Road Test: Lex Products Slim Dimmer, page 26

Transcription

APRIL
2010
THE GRE
Vol. 11.3
Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images
Olympic Lighting and Projection Take Center Ice
Unlike the separate flame in the cauldron outside, the flames inside the stadium had to be handled with care to avert
problems with the stadium’s air-supported roof.
The Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympic Games were daunting — and for lighting designers accustomed to arranging all the big-gun light sources, a little humbling, too. “It’s an unusual project for a lighting designer,” noted Bob Dickinson, who worked along with his crew from Full Flood with the lead technicians and 70 local
crew members from Production Resource Group (PRG), which supplied the entire lighting package. “Because of the
nature of the large-scale projection, it was more about not lighting than lighting. Finding a way to not light the projection surface, and balancing such low light levels, was extremely tricky.” So, of course, was the video design — if
not the largest amount of projection that E/T/C London Paris and Solotech have fielded, certainly the most complex,
according to Patrice Bouqueniaux, video director for the ceremonies. Bouqueniaux worked with Jim Tinsley, project
manager with Stage One, to deal with the stadium’s fluctuating roof position. Among the other complex projection
surfaces dreamed up by the design team led by David Atkins, the ceremonies’ executive producer and artistic director: the audience itself, clad in white ponchos. (For the full story, written by Michael S. Eddy, turn to page 30.)
4Wall Acquires Cinelease Event Lighting Division, Opens 4Wall-LA
LOS ANGELES and LAS VEGAS—In a move that
adds inventory as well as a new location, 4Wall Entertainment has purchased the assets of Cinelease’s
Event Lighting division. Cinelease Event Lighting
previously included two shops in Las Vegas and Los
Angeles. The Las Vegas location will be merged into
the current 4Wall Las Vegas facility and the Los Angeles location will now be known as 4Wall-LA.
The new 4Wall Los Angeles will occupy 23,000
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Road Test: Lex Products Slim Dimmer, page 26
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square feet next door to the Cinelease Motion
Picture division. The site will become 4Wall’s fifth
location, following Las Vegas, New York, Phoenix
and Washington DC.
The 16 employees of Cinelease Event Lighting
will become a part of the 4Wall staff. This group
includes former executive vice president Scott
Jevons, who will assume the role of vice president
and general manager for
continued on page 7
Barco Acquires
Element Labs
KORTRIJK, Belgium — Barco announced that it has acquired the
products, intellectual property (IP)
rights and know-how of Santa Clara,
Calif.-based Element Labs and that
the “Element Labs” brand will no
longer be used. Structured as an asset sales transaction, Barco obtained
all product designs, rights and intellectual property of Element Labs,
without assuming the liabilities of
the former company.
The transaction is expected to
extend Barco’s reach as a provider
of LED, projection, image processing
and lighting products to a broader
array of price points and budget levels in the media and entertainment
market.
continued on page 7
Truck Driver for Carrie
Underwood Tour
Killed in Accident
Fresh Ways to
Portray Decay
As its title suggests, A Behanding
in Spokane is a little darker than your
average comedy, with its protagonist, played by Christopher Walken,
still hoping to find the left hand that
he lost nearly five decades earlier.
To add to the productions’ discomfiting feel, scenic designer Scott Pask
sought out fresh ways to portray decay.
The action plays out on a “ratty” looking stage set that looks as
though it were ripped out of a building, “which is why there are all those
splinters on the beams and the sawdust is preserved,” Pask says.
For more, turn to page 16.
STONINGTON, CT — Robert
“Bob-O” O’Bleness, 48, a MuskGreen Practices
ogee, Okla.-based truck driver
Can a U2-sized tour be eco-justicarrying stage equipment for
Carrie Underwood’s Play On tour 4 fied? That question is raised in this
months’ Editor’s Note, and also the
for a performance at Foxwoods
Guest Commentary on page 22.
Casino’s MGM Grand Theater, was
killed in a highway accident early
Company 411
March 20.
18 Does safety lead to longevity?
The accident happened about
Ask 125-year-old J.R. Clancy.
8 a.m. on Interstate 95 at Taugwonk Road in Stonington, a few
The Biz
miles away from the performance
39 Las Vegas serves as a barometer for
venue. Underwood was able to
the corporate events market.
perform as planned that evening,
despite the accident. She sang a
tearful rendition of “Temporary
Home” in the truck driver’s honor.
O’Bleness is survived by his
PRO LIGHTING SPACE
parents, sisters, girlfriend, five
nieces and one nephew.
www.ProLightingSpace.com/join
4/6/10 1:29 PM
APRIL 2010
www.plsn.com
P R O J E C T I O N , L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
W H AT ’ S H O T
Columns
16 Inside Theatre
4 Editor’s Note
A severed hand, decades spent searching
for it, and a decrepit hotel room ripped
from where it belongs and set up on
a Broadway stage. That’s all part of
Broadway’s edgy A Behanding in Spokane.
Scenic designer Scott Pask’s mission was
to add an authentic-looking touch of timeworn decay.
18 Company 411
Not many companies can compete with
J.R. Clancy’s bragging rights to longevity.
The company got its start in 1885, when
Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse
were still tinkering with AC and DC
generators.
22 Guest Commentary
20
Eco-Responsibility vs. Touring Excess — can
a commitment to the environment co-exist
with super-sized touring productions?
26 Road Test:
Feature: Touring Green
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info
02.100.1004.indd 2
Features
Touring productions have taken some definite steps toward
energy efficiency, but most productions will need to rely on a
variety of light sources to give the audience what it needs: the
“Wow” factor.
Lex Products’ Slim Dimmer comes with
more than a few surprises, starting with its
size and weight.
27 Buyers Guide
Moving Yoke LED Fixtures. A detailed
snapshot of one of today’s fastestchanging product categories.
30 Feature: The Winter Games
The Opening Ceremonies, Closing
Ceremonies and Victory Ceremonies were
all held in one place — BC Place Stadium
— an exceedingly tricky venue for both the
lighting and video production crews.
The “greenest” way to stage a touring
production is to just stay home. But where’s
the sense in that?
38 Feeding the Machines
The ups and downs of air travel — and how
to make the most productive use of your
time when faced with inevitable delays.
39 The Biz
What happens in Vegas serves as a
barometer for the corporate events
industry.
44 LD-at-Large
The art of schmoozing — a surprisingly
valuable skill for the aspiring LD, and the
entertainment industry as a whole.
Departments
5
6
6
8
11
12
31
32
35
News
Calendar
In Brief
International News
On the Move
Product News
Projection Connection
Projection Connection News
Projection Connection Product News
36 Video World
24
The lighting and video design for the
Alice in Chains tour uses control software
to synchronize the movement of video
cameras, projection-capable moving
lights, moving mirror fixtures and the band
members themselves.
Ad info:http:// foh.hotims.com
W H AT ’ S H O T
Production Profile
The visuals for the Daughtry tour have been a work in progress.
Creative influences include album artwork by comic book
artist Jim Lee, the preferences of the tour manager and band
members, budget constraints for the set design and two LDs.
CONTENTS
4/6/10 3:33 PM
EDITOR’S NOTE
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
Counting and Measuring
Meaning In Life
D
o you remember the first concert you
ever attended? Of course you do.
I remember mine like it was yesterday. It was a band called Krackerjack at the
Corpus Christi Exhibition Center. They had a
bass player named Tommy Shannon (currently
touring with Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Jonny
Lang, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd on the Ex-
It’s hard to assign it a value, isn’t it? Yet we
know it has tremendous inherent value. Some
guy named Einstein once said, “Not everything
that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts.”
Several months ago Willie Williams told me
that he has spent a lot of time thinking about
the justification for taking a huge spectacle on
“Even though eco-issues are becoming more crucial
by the day, it would be cultural and spiritual suicide to
declare that humankind should cease any and every
activity which is not utterly necessary or practical.”
—Production Designer Willie Williams
perience Hendrix Tour) and a young guy on
the guitar they called “Skeeter.” Later on they
stopped calling him Skeeter and started calling him Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Ask anyone if they remember the first
concert they attended and watch their eyes
light up. It evokes a response that digs deep
into the psyche and triggers a rich bouquet of
emotions.
What is that experience worth?
the road like U2’s 360° tour. “With a tour of this
magnitude it might appear abundantly clear
that the greenest thing would be to just not
do it at all,” he said.
That’s an undeniable fact if you discount
the quality of life issues. But who wants to
live in a world where meaning is tabulated on
a calculator? As Willie goes on to say, there’s
more to life than that.
“On another level,” he said, “a tour like this
By RichardCadena
The Publication of Record for the Lighting,
Staging and Projection Industries
Publisher
Terry Lowe
[email protected]
has value in another way. Even though ecoissues are becoming more crucial by the day,
it would be cultural and spiritual suicide to
declare that humankind should cease any and
every activity which is not utterly necessary or
practical.”
Would you trade your first concert experience for a smaller carbon footprint? I wouldn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a rabid proponent
of the greening of the production industry. I’m
a student of efficient lighting, a follower of alternative light sources, and a believer in greener technologies. But we have to be careful not
to go so far as to cannibalize our own souls.
“I’ve been designing shows for a long
time,” Williams goes on to say, “and quite regularly I will be approached by a total stranger
who is burning to tell me that some show that
I vaguely remember doing was ‘the high point
of my life.’ I’m not exaggerating; these shows
affect people’s lives in a deeply significant way
and somehow provide meaning. That being
the case, I really believe that at least some of
what we do as an industry has value that is
worth a short-term carbon spend.”
Lest we think that this is some touchy-feely
ultra-liberal idea, consider what Dan Pink has
to say about the importance of art in business. Pink is a best-selling author and a
graduate of Yale Law School. His books include A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers
Will Rule the Future and his latest, Drive: The
Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
“It used to be that the abilities that mattered most in work were characteristic of
the left hemisphere,” he said. “They were the
logical, linear, sequential, analytical…kinds
of abilities. And today — and I really want to
underscore this — those kinds of abilities…
are absolutely 100 percent necessary, but
they’re no longer sufficient. It’s now these
right-brain abilities…having to do with artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture
thinking — these are now the abilities that
matter most in nearly every profession in a
whole range of industries. These metaphorically right-brain abilities…are becoming
the engines of the economy.”
Why?
Linear tasks with a narrow focus and a
single solution are best handled by computer or by outsourcing to low wage economies. The new economy demands more
imagination, creativity, free-thinking, and
right-brained activity.
How do you exercise your right brain
and help it to thrive? By inspiring it, feeding
and watering it, and encouraging it to grow
and strengthen. That’s where art comes in.
Art is food for the right brain.
There’s a fine line between being good
stewards of the planet and depriving the
world of color and flavor. The challenge is to
recognize that line and stop short of crossing it. And that requires us to be well educated, well informed, and completely tuned
in to technological solutions. With that in
mind, this issue is dedicated to the redding,
blueing, and greening of the planet.
Feed Richard Cadena’s brain at rcadena@
plsn.com.
PRO LIGHTING SPACE
prolightingspace.com/join
04.100.1004.indd 4
Editor
Richard Cadena
[email protected]
Managing Editor
Frank Hammel
[email protected]
Editorial Assistant
Victoria Laabs
[email protected]
Senior Staff Writer
Kevin M. Mitchell
Contributing Writers
Paul Berliner, Vickie Claiborne, Dan Daley,
David John Farinella, Steve Jennings,
Morgan Loven, Rob Ludwig,
Bryan Reesman, Brad Schiller,
Nook Schoenfeld
Photographer
Steve Jennings
Art Director
Garret Petrov
[email protected]
Web Master
Josh Harris
[email protected]
National
Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
[email protected]
Account Manager
James Leasing
[email protected]
Advertising Manager
Matt Huber
[email protected]
Production Manager
Linda Evans
[email protected]
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
[email protected]
Business and
Advertising Office
6000 South Eastern Ave.
Suite 14J
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Ph: 702.932.5585
Fax: 702.554.5340
Editorial Office
10305 Salida Dr.
Austin, TX 78749
Ph: 512.280.0384
Fax: 512.292.0183
Circulation
Stark Services
P.O. Box 16147
North Hollywood, CA 91615
Projection, Lights & Staging News (ISSN:
1537-0046) Volume 11, Number 3 Published monthly by Timeless Communications Corp. 6000 South
Eastern Ave., Suite 14J, Las Vegas, NV 89119. It is
distributed free to qualified individuals in the
lighting and staging industries in the United
States and Canada. Periodical Postage paid
at Las Vegas, NV, office and additional offices.
Postmaster please send address changes to:
Projection, Lights & Staging News, P.O. Box
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ON N8X 1Z1. Overseas subscriptions are available
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returned. Projection, Lights & Staging News is a
Registered Trademark. All Rights Reserved.
Duplication, transmission by any method of
this publication is strictly prohibited without
permission of Projection, Lights & Staging News.
ESTA
ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES &
TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
4/6/10 1:06 AM
NEWS
BlackBox from CAST Software Announces New Partners
TORONTO, Canada—BlackBox from
CAST Software has added three new partners filling the categories of media server,
stereoscopic camera and network technology: Coolux, Magna BSP Ltd. and SAND Network Systems.
These companies join the existing BlackBox partners including MA Lighting of Germany for lighting control; Niscon Inc. of
Toronto Canada for motion control via its
Raynok Motion Control System Software;
Out Board Electronics’, of London UK, TiMax Audio Imaging delay matrix system for
sound automation; and Ubisense, providing
rapid response realtime location detection.
“Our industry continually strives for more
impressive creative results to wow audiences
by investing significant capital in technology,
innovation and robotization,” said Gil Densham, president of CAST Software. “Accomplishing the creative objectives means it is
vital that each disparate technology communicate and work seamlessly together. BlackBox is designed to deliver these solutions.
“CAST’s BlackBox is a truly collaborative
effort. We selected our partners to help us
ensure that BlackBox becomes the solution
we envision,” Densham added. “Together, we
will develop a technology solution that may
revolutionize our industry.”
BlackBox receives and converts live positional data about moving objects and
provides positional information so moving
lights, set pieces, spatial sound, media servers and robotic cameras are synchronized to
object movements.
New Draft Chain Hoist Standard in Public Review
NEW YORK — BSR E1.6-3—201x, Selection and Use of Chain Hoists in the
Entertainment Industry, is available for
public review at http://www.esta.org/
tsp/documents/public_review_docs.
5-11+ CVR.100.1004.indd 5
php through May 3, 2010. T h e
draft standard is part of the BSR E1.6
powered theatrical rigging system project.
This part, BSR E1.6-3, establishes
minimum safety requirements for the
selection and use of serially manufactured electric link chain hoists having
capacity of two tons or less in the entertainment industry. This standard does
not address the design or maintenance
of these hoists. The standard is intended
to provide for the protection of life, limb
and property.
4/6/10 1:07 AM
NEWS
IN BRIEF
Rose Brand has been offering a series of theatrical lighting tips recently as part of its “Know
How” blog, linked from its Web site at rosebrand.
com. Recent tips have included how to specify
a stage curtain and how to light a sharkstooth
scrim…Stageline is supporting the Grand Défi
Pierre Lavoie, a fitness program and competition
for kids, with a two-level mobile building unit
that can be assembled outdoors by four crew
THE EDITOR
It’s Not Just About the Price
Loved your editorial regarding pricing
(PLSN, Editor’s Note, March 2010). I’ve spent
35 years in both the audio and lighting industry (same business, different nouns),
members in about three hours. It’s built using
elements from the same mobile stage model
that supported the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay…
For Los Angeles’ KABC-TV’s live pre-Oscar broadcast, On The Red Carpet, LD Richard Brown with
Architectural Media Design used six of Elation
Professional’s ELAR 108 RGBW LED Par cans for
hosts Michelle Tuzee and Marc Brown and their
guests…ETC will once again be selecting six
college students to attend the LDI tradeshow,
set for Oct. 22-24 in Las Vegas. Students can apply at etcconnect.com. The deadline is April 30,
2010…Digital Projection Inc. (DPI) launched
Calculator Toolbox, an integrated suite of image and lens calculators for the professional AV
industry…Harkness Screens has updated its
Web site at harkness-screens.com with a new
interface, content and Digital Screen Selector ap-
plication…Imago, an LED display provider, has
partnered with Stonex, a lighting group, to go
after the expanding LED lighting market in Spain
and Portugal…LMG, Inc. recently purchased the
Ross Video Vision 3 QMD Switcher to enhance
its video inventory and switching capabilities…
Production Services Ireland (PSI) has made its
first investment in Vari*Lite moving lights with
the purchase of 12 VL2500 Spots.
representing the highest quality brands
available — Clay Paky, DiGiCo, XTA, MC2,
Celestion , Pulsar — just to name a few.
Each of those brands have competitors
at half the price, yet they are very viable
companies with very successful products.
So it’s not just about the price. Sometimes
we think our technology is so obviously
better, we forget that our real job is to explain the benefits of that technology to the
customer — in the customer’s language —
and to create the environment where the
customer feels good about the purchase,
both technically and personally. In those
circumstances where the customer really
can’t afford what we represent, I will gladly
recommend the best product I know within
the budget the customer can afford. I can’t
tell you how many of those folks eventually came our way over the years. Honesty
and helpfulness is a lot like gravity. It works
— even if you can’t really explain it. Keep
up the great writing — always enjoy your
point of view.
—Jack Kelly, President, Group One Ltd.
City for USITT, and I just finished reading your
Editor’s Note. I applaud you! As a business
owner, I struggled with this, particularly over
the past 18 months. Lighting is often viewed
as a commodity, and we have fought hard to
“educate” our clients on the higher level of
service and support we provide with every
event production, sale, rental or system. Is it
easy? No. Do they all listen? No. But we will
not allow ourselves to lower our standards
for that “quick sale.” Thank you for reminding
those that may have lost their way.
— Steven Way, President, ALPS/Advanced
Lighting & Production Services
I am sitting in Chicago waiting for the
next leg of my flight to take me to Kansas
CALENDAR
PLSN Academy of Production
Technology
Entertainment Electricity
April 6-8, 2010
Austin, Texas
productionseminars.webs.com
Technology
Digital Media in Live Event Production
April 9-10, 2010
Austin, Texas
NAB Show
April 12-15, 2010
Las Vegas, NV
www.nabshow.com
ETC Ion Training
April 13-14, 2010
Toronto, Ont. Canada
etcconnect.com
Fantasee Lighting Techfest
April 23-24, 2010
Van Buren Township, Mich.
fantaseelighting.com
Technology
Entertainment Electricity
May 10-12, 2010
Las Vegas, Nev.
Lightfair International
May 12-14, 2010
Las Vegas, Nev.
lightfair.com
InfoComm 2010
June 5-11, 2010
Las Vegas, Nev.
infocomm.org
ABTT
June 16-17, 2010
London
abtt.org.uk
Guangzhou International Lighting
Exhibition
June 9-12, 2010
Guangzhou, China
messefrankfurt.com
PLASA 2010
Sept. 12-15, 2010
London
plasashow.com
LDI 2010
Oct. 18-20, 2010
Las Vegas, Nev.
ldishow.com
6
PLSN APRIL 2010
5-11+ CVR.100.1004.indd 6
4/7/10 11:11 AM
OBITUARY
Blackout Design lit Quebec’s Red Bull Crashed Ice competition
with gear supplied by Solotech. 120,000 spectators watched
daredevils skate on a 550-meter icy track.
