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Cherry Hills Community Church, Highlands Ranch, CO

Cherry Hills Community Church’s Rock Concert Lighting

For the faithful, balancing secularism with spirituality is the source of constant confusion and soul-searching. It’s a dilemma that’s existed for millennia and even pops up in the Bible, prompting a certain teacher to impart the cryptic wisdom, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” The Cherry Hills Community Church, affiliated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and located in Highlands Ranch, CO, may have just discovered the secret.

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Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was

Bullet Proof… I Wish I Was

Christopher Scoates’ New Book on Radiohead LD Andi Watson

I have always been an avid fan of the lighting, video, and stage designs of Andi Watson, and I’ve been lucky enough to have spoken with him on a few occasions about his work and the cutting-edge new products that he often uses in his designs. To me, he belongs on any list of the groundbreaking concert designers working today, and when I saw that there was a book about his work coming out, I had to get a copy of it.

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Vickie Claiborne used the DMX merge capabilities of a PRG Series 400 power and data distribution system to extend a video clip’s reach from LED panels to the lighting fixtures used for a recent show.

Merging DMX

Recently, I took on the task of incorporating DMX merging into my lighting control system. “Why?” you may be asking.  Aside from that question (I asked myself this too, along the way), I also thought of a few other questions that programmers and LDs might ask themselves about merging DMX. For example, “What does DMX merge mean?” “How do you combine two sources of control into one stream?” “Do you get something usable?” “What gear is necessary to set up a system for merging multiple sources of DMX?”

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Resolume Arena 4 Media Server Software

Resolume Arena 4 Media Server Software

Ever since the venerable Icon M made its LDI debut nearly nine years ago, the lighting folks have wanted to have a piece of the video action.  The industry has made some great leaps forward, and now just about anyone with a big enough piggy bank can own a media server to hook up to their lighting console and “make video happen.”  But the legions of LDs quickly learned that video has a lot going on, and just because you can program a rig with 100 moving lights doesn’t necessarily mean you can just pop a video in and make it work well, or look good, for that matter.  Likewise, the video people can’t just expect to grab a piece of software and start controlling the light rig — it’s a different language and vibe altogether. For quite some time now, the lighting folks have had the upper hand when it comes to control, but the application of content (not to mention the production of content) is still squarely in the video realm.

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W2 vs. 1099

By the time you’re reading this, you’re already deep in to prepping your information to ship off to the accountant in anticipation of April 15. But there’s a big change that took place last year regarding one of the trickiest aspects of tax law, and it’s one that affects those in the staging business directly.

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Tools of the Trade

Working as an automated lighting programmer, there are many tools that have been extremely useful to me over the years.  Of course, the very nature of my job is to work with technology, including computers, consoles and automated lights.  As technology evolves, the tools I carry with me continue to change.  However, there are some essential tools that I always have with me on every gig.  The use and maintenance of these tools helps me to achieve top-quality lighting programming.

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Dale Doucette

An LD with Heart; Beach Boys Crew Reunion; Not His First Rodeo; Quick Cues and More

An LD with Heart

On Feb. 19, Dale Doucette was just days away from the start of Heart’s 2012 tour as their lighting and set designer. But he had his own event to run. On this night, he was in charge of a separate benefit concert that he conceptualized and organized to benefit Vermont’s Wilmington Memorial Hall, damaged in the floods of Tropical Storm Irene last August.

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Illustration by Andy Au

An LD and His iPad

My wife was concerned that our three-year-old wants to spend all his time with the iPad. Then I mentioned that someone told me the first word spoken by his 18-month-old daughter most mornings is “iPad.” I don’t know right from wrong when it comes to kids and mobile devices. But I do know that if we are playing with a toy and I get an important business call, I can hand my child the iPad and he will stop whining immediately.

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