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Finding Time to Work

PLSN Editor Justin Lang

Finding Time to Work

The headline sounds nutty, right? “Finding Time to Work?” Don’t we already put in enough hours in the day to make our bosses happy? If you are on tour, in sales or a traveling man, a good part of your business is spent being outside of the office, being on site and, often, working out-of-pocket. Your typical “eight hour day” is spent nowhere near a computer and, most likely, away from paperwork. You know, those pesky pieces of paper or digital files that actually get us paid.

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Bridges of Madison County photo by Joan Marcus

A Bridge of Imagination

When you are doing a musical based on the bestselling book and hit film The Bridges of Madison County and cannot actually build a bridge onstage, that conundrum creates a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. But scenic designer Michael Yeargan tackled the problem with ingenuity, knowing that sometimes one can show someplace or something without fully representing it. He needed to figure out “how to depict a covered bridge on the stage when this action happens in it, through it, and behind it,” he says. “There was no way we could really build a covered bridge, so we designed it to indicate it with those arches that fly in.” It was a balancing act of scope and intimacy for a story centered on two people in love in an extramarital affair.

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Miley Cyrus tour photo by Steve Jennings

Miley Cyrus 2014 Bangerz Tour

Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz tour, in support of her fourth album of the same name, is riding the momentum of the artist’s swing back from acting to music. The tour is not only showcasing Cyrus’ ability to belt out a tune, it’s completing the wrecking-ball-like annihilation of her previous child-idol Hannah Montana persona. (The artist’s twerking spectacle at the MTV VMAs in August, 2013, where Cyrus sang the Bangerz single, “We Can’t Stop,” generated 306,100 tweets per minute.) The album, featuring pop songs with country and Hip Hop influences, was released Oct. 4, and after the completion of a 39-date North American tour (Feb. 14-April 25), the tour has a 22-date run through Europe (May 2-June 15).

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Imagine Dragons tour photo by Debi Moen

Into the Night with Imagine Dragons

It started with a scanned drawing of trees with eyes. “We want trees onstage,” said the band members of Las Vegas-based Imagine Dragons. Production designer/LD Richard “Nook” Schoenfeld of Visual Ventures Design was one of three designers approached to turn the scan into an imaginative set for the last portion of their Night Visions tour, dubbed Into the Night.

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For Guess?, Matrix provided ten 20K projectors and a 20-by-50-foot LED display. Photo by Paul Motal

Matrix Visual Solutions

Life is eventful for Paul Motal. In fact, he and Matrix Visual Solutions, the company he founded, are involved in nearly 800 events per year, either as the producer or as the full-service provider of audio-visual gear and expertise through rentals and sales. Ranging from massive to modest, they include conventions, trade shows, gala parties, product launches, stadium concerts, film premieres, fundraisers, music festivals, television and movie production, sports and educational, religious and corporate events. Where else would you find a client list so diverse it contains such luminaries as Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Pitbull, Ford Motor Company, Samsung, Guess? Inc., the Latin Grammys, Safeway and the Barack Obama presidential campaign?

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