Mark Ferber, 60, a longtime production supervisor at the Hollywood Bowl, died March 14. A memorial service for Ferber was held
onstage at the Hollywood Bowl March 27. It was open to the public.
Ferber’s career with the well-known venue spanned more than 45
years—he was hired as an errand runner at age 14, and those attending performances grew familiar with his voice as he announced, “Ladies
and gentlemen, welcome to the Hollywood Bowl.”
He grew up near the Bowl, and his graduation ceremony from Hollywood High was held there. He graduated from UCLA in 1972, and
worked for the Seattle Opera in 1974 but returned to the venue soon
afterward.
Ferber is predeceased by his first wife, Elaine Welton Hill, who died
in 1999. He is survived by Suzanne Friedline Ferber, whom he married
in 2001, and a son, Daniel, age 5.
NEWS
Mark
Ferber, 60
Mark Ferber and his dog, Daisy
Barco Acquires
Element Labs
continued from cover
“This expands Barco’s portfolio for
the mid-range markets,” said Eric Van
Zele, Barco’s president and CEO. “Element Labs’ products in these markets
have proven their worth on many occasions and perfectly complement Barco’s
more high-end oriented market portfolio.”
Paul Matthijs, VP of Barco’s Video &
Lighting Solutions business, added that
“this transaction will help to accelerate the turnaround which is underway
in our video and lighting activities by
enabling Barco to address a wider segment of the market and further leveraging Barco’s existing sales, marketing and
service capabilities.”
The core team of Element Labs in
Santa Clara, Calif. will function as Barco’s
competence center for creative LED solutions, whereas Barco Kuurne (Belgium)
will remain focused on tiled LED solutions.
Barco will announce its new midrange LED products in the coming
months.
4Wall Acquires
Cinelease Event
Lighting Division,
Opens 4Wall-LA
both 4Wall Las Vegas and 4Wall-LA.
Michael Cannon, 4Wall CEO, spoke
of the new additions to the company,
saying, “The best assets we acquired in
this purchase are the employees of Cinelease. They are top notch industry veterans that fit with the rest of our staff
perfectly.”
4Wall will continue to serve the diverse customer base of Cinelease Event
Lighting. Scott Jevons, when asked
about these current customers, stated,
“The best part of us coming on board is
that we’ll be able to provide the newest
top notch equipment and service on a
national basis. We will be able to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations while servicing them from any of
five 4Wall locations.”
5-11+ CVR.100.1004.indd 7
4/6/10 1:08 AM
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Clay Paky Gear Performs Visual “Surgery” for Italian TV Show
ROME — For the ninth series of shows
called I Raccomandati (The Protégés), a talent
contest televised live from the Teatro delle
Vittorie by RAI, Riccardo Bocchini’s set design
used elegant new scenery elements including
a wood parquet floor, an arch enclosing the
stage and chrome-plated trim behind three
large LED walls. The set also included a full
complement of Clay Paky fixtures supplied by
Di & Di Service.
The show, which first aired in 2003, invites
various performers to compete before a panel
of VIPs, with the winner chosen at the end of
the program.
The rig for the most recent series included
20 Alpha Profile 1200s (half of which are arranged at the height of the proscenium and
the other half in the auditorium for front lighting), 20 Alpha Spot HPE 1200s (all as backlighting), 16 Alpha Spot HPE 700s (arranged
around the whole internal perimeter of the
auditorium) and 16 Alpha Spot HPE 300s (also
as backlighting), with a few CP Color 400 MHs
used as well.
“It is incredible what you can do with these
Fausto Carboni, the director of photography, described the use of the lighting fixtures lights. Their use was vitally important to me,
as something akin to a “surgical operation.” He because the battens mounted in the Teatro
used the Profiles, for example, to “cut out” the delle Vittorie have limiting weight-constraint,”
special areas of the scenery that need high- Carboni said.”With the compact Alpha models,
I was able to mount lights without running into
lighting with clean-edged light.
“I also had the pleasure to try out the Al- weight problems and could choose as many as
pha Spot HPE 700s, and I must say they offer I needed. The 700s in particular are truly miractruly innovative graphic effects,” Carboni said. ulous works of microengineering. They are as
“For example, we were able to use some light- bright as 1200 W lights with the typical weight
ing effects on the large entrance sphere, which and size of lower wattage models.”
Even the sound crew gave the Clay Paky
is a highly characteristic special scenic element
consisting of motorized plates that close with Alpha gear high marks — for being seen and
not heard.
a circular movement.”
Carboni also credited the Clay Paky gear
Carboni also used the animation disk on
the HPE 1200 for a water effect on the wooden for reliability, which is “crucial” for a live TV
floor, and noted the ability of the fixtures to show. “Thanks to the high performance and
help him meet the challenge of lighting mate- reliability standards of Clay Paky Alphas, I have
rials and surfaces with varying degrees of light been able to face each program with the necabsorption and reflection, ranging from iron to essary serenity.”
Carboni was assisted by Gianluca Brunicci
wood.
Another challenge was to mesh the light- and Carlo Vanni on the lighting desks. The
ing intensities and colors with the video ef- gaffer was Walter Loia.
fects. There were three
large LED walls, one in
the middle at the back of
the circular sphere and
two on the side walls. Carboni worked with director Maurizio Pagnussat to
meticulously calibrate the
light intensity and color
and achieve a harmonious
result.
Fausto Carboni credited the performance of
the 300s and 700s, despite
their compact dimensions. Fausto Carboni, director of photography, credited the gear for its flexibility and precision.
Beyoncé Concert in Trinidad Lit by PR Pilots, XLs
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — A
recent Beyoncé performance required the crew
to turn Queen’s Park Savanna into a concert
venue for some 40,000 attendees. Beyonce’s
lighting team, led by Pat Brannon, LD, relied
upon over 60 truss-mounted moving heads
from PR Lighting for the show.
The rig included a total of 30 XL 1200 Spot,
12 Pilot 1200 Wash, 10 Pilot 575 Wash and 10
Pilot 575 Spot fixtures. Brannon controlled the
fixtures with a grandMA console, and PR Lighting distributor All Events Lighting Systems supplied the gear.
The crew used four rigs of truss set at various points from front to back of the stage in
descending size, the front being the highest.
Twelve Pilot 1200 Wash and six XL 1200 Spot
fixtures were suspended from the front truss,
along with 10 8-light Molefays. Eight XL 1200
Spots were affixed to the second truss.
The third truss supported another 10 Pilot
575 Washes and six XL 1200 Spots. The fourth
and smallest truss was used for six XL 1200
Spots and six Pilot 575 Spots. Four XL 1200
Spots were placed on the stage front, two each
on either side, with four Pilot 575 Spots placed
in similar fashion.
Shival Maharaj, owner of All Events Lighting
Systems, noted that “Queen’s Park Savannah is
not designed for shows, but was transformed
for this event into the largest production ever
to hit the shores of Trinidad and many Caribbean Islands.”
The PR Lighting fixtures played a key role
in the event’s success. “The colors were rich
and bright and the patterns clear and impressive,” Maharaj said. “The distance that the XL
fixtures were able to cover was unbelievable.
These fixtures needed to be good to complement Beyonce’s performance, which was
amazing.”
This concert was held two days after
the annual Carnival celebrations took place
throughout the country, boosting attendance
not just among local residents but from many
foreign visitors as well.
LD Pat Brannon used the fixtures to create an impromptu concert venue.
8
PLSN APRIL 2010
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4/7/10 11:10 AM
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Chauvet, Charity Group Work to Build Homes in Haiti
One of the new homes built with donated funds.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Responding to the needs of some of
the more 1.2 million left homeless
by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake,
Chauvet has teamed up with the
charity organization Food For The
Poor to raise funds for the construction of homes in an effort to raise
$52,000 in four months to build 20
homes in Haiti.
Chauvet owners Albert and Berenice Chauvet, who are both Haitian-born, are kicking off the campaign with a personal commitment
to fund four homes.
“This is a human tragedy that
we can all relate to,” Albert Chauvet said.
“The good news is that, with very little
money, you can have a huge, concrete
impact in someone else’s life.”
Food For The Poor has a strong tradition of involvement in Haiti, where it
builds housing units at an average cost
of $2,600. In addition to providing emergency relief and housing, the organization aims to break the cycle of poverty
by offering solutions for self-sustained
living with vocational training, agricultural programs and the establishment
of fishing villages equipped with boats,
motors, sheds and freezers.
Chauvet plans to solicit donations
primarily through a dedicated Web page
www.foodforthepoor.org/chauvet, digital communications and its network of
media organizations, suppliers, designers, dealers and distributors in the entertainment and architectural lighting
industry.
Chauvet has also pledged to match
donations of up to $10,000.
Food for the Poor noted that Haiti’s
ongoing housing crisis has found itself
acutely exacerbated by the earthquake.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians now
live in tents or dilapidated shacks made
of cardboard, plastic, tin or whatever materials can be scavenged from garbage.
“Our donors have given a tremendous amount in the past two months to
ensure that their brothers and sisters in
Haiti have a chance to eat, drink clean
water and lie down under some kind of
shelter at night,” said Robin Mahfood,
president/CEO of Food For The Poor. “We
are grateful for their committed support
and we will continue to count on their
generosity in the long recovery we have
ahead of us. The most immediate threat
will be the rains that come with hurricane season.”
The 12 x 12 square-foot homes are
built with cement blocks and covered
with galvanized sheet roofs. To address
the need for larger accommodations,
two housing units are sometimes joined
to form one double-unit home.
In 2009, Food For The Poor built 6,371
new housing units in the Caribbean and
Latin America. Since 1982, the organization has built more than 61,200 housing
units and completed more than 1,000
water projects among others.
Highlite International
BV joins Philips’ LED
Luminaires Licensing
Program
KERKRADE, The Netherlands —
Highlite International B.V., a global
distributor of lighting and audio gear,
recently joined Philips’ LED luminaires
and retrofit bulbs license program.
“As a licensee under the license
program, we get access to a large
portfolio of Philips’ patented LED control technology,” said Huub De la Haije,
Highlite president and founder. “This
allows us to offer our customers LED
luminaires with state-of-the-art technology at an attractive price. Both our
lighting brands — Showtec for special
light equipment for events, live acts
and stage installations and Artecta
for architectural lighting products —
will benefit from the agreement with
Philips.”
“Philips is very pleased that
Highlite joins our program,” said Frank
Bistervels, senior director licensing,
Philips Intellectual Property & Standards. “We believe in open innovation
and sharing our ideas through licensing. By making our technologies available, Highlite can seize their opportunities and we contribute to a further
growth of the LED market.”
10 PLSN APRIL 2010
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4/7/10 11:09 AM
Auerbach Pollock Friedlander, a performing arts/media facilities planning and
design firm with offices in San Francisco, New
York and Minneapolis, recently promoted
four associates: Kevin Auses (San Francisco
office), Matthew Ezold (New York office),
Howard Glickman (San Francisco office) and
Robert Hill (San Francisco office).
BMI Supply announced that it was consolidating resources from its smaller sister
company, BMI Supply South, and focusing its
efforts on its main operation in Queensbury,
N.Y. All phone, fax, and email communications to BMI Supply South will automatically
forward to BMI Supply. The company’s Web
site is at bmisupply.com.
City Theatrical
named Alex Cowan European sales
manager. He will be
based at the company’s London office. Cowan comes
to City Theatrical
from
PixelRange
Alex Cowan
where he was the
international sales
manager, covering Europe, Eastern Europe,
Middle East, and South Africa. Prior to that, he
was new business executive for HSL in Blackburn, U.K.
Creative Stage Lighting has been
named the sole distributor partner of Wireless Solution products in the U.S. Wireless
Solution is the creator of W-DMX technology,
introduced in 2004.
The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New
York City named Brant Thomas Murray production manager. The Atrium is the newest
venue at Lincoln Center. Murray began working there in Oct. 2009.
Digital
Projection Inc. (DPI)
named Phil Laney
director of simulation and visualization. Laney brings
over 13 years of
experience selling
display products
Phil Laney
and integrated display solutions and
seven years of IT support-related experience.
E l e c t ro s o n i c
named Paul Brown,
a 20-year veteran
working for companies such as
Hewlett
Packard
and Agilent Technologies, general
manager of service
Paul Brown
for Electrosonic’s
European office in
Dartford, England.
Brown also operated a consulting company
that provided services to Verigy, following its
spin-off from Agilent Technologies. As general manager of service, Brown will be responsible for all service activities including on-site
service, service and maintenance and service
administration for users of AV systems within
corporate, command and control, entertainment and retail markets.
Global Design Solutions (GDS) named
PRG Distribution as its exclusive distribu-
tor in a number of territories across Eastern
Europe, Asia and South Africa. PRG Distribution also handles brands including Vari*Lite,
SeaChanger, Pathway, Lycian and Gekko. The
countries where PRG will distribute GDS include Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia,
Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Kazakhstan,
Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxemburg,
Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Ukraine.
PRG will also distribute GDS products in Russia, but not exclusively. PRG joins Global Design Solutions’ established global distribution
network, which includes distributors across
Europe, U.S., Australia, Asia and the U.K.
Sanyo North America Corp. promoted Sam
L. Malik to vice president of Sanyo North America
and general manager of the Presentation Technologies Group. Malik was formerly director of
sales and marketing for the group.
Stage Research has signed Biyao Ltd. Co. in
Beijing as its master distributor in China. Biyao
Ltd. Co. sells professional sound equipment and
software solutions to a wide range of customers
in China, including theaters, schools, conference
centers and theme parks.
On The Move
Ultratec Special Effects named
Rachelle
Robson
customer
service
representative for
the Special Effects
Order Desk at the
company’s London,
Ontario facility. RobRachelle Robson
son’s responsibilities
will include processing orders, confirming orders, providing product and shipping quotes, providing tracking
numbers and other CSR tasks.
High Output, Inc., an event production and design company with an inventory
of lighting, audio/visual, power distribution
equipment, generators and HVAC services,
recently opened its sixth regional office at
221 Third Street - Suite 201, Newport, RI
02840; 401.324.9202.
J. R. Clancy
named Eric McAfee
domestic sales manager. McAfee, who
joined the company
in 1999, will supervise all U.S. sales of
J.R. Clancy rigging
systems. Prior to
Eric McAfee
J.R. Clancy, McAfee
worked as a rigging
installer with BMI Supply and as a technical director in Purchase, N.Y. and Staten Island, N.Y.
McAfee is known from his seat on the “Stump
the Rigger” panel at USITT, a session led by Bill
Sapsis of Sapsis Rigging.
LSC Lighting Systems, a Melbourne, Australia-based manufacturer of lighting control
systems, named LMP Lichttechnik, Ibbenbüren, Germany, as their distribution partner
for Germany and Austria.
Lighting Services Inc. named
Gordon
Pevzner
regional sales manager for the eastern
U.S. He has over 30
years of lighting
and sales experience in a variety
Gordon Pevzner
of technical roles,
including theatrical
lighting design, dimming and controls, lighting specification and calculation services.
Lighting Technology
Projects
(LTP) named Casey
Ryan business development manager, part of a planned
expansion strategy
by the architectural
lighting specification & project delivery specialist, a subsidiary of PAI Group.
Casey Ryan
Northern Sound & Light (NSL) promoted
Amy Parks operations manager and added Gordon Mann to its sales staff. Parks joined Northern
Sound in 2006 after five years as a bank assistant
branch manager. In 2007 she became an administrative assistant to Raslevich. Mann is a graduate of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and has
worked at NSL previously as an order filler and
product inspector.
2010 APRIL PLSN 11
5-11+ CVR.100.1004.indd 11
4/6/10 1:09 AM
PRODUCTS NEWS
American DJ P64 LED Plus Adds Master/Slave
American DJ has added master/slave capabilities to its P64 LED Plus. Multiple units of the
fixture can be linked together with a 3-pin XLR
cable and they will all follow a “master” program
to produce a synchronized light show. It features
151 5mm LEDs (51 red, 49 green and 51 blue) and
operates in 4 modes: Sound Active, Active, RGB
and DMX Control. Other features include 0-100
percent electronic dimming, color strobing, fast
or slow color change and a built-in microphone.
It has a beam angle of 30°, weighs five pounds
and measures 11.5 inches by 10.5 inches by 13.5
inches. MSRP is $219.95.
American DJ • 800.322.6337 • americandj.com
Boca Flasher SBL-WWW
The SBL-WWW has been added to Boca’s
brick lights. It features 48 1.2W LEDs per linear foot and “CleanDim” technology. It has
a CRI of 92 and white light with a choice of
color temperatures including 2700, 3000,
3500, 4100, 5000, 6500K or custom (monochromatic triads). It can be dimmed using
DMX512 control or standard dimmers and it’s
available in 1-foot, 2-foot or 4 foot sections.
It is UL listed for wet or dry locations, and a
truss-mount version is also available. Features include: 110/220/277 VAC, input current
of 0.75A per linear foot and choice of optics (12x48°, 10°, 24°, 36°).
Boca Flasher, Inc. • 561.989.5338 • bocaflasher.com
Chauvet Colorado 1-Tri Tour
The new Colorado 1-Tri Tour from Chauvet features
14 3W tri-color LEDs and features color temperature presets from 3,200 K to 10,000 K and five distinct dimming
curves. It responds to 3, 4, 5 or 10 channels of DMX control. RGB color mixing can be performed with or without
DMX. The output is 1,600 lux at two meters. Additional
features include an LED display with password protection, a gel frame holder and PowerCon connectors for
power in and out as well as direct DMX connectors. It
comes with 16° lenses and it is linkable with up to 12
units at 120V.
Chauvet Lighting • 800.762.1084 • chauvetlighting.com
GAM Go-Lite
The GAM Go-Lite is a cue light that can be
screwed or nailed, taped, Velcroed or mounted
in a junction box. It is available in four colors —
white, red, blue and green — for a variety of cuing combinations for different performers and/
or multiple functions. It can be used as a guide
or to illuminate dark areas. Twenty or more can
be linked in series. The Go-Lite DMX Control
Power Supply with manual override can be operated from any DMX controller via 5-pin XLR
cable. It connects to the Go-Lite using 6-wire
telephone cable. The Go-Lite weighs 1 ounce
and measures 3.43 inches by 1.125 inches by 1
inch.
GAM • 323.935.4975 • gamonline.com
Juice Goose XVT Series UPS
The Juice Goose XVT line of UPS models
from Xtreme Power Conversion start at $120.
There are four XVT models, in 600, 800, 1200
and 1500 VA power levels. Each has a three
minute run time under full load or an eight
minute run time under half load. In addition to
providing battery backup, the XVT Series regulates low or high utility voltage to make sure
connected equipment is properly powered. The
XVT voltage regulation works with line voltage
from 94VAC to 144VAC without tapping into
the battery reserve.
