In an industry where the only constant is the rising expectations of production values, special effects are the magic elixir that soothes the savage need for excitement and thrills. But the downturn in the economy has thrown many parts of the industry into a fishtail. Road tours, however, seem to be the exception.
Read More »Es Devlin is best known for her scenery and costume design work in opera, but she has recently lent her talents to the Pet Shop Boys for their Pandemonium tour of North America.
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All lighting designers want to create compelling visuals that inspire awe, but not many of them will tell you they feel a responsibility to represent the visual aspect of the band they work for. Jason Liggett is perhaps unique in that regard as he described in his quest to become the lighting designer for alt rock band Wilco. For someone who started as a security guard in a nightclub, Liggett has come a long way.
Read More »The popularity of the band Green Day has afforded the trio the opportunity to headline and establish high production values. A major part of the production for their 21st Century Breakdown tour is the video element, most of which is controlled by lighting director Kevin Cauley. The other Collie on the tour is lighting designer Justin Collie of Artfag. This is what they had to say about the tour.
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During the last year I have seen many manufacturers unveil various 300-watt lighting fixtures. Each of them had some impressive features that made them stand out. Unfortunately for them, Robe has just upped the bar for everyone by unveiling their evolutionary compact Robin 300 series of fixtures, and, let me tell you something, they’re not missing anything here.
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There’s a fascinating book called The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr about how cloud computing is changing the world.
Read More »(or “How I Learned to Climb Truss”)
When I think about how fast the entertainment lighting industry has grown over the last 10 years alone, it makes my head spin an infinite number of pan rotations.
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Lighting and projection have always been considered technical crafts that support the artist, but what about when the lighting and projection are themselves the art, extensions of an artist?
Read More »Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and learn about the latest and greatest protocol to take the lighting industry by storm. It’s not DMX, it’s not Art-Net, and it’s not ACN. No, I am talking about ANSI E1.31.
Read More »Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.” —Will Durant
Let’s face it — most of us got into this business to get out of having to get a “real” job. If nothing else, we’re here because we enjoy doing more than we enjoy reading and writing.
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The efficiency of the load in and out of any show is directly related to the cable management of everyone involved,” says production manager/rigger Dano Rowley. The man is right. One of my pet peeves is a sloppy stage with cables strewn all over the place.
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American DJ’s new ProPAR 56RGB is an RGB color-mixing LED fixture and the ProPAR 56CWWW is a warm/cool white LED fixture. Each features 36 1-watt LEDs: the ProPAR 56RGB has 12 red, 12 green and 12 blue LEDs and the ProPAR 56CWWW has 18 warm white (3000K) and 18 cool white (6,000K) LEDs.
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