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Pixel-Packin’ Mamas

Pixel-Packin’ Mamas

Working with Mixed Media and Mixed Resolutions  

So, you’ve just returned from a major industry trade show, and the LED exhibits were stunningly beautiful — simply breathtaking in their creativity. So, fresh with ideas, off you went back to the shop, slammed together some content, set up your company’s LED wall, sized up the video through your scaler — and voila! Third-generation VHS dubs look better than this. What gives? “Them trade show guys must know something,” I hear you mutter.

Well, in fact, they do. 

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Something Borrowed, Something Blues

As John Mayer moves toward the blues, the show borrows a warehouse look

John has revitalized my live concert experience,” Michael Keller says. “The last few years weren’t fun any more.” Lighting designer Keller is talking about how every night on this tour is new; as he works the show, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen until it happens. Not in a “these-guys-are-crazy” way, but more in the vein of musicians making music fresh at the moment for the audience, as opposed to every note, beat, light cue and song order exactly the same show after show.

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Life on the Road: Getting In and Getting Out

I spend a lot of time traveling, but I’m home a lot more often than I was when I toured the world with rock bands. I’m frequently asked by lots of young folks how to get into the road business. But lately, I’ve been asked by older people a more important question: How do you get off the road? 

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Scaling Down Production

Long before there were software packages, Patrick Woodroffe kept it real for pre-viz

Long before WYSIWYG, VectorWorks, 3D Studio Max and ESP Vision, there was Patrick Woodroffe’s 4-to-1 real- life studio, albeit in miniature. Woodroffe, who gained notoriety in the industry chiefly as the lighting designer for the Rolling Stones, but whose résumé bulges with superstars and shows dating back to 1972, put together a working scale model studio for preproduction using PAR 16s and miniature truss. The London-based precursor to virtual reality preproduction software was very successful when he sold it to a production company. We spoke to Woodroffe about his venture and how it came about. 

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Digitizing Deuce

Sven Ortel gets projectors to serve up an ace

When he speaks with PLSN, video designer Sven Ortel is adjusting to life in Denver, Colorado, home to his latest gig. “It’s nice and sunny here,” he reports contentedly. “It’s very high. You don’t realize it’s a mile high, and you’re sort of huffing and puffing the first two weeks.” His ears haven’t popped yet, “but I went jogging the first morning. I was like an old man. I had a beer and almost fell over.” Ironically, the show he is designing there is Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which is going through a test-run in late August before being tweaked for its Broadway debut on December 6. One can imagine how much worse his ears would be if he literally had to swoop down under the sea from high in the sky. 

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Mammoth Lights for Evangel Cathedral

Koster Design installs an inspired rig.  

Christmas at the Evangel Cathedral is one of the growing number of eye-popping spectacular Broadway-style productions being put on in today’s modern houses of worship, except the Cathedral has a history and reputation for doing it better than most. 

A cast of hundreds, live animals, the works — and now they have a digital lighting system worthy of not only their biggest events, but one they use creatively in their “regular” services as well. And while it certainly was not their intention, nor are they likely interested, in the process, they have made entertainment technology history by having the world’s largest installation of High End Systems DL.2 digital luminaires.

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Tour de LED

I recently saw some new LED effects that really turned my head. Up until now, I think every LED fixture I’ve ever seen produces a soft-edge beam and creates a color wash. For the first time that I can recall, I saw an LED fixture with sharply focused beams of light. This could change everything. A few weeks ago the Tour de France was on television. It’s one of the few TV shows I like to watch – if you don’t count The Daily Show. Watching a bike race might sound about as exciting as watching your hair grow, but it’s not like that. It’s actually very exciting.

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Do you feel like I do?

           Well it’s really early for me right now and I’ve finally found some time to write after a long week and a half. I apologize for the delay but lately in my life I’ve had to tend to some things that have been happening with my career as of late. To start I have finally been getting asked to do some cool work so I had to sit down and do a lot of thinking on what the hell my next step was going to be. I’ve pretty much got it broken down it to phases. Well to begin, I started my career with one of the best up and coming bands in America, EastonAshe whom I will never forget and will definitely want to work again with in the future. These are the guys I’ve been writing about for the longest time in my blogs. Lately I have gotten some opportunities elsewhere to allow me to facilitate my career further and make the next step in pursuing my dreams. To start, the first phase of my journey was pretty much in taking a new type of craft from what I learned in college which was of course stage lighting. Through this phase it has helped me construct a unique plethora of chops and ideas to bring to the lighting console. Problem was that I wasn’t making enough dough to use the “big boy” shit yet.

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