Juice Goose • 713.772.1404 • juicegoose.com
12 PLSN APRIL 2010
12-13.100.1004.indd 12
4/6/10 1:11 AM
Lightronics Par4
Lightronics’ Par4 has a die-cast aluminum
housing and aluminum reflector. It is rated at
800W maximum for use with 575-watt or 750watt halogen lamps with a bi-pin G9.5 base.
The fixture comes with four interchangeable
lenses (VNSP 15°, NSP 19°, MFL 21-34° and WFL
30-51°) and a color filter frame. An optional lens
replacement tool is available to simplify lens
changes. It produces as much light as a 1000watt PAR can with up to 40 percent less electricity. It is in stock in black but is available in silver
or white by special order.
Lightronics 800.472.8541 • lightronics.com
Nemetschek NA and City Theatrical Establish Partnership
Nemetschek North America announced a new partnership with City Theatrical that will
allow both companies to cross-sell and market their products to professionals and schools
focused on the entertainment and lighting design industries. Acting as a U.S. distributor partner, City Theatrical will sell Vectorworks Spotlight and Vectorworks Designer
software through their distributor network of over 200 lighting dealers in all major cities. Nemetschek North America, in turn, will be able to offer their customers the product
Lightwright 5, a tool for tracking all aspects of selecting and arranging, numbering and
comparing, assigning and footnoting lighting paperwork.
Nemetschek • 410.290.5114 • vectorworks.net City Theatrical • 800.230.9497
(U.S.); +44 (0)20 8949 5051 (U.K.) • citytheatrical.com
Pulsar Product Guarantee
Pulsar has extended their product guarantee to three years. All Pulsar product ranges
are included.
Pulsar Light of Cambridge • +44 1223 403 500 • pulsarlight.com
Matthews Hot Flags
Matthews Studio Equipment’s Hot Flags allow
precise cutting of light at relatively close distances.
They are made of a patented thermal-resistant fabric
that dissipates heat and weigh about half as much as
metal Hi Temp flags. They come in four sizes: 18”x24”,
24”x26”, 48”x48” and 24”x72.” MSE owner Ed Phillips
and technical manager Bill Hines said they set up a
12K HMI several feet away from a metal flag and a
Hot Flag, then, using an infrared temperature gauge,
measured temperatures of 950° and 160° respectively,
burning through the metal while leaving the Hot Flags cool to the touch.
Matthews Studio Equipment • 818.843.6715 • msegrip.com
Multiform AmbiLEDs
Multiform Lighting released the first products in
their new AmbiLED range for the architainment market. The AmbiStrip is a medium-sized RGB LED strip
light designed to provide color mixing outline/edge
illumination. Designed to be driven by a 24V supply
like the AmbiLED APS series, they use 140 LEDs consuming 8.3W/m. Available in lengths of 1000mm,
500mm and 250mm to accommodate various mounting setups, the LED strips are housed in a 30mm diameter PC tube with molded end caps allowing tubes to
be installed end-to-end. The AmbiStrips can also be linked using four-core cable and are
supplied with clip-on wall holders.
Multiform Lighting • +852 83 40 61 56 • multiform-lighting.com
Nicopress Battery-Powered Compression Tools
Nicopress Products has introduced a series of
three lithium ion battery-powered tools for splicing wire rope with Nicopress sleeves and dies. The
Nicopress Model 5506 swaging tool offers one-handed operation allowing the user to align and swage
(crimp) sleeves easily without assistance. It weighs
seven pounds with battery and is approximately 2.5
inches wide. It can accommodate wire rope from 3/64
inch through 5/16 inch. When a predetermined pressure is reached, the tool has an audible release. Crimp
cycle time is less than 6 seconds and crimping jaws can be opened in mid-cycle to adjust
the connection. Battery provides approximately 250 crimps per charge.
National Telephone Supply Company • 216.361.0221 • nicopress.com
2010 APRIL PLSN 13
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4/6/10 1:12 AM
SHOWTIME
Seussical The Musical
ST
Venue
PCHS Theatre
Plant City, Fla.
Crew
PromoterProducer:
The Plant City Players
Production Manager: Mike Wood
Lighting & Production Services
(MWLPS)
Lighting Designer: Mike Wood
Automated Lighting Operator:
Garion Cazzell
Lighting Technicians: Grant Sellers,
Garion Cazzell, Logan Collier, Madie
Verbeek, Lindsay Harris, Gerrit Butler
Set Design: Max Roberts
Set Construction: Jeff Moranville,
Tommy Player, Students
Rigger: Jason Johnson
Gear
Lighting Console: High End Systems
Hog 1000
2 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
8 Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 700s
7 High End Systems Studio Spot CMYs
4 High End Systems Studio Color 575s
2 High End Systems Studio Beams
4 Ocean Optics Seachangers
38 Wybron Coloram IIs
25 ETC Source Four ERS
30 Altman Shakespeare ERS
70 assorted conventional fixtures,
1 Altman UV703
1 Le Maitre LSG by Sigma
1 Reel EFX DF50 Hazer
1000’ Christmas lights
2 miles of data & power cable
Lighting Co.
MWLPS/PRG
Global Dance For Life: Haiti Relief
Venue
Denver Coliseum
Denver, Colo.
Crew
Promoter/Producer: Triad Dragons
Production Manager: Reid Warner
Lighting Designer: Chuck Williams
Lighting Technicians: Matt Walker,
Travis Cusack, Wes Reeves
Video Company: Nexus Productions
Lighting Co.
Nexus Productions
ST
Gear
Lighting Console: High End Systems
Hog 500
16 Martin MAC 250 Entour
84 Color Kinetics iColor Cove
12 LED PAR64
2 High End Systems F100 Fogger
2 DMX opto-splitters
Madrix LED software
Motion Labs 3-phase power distro
160’36” truss
112’12” truss
4 CM Lodestar 1-ton chain
motors
9 heavy truss base plate
4
4
1
1
2
ST
7.5’ x 10’ RP Fastfold Projection Screens
Eiki 5000 lumen projector
Extron P2DA6
Folsom Presentation Pro
Sony PD170 Camera
Les MIlls Fitness Training Workshop
Venue
Ford Park Amphitheater
Beaumont, Texas
Set Design/Construction: See-Hear
Productions Inc.
Rigger: J and S Audio Visual
Pyro: AFX Pro
Crew
Gear
Promoter/Producer: Les Mills
Production Manager/Video Director:
Chase Kesner
Lighting Designer/Director/
Programmer: Patrick Theriot
Lighting Technician: Andy Ragan
Lighting Console: Avolites Pearl Expert
10 Martin MAC 700 fixtures
16 Martin MAC 250 Wash fixtures
12 Martin MAC 250 Krypton fixtures
36 Chauvet Colorado fixtures
12 ETC Source Four Lekos
5 Techni-Lux Crowd Mole fixtures
500’12” truss
15 1/2-ton CM chain motors
3 Genie Super Towers
1 Chauvet Sparkalite LED Curtain
4 Jem FX cryo heads
3 Sanyo 7000 Lumen LCD Projector
Lighting Co.
See-Hear Productions
14 PLSN APRIL 2010
14-15.100.1004.indd 14
4/6/10 1:13 AM
Petroleum Ball with Rat Pack
ST
Venue
Hilton Anatole
Dallas, Texas
Crew
Promoter/Producer: Todd Events
Production Manager: Robert Slavik
Lighting Designer/Director/Programmer:
Greg Brown
Lighting Technicians: Nathan Lanciaux, Jesus Alfaro
Rigger: NPS
Staging Company: Onstage Systems
Staging Carpenter: Shane Ziegler
Staging Products: Total Structures Arena
Set Design/Construction: Stageworks
Gear
Lighting Console: Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 2 Console with
expansion wing
7 Martin MAC 600 E NT fixtures
9 Martin MAC550 Profile fixtures
8 High End Systems Studio Spot 575W fixtures
1 Lycian 1271 1200W followspot
14 ETC Source Four 36 degree Lekos
1 ETC Sensor 48ch x 2.4kw dimmer
6 121’ 6ch x 1.5 multi cables
6 19 Pin Veam M6 SP F adapters
Lighting Co.
Onstage Productions
Artistic Transitions Optical
Annual Marketing Session
Venue
Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club Resort
Orlando, Fla.
Crew
Lighting Co.
ALS Inc.
Promoter/Producer: Disney Event Group
Production Manager: Jeffery Boyce, PSAV
Orlando
Lighting Designer/Director/Programmer:
Jordan Potts, ALS Inc.
Lighting Technician: Rhine Peirce
Set Design: Disney Event Group
Set Construction/Rigging: PSAV Orlando
Staging: PSAV Orlando
ST
Gear
Lighting Consoles: 2 Flying Pig Systems
Wholehog 3 consoles
16 High End Systems DL.3s
1 High End Systems DP8000
2 High End Systems Timecode widgets
1 PSAV Orlando custom video screen
(315’ by 17’)
2010 APRIL PLSN 15
14-15.100.1004.indd 15
4/6/10 1:13 AM
INSIDE THEATRE
By BryanReesman
Deglamorizing Spokane
Christopher Walken’s character occupies a bleak milieu as he searches for his
severed hand, in a hotel room purposefully designed to look grubby and decrepit.
S
cenic designer Scott Pask is admittedly
a perfectionist. When PLSN called him to
discuss his work on the new Martin McDonagh play A Behanding in Spokane, he was examining a set piece on the new musical Promises,
Promises. “I’m on stage,” he reveals. “We’ll talk, but
I’m kind of looking at something as well. So if I
break away for a second, forgive me.”This is a polite but unnecessary disclaimer. It actually takes a
matter of moments to work out what he is doing,
and then the passionate Pask is ready to chat indepth about Spokane. But that moment emphasizes how he is committed to his work at every
phase of creation.
The Philosophy of Grunge
plsn
McDonagh’s latest drama is a dark and grisly
play that follows in the footsteps of The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. It stars
Christopher Walken as a middle-aged man who
has been seeking the hand that was severed during a cruel assault on train tracks nearly 50 years
ago. He is confronting and holding hostage a
young couple (Anthony Mackie and Zoe Kazen)
who claim to have found his hand but are lying
about it. They are scamming him to supplement
their income as drug dealers. This deception sets
into motion a violent chain of events that involve
a rather emotionally detached hotel employee
(Sam Rockwell) who helps the characters all see
the folly of their foibles. The four-person play
takes place entirely in a grungy hotel room that
Pask took great pains to create.
“However grubby or decrepit Behanding
looks, it takes that eye for exacting details to get it
that way because there’s nothing general about
that set,” declares Pask, whose extensive credits
include The Coast Of Utopia, Hair and 9 To 5. “It’s
all incredibly specific. There’s just a lot of thought
and a philosophy that goes into a set like that. It’s
presented in a very theatrical fashion, but once
the curtain is pulled it’s very real, even though it’s
macabre, and the whole atmosphere is heightened to give you that sense of suspense. And in a
way it has a kind of Gothic quality about it.”
Seeing Spokane is certainly an intense experience. The set is covered up by a tattered, battered stage curtain that is set up on a primitive
looking wheel and pulley device. There is a small
thrust set a few inches lower than the main stage,
on which is placed a ragtag assortment footlights of different shapes and sizes. The bottom
of the set is exposed to reveal the cross-section
of wood beams underneath, as if the crew had
ripped out this hotel room and transplanted it
into the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Before the
curtain even opens it’s obvious it’s going to be
something off-the-wall. The first image the audience sees is Walken brooding, sitting on a bed,
with a closed closet rattling, as if someone is trying to get free.
“For every little detail I wanted to reinforce
this macabre atmosphere, and it just all builds
to the moment when the curtain is revealed and
Chris is sitting there,” explains Pask, who also did
the costume design for the show. “There’s this
kind of symbiosis with him and his world. Doing
the clothes as well on this one was really important to me for this one because he’s such a part of
the world, even though it’s not his room. Those
are the kind of places he’s been haunting for 47
years, trying to make these deals, trying to find
his hand. Some are nicer than others, but this is
the kind of underbelly that he’s been living with
for this long, and it’s just natural to him. He picks
up the phone to call his mom -- everything is fine,
everything is the same old same old, he’s waiting
for his hand. But for me that curtain track in a way
also represented a bit of the story, where it has its
genesis in the train tracks, just that there’s some
reference to that. The violence that rips the hotel
room out is certainly a nod to the severing of the
hand, the kind of guillotine it would’ve taken to
sever the room and have all those splinters and
edges.”
Tracking the Decay
plsn
A lot of work clearly went into this unglamorous set to make it look weathered and highly trafficked. While the musical Memphis also utilized
cracked plaster facades for the older buildings its
characters inhabit, the ominous Spokane needed
to feel grittier and look grimier. “I don’t like scenic decay,” admits Pask, who originally studied
architecture before going into theatre. “I want it
to be real. There’s a big difference between theatrical decay and having it look like there’s literally years of use, and it’s all done in an exacting,
architectural way. Instead of just covering a set
with willy-nilly broken plaster and whatever, I
had the timeline in my head of how the decay
all happened in that room. The script says it takes
place in a hotel room. Actually, I think it even says
motel room. There was a period of time where I
had to describe to Martin that motels are this and
hotels are this, and he kind of had imagined it in
something more abandoned, like a bigger place.
I felt that this was a Midwestern town, like Dayton or Dubuque or something with a D, that had
at its city center a kind of landmark hotel that was
built at the turn-of-the-century. It was probably
the tallest building in town, and it had a regality
about it. That’s the thing that had over the years
had built up the decay. The industrialization left
the town, and it became more bleak and lost
much of its elegance, but the detail was there
-- the crown moldings, the florets in the ceiling
where the chandelier comes down, and now it’s
replaced with a pendant lamp.”
Pask added in many flourishes to create a
room that felt old yet minimally updated for
modern use. He notes that there is 19th-century
wallpaper laid beneath the renovated wallpaper the hotel put up. He adds that the closet at
stage left feels shoved into the cover by the door
and was added in years after the hotel was built,
“modernized with a piece of drywall shoved in
there.” At stage right is a large window, outside
of which is visible the bottom part of the exterior
hotel sign to show that the room is on the third
floor. The sign is visible to audience members at
stage left.
The double hung sash window at stage right
with panels approximately 2.5 feet by 6 inches
by 3 feet — through which Walken exits early on,
then comes crashing through later in the play —
is made of a type of sugar glass and is replaced
partway through when Rockwell comes out to
deliver a monologue, and the curtain closes. This
changeover happens because the sugar glass
is “very, very fragile and it does break in shards,”
says Pask. “It was designed when I figured out the
structure of the play. I knew that I could use this
certain type of glass that would shatter better.
Once the curtain is pulled, we replace the pane in
the glass really, really quietly. It has aging on it to
make it look like stains in the rain. It is a change of
material that goes in every night at that moment
when Sam’s talking. You can’t really open and
close that window [with sugar glass] because it
could potentially shatter. And Chris has to open
the window to exit [in the first part of the play].
We really calibrated all of those little things.”
Vaudeville Moment
plsn
During the monologue by Rockwell’s hotel
manager character, the unusual stage design is
further emphasized with the odd floodlights
helping to illuminate him. “I needed to do
something with the stage itself, so I put in a ratty stage floor that’s on a rake that we designed
and built in the shop,” says Pask. “We aged all the
boards and painted them so they’d been salt
stained and had been there forever, and I came
up with the idea for all of those different footlights. They all look like they’re ripped out of the
hotel bathrooms in a way. They are all of these
different bathroom fixtures, and we put cages
on some of them. Some are little more industrial. The idea was taking elements from the hotel and of that period, when it was probably in
its heyday in the 1930s or 1940s, and then array
them on the floor for Sam. It becomes almost a
vaudeville moment when he comes on to give
us his monologue. But when we walk in the
room, the thing that was really important to me
was the whole idea of what’s behind the curtain, and gives us a sense of atmosphere from
the top, so it’s not some blank house curtain. It’s
actually a fabric that you would never use for a
curtain in the theatre, this brocade floral print in
gold that looks that it’s been through the war.
It’s more referential to the hotel’s vocabulary
than it is to anything else, and it is just tattered
and aged and worn.
“I wanted a kind of aggressive, macabre
gesture even to get the room on stage, so I almost took a chainsaw to rip it out of the building and plop it on the stage, which is why there
are all those splinters on the beams and the
sawdust is preserved inside the studs and everything,” notes Pask. “There’s actual brick that’s
been sawed through that make up all those
walls. [For] the ceiling above, there’s the carpet
from the room above on top of it. Five people
probably see it. There’s this incredible level of
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Photos by Joan Marcus
“He picks up the
phone to call his
mom -- everything
is fine, everything is
the same old same
old, he’s waiting for
his hand.”
—Scott Pask,
scenic designer
The action plays out on a “ratty” looking stage set that looks as though it were ripped out of the
building, with splinters and sawdust serving as a foreboding to violence.
Period-styled wallpaper and a sugar-glass window add a touch of authenticity as scam artists
portrayed by Zoe Kazan and Anthony Mackie enter Walken’s character’s world of woe.
detail about the room. I want it to be an absolutely real experience, but I also want the fourth
wall to have a theatricality about it as well.”
The Gift of Paint
plsn
Pask praises the work of painter Steve
Purtee and the shop that built the set, ShowMotion, who did Hair and A Steady Rain with
him. “Steve is an incredibly gifted painter, and in
a way he is a hero to me,” proclaims Pask. The
designer wanted to give the ceiling the feeling
of having years and years of paint and different
finishes and rust and plaster falling. “There are
hairline cracks that permeate the whole place,
and even the wallpaper is curling and has water stains. The whole thing is about giving it
layers and giving it life, and that’s why we got
this 19th-century wallpaper to put behind it in
places where the new stuff had been torn away.
The painters are spectacular.”
Once the set was in the theatre, three painters spent a day on scaffolding, rolling around
and doing another elaborate pass on the ceiling. A lot of attention was paid to those surfaces.
Pask notes that there is a heat grate on the wall
that looks there has been dust and dirt coming
out of it for years. “In a room like that, I’m really
conscious of even going around that with that
suitcase stand and bashing it against the wall so
it look it’s been there for a while,” he adds. “That’s
got ripped webbing on it. I also went through
and scuffed walls with my shoes because behavior has happened in there. The one thing I
always try to bring to the work is authenticity.
With the doorknobs, there’s grease [accumulated] from hands over the years from the locking and opening of it. It’s not a well-maintained
place, so the layers add to the detailed vision
that appears once that curtain is yanked over to
the side.”
In the end, Pask’s attention to detail paid
off and added extra atmosphere to an already
potent theatrical work. And it is not the first
time he has tackled a work of such emotional
and visual intensity. This is his third play with
McDonagh, following The Pillowman and The
Lieutenant of Inishmore. “It’s been fantastic,” Pask
says of his collaboration with the acclaimed and
controversial playwright. “I treasure the work
that I get to do with Martin. It’s a real dream to
work with the most admired playwright, and to
be a friend of his is great. I feel like I can understand what opportunity there is in the world
of his storytelling, and our collaboration is one
I most value. John Crowley, who I think is his
most gifted interpreter and director, is so special. John is just an incredibly gifted director. It’s
hard to talk about it more because it is something that you can’t even believe that you have,
this amazing relationship.
