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A Really Big Shew

A Really Big Shew

Ed Sullivan’s famous catch phrase takes on a new level of import as the theatrical performance industry reaches for ever-more-complex produc-tions. Just loading in the paraphernalia for the new show Fuerzabruta at the Daryl Roth Theater in New York in October, it looked as though it would require the services of more than a couple of tractor trailers proceeded by cars announcing, “Wide load coming through.” It took a 45-man crew 15 hours to bring in a 20-foot flying curtain and an oversized treadmill, in addition to a 45-foot, clear-bottom swimming pool that, secured to the ceiling, would hover above the audience. 

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The Power of UPS

(No, we’re not talking about shipping.)

Scenario A: It’s 3:00 a.m. You’re in the middle of an all-night programming session, and your console seems to be freaking out every few minutes. You, in turn, are freaking out too.

Scenario B: It’s ten in the morning. You’re thirty minutes into a corporate event, and you suddenly lose control of your rig. Someone eventually notices that the DMX optical isolator at dimmer beach is dead. You feel like you might lose control of your bowels.

Scenario C: It’s 8:00 p.m. The headline act of your outdoor festival has just launched into its first song. The lighting system seems to dim momentarily, and then your board suddenly reboots. You feel like your heart has rebooted as well.

Any one of these problems probably could have been prevented with a piece of equipment called a UPS (or Uninterruptible Power Supply). The primary intent of a UPS is to provide constant — or uninterrupted — power to an electrically powered device. It’s basically a battery pack for your sensitive electronics.

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Martin Maxedia

[Few people are as qualified to write a product review about media servers as Vickie Claiborne. She has been a freelance programmer for a long time, and she has worked on many high-profile productions. In the interest of full disclosure, we should mention that she does conduct training seminars on the Maxedia for Martin. – ed.]

The Martin Maxedia is a powerful DMX512-controllable media server capable of handling a wide variety of digital media, including still images, video clips, 3D graphics, text, audio and more. The flexibility of the Maxedia’s digital video signal means that it will output to most types of display devices, including LED walls and digital projectors. 

 

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CLAY PAKY Alpha Profile 1200

With the introduction of the Alpha line several years ago, Clay Paky began an earnest push to reinvigorate its fixture offerings. Combined with an overhauled U.S.-based sales and support team, it has resulted in renewed brand awareness in North America and around the world. The newest addition to the Alpha line, the Alpha Profile 1200 moving yoke fixture is a direct answer to the framing shutter systems incorporated into the massively popular VL3500 Spot and MAC 2000 Performance fixtures.

Read on to see how the Alpha Profile 1200 stacks up. 

 

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Pulling the Threads Together to Turn It on Again

If you know the lighting industry, you know Genesis as much for the band’s production values as for its music. In the early 1980s, the group was instrumental in the development of the first commercially available automated lighting system, the Vari*Lite VL1, by providing the funds and the impetus for its delivery. For that reason, Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe cites the band’s “history of putting on big, spectacular light shows” as one of the main reasons he enthusiastically approached the design for the latest tour, Turn It on Again. He and Stage Designer Mark Fisher knew that they were dealing with “people who were knowledgeable, experienced and prepared to support a big venture…with both money and commitment,” according to Woodroffe. But they also knew it would come with challenges.

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Seventh Annual Parnelli Awards

Toasting the Best of the Live Event Industry

The Peabody Hotel in Orlando, Fla., was the site of the 2007 Parnelli Awards, but inside the ceremony ballroom it looked like Hawaii. Large portions of the crowd arrived decked out in their finest Hawaiian shirts, a sartorial tribute to the fashion sense of this year’s Lifetime Achievement winner, Gerry Stickells. The hundreds in attendance constituted a Who’s Who of players in the live event industry, and whether they were wearing flower prints or not, they all rose to their feet in honor of Lifetime Achievement award-winner Gerry Stickells and Audio Innovator award-winner Bob Heil.

 

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LDI 2007

Big, Bold, Beautiful

Was LDI 2007 the biggest one ever? It’s hard to say. Even after three days of cruising the show floor, I never saw the end. It’s hard to say if it had any more square footage or more exhibitors than previous years, but it felt like a big show.

Physical size of the show floor notwithstanding, there were many big things about LDI this year. With the ab-sence of Martin and High End Systems, several other companies stepped up with big displays. The American DJ group of companies, including Elation and Global Truss, were at the front of the hall, along with Rosco and ACT Lighting; Robe and Chauvet were at the back. In between were ETC, MDG, Tomcat and Barco, all with sizeable stands.

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Who’s Your Buddy?

I have a feeling that we in the entertainment biz actually like our jobs. The reason is that we are always working with different people on various jobs until that project ends; then we start another project with a whole bunch of different folks. Along the way, we meet a lot of buddies — people who we meet with on occasion, but with whom we don’t stay in constant contact.

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Axis deBruyn

It’s a Tough Job, but Somebody’s Got to Do It

To say that Axis deBruyn’s career path has been frenetic is like saying Bill Gates has a little money. Today, deBruyn owns his own company at the age of 36, and he has a gratifying career as a freelancer. We caught up with him to talk about how he got started in the industry, how he got through the dot-com bust, and how he found his niche in Las Vegas.

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Salt Lake Tabernacle

Church balances modernization with historical integrity

Certainly any kind of installation work demands a high attention to detail, and everyone from architect to designer to installer to end user needs to be on the same page. The team that worked on the two-year renovation of the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, took that pressure, doubled it and then doubled it again.

After all, these pros were working on a building that was originally opened in 1867 and has been at the center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-ter-day Saints for 140 years, as well as the venue for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s weekly broadcast. Yet, this was not just any kind of renova-tion. “It was more than an install,” reports Lorin Morse, lighting designer and operator in the LDS Church Audio/Visual Department. “It was a gut-it and start over.”

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Young Frankenstein

Transylvania Meets Broadway

Look out Dorothy! Kansas is out — Transylvania is decidedly in! The team that created the mega-extravaganza The Producers is at it again, this time with the musical version of the 1974 Mel Brooks Academy Award-nominated hit film comedy Young Frankenstein.

When New York brain surgeon and professor Frederick Frankenstein inherits a castle in Transylvania from his grandfather, deranged genius Victor Von Frankenstein, he goes to Transylvania and carries on with his grandfather’s mad experiments in reanimating the dead. In the process, he falls in love with his sexy lab assistant, Inga. 

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The Five Lighting Metrics

“As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.” — Albert Einstein

I was fortunate enough to start in the lighting business when my own personal circumference of darkness was oh so small. I didn’t even know enough to know how little I knew. I was in the lighting business a long time before I stumbled across the secret to understanding the relationship between the five lighting metrics. It’s called ED-100.1.

“ED-100.1 Light & Color” is the first section in the Fundamental Level of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America Lighting Education (www.iesna.org). The entire course is excellent, but if you do nothing else, read and understand pages 1-12 to 1-16 — the part that explains the five lighting metrics. You’ll learn in just a few minutes what it took me years to find out: The five lighting metrics hold the key to understanding all you need to know about lighting. 

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