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Working Your Crew in Foreign Lands (Like Philadelphia)

There are two main ingredients that I need for every gig; the local crew I work with and my “go-to” guy. I believe there is an art form to working with people and getting the most use out of each person based on their individual persona. The word “stagehand” covers a broad spectrum of people all over the world.

In the concert and theatre worlds, the lighting techs are often fortunate to work with IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), or union, stagehands. These crews have been around the block and are pretty familiar with most gear that crosses their paths. They build different shows constantly, so they get to work with just about every gadget, light fixture or P.A. that’s out there. On the contrary, touring crews constantly set up the same light rig and P.A. every day. They don’t always see all the advantages of how other people may do the same job they do. You can learn a lot by watching some IATSE guys work.

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Pre-empting Plotter Envy

“If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.”

– Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher, statesman and author

Several years ago, a friend of mine got a pen plotter. It was a big, beautiful instrument. It was shiny and gleaming, and it stood on its own two legs in the corner of his office. I was envious of him and his plotter for two reasons—one was that he could create blueprints and crank out professional- looking drawings at will, and the other was that everyone who saw it immediately knew he was an AutoCAD stud. It was more than a convenient tool to aide him in his work; it was a status symbol.

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Exploring the ETC Congo Console

While ETC’s newest lighting console is considered “new” by most standards, the parents of the system would say that the console has been in gestation for more than 30 years.

The true heritage of the console began with Avab, the Scandinavian lighting console manufacturer that, three decades ago, had one of the two existing 999- channel boards, the Viking. With a simple, direct-access control structure, the Avab brand has maintained a strong presence in European markets ever since.

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Lighting the Way

America’s mega-churches are biblical in their proportions.

The largest church in the U.S. is Lakewood, a quasi-denominational congregation—more like a small city— that sprawls over five acres outside of Houston. At 150,000-plus square feet, the former Compaq Center, once home to the Houston Rockets basketball team, holds 16,600 churchgoers at a time for several services each weekend. It’s also a broadcast ministry, with two massive video monitors flanking the huge stage that the telegenic Rev. Joel Osteen shares with a band. The church market has emerged as one of the fastest growth areas for lighting and video in the U.S.

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Optics of Digital Projectors: DVD Technical Short Course from Optical Short Course International

Just when you were getting comfortable with automated lighting, along comes this new technology that demands that you get up yet another steep learning curve. Digital lighting, LEDs, low-resolution and high-resolution graphics displays and DMX-controlled media servers are little more than video with a new skin. But they are invading the lighting industry like it’s Omaha Beach on D-Day. Pause—press reset—reboot and begin again.

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You Say You Want a Resolution

You’ve programmed with media servers before, but on this gig, the client wants you to use some original photos from the company’s last office party. Or maybe you want to create a unique piece of content featuring the company’s logo. In either case, it’s inevitable that you’ll need to optimize your content. Do you fully understand how the quality of the image affects playback through the server? Let’s take a look at a basic but important concept of any type of media—image resolution.

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The Highly Defined Bon Jovi Tour

Lighting director Pat Brannon has been with Bon Jovi in one capacity or another longer than many of his colleagues have been in the entertainment business. But his current position on the tour is now in its sixth year.

“I started with the band in ’88. I was brought in by the LD at the time and had responsibility of over 200 Color Mags,” Bannon says. “From there, I was asked to be the lighting director in ‘89 and returned on the next tour as crew chief and computer motor operator and programmer. Before 1995, I was the moving light operator and programmer. So in reality, I have been with the band for 18 years.

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Spot On

As one of the spot ops for Disney on Ice’s Monsters Inc., one of my main objectives is to hit every cue. But no matter how you try or how well you plan, there are times when forces beyond your control conspire against you. Take, for example, the time I was working spotlight number in section 209. I was sitting in a seat behind the spotlight when I reached up to strike the lamp. I tilted the light back so that I could reach the button, as I have done hundreds of times before. All of a sudden the back leg of the spotlight flew up and in the air, and the entire spotlight, all 106 pounds of it, came crashing down on me, pinning me between the seat and the light.

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Wireless Solution W-DMX

Wireless Solution AB, a Swedish wireless DMX manufacturer, has recently released a new wireless DMX system called W-DMX. It works with any device that transmits a DMX signal, transmitting to a wireless receiver at the receiving device. It’s intended for systems where hard-wiring a DMX signal is impossible or impractical. For example, when several large format automated lights were placed on several tall buildings during the Super Bowl and operated from the top of another tall building, it was not practical to run DMX cable to the fixtures.

 

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Arri, Inc.

Who: Arri Inc.

What: Manufacturer of studio and location lighting, film camera, digital camera and post-production equipment.

Where: Headquarters are in Munich, Germany. Offices in Blauvelt, N.Y.; Burbank, Calif.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla., New York City, Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., Toronto, London, Berlin, Rome, Milan and Mumbai.

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Marisa Davis—Excelling at the “Bastard Child of Film and Theatre”

Two-time Emmy-nominated Marisa Davis started a recent weeklong hiatus from The Ellen DeGeneres Show by speaking to PLSN about her career. Prior to her current gig, which is in its third wildly-successful year, she was with the Oxygen network where she honed her skills by lighting talk, variety, game, cooking and even workout shows. Later, she worked in sketch comedy, including Mad TV, Primetime Glick and The Hollow Men. In July 2005, she became a partner at Design Partners, Inc.

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