“Cracking a play for the first time is a thrill,”
declares Pask. “When it’s Martin’s, it’s like the
greatest gift in the world of theatre to me.”
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COMPANY 411
By RichardCadena
T
he road to corporate success is littered
with the ghosts of companies who
have spun out in the ditch or otherwise failed to navigate the twists and turns
along the way. Life on the corporate streets
can be rough. But every once in a great
while, a company comes along and defies
the odds of survival. J.R. Clancy, the manufacturer of stage rigging systems based in
Syracuse, N.Y., has not only survived for 125
years but has thrived in the theatrical rigging market.
The company officially began in 1885
when a stagehand named John Clancy
started designing and building stage-related equipment three years prior. Today, they
design and manufacture automated rigging
and controls, manual rigging systems, accessories, fire safety curtains, acoustic shells
and canopies and a plethora of theatrical
rigging hardware. They also design custom
rigging systems for every application from
the conventional to the unconventional.
J.R. Clancy is housed in a 40,000 squarefoot facility where all of their products are
manufactured. Most of it is dedicated to
warehouse space, manufacturing and fabrication, research and development, while
the front offices take care of sales, project management and administration. The
building’s signature smoke stack belies the
purpose of the facility and in fact is used as
a 60-foot high circular fly loft to test new
products. It’s a fitting statement about the
company’s nimble ability to adapt to the
changing times and to find new uses for old
technologies. How has the
company managed to remain vital after 125
years in business?
The Corporate Culture
Spend just five minutes with virtually
any employee of the company and you begin to get a sense of what the corporate
culture is all about. They are quick to recite
their mission statement, “Make Our Partners
Successful,” and to describe what they call
their “extraordinary guarantee.” Ship it on
time, they say and make it complete and
correct.
Chairman Bob Theis explains the philosophy behind the guarantee. “If you’re going
to take a hit, take it early,” he says, meaning
that it’s better to correct any problems than
to allow them to fester in the mind of the
customer. “If we miss a ship date,” said Tom
Young, VP of marketing, “we’ll pay for the
lost time.”
It sounds as if it could add up to considerable expense, but the reality is that they
seldom fail to meet their promises. They
are intensely focused on their commitment
to the customer, as evidenced by their ISO
9001:2008 certification.
A few years ago, they invested a huge
amount of time and effort to put into
place procedures and documentation for
a quality management system. They hired
a consultant who is knowledgeable in the
ISO standard to study their manufacturing
process and look for ways to increase their
efficiency. Theis called her a “shop floor psychologist.” The consultant focused on teaching the company to improve upon what he
called the five S’s – sort, straighten, shine,
standardize and sustain. In
the end,
they were better able to handle their larger
orders such as PowerLift systems by making
smaller shipments and having smaller build
lots. The resulting gains in efficiency allow
them to reinforce their commitment to customer satisfaction.
In addition to the physical layout of the
manufacturing process, J.R. Clancy implemented a campaign to raise the awareness
of quality throughout the company. They
documented the procedures for maintaining quality standards and implemented
internal audits, a Corrective Action System
and a series of systems for collecting feedback from both employees and customer
including surveys, comment cards, “Partner
visits” and more.
To close the loop, they hold companywide meetings quarterly to review the
results of their efforts. If they average 9.5
out of 10 on all the returned surveys in a
quarter, then all of the employees receive
a bonus.
Does it make a difference? You bet.
“This place goes nuts when we get a
customer complaint,” says Mike Murphy, J.R.
Clancy’s president.
The incentives help pull employees together to work as a team. When one part of
the equation slips, they all suffer; when they
succeed, they all benefit.
The company philosophy, Young said, is
to “take care of the customers and take care
of the employees.” It seems to work — of
the roughly 50 employees that work for J.R.
Clancy, several have been working there for
more than 20 years.
The Technology
J.R. Clancy began manufacturing theatrical hardware when Thomas
Edison was
just starting to build DC generator systems
and George Westinghouse was just starting
to build AC generator systems. It was still
undecided whose system would dominate,
and the advent of the electronics industry
was still far off. But J.R. Clancy has changed
with the times, and today, much of their
sales come from automation and control of
rigging systems.
The PowerLift motorized winch system,
for example, is built around an aluminum
backbone with steel mounting clips. It has
a series of headblocks with self-lubricating
Nylatron sheaves, a motor, gearbox, and
one of the two brakes integrated in a single
unit and a redundant failsafe electric brake
that monitors the speed of the drum to ensure it never exceeds the command speed
or the maximum allowable speed. The system is built with an emphasis on safety and
quietness, and there are five variable speed
models plus a fixed speed model with a variety of speed ranges and load capacities.
Their top of the line automated rigging
controller is the SceneControl 500. It is a
PLC-based system with a touch screen display, a joystick, load monitors and deadman
push buttons for added safety. The interface
also has a 3-dimensional visualization of the
rigging system and stage area, which aids
in programming and control and makes it
easy to use. There is even an offline editor
for programming when the stage in inaccessible. The system can run an unlimited number of motors and its dual playbacks allow
you to run two independent scenes at once.
When the system is installed and every time
a load on a set is changed, the controller
“learns” the load profile by running it up and
down one time. If there is a mishap, such as
when a batten catches on an obstruction or
lands on a set piece, the controller senses it
through the load monitors and stops
immediately.
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Bob Theis, Chairman
Tom Young, VP of Marketing
The company is intensely focused on
safety, as evidenced by the multiple layers of safety features including password
protection, deadman operation, emergency stop button and more. They also
offer an extended three-year warranty
on their automated rigging systems provided the system is inspected annually.
Dealers who participate in training are
allowed to perform these inspections
as part of their ongoing efforts to insure
the safety of their systems.
Exciting Time
It’s an exciting time to be in the rigging business, Young says. Not surprisingly, the growth rate of automated rigging is brisk. The flyman’s job is rapidly
changing from tossing pig iron to spotting or operating automated rigging
systems. Stagehands are moving from
manual labor positions to more highlyskilled positions when they learn how to
program and run the controller.
From the venue’s point of view, converting to automated rigging speeds
load-ins and load-outs and significantly
increases the safety factor. Even though
an automated rigging system costs
more than a counterweight rigging system, the safety factor can’t be ignored. In
the Netherlands, counterweight rigging
systems have been banned, and others
may follow. J.R. Clancy is poised to meet
the demands of the market.
A few days after touring the factory,
a book arrives in the mail from Bob Theis.
It’s titled On Becoming a Category of One:
How Extraordinary Companies Transcend
Commodity and Defy Comparison, by Joe
Calloway. By reading it, one can clearly
see where Theis gets many of his ideas.
“Extraordinary companies (have) a
clear sense of who they are,” Calloway
writes. “They all define themselves, not
in terms of what they sell, but in terms
of what the point is for their employees, stakeholders and customers. The
drive to serve, accomplish and achieve
is much more powerful than the drive to
simply make more money or to sell more
widgets.”
The company has been through only
four owners in 125 years, including J.R.
Clancy, Ben Tomkins, George Scherrer, Jr.
and Bob Theis. Remarkably, the words of
the original owner and company namesake echo the sentiments of Calloway
in one of the earliest company catalogs
published in 1903.
“Our object is to please every customer
(large or small) every time…Yours very respectfully, J.R. Clancy.”
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PRODUCTION PROFILE
It’s All About the Art
Photos and Text by Morgan Loven
D
provoking. Also, with the budget constraints,
we weren’t able to incorporate them into the
set like I originally wanted. So we opted for a
kabuki system with four backdrops to be triggered in time with pyro hits at various moments
in the set list.”
aughtry, the group fronted by Chris
Daughtry — and also, incidentally, the
group who has embraced my favorite
font, Bleeding Cowboys — is on tour in 2010.
After finishing up some shows in the U.S., the
tour is moving to Europe and then on to unspecified locations to entertain U.S. troops.
Then it’s back to the States for more dates in the
U.S. As Daughtry’s LD, Matt Mills, sa
Layering the Stage
The set includes a series of scaffold towers,
ramps and open stairs that are silver on the underside. They provide for form and function for
the band to run around on and for the lighting
instruments to play. “I wanted to keep the scenic and backline component of the stage open
to expose more of the backdrop art from behind,” Routhier said. “I placed lights throughout
the scaffold to bounce off the silver and shoot
reflecting beams around the stage. This helps
the skeleton set from disappearing when the
Passing the Torch
The show was designed by Sooner Routhier, a freelance lighting and production designer, who designs for Rage Against the Machine,
Motley Crüe and many others. Routhier then
passed the tour off to Mills when her design
dance card filled up. Mills and Routhier have
known each other for many years, and Routhier
had seen Mills’ work for 3 Doors Down. So she
“This tour design was all about the album artwork.” —Sooner Routhier
had no problem handing a lot of the creative
control over to Mills after her initial design was
finished.
Routhier says of her collaboration, “I’ve
been working with Shabba (Jonathan “Shabba”
Linton), the tour manager, for a while now. He
often asks me to submit designs for his clients. I
started designing for the band in 2007 when
Shabba first began working for them. At that
point they were doing mainly clubs and small
theatres, so not much in the way of production. But Shabba always likes to add the extra
production element when he can. So any time
there was a one-off or tour that merited a bit of
lighting, we tried to put something together to
fit their needs; most of the time that meant a
small lighting/scenic package that was easy to
roll on and off stage for a festival or opening act
situation.
“This tour design was all about the album
artwork,” she continued. “Comic book artist
Jim Lee put together some amazing images
that the band wanted to incorporate into their
set. We didn’t want to interfere with the artwork
at all as the images are strong and extremely
CREW
Jonathan “Shabba” Linton: Tour Manager
Sooner Routhier: Lighting Designer
Matt Mills: Lighting Director / Programmer
Gary Curtis: Lighting Crew Chief
Colin Dimock: Master Electrician
backdrop is lit from the front. It also adds a nice
layer of saturated color to the stage.”
Shabba and the band contributed to the
design in their own way. According to Routhier,
they typically have a basic idea of how they
want the show presented to the audience. Her
job is to interpret their needs and deliver the
design.
“I use Vectorworks and Renderworks to render images of the scenic and lighting design. I
try to provide as many angles as possible with
different lighting looks and create a presentation that shows the progression of the show
from beginning of the set list to encore. We often go through many different workings of the
design and cut or add where needed to fit the
budget of the show.”
Fit For Duty
Routhier was unable to be there for production rehearsals and programming. But she had
no problem turning the job over to Mills. “I had
full confidence in Matt’s cuing choices. He’s the
perfect lighting director fit for Daughtry. And
he didn’t disappoint! His timing is impeccable
GEAR
Lighting Consoles: 2 MA Lighting grandMA (full size)
20
Martin MAC 2000 XB Wash fixtures (with PC Lenses)
18
Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures
20
Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
12
Elation Impression LED fixtures
17
34
6
8
28
and I was really happy with the way the lighting
cues turned out. He really tried to use different
color palettes than you would see at most rock
shows. Those color palettes complemented the
backdrop imagery nicely.” Mills was happy to be given the freedom to
add some more of his ideas to the tour as well.
“This rig was pretty straightforward but I was
able to get them to change out the downstage
truss from 20-inch to HUD truss,” he says. This
made load in a lot easier and also helped out
the truck pack. “I made a few minor changes (to
the design). I changed all the floor (Martin) MAC
2000 XB washes to the PC lenses. I liked the
ACL type of look I was able to get out of them,
and when you zoom wide, they produce a nice
even field. After several revisions and budget
cuts Sooner ended up having to put Martin
Stage Bars on the six down pipes because we
had a lot of them available. This was the only
thing that really bothered me about the final
version of the plot. So we talked about it, and
I convinced her to beg our account rep, Martin
Kelley, for some sort of moving fixture that we
didn’t already have in the rig, something that
was just sitting around the shop that hadn’t
been used in a while, some sort of fixture that
was different but wouldn’t break the budget.
When I got there, they handed me six Elation
Impressions. I thought it was a joke! What the
hell was I going to do with this little LED fixture
against MAC 2K XB washes and VL3000s? Well,
I learned the old lesson about judging a book
by its cover. This little LED fixture is
super bright, super fast and makes
some great colors. This was exactly
what I was looking for, and it steals
the show every night. Every show
I have someone asking me about
them or making some sort of comment about them.”
a big 1980s metal fan and went to a lot of concerts in Jacksonville, where I grew up,” he says.
“I always noticed the lighting and was always
intrigued by it. I eventually lied my way into a
gig at a local nightclub and learned all I could
about the (High End Systems) Intellabeam and
Emulator controllers. Other local nightclubs
noticed what I was doing and offered to pay
me to program the lighting in their clubs. During this time I had just finished school for auto
mechanics and I became one. So I was working
as a mechanic Monday through Friday, and on
Friday and Saturday I was having fun working
in nightclubs running the lighting. I ended up
taking a vacation to Disney and noticed they
had a lot of lights there. I decided to send
them a resume and got a call back. I went in for
an interview with Disney and House of Blues
and got the job at House of Blues. I learned a
lot there, lighting different bands each night.
Shortly after that, I got a call back from Disney
and took a full time job there and shifted to
part time at House of Blues. After a few years of
that, I started working for Christie Lites, which
is where the 3 Doors Down gig came from.”
Mills prepped the Daughtry rig at Epic
Production Technologies in Oxnard, Calif.
“This was my first time working with Epic, and
I was very impressed,” says Mills. “They got
a copy of the plot and actually had some of
our main looms already made for us when we
showed up for prep. All we had to do to finish
the looms was to add the breakouts and data
A 1980s Metal Fan
Mills, who is based out of Orlando Fla., has worked as an LD
and/or designer/programmer for
groups like 3 Doors Down, Nelly
Furtado and Enrique Inglesias.
He began his career in lighting 14
years ago in Jacksonville Fla. “I was
Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
Martin Stagebar LED fixtures
Wildfire UV fixtures w/ shutters
8-Lite Blinders
8’ sections of HUD Truss
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jumps. As simple as this sounds, it made for
a very good prep experience. I’m used to
shops just pushing all the gear over in a pile
for you to sort through. It wasn’t like this at
Epic at all. We were able to fly the rig and get
it all rung out before going into rehearsals,”
he says. “The guys would build it during normal shop hours and I would come in at the
end of the day and stay into the night programming. We were there for four days and
then we had three days of rehearsals before
the first show in Topeka, Kan.
For the Daughtry show, Mills began his
programming on the grandMA with a page
for every song. “I do this a lot, because it
gives me plenty of space to add unique hits
and stabs for each song,” he says. “While I do
have a startup disk with all my profiles and
palettes on it, I approach every tour differently and program for the specific needs of
the show. For Daughtry, every night before
the show I’ll have a look at the set list and
make sure all my songs are in the right order.
I have a pretty cool macro I use that jumps
to the next page, selects the next cue stack,
turns everything else off and takes the first
cue of the selected cue stack. I have had
good success with it and other people that I
have programmed for like it a lot. I have a lot
of people ask me what the syntax is so here
it is:
PAGE +; SELECT EXEC 1; DEF_GO; OFF
PAGE 1 THRU — PAGE.
Phoning In the Job
When asked if he had any good stories
from the tour, Mills related a couple of stories. “Well, since I was the new guy out here,
I tried to fly under the radar until everyone
got to know me better. One day the band
came in and saw me on stage and thought
I was texting on my phone, after a few minutes they realized I was actually focusing
the lights using the MA Remote App on
my iPhone. I got some pretty funny, baffled
looks from that one. Then there were a few
“last-night-of-the-tour” pranks. During the
first openers set we lowered their backdrop
truss to reveal Daughtry playing a cover of
the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane.”
And during the second openers set, on their
last song there’s a part where the song stops
and the stage goes dark. We dropped the kabuki and they had to finish the song behind
the drop.”
Mills says the crew works well together,
and he is quick to thank his crew chief, Gary
Curtis and his master electrician, Colin Dimock as well as Routhier, the band and the
rest of the crew, both on the road and at Epic.
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GUEST COMMENTARY
Touring on the
Green
Can a commitment to the environment co-exist with super-sized touring productions?
By ChrisWangro
F
or the first time at the 2010 Winter
NAMM show in Anaheim, a special
roundtable session was held on the
“greening” of music tours and production.
The result was anything but predictable.
Eight diverse and accomplished pros
“Touring on the Green” was co-moderated by legendary production manager Patrick Stansfield and myself — Chris
Wangro, co-founder of GreeNow. Panelists included Mary Conde of Another
Planet, one of the country’s greenest
U2’s tour came up as an excellent example
of exuberant excess: 50 trucks, a 390-ton
stage, and a few songs about saving the
planet.
dove headlong into a two-hour conversation that began with the technicalities
and practicalities of environmentally responsible touring practices. They ended
on a deeper note delving into the value
and worth of our industry “going green.”
festival organizers; Ford Englerth, director of production for Live Nation; Emmy
award-wining production designer David George; eco-consultant Lauren Spellman, founder of Reel Green Media; and
two of America’s most knowledgeable
and experienced transport experts —
Sean O’Rourke of Roadshow Services
and Steve Maples of Rock-it Cargo.
In our field, where textbooks and degrees matter less than experience and
experimentation, it’s not surprising to
find iconoclasts who have learned to do
things their own way. Agreement is not
easily found on every point, which after
all, keeps things interesting.
First Steps
plsn
For example, road masters O’Rourke
and Maples spoke of the great difficulty
and expense of utilizing biofuels in their
trucks and buses and how, in fact, when
it’s looked at “on balance,” the practice
may be a break-even when it comes to
the environment. Furthermore, utilizing bio in their vehicles adds considerable strain on drivers and crew. Why
bother?
Others answered. Perhaps it is an
important first step towards responsible practices. Perhaps because taking
the initiative is proof of concept and
may help turn the tide. Perhaps ecoresponsibility is essential wherever
we can practice it. Ours is an industry whose actions become news and
whose stars become leaders. We are
in a position, like it or not, to lead by
example.
But let’s face it; biofueled buses,
like local-farm catering, just ain’t for
everybody. Further, many of these
things aren’t always possible. Again
and again it became apparent that
there is no one simple set of answers.
We have not yet received the stone
tablets laying down the eco-solutions
that can be applied across the board.
However, there is much that can be
Chris Wangro, co-moderator
ing a semi’s worth of ¾-inch ply down
for roadbed, only to watch it turn into
toothpicks in a matter of hours because
I couldn’t get my hands on any more
“Rhino-Mat.” That’s the reality of the business. The challenge is what each person
in the production food-chain can do to
Patrick Stansfield, co-moderator
make a difference, each according to
their needs, and each according to their
ability, creativity and budget.
Perhaps eco-responsibility is essential
wherever we can practice it.
done on many fronts, which makes it
okay to pick our battles.
