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Steven Garner

Steve Garner

Steven Garner

The TV Lighting Programmer Has Had an Eclectic – and Rewarding – Career

Well-respected throughout the industry, lighting programmer Steven Garner’s credits range from theatre to fashion shows; corporate events to live television. He’s now working on The President Show for Comedy Central. While busy doing last minute packing for a family trip to Vietnam, he took some time to speak with us about how he ended up as the guy behind a console lighting South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu, among many others.

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DMXcat from City Theatrical

DMXcat from City Theatrical

One tool that has never found its way into my workbox is a DMX tester. Over the years, I’ve tried a few in shops and at trade shows, and I never found one that quite fit into my workflow. In general, I’ve found that some of the popular models are either too fiddly to use, have poor visibility in low-light environments like a stage, and I even used one that required the user to memorize a series of colored lights and blinking patterns to figure out what was going on.

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Elation Artiste DaVinci

Elation Artiste DaVinci

Elation has released the first member of its Artiste line, their new series of white LED engine sourced fixtures. The DaVinci is a medium-sized spot fixture that packs quite a punch and comes with more functions than any fixture this size should be allowed. In other words, it’s pretty much covering every function a hard-edge fixture should, from an animation wheel to color mixing to frost filters. They didn’t skimp on anything. The big question is — how did they pack all of this in such a condensed and lightweight package?

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GLP’s JDC1 Strobe comes with 1440 RGB and 216 white LEDs.

GLP JDC1 Strobe

The search for the perfect strobe light to replace the original Atomic model has been endless. Over the last three years, every lighting manufacturer has released their version of what they think the designers wanted. All LED models, it seems, as nobody wants to deal with the old tube style strobe, their power draw or the fact that they could thermal out after a few seconds. They built all white models, colored models, models with chasing quadrants.

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An exponential increase in granular control

Bits and Bobs: 8-Bit vs. 16-Bit DMX Control

Automated lighting consoles are built around a basic infrastructure dependent on the DMX protocol (or map) of a fixture or device. Understanding how DMX values control specific parameters of a fixture is essential for any automated lighting programmer. However, modern consoles utilize complex pre-built libraries or profiles that alleviate the programmer from having to understand DMX functionality. One of the core concepts that should be understood is the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit DMX control.

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Robb Jibson calls Train’s ‘Play That Song’ tour design ‘a love child of the Hollywood Bowl and a jukebox.’ Photo courtesy Craig Mitchell and LMG Touring.

Jibson Gets Train on Touring Track; Take That’s ‘Wonderland’ Tour; More Cues

Robb Jibson put Train on its tracks with their new “Play That Song” tour, which kicked off May 12 and runs to July 15 in the U.S. before heading to Australia. Along with his creative company So Midwest Inc., Jibson designed the production and media content; Brent Sandrock designed the lighting and programmed, while Brandon J. Clark takes it on the road as director.

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Illustration by Andy Au

“The Great One” and Stage Lighting

A good LD lights where the guitarist is supposed to be. A great LD lights where the guitarist is going to be.

I recently moved from Las Vegas to Canada for a number of reasons. One reason for moving is the current political climate in the U.S. Canada has proven to be very polite and rather pleasant. I moved to a small community where my services as a concert lighting director might not be in high demand. Belle River does not have any casinos, convention centers, ballrooms or arenas. But it does have hockey rinks — lots of them.

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Photo courtesy Wonder London

Google Cloud Event at London’s ExCeL Lit with White Light Support

LONDON – Google Cloud NEXT took place May 3-4 at the ExCeL Centre in East London. The event’s production team from Wonder London turned to White Light for a lighting assist. White Light provided more than 150 moving lights (VL3500 Spots, Martin MAC Auras and Robe Robin 1200s) and more than 300 ETC Source Fours and Fresnels, along with 130 LED fixtures (including Chroma-Q Color Forces). Alongside this were more than 200 hoists and over 1100m of Prolyte truss.

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Bandit provided Vari-Lite, Claypaky and other fixtures for three stages with grandMA2 consoles for control.

Bandit Lights Up Beachfront Stages at Hangout Festival in Alabama

GULF SHORES, AL – At the Hangout Music Festival, the annual three-day music festival staged on the public beaches of Gulf Shores, AL, Bandit Lites provided lighting for the Mainstage, Surf Stage and Fitz Stage. This year’s event, held May 19-21, drew crowds with Mumford & Sons, Chance the Rapper, Phoenix, Major Lazer, Weezer, MGMT, Sigur Ros, Band of Horses, Franz Ferdinand and Charli XCX. Bandit Lites worked closely with Hadden Hippsley of Lambda Productions on the event.

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Video elements included the 20-by-50-foot center-hung LED CS8 screen, which featured the movie, plus projection-mapping on the Bowl’s bandshell and a 10-camera setup for I-Mag screens.

‘La La Land in Concert’ Debuts at Hollywood Bowl with Video Assist from Upstage Video

HOLLYWOOD, CA – Upstage Video was tapped to provide video elements for the premiere of La La Land In Concert, A live-to-film celebration at the Hollywood Bowl. The May 26 and 27 events were staged by the creative team from Kraft-Engle, and Bowl promoter Andrew Hewitt & Bill Silva Presents with a 100-piece orchestra, choir and jazz band playing live music from the film.

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The Weaver Room

LEED-Certified Proximity Hotel in NC Colorizes with Iluminarc Fixtures

GREENSBORO, NC – In 2008, the owners of Proximity Hotel and Print Works Bistro in Greensboro noted a first for the U.S. hospitality industry – a LEED Platinum rating by the U.S. Green Building Council. When the hotel wanted to add color changing fixtures to its Weaver Room, management opted for an energy-efficient design by Audio & Light that incorporates Iluminarc fixtures. QW Services, also from Greensboro, handled the installation.

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