik

Blizzard Lighting’s ThunderStik linear wash light has five 15W RGBW Quad-Color OSRAM LEDs with pixel control and a narrow 5-degree beam angle. The fixture also features a quiet-moving 250-degree motorized tiltable head (with three-phase motors) and Y-axis rotation as well. ThunderStik also comes with a set of lens filters to diffuse the fixture’s sharp output to a soft color blend, increasing the beam angle up to 30 or 60 degrees. Users can control the ThunderStik in either Reduced Mode (12-channel) or Standard Mode (32-channel). Both allow smooth 0-100 percent linear dimming, multiple strobe effects, macro effects, RGBW color mixing, separate background color control, built-in patterns, and speed controllable scanner effects. This fixture is equipped with a four-button LCD control panel, compact and sleek housing, powerCON compatible power in/out connections, 3-pin/5-pin DMX in/out jacks and integral Omega mounts. The fixture is also backed with Blizzard’s two-year warranty. MSRP is $899.99.

Read More »