For example, Conde spoke of
how she and her festival team utilize environmentally-smart construction materials for sets and stages and
then reuse much of it in subsequent
years — admirable indeed. Yet for
those without storage facilities and
repeated demand, this is simply not
practical. Some folks can substitute a
product like “Eco Sheet,” a recyclable
product made from a mix of recycled
polymers and other recycled material
including waste electrical and electronic equipment, for standard ply
when building sets, but can’t get their
hauler to compost. (Hey Mary, not everyone works in Berkeley.)
When I was prepping for the a
Papal rally, I was stuck with throw-
Looking Sideways
plsn
Speaking of budget, David George
stressed that his ability to create designs
that incorporate greener materials was
often driven by price. There is no doubt
Mary Conde, panelist
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that FSC (Forest Stewartship Council, a
non-profit organization for the responsible management of the world’s forests —
ed.) lumber and other eco-friendly materials can certainly drive up budgets.
So what is the answer? Sometimes the
answer is to look sideways. George
mentioned that he generally stuck with
traditional construction materials but
was working towards lighting design
that stresses increased use of LEDs as
a way of reducing the overall carbon
footprint. Smart. Englerth mentioned
that even though some of his trucks
were standard diesel, he wanted to
start re-thinking the overall routing of
tours to shorten runs between dates,
which could possibly do more to reduce emissions than any other change
of practice, which is a major step. Of
course, reducing the scale of over-all
production would be another thing to
consider.
It All Happens Backstage
A case where practicality trumped the green ideal: using plywood instead of “Rhino Mat” for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit.
ample of exuberant excess: 50 trucks, a 390ton stage, and a few songs about saving the
planet. Production virtuoso Ford Englerth
has much experience in that arena. Skipping questions about possible hypocrisy
Well, yes, and yes, and maybe no. There
was general consensus that for real change
to occur, artists will need take the lead and
demand environmentally friendly practices.
Tour buses are filled with bio when artists
The challenge is what each person in the production food-chain can
do to make a difference, each according to their needs, and each
according to their ability, creativity and budget.
Reducing the scale of production?
Are you mad!?! Wouldn’t our call for
scaling back be akin to McDonalds suggesting ordering less fries as a way of
curbing teenage obesity?
U2’s tour came up as an excellent ex-
versus a means to an end, the real question
is: Are gigs that big really necessary? Would
cutting down curb artistic vision? And if so,
is that okay? What can we do to bring projects like this down to a less environmentally-detrimental scale?
call for it, lighting designers switch to LEDheavy plots when artists go for it. All the effort and expertise of folks like those on the
panel can’t really do much to reduce the
eco damage of a U2-sized tour until the artists have to reduce.
plsn
Artists pull up to Mary Conde’s festival
sites without demanding that her crew
recycle signage or that she buy from local farmers. They might appreciate it, but
fact is, most of them probably don’t even
pay attention. These practices come from
those working backstage. Designers may
not be asked by their clients to design
with cradle-to-cradle in mind, but more
and more creative solutions are being
found. And as they do, they become common practice.
As the real gear-heads reading this
know, product manufacturers too are increasingly improving eco-smart choices
for everything from road cases to speaker
cabinets, and it’s the experts behind the
curtain making the decisions what to
throw on the truck. You catch the drift;
whereas artists can be the lynchpin to
positive action, it’s also the job of producers, presenters and everyone backstage.
Increasingly, it is also being decided
by those adoring fans out front, our ticketbuying public, the punters. Bono and the
lads in U2 drew nasty protests and critical
press from the day their tour launched.
The Web was ablaze with blogs criticizing their choices, and I know from personal experience that folks at the United
Nations were concerned about backlash
from their associations with the band.
No doubt there will be second thoughts
throughout the industry before a tour of
this size is mounted again.
2010 APRIL PLSN 23
22-23.100.1004.indd 23
4/6/10 1:10 PM
Steve Jennings
FEATURE
Big tours like U2’s 360° still require a
full range of lighting technologies,
not just LED fixtures.
By DaraGuiney
O
ver the last decade, stage lighting
has taken some extreme curves
and turns. What started as a weak
source of light in questionable fixtures
has emerged as a most viable source of
light with new fixtures emerging at a rapid pace. LED lighting has become quite
the buzzword with touring productions,
bands and management, and is strongly
associated with green lighting or environmentally friendly lighting.
Recently we asked a select few from
our industry to give us their opinions on
the current state of green lighting for the
touring sector, including Ethan Weber, an
industry veteran and lighting director for
U2’s 360 tour, Steven Douglas, lighting
designer/director for the Killers, and Chris
Ewington, manufacturer and designer of iPix LED fixtures.
The Spice of Light
To fully understand the concert tour
lighting needs, trends and progressions
we need to go back and take a look at the
industry before automated lighting. Weber explains: “Before moving lights were
accessible and affordable, we would vary
our fixture types to give the light show
more character — PARs, lekos, fresnels,
omnis, etc.; it adds variety. LEDs work better as up lights than old sources, mainly
because of their low profile and unlimited
colors. I use LEDs as truss toners as well. I
like PARs with color changers better, but I
use the LEDs because they’re easier to deal
with, cheaper and have more colors.”
Ewington adds, “LED lighting has introduced another layer of effects potential.
First generic technology came along, and
then moving technology, which was supposed to replace generic fixtures, then
The Pros and Cons of Alternative Light Sources
“We all want to be more responsible in our
power draws, but it can be hard to find an LED
light that’s bright enough, cheap enough and
dims decently.” —Ethan Weber
video, now LED fixtures with pixel mapping. Increasing intensities are now leading to LED moving fixtures. You can see
where the industry is heading. It’s not
rocket science. We know LED technology
will sit alongside older technologies for a
while, purely down to the additional effects choice LED technology brings to the
lighting designer.”
The quest for better, brighter and budget fixtures is an ongoing theme. “We all
want to be more responsible in our power
draws, but it can be hard to find an LED
light that’s bright enough, cheap enough
and dims decently,” said Weber. In recent
times the LED has improved greatly but we
still have a way to go.
The LED Challenge
The challenges of implementing green
lighting into our conventional and automated rigs are many, as Douglas points
out. “Green lighting is definitely becoming
more and more prevalent these days, with
companies and bands in particular coming under pressure to acknowledge and do
something about their carbon footprint,”
he said. “But in my mind, the reason for using LED lighting has to do with servicing
the show first and foremost, and not become a trend that people follow. They are
an addition to the world of lighting, but I
don’t think they will ever completely kill
off traditional fixtures.”
Ewington adds, “Not many design-
ers have (embraced) the energy saving
aspects of using LED technology. Our industry is used to being power hungry, and
many designs using LED technology still
consume vast chunks of power. Gradually,
as LED intensities increase, we will see a
push away from older technology towards
LED technology, so the goal is firstly mimicking what everyone is used to with moving heads.”
Smooth Operators
Dimming curves are also an important
factor. LED lighting has garnered a reputation for choppy dimming. For that reason,
it is often used for eye candy instead of key
or fill light. Ewington points out that there’s
more to LED dimming than meets the eye.
“It’s not just the LED; it’s the driver technology behind the LED that counts in terms of
smoothness of response, long fade times,
slow transitions, etc. Sixteen-bit control has
crept in over the last few years, allowing for
a more precise control of LEDs, especially at
low intensities.”
The need for smoother dimming of LEDs
is certainly important if the source is to continue to replace conventional fixtures. Weber echoes the sentiment. “Have shied away
from using LEDs because of the dimming
curve,” he said. “I usually use them either as
effect lights, truss toners or band up lights.
Nothing is much worse than trying to do a
nice slow fade in or out and watch the things
pop on and off at 20 percent.”
Most designers would probably agree
with Weber, however, in recent times the
dimming curves in some LED fixtures have
improved dramatically. Fixtures like Martin’s Stagebar 54 and i-Pix BB7, among others, have a certain dimmer quality that was
previously unobtainable.
Whiter Whites
For years, designers have battled low
CRI in white LEDs and greenish ambers that
are lackluster at best and unacceptable at
worst. That, too, is changing.
“The addition of white and amber LED
into the RGB format has definitely had a
massive impact on the use of LED fixtures,”
Ewington said. “It’s now possible to achieve
true whites and ambers whereas before
LED fixtures were always blotchy and
slightly unfinished looking color wise. Also,
a big advent has been non-conventional
LED sources such as the i-Pix BB series and
the VL-X whereby the fixture doesn’t look
like an LED source with that pixilated look
we all know.”
Weber agrees. “I’m much more likely to
use lights that have white and amber LEDs,”
he said. “Not being able to get a true white
or decent CTO is almost as annoying as not
being able to dim the lights.”
Ewington first built an LED fixture with
amber LEDs in 2004. “I’m not convinced of
the 25 percent additional cost versus benefits. Whites and ambers increase the potential color choice, but I feel they only compensate for missing colors from the type of
RGB LED chosen. We invested in getting our
LED light engine right. I have an ongoing
argument with a lighting designer friend
about the use of amber and white. We both
agree that lighting desks have evolved
around three encoders for secondary and
24 PLSN APRIL 2010
24-25.100.1004.indd 24
4/6/10 1:04 PM
German rock band Silbermond used 24 i-Pix BB7 LED wash units as the main
over-stage lighting on a recent tour.
Steven Douglas used Chroma-Q Color Web 125 LED panels for a curved video effect
backdrop for The Killers’ Day & Age tour.
primary color mixing. TV and still cameras
have RGB sensors, not RGBW or RGBA sensors. Our eyes are RGB sensors, so the same
rules apply. Yes, the additional color is useful, but if you get the RGB mix right, there is
no need to compensate.”
Arc Lamps vs. Solid-State
Is the need to change upon us? Maybe
not. Arc lamps are already quite efficient,
and our power consumption has dropped
dramatically since the days of the power
metal PAR can rigs of the 1980s. What is
the advantage of leaving the arc lamps in
the shop in favor of LEDs?
“Arc fixtures have gotten more efficient over the years, and many manufacturers have cut the power draw in half
when the dimmer blade is closed,” Weber
said. “We tend to turn moving lights on in
the morning and leave them on through to
the end of the show. LEDs are on for testing, programming and the show, and are
used much less over the course of the day.”
“Plasma lamps will probably creep into
this world,” Ewington adds. “However, it’s
a waste of energy, quite a considerable
waste to have a lamp on full, and then use
motors and filters to filter the white light
to the color you want. Their mechanical
nature makes for a hard time touring such
devices, with possibly ten percent of fixtures in ‘sick bay’ at a time. LED technology
is solid-state and does not suffer the same
problems of mechanical color-changing
devices.”
Lighting for the Long Haul
Cost and inventory are big factors in
the concert and touring industry. Rental
houses need to be able to shift the product for long-term gains. A product needs
to be reliable so that people will be willing
to invest in tomorrow’s technology. Ewington sums up the demand at present: “All of
our hire company customers are more than
happy developing their LED inventory for
the benefits of low power, longevity, and a
fixture that lasts years rather than having a
limited useful life. Companies are holding
onto kit now that they bought in 2002. If a
payback is, say, 35 weeks, you can imagine
the cash flow benefits of low maintenance
lights, plus no consumable costs such as
lamps or filters.”
Greener touring is definitely viable,
and it is an attractive option for the touring industry. As technology progresses, we
will produce bigger shows with more light
and lower power consumption.
Dara Guiney (daraguiney.com) is a freelance
lighting designer.
2010 APRIL PLSN 25
24-25.100.1004.indd 25
4/6/10 1:04 PM
ROAD TEST
Lex Products Slim Dimmer
W
hen the package arrived in the
mail, I thought it was a mistake. Surely an entire dimmer
couldn’t fit in the small box that was delivered.
When I picked up the box, my suspicions were confirmed; the box was way
too light to have much of anything in it
and certainly not a dimmer.
Or were they? The label did say it was
from Lex Products, and the dimmer that
was supposed to arrive is called the Slim
Dimmer. What gives?
Slim Package, Phat Dimmer
RT
It turns out that there was an entire
dimmer in the package. The single-channel Slim Dimmer from Lex Products is
so small and lightweight that you might
have to convince yourself that there’s
anything in the package.
At 5.94 inches long, 4.13 inches wide
and 2.38 inches high, weighing in at 1.6
ounces, it is possibly the smallest profes-
By RichardCadena
0.3 to 1.8 seconds at 600 percent of rated
current. The button is normally flush with
the housing and it pops out when it trips.
To reset it you simply push the button.
On the other side of the housing,
there is a small, two-digit LED display and
a manual fader. It indicates the current
dimming level from 0 to 100. Two metal
tabs, one at the top and one at the bottom of the dimmer offer some protection
for the fader knob in the event that it is
bumped or dropped. There is no DMX input and therefore no DMX control, only
manual operation. An LED display indicates the current level of dimming when
it’s powered up. It’s a very simple device
with no On/Off switch, no external control and no choke.
No Choke?
RT
That’s right; the unit has no filtering or
choke of any kind. That’s part of the reason
that it is so lightweight. Most dimmers have
a choke coil to limit the rise time of the cur-
That’s right; the unit has no filtering or
choke of any kind.
sional dimmer on the market. But size
(and weight) can be deceiving. The little
package can dim up to 1800 watts of incandescent lights.
The housing is extruded aluminum,
and it has no cables attached to it at
all. Instead, it has a recessed NEMA 5-15
(commonly called an Edison plug) input
and a flush-mount output, which makes
it even easier to simply toss into your
toolbox or luggage and carry it with you.
There is also a ¼-inch-20 threaded
insert in the bottom of the housing to attach it to a c-clamp or grip stand.
Next to the output connector is a
small round button connected to a builtin 15-amp thermal circuit breaker for
circuit protection. It is a UL 1077 supplementary protection device that will carry
100 percent of the rated 15A current at
an ambient temperature of 25°C. It is
designed to trip within one hour at 135
percent of the rated current and within
Front and back views of the Slim Dimmer
Lex Products
Slim Dimmer
rent waveform and to prevent filament
sing. A choke adds to the cost and weight
of the dimmer, but the trade-off is that a
bigger choke is more effective at filtering
out noise, making for a quieter system.
At the heart of this dimmer is a Q4040J7
triac. It is manufactured by Teccor and according to the data sheet it offers the same
performance as two SCRs wired in inverse
parallel fashion (back-to-back) and better
performance than a standard triac.
Performance
RT
I tested the Slim Dimmer with a 575watt Source Four ellipsoidal and a 500watt PAR can. The Source Four exhibited
no lamp sing whatsoever, but the PAR can
did. Using a Fluke 43B power quality meter, I scoped the voltage and current waveform. I looked for current overshoot, but I
could see none. The unit dimmed smoothly and reliably and took up very little space
in the process.
Olympic Lighting and Projection Take Center Ice
What It Is: A small, simple
single-channel
1800W
dimmer for conventional
(incandescent) lamps with
manual operation.
Who It’s For: Anyone who
needs a portable single
channel of dimming including photographers, grips,
theatre techs and more.
Pros: Small, lightweight,
very portable, inexpensive,
easy to use.
Cons: No choke can produce filament sing in some
fixtures, no DMX or remote
control
How Much: $300
PQM monitoring voltage and current
waveforms on a PAR connected to the
Slim Dimmer.
MSR Mobile Stages Support Vancouver Events
Winter Olympics Ceremonies Light Up with tarm Showlaser
VANCOUVER, BC, Canada—Mobile
Stage Rentals (MSR) stages were used for
concerts and other entertainment during
the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. MSR
provided five stages to support the public
celebration sites in Richmond, Surrey and
Granville Island.
MSR also used two of its Stageline
SL260 stages for the Paralympics Torch
Relay, which took place from March 3 to
MSR provided mobile stages for popular gathering spots,
March 12 between Ottawa and Vancouver.
including this on in Surrey, B.C.
Two SL260 mobile stages had also traveled
across Canada with the Olympics Torch Relay prior to the 2010 Winter Games.
The largest of the 2010 Olympic Winter games celebration, O Zone, took place in
Richmond, B.C. MSR also supported the free public concert and Olympics coverage taking place in Surrey’s Holland Park and VANOC’s Place de la Francophonie on Granville
Island.
The stages hosted performances ranging from Our Lady Peace and the Sam Roberts
Band to a variety of French Canadian artists. An additional stage was also used as a television studio for The Colbert Report on Feb. 17.
VANCOUVER, BC—David Atkins, executive producer for the 2010 Olympic Winter
Games, chose tarm Showlaser to provide the
laser sequences used for the opening, victory and closing ceremonies.
Both Atkins and tarm had prior Olympics
experience. Atkins produced the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and tarm Showlaser
contributed to the spectacle of the ceremonies at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens
and the 2006 Paralympics in Turin.
The three-man tarm team had plenty of The tarm Showlaser displays added to the visuals in
prep time and gear at their disposal. Prepara- Vancouver.
tions began 15 months prior to the events, including a reconnaissance visit to Vancouver
and a test setup in the Bochum, Germany-based company’s own facilities.
A total of four tons of laser equipment was air-freighted to Vancouver for the ceremonies, and the tarm team had three weeks to install and test their gear on site.
“It is a great honor to be selected to put on a laser show at the official Olympics ceremonies for the third time,” said Ralf Lottig, tarm Showlaser’s managing director. “This was surely
this year’s most sought-after laser-show job worldwide.”
26 PLSN APRIL 2010
26.100.1004.indd 26
4/6/10 3:23 PM
BUYERS GUIDE
Moving Yoke LED Fixtures
By RichardCadena
L
American DJ Vizi LED Spot
Studio Due
NanoLED
EDs have been doubling in brightness every 18 to 24 months for the
past 45 years. That trend continues
today, and the pièce de résistance is that
the prices have been steadily falling. But
all of that means very little if LED fixtures
can’t compete with more conventional
stage lighting.
Last January I had the opportunity to
see Daughtry in concert and it was the
first time I saw an LED fixture producing
an aerial beam that looked as bright or
brighter than a high powered discharge
automated light. The co-lighting designer, Matt Mills, had placed a few GLP Im-
pression LED fixtures on stirrups in close
proximity to Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures. Not only did they hold their own
but they were sufficiently bright enough
that I found myself looking back and forth
trying to decide which was brighter. And
that was in white light. In colors I thought
the Impressions looked brighter, though
my eyes have been known to trick me before.
But the Impressions aren’t the only
LED fixtures to capture my imagination
lately. Last LDI we all saw the Strong Solutions LED fixture projecting across the exhibit hall and plastering an impressively
intense beam on the opposite wall. And
then there’s the Philips/Color Kinetics
ColorReach, the PixelRange SkyLine, and
so many, many more.
Unfortunately we don’t have unlimited space, so we chose to focus on moving
yoke LED fixtures in this Buyer’s Guide. It’s
a handy reference for the interested lighting professional to keep up with the fastchanging landscape of the LED luminaire.
And if you’re a lighting professional you
should be interested, so have a look. But
you had better hurry because in another
few months — or is it days? Hours? —
they will be even brighter.
SGM Idea LED 300
Vari-Lite VLX
Chauvet Intimidator
Spot XYZ
Coemar StageLite
Led FX
Elation DesignWash
LED 60
GLP VolksLicht
JBLED A7
Martin MAC 401 Dual
PixelRange Pix 120m
PR XLED 590
Robe REDWash 3-192
2010 APRIL PLSN 27
27-29.100.1004.indd 27
4/6/10 1:18 AM
BUYERS GUIDE
Manufacturer
Web Address
American DJ
americandj.com
Chauvet
chauvetlighting.com
Coemar
coemar.com
Model
Number, wattage, and
type of LEDs
Field Angle (10% of
center beam)
Beam Angle (50% of
center beam)
Colors
RDM Capabilities
Voltage
Vizi LED Spot
One 22W white LED
N/A
18°
8 dichroic colors + white
N/A
100-240V
X-Move LED Plus
One 10W white LED
N/A
14°
8 dichroic colors + white
N/A
115-230V
Vizi Wash LED 108
36 X 3W RGB
N/A
22° (optional 15° lens
kit)
RGB
N/A
100-240V
Cu
Intimidator Spot XYZ
(1) 60W
N/A
17°
7-slot + white
N/A
115V/230V
Q-Spot 150-LED
(1) 20W
N/A
16°
9-slot + white
N/A
autoranging 100-240V
Q-Spot 260-LED
(1) 60W
N/A
15°
8 slot + white
N/A
Legend 4500
54 x 3W
22°
10°
RGBW
N/A
MiN Spot
(1) 14W tri-color
N/A
13°
RGB
N/A
115V/230V
MiN Wash
(1) 14W tri-color
53°
27°
RGB
N/A
115V/230V
StageLite LED FX
96 x 1.2W Luxeon LEDs
(24 R, 24 G, 24 B, 24 W)
Elliptical 40°X12°
lens, min zoom:
57.5°H x 24.5°V;
max zoom: 57.5°H
x 48°V
Elliptical 40°X12° lens,
min zoom: 40.5°H x
11.5°V; max zoom:
40.5°H x 34.5°V
RGBW
Remote digital
display, info exchange, software
upload, data replication w/ Coemar
DR 1+
90-250VAC; 50/60Hz autosensing
DesignWash LED 60
60 x 3W RGBW SSC
22°
9°
RGB + CW
N/A
100-240V
Design Wash LED Pro
108 X 3W RGBW SSC
39.5°
25°
RGB + CW
N/A
100-240V
Design Spot LED
1 X 90W White LEDs
20°
15°
CW
N/A
100-240V
E Spot LED
1 X 45 W White LEDs
18°
14°
CW
N/A
100-240V
Design PAR Tri MH
21 X 3W tri-color SSC
45°
36°
Tri-color RGB
N/A
100-240V
DLED PAR Zoom MH
36 X 3W RGB SSC
12 to 80°
10 to 60°
RGB
N/A
100-240V
Event MH
36 x 1W RGB SSC
48°
39°
RGB
N/A
100-240V
VolksLicht
60 X Luxeon RGB Rebels
N/A
10°
RGB
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
1.5
Impression RGB
90 X Luxeon K2s
N/A
10°, 25° or 40°
RGB
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
3
Impression White
90 X Luxeon K2s
N/A
10°, 25° or 40°
3200K / 7200K white
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
3
Impression Static
90 X Luxeon K2s
N/A
10°, 25° or 40°
RGB or White
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
3
Impression Zoom RZ 120
120 X Luxeon RGB Rebels
N/A
10° to 26° variable
RGB
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
3
Impression Meisterstuck
4 x RGBW Chipset
N/A
9° to 32° variable
RGBW
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
6
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
10
Elation Professional
elationlighting.com
GLP German Light Products
(distributed by Elation)
glp.de
PROJECTION
1A at
at
Impression XL RGBWW
240 x Luxeon K2s
N/A
10°, 25° or 40°
RGB warm white & cold
white
JBLED A7
108 Luxeon LEDs, 220W
13-36°
8-28°
available in RGB and
amber white
N/A
115/230V, 50-60Hz
2.66
1.53
JBLED A4
60 Luxeon LEDS, 220W
13-36°
8-28°
RGB
N/A
90-240V, 50-60Hz
1.83
1.05
MAC 301 Wash
108 Luxeon Rebels
13 - 36°
RGB
coming soon
100-130V
MAC 401 Dual
36 Osram multi-color
lenses
16°- 50°
RGB or HSV
coming soon
100-240V
OmniSistem
omnisistem.com
SL-1048
324 10mm LEDs - 108 red,
108 blue, 108 green
35°
N/A
RGB
N/A
100-240V, 50/60Hz
0.4
PixelRange
pixelrange.com
Pix 120m
120 LEDs, 30 red, green,
blue, and cool white
19°
15°
RGBW
N/A
94-264VAC, 50/60Hz
1.5A
in
PR Lighting
pr-lighting.com
XLED 590
90 Osram Diamond
Dragon 5W LEDs (30 red,
30 blue, 30 green)
N/A
26°, optional 46°
RGB
RDM capable
100/120/200/220
/230/240VAC, 50/60Hz
2.1
Robe Lighting
robe.cz
REDWash 3•192
192 Luxeon Rebel LEDs
(RGBW)
27°, 45°, 57°, or
49°x15°
12°, 25° (standard); 45°,
or 45°x15° (optional)
RGBW
RDM compatible
90-250VAC, 50/60Hz
2A (e
3.3A
a
Genio Mobile
16 RGB 3W LEDs
N/A
28°, 25° or 40° lens
option
RGB
N/A
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
Idea LED 100
60 RGBW 3W LEDs
N/A
28° plus optional
lenses
RGBW
RDM capable
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
Idea LED 300
108 RGBW 3W LEDs
N/A
39.5° plus optional
lenses
RGBW
RDM capable
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
NanoLED
14 RGB 3W LEDs
N/A
23° or narrow lens
option
RGB
N/A
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
D-Color
28 RGBA LEDs
N/A
23° or narrow lens
option
RGBA
N/A
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
VLX Wash
7 replaceable custom
120W RGBW LED chipsets
23-58° variable or
22° fixed
N/A
RGBW
N/A
100-240VAC, 50/60Hz
JB-lighting (distributed
in US by Creative Stage
Lighting)
jb-lighting.de
Martin Professional
martin.com
SGM (distributed in US by
Techni-Lux)
sgm.it; techni-lux.com
Studio Due (distributed
in US by Techni-Lux)
techni-lux.com
Vari-Lite
vari-lite.com
28 PLSN APRIL 2010
27-29.100.1004.indd 28
4/6/10 3:43 PM
M
R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
Current (A)
L”xW”xH”
Weight (lbs)
Retail Price (U$)
Comments
N/A
12”x16.5”x8.5”
20
$1,199.95
6500K, 50,000 hrs., 8 dichoric colors + white; 7 interchangeable rotating gobos; prism wheel w/ 3-facet, 5-face and 3D prisms;
gobo indexing; dimming 0-100%; strobe; gobo scrolling; 12 DMX channels w/ remote DMX addressing; 88W max
N/A
8”x7.5”x12.5”
10
$839.95
30% brighter than original X-Move LED 20W LED; 8 colors + white; 8 gobos + open; separate color & gobo wheels; gobo scroll;
gobo shake effect; strobe; dimming; 49W.
N/A
12.25”x9”x14.5”
20
$1,299.95
50,000 hrs; dimming 0-100%; strobe; 12 DMX channels w/ remote DMX addressing; flicker-free; 540° pan standard, 630° optional;
265° tilt; 120W max
2.1A
11.6”x10.9”x16.9”
18.4lbs
$999.99
V
0.4A
9.5”x9.5”x14.3”
13.5lbs
$649.99
V
1.2A
11.4”x11.6”x19.1”
30lbs
$999.99
V
1.9A
15.4”x12.6”x16.9”
37lbs
$1,699.99
0.6A
6.8”x6.8”x9.8”
8.3lbs
$349.99
0.6A
6.8”x6.8”x9.9”
8.3lbs
$349.99
1A at 230VAC; 2A
at 115VAC
609 mm (24”) L
Width: 211 mm (8.3 in)
Height: 181 mm (7.1 in)
12 kg (26.4
lbs)
3727 €; $5,543
6500K; motorized optical plane w/ effects control and individual adjustment for focus, dim and color mixing for each of the LED
bars and cells; focus symmetrically or asymmetrically on a cyc; can be used as foot wash, up light or effects unit from the same
mounting position; flicker-free; no fans; available in IP65.
1.5
16.5“x12.5“x19“
16.5
$2,499.95
Dimmer 0-100%; 8 macros; strobe; 13 DMX channels and on-board control; auto switching power supply.
3
17.2”x13”x8.6”
to-
$4,399.95
Built-in EWDMX receiver for wireless DMX; 13 DMX channels; built-in color, strobe & dimming macros.
2
16.75”x16.75”x19.75”
48.5
$3,599.95
9 dichroic colors; 14 replaceable gobos (7 rotating, 7 static); 3 facet rotating/indexing prism; motorized iris; motorized focus;
variable frost filter; variable speed shutter/strobe; mechanical dimmer 0-100%; 240W max.
1.2
8”x11.8”x17.2”
25
$1,999.95
14 DMX channels; 8 dichroic colors; 7 rotating/indexing replaceable gobos; 3-facet, 5-facet & 3D rotating/indexing prisms; motorized focus; variable speed shutter/strobe; mechanical dimmer 0-100%.
1.5
18”x20”x23.6”
46.3
$1,999.95
Flicker-free; tri-color technology; die-cast aluminum housing; built-in color macros.
2
13”x13.3”x20”
42
$1,999.95
10-60° motorized zoom; flicker-free; die-cast aluminum housing.
1
11.5”x11.25”x13.75”
19
$999.95
Battery-powered w/ wireless DMX; includes portable rechargeable battery pack; RDMX (Remote DMX Addressing).
1.5 @ 120V
11.2” x 10.6” x 14”
17.6
$2,499.95
Variable speed strobe; pulse effects; 0-100% dimming; avail. w/ white LEDs or RGB; available cased.
3 @ 120V
5.7” x 13.4” x 14.6”
16.5
$6,999.95
Mountable on 14” centers; no base; color calibration feature; 660° pan in 2 sec; 300° tilt in 1 sec; 60 lumens per watt; 100,000 hour
rated LEDs; various housing colors available as standard; floor stand included.
3 @ 120V
5.7” x 13.4” x 14.6”
16.5
$6,999.95
Mountable on 14” centers; no base; color calibration feature; 660° pan in 2 sec; 300° tilt in 1 sec; 60 lumens per watt; 100,000 hour
rated LEDs; various housing colors available as standard; floor stand included.
3 @ 120V
5.7” x 13.4” x 14.6”
16.5
$6,999.95
Fixed position luminaire; avail. w/ white LEDs or RGB; mountable on 14” centers; no base; 60 lumens per watt; 100,000 hour rated
LEDs; floor stand included.
3 @ 120V
5.7” x 13.4” x 14.6”
17.6
$7,999.95
Motorized zoom 10-26°; variable speed and random strobe effects; pulse effects; no base; mountable on 14” centers; 660° pan in 2
sec; 300° tilt in 1 sec.
6 @ 120V
11” x 20” x 25.6”
70.5
$11,999.95
Single Fresnel lens output; motorized zoom; collomated beam output; liquid cooling; no base.
10 @ 120V
7.9” x 21.6” x 20.3”
51.8
$12,499.95
No base; color calibration feature; 60 lumens per watt; 100,000 hour rated LEDs; various housing colors available as standard; floor
stand included.
2.66A @ 120V,
1.53A @ 208V
7.87”x12.6”x14.6”
17.6
$6,175.00
Distributed in U.S. and Mexico by Creative Stage Lighting.
1.83A @ 120V,
1.05A @ 208V
7.87”x12.6”x14.6”
19.4
$5,350.00
Distributed in U.S. and Mexico by Creative Stage Lighting.
2A
7.9”x12.6”x15.3”
19.6 lbs
$6,595
13 - 36° zoom
3A
8.7”x19.9”x20.7”
44 lbs
$8,200
Double-sided design for use as a double washlight or beam reflective mirror; individual LED segment control. MAC 401 CT Zoom,
a color temperature variable, white light source luminaire and module also available.
0.4A @ 230V
18”x15”x19”
24.25 lbs
$1,398.00
450° pan, 240° tilt; 8- or 16-bit movement; dimming; strobe; autoplay w/ internal programs; DMX-512; autoplay w/ sound activation; master/slave.
1.5A @ 240V full
intensity
20.3”Lx17.5”Wx14.25”H
41.8 lbs
$3,994.00
8- or 16-bit control; DMX512 or stand-alone control; black powder coat standard, color available.
2.18A@220V
13.8”x9.6”x13.9” (350x243x353mm)
24.25 lbs
$5,998.00
Linear color temperature correction, 0-100% dimming, 1-25FPS strobe, 540° pan, 270° tilt w/ auto position correction, DMX-512,
master/slave mode, static scene mode, stand-alone mode, adjustable pan/tilt speed.
2A (eco mode);
3.3A (full power)
at 230V
12.9x20.3x23
48.5 lbs
N/A
Replaceable lens-arrays; additional frost film filters available; graphic display & Robe navigation system for control;
Artnet protocol.
z
1.8A
11.8”x9.5”x10.2”
9 lbs
$2,159
IP 65 moving LED; convection cooled; 3W Luxeon LEDs; master/slave; timeclock or DMX control.
z
N/A
11.8”x8.7”x15.28”
13.5 lbs
$2,449
Master/slave operation; optional lenses; synch w/ music; 8 built-in programs; dimming; 1-25FPS strobe; 540° pan standard, 630°
optional; 265° tilt; 16-bit resolution; wireless DMX512 as standard; remote DMX addressing; back-up battery.
z
N/A
11.8”x9”x17.2”
19.8 lbs
$3,849
Master/slave operation; optional lenses; synch w/ music; 8 built-in programs; dimming; 1-25FPS strobe; 540° pan standard, 630°
optional; 265° tilt; 16-bit resolution; wireless DMX512 as standard; remote DMX addressing; back-up battery.
z
.6A
10.8”x9.7”x8.7”
9.5 lbs
$1,369
Low profile, small eyeball mover; 3W Cree LEDs, master/slave or DMX control, 830 lumens.
z
1.1A
21.5”x16.5”x12.9”
21 lbs
$2,609
Unique tubular styling (Worm Light); pan & 2 tilts; 3W & 1W Cree LEDs; internal presets; music sync; master/slave; timeclock or
DMX control; 1540 lumens.
z
Max 10A
17.5”x16.6”x27.4”H
62 lbs
N/A
Approx 14,000 lumens (white light); time-controlled continuous motion by way of a pair of
3-phase stepper motor systems; 540° pan, 270° tilt.
z
2010 APRIL PLSN 29
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4/6/10 1:19 AM
FEATURE
Credit: © Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
lighting and Projection Take Center
Ice at the 2010 Winter Olympics
By Michael S.Eddy
T
he Opening and Closing Ceremonies of
any Olympic Games is a daunting production task, and the ceremonies for the
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. were
no different. David Atkins of Australia-based
David Atkins Enterprises (DAE) served as the
ceremonies’ executive producer and artistic director. He wanted to create a memorable event
that reflected the majesty of Canada, and at the
same time, create a tone that was personal and
emotionally charged. The Opening Ceremonies,
themed “Landscape of a Dream,” transported
the audience across prairies and mountains to
the depths of the ocean, and through Canada’s
varied seasons through projected images that
enveloped the stadium — floor to roof. Even the
audience, asked to don white ponchos, became
a projection surface.
BC Place Stadium was the first-ever indoor
venue for the ceremonies, and the first time
the nightly Victory Ceremonies were held at
the same location as the Opening and Closing
Ceremonies. It would seem that being indoors
would be an ideal situation for such the events,
and while it was nice to not have to be bundled
up while loading-in gear, the stadium did present some production challenges.
There are two important characteristics of
BC Place. First, it is the largest air-supported roof
in North America, so weight and movement are
concerns. Second, the roof is translucent. This
meant, indoors or not, much of the programming of the lighting and projection could only
be dealt with at night. Add to that the fact that
all of the ceremonies would take place in the
one space, and you have rehearsals for multiple
events and programming occurring in a single
space on staggered schedules. BC Place ended
up running 24 hours a day, with programmers,
designers and the technical crew pulling together with the DAE team to realize the ambitious
production design.
Projecting Canada
plsn
The video playback system for the copious amount of projection was not the largest
system engineered by London and Paris-based
E/T/C London Paris, but it was the most complex. Video director for the ceremonies Patrice
Bouqueniaux, E/T/C’s sales and marketing manager, describes the layout. “We worked out a
system of 30 Christie 20K Roadster projectors
for the field of play and 24 Christie 18K Roadster
projectors for all of the aerial objects like the
mountain and the ring screen.”
The 20K projectors for the field of play were
mounted just below the roof in two stacks of
15 projectors mounted in a horizontal position.
The 18K projectors for the aerial objects were
mounted on the balcony rail and arranged in a
vertical position with six stacks of four projectors each. E/T/C/ also had 36 PIGI DDRA 7K Xenon projectors for coverage over the audience.
The production company, Solotech provided
the video equipment and technicians.
To handle the video feeds to all the projectors E/T/C decided to have a feed per projector.
“All of the projectors are arranged like a fan,”
says Bouqueniaux. “Each part of the stage is
reached by a stack of three 20K projectors. We
had to overlap exactly the three projectors on
the same surface with an angle of 21°, which is
quite flat. Normally we would have one video
feed for each stack of projectors but to be able
to have the perfect keystoning here, we had
to put one video feed for each projector. So
instead of 10 video feeds to entirely cover the
field of play we had to have 30 video feeds.”
Moving Images
plsn
Another challenge was presented by the
fact that most of the automated scenic elements
were the projection surfaces. There was a large
projection screen ring hung high above the center of the stadium that lowered and from within
it two smaller concentric projection surface rings
would drop down. There were also tall vertical
“trees” that grew from the floor up to the ‘leaf
canopy’ of the rings. And most impressive was a
rip-stop nylon “mountain” projection surface that
rose floor to ceiling. All these moving and threedimensional surfaces were a challenge that was
solved with tracking technology.
“One of the big challenges was to follow 3D
objects in space; in movement,”explains Bouqueniaux. “For example, when the center ring screen
was moving, the video followed the object. We
have our own tracking system fashioned for 3D
work called OnlyView that tracks the real position
of the three ring screens and mapped video in realtime onto the objects.”
Working in 3D space brings its own challenges, but then you layer on the movement and
there are even more considerations. “We created
a virtual cylinder — that was 30 meters high by
120 meters in diameter. After we had that virtual
cylinder, we could match any object, in any position inside the cylinder,” describes Bouqueniaux.
“All the elements were inside the cylinder. Each
time you lined up on the rings, when the diameter changed the new destination is applied on all
of the video projectors. Each object had to have
its own mapping because if you make an overlap
for the exterior ring, that overlap doesn’t work for
the second ring and its worse on the third ring.
There were more than 300 mapping textures
applied over all the objects. To give you an ex-
ample, the mapping texture that was applied
to the mountain, altogether had 1,736 points of
information to do the right mapping over the
mountain.”
How High is the Roof Now?
plsn
If all of this seems daunting enough, then
the team had to add in the fact that the roof of
BC Place moves—a lot. The movement of the airfilled roof means the level of the roof changes,
which directly affects the mother grid that everything is hung from. “The roof was moving
as much as 1.3 meters during the performance.
This, of course, changed the position of the 3D
object,” says Bouqueniaux. “We tracked the position of the ring and then we applied the general
tracking for the position of the roof. To do so, we
worked in strong collaboration with Stage One,
who managed all of the rigging systems. We
worked with Jim Tinsley, their project manager,
to solve this challenge.”
U.K.-based Stage One used their software
system called QMotion, which allowed them to
monitor the level of the roof. “Every 10 seconds
they sent us the absolute level of the roof. From
that information, we managed to create an offset
of the general tracking.”
Running in Air
plsn
Putting on a show of this scale required a
lot of precise synchronization, with much of the
show running on timecode. There were certain
portions of the show where timecode would not
work due to safety considerations and had to be
run manually. One such sequence was called
“Field of Dreams” where a field is projected on
the floor as a young boy is flying, but at times
looks as if he is running when he touches down
continued on page 40
on the ground. This
30 PLSN APRIL 2010
30-40.100.1004.indd 30
4/6/10 1:34 PM
Inside...
Yas Hotel’s LED-Lit Glass Roof Poses a Control Challenge
32
Rob Thomas Tour
36
Video World
Media-Saturated American Idiot
Moves from Berkeley to Broadway
Color-changing and low-res video-producing LEDs light up the roof’s 5,389 diamond-shaped glass panes.
ABU DHABI, UAE — How do you top the first hotel to be built above a Formula 1 race course? For New
York-based Asymptote Architecture, the answer came
in the form of a glass pane-covered “Grid Shell” roof for
the Yas Hotel, which opened late last year within Abu
Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit, coinciding with the launch
of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Controlling the lighting for the 5,389 pivoting diamond-shaped panes of glass installed along the curving, 217-meter-long roofline might not be as stressful,
in a life-and-death way, as the task of controlling a
speeding race car along the curving track.
But it still posed a challenge, and the solution came
in the form of a custom Rack-Split RDM RJ45 splitter
from Artistic Licence that was designed and implemented by e:cue lighting control.
The roof was designed as an environmentally responsive layer that by day reflects the sky and surroundings and by night is lit by a nearly 5000 RGBW
LED fixtures from Enfis Group Plc and Cooper Lighting,
the Grid Shell is billed as the world’s largest LED project
to date.
ARUP Lighting, New York designed the lighting
for the structure with the
American Eagle Outfitters Adds Flash to Times Square with LED Panels
NEW YORK — Barco LED and LCD products were
used for American Eagle Outfitters (AEO)’s new flagship
store in Times Square. AEO turned to the Barnycz Group,
a Baltimore-based design firm, which worked with Barco on the exterior display involving a 12-faceted assemblage of LED panels, almost 15,000 square feet in size,
that includes a 25-story LED tower.
“In Times Square, what we wanted to create for
American Eagle Outfitters was a ‘canvas’ that brought
their brand and lifestyle to front and center,” said Danny
Barnycz, the Barnycz Group’s founder and president. “We
created a multi-tiered interactive high definition digital
canvas that allows the retailer to dynamically communicate its brands and promote its product offerings.”
When AEO and the Barnycz Group were ready to
implement their vision, they selected Barco. To create
the display, Barco engineers wrapped the building’s exterior façade with 1,469 weather-resistant Barco TF-20
LED panels on 12 distinct geometric surfaces, for a total
pixel count nearing 3.5 million.
The ceiling of the building’s outdoor foyer is comprised of 1,665 Barco OLite 612
American Idiot moved from the Berkeley Repertory Theatre
(above) to Broadway.
NEW YORK—After a premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
in California, the musical American Idiot has moved to Broadway.
The media-saturated production is using 15 Hippotizer HD V3
media servers supplied to the production by SenovvA, Inc. supported by the Green Hippo Special Projects division.
Twelve of the Hippotizer HDs are specially configured, running custom software, each outputting four 1280x720 feeds to
a total of 44 HD Sony monitors which are built into the set. The
remaining three HD Hippotizers utilize Green Hippo’s new UberPan feature to create an ultra-HD scenic projection across the
surface of the set via three sideways-mounted 20k Barco projectors. All the HD Hippotizers, plus one HippoCritter, are networked by Hippotizer’s Zookeeper software running a timeline
triggered by the show’s lighting control console, an ETC EOS.
Directed by Michael Mayer and featuring music by punk trio
Green Day, American Idiot follows the journey of a new generation of young Americans as they struggle to find meaning in a
post 9/11 world, lived through Green Day’s score. Mayer leads
a creative team that includes scenic design by Christine Jones,
video and projection design by Darrel Maloney and lighting design by Kevin Adams.
2010 APRIL PLSN
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31
4/6/10 3:24 PM
NEWS
American Eagle Outfitters Adds Flash to Times Square with LED Panels
continued from page 31
The LED panels from Barco rise 25 stories and cover about 15,000 square feet.
modules, best suited for viewing
at close distances. To complete
the visualization package, immediately inside the store is a bank
of 21 Barco NSL-46 LCD monitors,
arranged in a 7-by-3 array. These
monitors will allow content to be
displayed in its native resolution
without any loss of image quality.
Content for the multiple
LED and LCD displays originates
through dual Apple Macintosh
computers and includes a mix of
photos, video, graphics, animation and text.
Dual Barco DX-700 LED digitizers are used for
processing.
The AEO building’s architecture posed a
challenge for Barco’s on-site installation team.
One corner of the building sits at a 78-degree
angle. The OLite module’s small footprint —
4.4 inches square — made it well-suited to
the AEO project.
Barco’s TF-20 tiles were used for the outdoor displays, which flash content 24/7, even
in bright daylight — and competing with
Times Square’s other bright signage as well.
“It’s our belief that when you stand anywhere in Times Square, or even several blocks
away, your eyes will be drawn irresistibly to
the American Eagle Outfitters display,” said
Barnycz.
“Barco is deeply rooted in the live events
business, and that instills a mind-set for doing things right and on time,” Barnycz added.
“We prefer to partner with Barco because
they share our passion for perfection and our
sense of urgency in making deadlines.”
“To make something like this happen in
Times Square truly motivates our entire team
— from R&D, Sales, and all the way through
Operations and Service,” said Dave Scott,
president of Barco, NA. “The American Eagle
Outfitters Times Square display represents
a new achievement in technical and artistic
outdoor LED displays.”
Yas Hotel’s LED-Lit Glass Roof Poses a Control Challenge
RDM lighting control system created by e:cue
lighting control, Germany.
The installation uses 20,000 channels of
RDM and runs color-changing sequences and
low resolution video content across the roof.
Effects range from the subtle and undulating to the dramatic, such as the checkered
flag design that flashed as Sebastian Vettel,
winner of the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix,
crossed the finish line.
E:cue lighting control, as the main contractor, approached Artistic Licence to create
a specialized piece of equipment to help facilitate their control plans.
“We needed an RJ45 1U DMX/RDM compliant splitter for the Yas Hotel LED control,”
said e:cue lighting control’s Gregor Bauer,
“so we approached Artistic Licence — who
already had a 5pin version — to see if an
RJ45 version could be built specifically for
this project. Simon Hobday, Artistic Licence
managing director, agreed to produce a limited run for our purposes in distributing data
across this prestigious project.”
The new Rack-Split RDM RJ45 has worked
well enough for Artistic Licence to adopt it
into its DMX Splitter portfolio for the benefit
of other clients.
SYDNEY — Benoit Richards has been lighting Rob
Thomas — as a solo singer
or lead singer for Matchbox Twenty — for nearly 10
years, and Thomas’ recent
tour in support of his album
Cradlesong was no different.
Expanding on ideas used for
Thomas’ first solo tour, Benoit
opted to use a video element
that could be controlled by
Benoit Richards controlled the video for Rob Thomas’
his lighting console.
Cradlesong tour with his lighting console.
“I like to be in charge of
the whole visual experience,” he said. “The stretched and on the verge of not being
video element had to fit into his budget as bright enough,” said Richards. A collection
well as his category of venues he was go- of VL500 80-volt tungsten lights — 22 in
ing to play. In North America, we normally the air and 12 on the floor — “fit the color
play theatres or cut-down arenas, so to temperature of the show,” Richards said.
have a show with a full set of LEDs, video “The VL3000 and the eight High End Showcrew and cameras was impractical. That’s Guns stick out more as the only types of
why I came up with the concept of using discharge sources,” he added.
Benoit said that he is really happy ussix High End DL.3 digital lights for projection and a curtain/screen concept that was ing the VL500s and he views them as newgong to be very theatrical and help me re- er VL5s. During the tour he discovered a
veal a big piece of white laundry. The dou- little trick to using them. “If you pre-heat
ble-curtain track allows me to slowly reveal the VL500 at 1 percent, you can really save
the big screen so that by the middle of the a lot of lamps,” he revealed. “Force the conshow, when you see it for the first time, you sole to never go below 1 percent, and your
accept it, rather than have to deal with it lights will live.
“I love the silly zoom on the VL3000
from the beginning.”
The screen is actually curved, recess- it just makes that light completely differing away from the lighting rig and helping ent from one song to another,” he added,
to prevent potential light back spill onto “because you can use it as an overhead
it. The video setup helped dictate which moody, wide-open wash and all of a sudlighting fixtures would be best suited for den you can bring it back into a tight beam.
the rig, which includes 34 VL500 tungsten They’re really cool and the gobos are very
interesting even thought they’re the stock
fixtures and eleven VL3000 fixtures.
“In Australia, we’re playing bigger ven- ones.”
ues than in North America, so the DL.3s are
Photo courtesy of Jands
For Rob Thomas Tour, Benoit Richards
Balances Lighting, Video Looks
32 PLSN APRIL 2010
31-34.100.1004.indd 32
4/6/10 3:24 PM
NEWS
NEWS
Homestead Miami Speedway Equipped with Removable LED Displays
HOMESTEAD, FL
— At Homestead-Miami Speedway, home
to both the NASCAR
and IndyCar Championship finals in 2010,
Panasonic
installed
a double-faced large
screen LED board that
displays live video and
scoring information.
The tower at
Homestead-Miami
Speedway
stands
more than 150 feet
Panasonic’s double-screen LED boards can be removed from the 150-foot towers.
high and was designed to withstand winds of
150 m.p.h. It has also been designed so that
the LED board can be raised and lowered for
use at another facility with a matching scoring tower.
Each face of the scoring tower contains
a pylon measuring 16.2 feet wide by 90.1
feet high, with a cap display that is 20.8 feet
wide and 13.9 feet high. With a pixel pitch of
22mm, the LED modules are designed and
engineered with technology to ensure high
visibility, even on a sunny day.
“Since there are only a few major events
at each of the NASCAR facilities, the plan is to
build identical structures at multiple tracks,”
noted Jim Doyle, president of Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company. “The LED boards
are constructed in a way that will allow them
to be transported between facilities. This efficiency allows them greater usage of the
equipment and will lower their organization’s
costs.”
To accomplish the task, the Panasonic
team, working together with Homestead-Miami Speedway, devised and built a transportation and winching system that enables the
LED boards to be lowered to the ground on
rails, removed, and then loaded onto a truck.
The project also included the application
of a front-end video system. The video display
interfaces with the track timing system to allow fans to follow the live action in addition
to stats of each driver, including point standings, race position, running order, speed, lap
count and so on.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is open
year-round and in 2009 hosted all of North
America’s premier motorsports championships, including the IndyCar Series, the
Grand-Am Rolex Sports Cars Series and NASCAR’s series-crowning Ford Championship
Weekend.
“Our goal always is to improve the racing experience for our fans,” said Matthew
Becherer, president of Homestead-Miami
Speedway. “The size and resolution of these
new LED panels is incredible and results in
sharper images and a more engaging spectator experience, regardless of seat location.
The response from our fans has been overwhelming.”
AHL Hockey Classic Relies
on Impact Video for Outdoor LED Screens
SYRACUSE, NY — Impact Video’s
22-foot-by-30-foot Illuminator truck mounted LED Screens were used at the New York
State Fairgrounds for the first Annual AHL
Winter Classic presented by Mirabito Fuel
Systems.
The Mirabito Classic drew 21,508 hockey
fans to see the hometown Syracuse Crunch
defeat the Binghamton Senators by a score
of 2-1 and served as a showcase for both the
AHL and the Crunch organizations.
Impact Video’s Illuminators feature Daktronics ProStar HD technology, touted for
a combination of brightness, color depth
and pixel uniformity. The Illuminator screens
can be set up in as little as 60 minutes and
are well-suited for outdoor events, even in
winter.
The Crunch also used Impact’s production team and on-board control room
to provide live game coverage, and game
scoreboard complete with score, shots on
goal, game clock and player penalties.
Live feeds were provided to the screens
by Time Warner cable. The game was also
broadcast live throughout North America on
the NHL network in HD.
Impact Video’s truck-mounted 22-foot-by-30-foot LED
screen features Daktronics’ ProStar HD technology.
31-34.100.1004.indd 34
4/6/10 3:24 PM
ArKaos MediaMaster 1.2
ArKaos has released MediaMaster 1.2 media server software for creative projection and LEDs. It makes use of ArKaos’
latest generation of real time video technology and runs on
MAC or PC. It can play up to eight layers of HD video simultaneously without dropping frames running on an octo-core server.
A major addition to this new release is the ability to both mix
the audio track from movies and to control the global audio
volume via DMX. Also new is support of Quartz Composer. This Mac-only technology allows
both the creation of GPU accelerated movies, customized effects and music visualizers.
ArKaos S.A. • +32 2 340 86 86 • arkaos.net
Chief Projector Security Cage
Chief Manufacturing introduces the PG3 extra large projector security enclosure. It fully encloses larger projectors and
the projector mount in a locked steel cage. The PG Series of
cages are available in three sizes (PG1A, PG2A and PG3A) in
both black and white. All enclosures can be installed over preexisting installations without disturbing current projector settings and allows for roll, pitch and yaw adjustments. The PG3
can hold projectors up to 25” wide (63.5 cm) x 25” deep (63.5 cm) x 10.75” high (27.3 cm). A
hinged door offers easy access and the adjustable front opening accommodates different lens
positions.
Chief Manufacturing • 800.582.6480 • www.chiefmfg.com
TV One Quad Color LCD Monitor
TV One’s newest LCD Color Monitor, the LM-404HD is
a high definition, multi-format, quad color LCD monitor
for the broadcast and professional market. It provides four
4.3” diagonal 16x9 displays. The unit features inputs for SDI
(either SD or HD) with an active loop thru, analog RGBHV,
NEW PRODUCTS
YPbPr component video, a composite video and a YC input. NTSC and PAL television standards
are supported and automatically detected. Front panel tally LED’s can be activated external via
the DB9 connector. The on screen display menu controls contrast, brightness, sharpness, color
level (R-G-B) and other parameters. A tiltable rackmount is included.
TV One • 800.721.4044 • tvone.com
Analog Way Quattro Value and Octo Value
Analog Way introduced two
new high resolution digital and
analog, computer and video scaler seamless switchers with mono scalers, the Quattro Value and Octo Value. Quattro Value has
four universal A/V inputs including one DVI and 3 outputs: one analog, 1 DVI for the main and
1 analog for the preview. Octo Value features eight universal inputs including one DVI and
four outputs: two analog, 1 DVI for the main and one analog for the preview. Both offer a true
scaled preview out before being shown to the audience. Picture insertion can be created from
any input, sized and moved.
Analog Way • 212.269.1902 • analogway.com
For-A IVS-200 Video Stabilizer
For-A introduces the IVS-200 Video Stabilizer and Automatic Video Optimizer. The new stabilizer is the latest member of For-A’s family of video stabilizers. The IVS-200 corrects
any video source, from live feeds to VCR tapes and DVDs,
stabilizing shaky video in real time during capture or video
that has already been recorded. While other video stabilizers correct vertical and horizontal shaking, the IVS-200 also
corrects rotation and diagonal shaking. In addition, the Auto
Video Optimizer (AVO) component makes automatic corrections of video to appropriate levels.
It features “plug-and-play” operation, analog composite I/0, correction area masking function,
and time and title display.
For-A • 201.944.1120 • for-a.com
2010 APRIL PLSN 35
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VIDEO WORLD
By PaulBerliner
The lighting and video design for the Alice in Chains tour synchronizes the movement of
cameras, projection-capable moving lights and moving mirror fixtures.
They can run, but as long as they’re wearing tiny infrared transmitters, the band members can’t hide
from the moving mirror light beams, which are controlled by a Wybron AutoPilot system.
N
ow and then, outside of my “bread
and butter” role as the world’s finest tech writer and world’s worst
fly-fisherman, I get the opportunity to
venture outside of the corporate vacuum
— out where the crews work. This wonderful perk has taken me to Rascal Flatts
concerts, The Who concerts, Reba McIntyre concerts and many more — to meet
the crews and write about how the creative LDs and set Designers put their video
tools to work.
So, when the opportunity arose to attend a recent Alice in Chains concert, my
first reaction was naturally — “Thanks, but
no thanks. I don’t know these guys’ music,” I pleaded, “and I’ll be deaf for months
with terminal tinnitus. Besides, why can’t
you send me to a nice symphony or something?”
Too late, my fate was sealed. So off I
went to the gorgeous (and completely remodeled) Fox Theater in Oakland, Calif., for
a single night whistle-stop along the 2010
Alice in Chains tour. My host was Marty
Postma, the tour’s lighting and video di-
rector, and an LD with extensive credits
that include Neil Young’s 2009 tour.
Video in Confined Spaces
vw
Just after sound check, Marty and I
spoke at length about the set design, and
specifically, what it’s like working with a
smaller, more intimate set. He also demonstrated how video content could be
The set itself was unique in many respects. Mike Baldassari, the tour’s production designer, worked closely with the
band to create an environment in which
most of the set pieces doubled as projection surfaces. These included several layers of drapes surrounding the stage and
mesh scrims in front of the amplifiers,
completely hiding them.
Conceptually, the entire show was a gradual
progression from an open stage to a closed-in
set, in which the band ended up surrounded by
video imagery and projection.
used to completely alter a confined space.
Of course, just when I was getting used to
huge arena gigs, along comes this cozy
little theatre show — and instead of hundreds of points of rigging, there were six
— four upstage and two downstage. Instead of 30 truss motors, there were four
— and instead of 22 truckloads of gear,
only two were required.
Using DL.2 and DL.3 fixtures from Barco/High End Systems, all tied into an Axon
media server, Postma was able to combine
each unit’s lighting, projection and camera features — and literally paint the set
with video content tailored to the mood of
each song. Add to that the versatility of
the Cyberlight 2.0, also from High End, and
Postma had an array of high-output mov-
Marty Postma, lighting and video
director for Alice in Chains.
ing-mirror type fixtures that could actually
track the talent — and this definitely got
my attention.
“Mike (Baldassari) talked extensively
with Sean Kinney, the band’s drummer
and resident visual guy,” explained Postma. “The ideas for the set were Sean’s,
but soon after, it was my job to make it all
happen. We had to translate his ideas not
only into something we could afford, but
something that we could move every day.”
Postma explained that, conceptually,
the entire show was a gradual progression
from an open stage to a closed-in set, in
which the band ended up surrounded by
video imagery and projection. “We start
with a wide open stage,” explained Postma, “and you can even see the back wall of
the theater. A few songs into the set, we
drop drapes and project onto them with
the DLs and conventional lighting. As the
set progresses, we drop in more drapes
behind, so that it closes in the stage and
surrounds the band. It’s all done very theatrically, but at the same time, it’s a rock
show, not a Broadway musical. There are
Postma uses a Wholehog 3 console to control the pan and tilt movement of the DL
fixtures, used for both lighting and projection, and other gear in the rig.
36 PLSN APRIL 2010
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4/6/10 1:05 PM
Video is projected onto the drapes that close in on the band members as the show
progresses — and it is also projected onto the performers themselves.
also times that we map video content directly onto the band members instead of
a projection surface, and use the DL as a
digital spotlight.”
8+ GBs of Custom Content
vw
The video content was dark, saturated
and almost medieval in nature — essentially matching the band’s genre. “We’re
up to eight gigs of custom content,” said
Postma, “all created by Matt Hale. His primary job is creating and building video
games, but he’s got major touring credits
with his imagination on the content side.”
Postma was also able to use the DLs’
on-board camera systems for I-Mag. Using a matrix comprised of three D-Tek
camera switching systems, he could route
any of the DL cameras to any of the DL
projectors, along with the set’s hidden ice
cube and lipstick cameras. “The DLs are
used for both projecting and imaging,”
explained Postma, “not necessarily at the
same time, but you can get some pretty
cool effects. I can pan, tilt, and zoom
from the Wholehog 3 (lighting console),
with independent focus and zoom of the
camera, separate from the projector. The
limitation is that where the camera aims,
that’s where the projector points unless I
cross-route with the D-Tek.”
Another hidden benefit of the onboard cameras dealt specifically with
alignment. “When you’re doing these
huge collages of multiple DL images
into one, if you’re not in a good spot to
see your alignments, you can simply look
at the camera output from that DL, and
essentially, you’re looking at a dead-on
shot,” he noted.
Moving Mirrors, Infrared Tracking vw
I have limited experience with moving-mirror fixtures, so I asked Postma to
explain how the Cyberlight tracks the
band members. “First of all, you don’t
have the inertia of a moving head, so the
mirror moves a lot faster, and it’s a completely different quality of movement
that doesn’t look or feel like a traditional
light,” he said.
“We have four Cyberlight 2.0 units
up in the truss, and they’re hooked into
a Wybron AutoPilot system,” explained
Postma. “It all works via infrared tracking. The guys wear a tiny belt pack that
has a little infrared transmitter dot, and
we have the receivers up in the truss. The
belt pack could be placed anywhere, but
since we’re dealing with rock and roll performers, we put it on their guitar straps.
There are also two packs for each musician, so that when they change guitars,
the techs swap the packs to the next guitar,” he said.
“The challenge is the rock ‘n’ roll environment itself,” continued Postma. “Other
fixtures simply don’t move fast enough
to track the performers, but the mirror
speed on the Cyber is critical to being
able to work with these guys. They can
run all over the stage, and the system
keeps up. I mean, the guys were having
fun in rehearsals trying to outrun the
light, and they couldn’t.
“Another interesting benefit of the
Cyberlight is that when you hang it sideways as we have, it fits a lot tighter into
the truss, and doesn’t hang as low as
some of the moving heads,” he said. “This
means that you gain two to three feet of
clean, usable projection surface in the
back, which is valuable real estate for a
show of this nature.”
Postma also had high praise for the
band. “I have to say, working with everybody here, the band is very personable,”
commented Postma. “They go out of their
way to make sure that everybody on the
crew is well taken care of, and they create
a very relaxed atmosphere for everyone.”
Before the show, my plan was to
take a few photos and scoot home after
three or four songs. After meeting Marty,
and watching how the show unfolded, I
stayed around for the entire gig, simply
waiting to see what creative magic he’d
pull for the next song. The heck with tinnitus, this was way too much fun.
Paul Berliner doesn’t have a little infrared
transmitter dot affixed to his person, but
you can track him down at pberliner@plsn.
com.
Alice in Chains Tour
CREW
Production & Lighting Designer: Mike Baldassari
Lighting and Video Director: Martin Postma
Head Lighting Technician: Petey Hulin (Christie Lites)
Custom Video Content: Matt Hale
Lighting Vendor: Christie Lites
Production Manager: Gary Chrosniak
Tour Manager: Chuck Randall
GEAR (Partial List)
Console: Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 3 console with DP-8000 processor
3 High End Systems DL.3 Digital Luminaires with wide lenses
1 High End Systems DL.2 Digital Luminaire
4 Cyberlight 2.0
1 Wybron AutoPilot tracking system
4 High End Systems Showbeam 2.5s
4 High End Systems Studio Command 700s
3
D-Tek video switchers
2010 APRIL PLSN 37
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4/6/10 1:05 PM
FEEDING THE MACHINES
The Travel Bug
I
am fortunate that, as an automated
lighting programmer, my work takes
me all over the world, although I rarely
program in my hometown. Travel has its
ups and downs (pun intended), and you
must learn to make the most of your time
as you travel. As I write this article I am flying at over 30,000 feet across the Atlantic
Ocean. It looks like I will arrive back at my
house about 26 hours later than planned,
but such is often the case with travel.
There are benefits to traveling as a pro-
By BradSchiller
For instance, today, the check-in lines
were extremely long, because all the
flights were canceled the day before. I
went for the Priority Access line (due to
my frequent flier status), which was about
half the length of the normal line. I was in
line for about one hour before I was able
to check in. The airline then presented
me with a card that allowed me to bypass
the equally-long security line. I breezed
past all the other people and went right
to the gate. In addition to airline miles,
The point is that travel can be unpredictable
and you should be prepared for delays and
cancellations.
grammer, but there are also many things
you must consider when you’re traveling
to a gig.
The Good
FTM
Traveling can be fun. Hopefully, your
work affords you some time to get out to
a nice restaurant or a day of sightseeing.
Sometimes just checking out a new culture on the way to the venue can be very
interesting. As for perks, there are many.
First, you should be collecting miles for
every flight. If you do not have memberships on every airline, then you should
sign up right now. Being able to travel
later with your family for no cost, or being
able to upgrade on a long flight, are just
a few of the many benefits of membership. From the miles I have accumulated,
I have been able to travel on my own time
with my family all over the world for free.
Also, frequent flyer status provides many
check-in benefits, including shorter lines,
no baggage fees and better seat selections.
I collect points or miles for hotel stays,
rental cars, airport parking and any other
possible account. I have a stack of membership cards that I carry in my bag so I
am always prepared. I definitely enjoy the
benefits of traveling as much as possible.
The Bad
FTM
Travel can be irritating. On this trip,
my outbound flight was delayed over six
hours. I arrived at my destination at 3
p.m. instead of 8 a.m. I had planned to
go directly to the venue and work all day,
because the corporate event started the
next morning. I had planned to have a
nice day of programming, a casual dinner
and a reasonable bedtime. However, this
was not the case. It was after 5 p.m. when
I finally arrived at the venue, and I quickly
updated positions and created the main
cuelist. Luckily, I had done the bulk of this
show before, so there was not too much
to do. Dinnertime was later than planned,
but I did manage to find an open restaurant and have a nice meal.
Since my return journey has been
delayed a day due to major storms in Europe, I had to find another hotel near the
airport to spend the night. Luckily, I am
have a laptop, cell phone and power cables for each. If suddenly you find yourself sitting in an airport for six hours, you
should plug in and recharge your batter-
When you’re traveling, you should have a laptop, cell phone and power cables.
heading home and not to another gig, so
my family will have to wait another night
before we can be together again. Two
weeks ago, I had a similar delay due to
massive snowstorms in Dallas. I could not
get to Los Angeles in time for a gig. The
production manager had to call in a backup lighting guy. I was able to help over
the phone and then flew out the next day
so that I could assist with the next show
as planned.
The point is that travel can be unpredictable, and you should be prepared for
delays and cancellations. Many productions don’t want extra hotel and travel
expenses, so they are bringing crews
together at the last minute, which can
be risky. If you are delayed, contact the
production manager or lighting designer
immediately and alert them. This way,
the production can make plans to continue without you. Furthermore, you can
often prepare show files at the airport or
on a plane. Then they can be sent ahead
via email so that lighting technicians can
load your show and prepare the rig. Always remember, “The show must go on,”
and in most cases, they cannot wait for
your arrival.
Making the Most of It
FTM
Technology is wonderful, and most
automated lighting programmers are tech
savvy. When you’re traveling, you should
ies. Furthermore, a good power adapter
or airplane kit will allow you to keep the
power going on your flight. Most laptops provide only a few hours of battery
operation, which is often not enough.
For instance, my flight today is ten and a
half hours. My laptop is plugged into the
seat power and my phone is plugged in
the laptop. I plan to write, prep my next
show and watch a movie or two. All this
is possible because I planned ahead and
brought the tools I need. I also have a
good pair of headphones that not only
sound great, but block out the airplane
noise.
Paying For It All
FTM
Of course, traveling costs money. Productions will pay your travel expenses
and hopefully your per diem. You may
also want to ask for airport parking fees
and Internet charges (if used mainly for
the production). Your equipment, such
as laptop, cell phone, adapters and DVDs,
can usually be claimed as a business expense on your taxes.
Many productions will book your
flights for you, which means you do not
need to spend any money up front. This
is very convenient, but sometimes they
put you on airlines or routes that are not
preferred. I regularly ask the production
manager if I can book my own travel and
submit the expense on my invoice. Usually they okay it and give me a budget. In most cases, it works well, and
I only have to float the ticket cost
for a few weeks. However, I recently
had a tour cancel, and it took almost
two months to get reimbursed for
my canceled tickets. Luckily, I had
enough money to cover it, but it certainly opened my eyes to the potential problems.
It’s a Small World
FTM
The modern age makes it easy
to travel the planet with relative
ease and speed, opening the door
to many opportunities for programmers. While some find travel
frustrating, I enjoy the total lack of
control I have over most of what
happens. I generally find traveling
for work enjoyable and easy, as well
as fun and rewarding. Thanks to being prepared, frequent flier status
and having the right tools, I don’t
mind traveling. If you are reading
this article on a plane, look around,
and you may just see me typing the
next one during your flight!
He may be a moving target, but Brad
Schiller can always be reached at
[email protected].
38 PLSN APRIL 2010
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4/6/10 3:25 PM
By DanDaley
Vegas, Baby!
THE BIZ
The Ultimate Barometer of the Corporate Event Market
A
s goes Maine, so goes the nation,” according to the adage that putatively
predicts American presidential elections.
Replace “Maine” with “Las Vegas” and you’d get
a pretty good predictor of the health of the corporate event market in the U.S.
Corporate events are the stars of the city’s
meeting infrastructure, and the more elaborate
they want to be, the more they are drawn to
Vegas’ over-the-top 24/7 entertainment circus.
Mercedes-Benz used to think nothing of dropping $1 million to bring its dealers to town to
hear Sting do a private performance.
and make them memorable — have been feeling the effects, nowhere more intensely than in
Las Vegas.
Downsizing and Cancellations
biz
Michael Cannon, CEO of lighting systems
provider 4Wall Systems, says his Las Vegas rental office began to feel the slowdown in event
work by November 2008, and by Q2 of 2009 it
hit a bottom that it hasn’t pulled up from much
yet. “There was a lot of downsizing and cancellations last year,” he recalls. “The conventions
had their budgets cut, too, but the work was still
“The value that is available in the destination
right now has made it a great time to host a
meeting in Las Vegas, and companies [are]
loosening the purse strings and taking advantage of that value.” —Jeremy Handel, Public
Relations Manager, Las Vegas Convention and
Visitors Authority
That changed late in 2008 when the credit
markets dried up, sending corporate America
into a tailspin for profits and spending. A few illconsidered wing-dings by financial companies
in 2009 — AIG’s $443,000 gala at a five-star hotel just days after the Federal Reserve gave it an
$85 billion bailout comes immediately to mind
— brought even more scrutiny onto corporate
events, which had quickly become extravagant
wastes of scarce resources in the public’s eye, or
more precisely, in the perception of shareholders, who were compelling companies to cut way
back on their event and meeting expenditures.
That kind of dog wags a long tail, and the
companies that provide the technical support
for those events — the lighting, projection,
staging, pyro and sound that set them apart
there, though scaled back. But the corporate
parties were what took a nosedive. Mercedes
flying dealers in from all over, renting $50,000
worth of moving lights — that’s gone now.”
Ironically, this extended pullback in corporate event spending comes at a time when
Las Vegas has more event space than ever. The
massive City Center project came online earlier
this year, and with it came the Aria Hotel & Casino, where a 300,000-square-foot convention
and event space also produced a juicy job for
systems providers, including 4Wall. They put 86
dimmer racks, 10 relay cabinets, 59 ETC Unison
Paradigm architectural processors, 176 DMX
nodes and 5,264 dimmer circuits online there.
It was 4Wall’s largest dimming installation to
date, including 288 custom-built utility wall
boxes, and the second largest single building
install ever for ETC, the dimming and control
manufacturer.
But like Las Vegas’ overbuilt residential real
estate market, the city’s huge event capacity
will also take time to be absorbed by a truncated corporate market, which saw the number
of conventions and meetings held there down
13.6 percent last year, with attendance at those
events down nearly 24 percent, according to
the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority
(LVCVA).
Available Value
biz
However, the LVLCA tells PLSN that while
the window for event bookings has shortened
in the last two years, making forecasting more
difficult, companies this year are starting to
book firm dates again. “Corporate events are
not booking as far out as they used to,” says
the LVCVA’s Jeremy Handel. However, he adds.
“Last year there was a good deal of interest, but
not many actual bookings; now, companies are
actually booking space rather than just shopping. The value that is available in the destination right now has made it a great time to host a
meeting in Las Vegas, and companies [are] loosening the purse strings and taking advantage of
that value.”
Mario Educate, president of OnStage Audio (OSA), says he’s been seeing some of that.
“There are more quote and RFPs (request for
pricing) going out, but there are also more clients actually going forward with their shows so
far this year,” he says.
Pricing Pressures
ited basis before, he’s using Las Vegas’ tentative
comeback to market it more widely, as well as
a way to counter the effects of one of the turndown’s worst aspects. “I’m not sure what was
worse: the drop in business or the need to drop
prices during the last year or so,” he explains.
“While some of the [event] work is starting to
come back, [clients] are looking for the same
prices as last year. It’s hard to raise them at this
point because everyone had dropped their
prices.”
Scott Harmala, CTO and VP of engineering
at ATK Audiotek and sister production company Versacom, which have been feeling the
pain, too, wonders if a prolonged slump won’t
engender more consolidation in the corporate
event market. “Even if you’ve got about the
same amount of work as before, which we do,
it’s still not at the same price levels, and the
overhead has not gotten any lower,” he says. “If
pricing doesn’t recover at some point, I wouldn’t
be surprised to see some of the larger companies picking up some of the smaller ones that
got squeezed out as a result.” The real danger, at
least in the short run, is that that dynamic tends
to result in institutionalized price reductions.
Corporate effusiveness, like the stock market, tends to be a leading indicator, and stocks
are up over last year. Many companies aren’t
pulling out all the stops for their events because
of costs, but others are simply keeping it muted
for the sake of appearances. So, while the Las
Vegas corporate show market may look pretty
beat up, there’s a car company and a classic
rock act having a lunch meeting somewhere.
biz
OSA added video and projection to their
range of services two years ago, just before
the bottom fell out of the market. Educate says
while that had been implemented on a lim-
PLSN hasn’t flown Dan Daley into Vegas to hear
Sting, but Dan and the staff have been over at
publisher Terry Lowe’s Vegas digs for margaritas
and karaoke. Reach Dan at [email protected].
Get Your
FREE
Subscription
to PLSN
Go To:
plsn.com/
subscribe
FREE
2010 APRIL PLSN 39
39.100.1004.indd 39
4/6/10 1:14 AM
FEATURE
was just one of the many beautiful images used
throughout the Olympic ceremonies. The content creation was handled by the Spinifex Group,
based in Darlington, Australia.
What Not to Light
plsn
Lighting designer Bob Dickinson and his
team from Full Flood are veterans of past Olympics yet this was the first time he worked with Atkins and DAE. “David is extremely detail oriented,”
ing programmers for the opening and closing
ceremonies using PRG V676 lighting consoles. It
was also the first time either had worked on the
V676. Both liked the consoles, with Frank noting
that “having two different styles of effects engines was nice. It is great to have two different
ways to attack an effects problem.” For the nightly victory ceremonies Jason Rudolph handled
the media programming also on a V676 console
in conjunction with two PRG Mbox Extreme v3
light levels,” Dickinson explains. “Ted had to work
extensively at night doing meter readings and
with the spot operators to constantly control
the intensity as performers moved in the light.
The human eye is very tolerant; however, when
a performer is on television that intensity tolerance is really, really narrow, not much light at all
can cause problems for the camera.
“We lit this production at the lowest light
levels I have ever lit a major production,” Dickin-
to customize to their individual working styles.
Hume handled the spot fixtures and Frank took
control of the wash and scenic lighting. Dickinson used a mix of both spot and wash lights
throughout the rig in the stadium to light the
athletes as they enter as well as the audience,
the building and the roof of the stadium. There
were over 1,300 automated lights used in the
lighting rig and 300+ conventionals. When projections were in use Hume had control of over
PHOTO CREDIT-VANOC
BC Place has a translucent, air-supported roof.
says Dickinson. “There was literally nothing that
he was not familiar with and did not collaborate
on in the entire production. Working with him
was a great experience.” Though Dickinson enjoyed the collaboration the amount of projection
presented an interesting challenge.
“It’s an unusual project for a lighting designer,” notes Dickinson. “Because of the nature
of the large-scale projection it was more about
not lighting than lighting. Finding a way to not
light the projection surface and balancing such
low light levels was extremely tricky.”
Assisting Dickinson with this challenging
design were lighting directors Ted Wells and Travis Hagenbuch, both of Full Flood. Wells handled
followspots and Hagenbuch handled all of the
cues during the show. Dickinson’s team worked
closely with DAE technical director Ian Baldwin
and PRG project manager Tony Ward on many
of the technical challenges. Production Resource
Group (PRG) supplied the entire lighting package, the lead technicians, and 70 local crewmembers. They provided supervision as well.
Rob Hume and Laura Frank were the light-
The PRG Series 400 Power and Data Distribution system,
which underwent testing in the PRG LA depot.
media servers. The Mboxes controlled a wall of
over 360 Element Lab Versa Tubes. Paul Sharwell
programmed the lighting on an MA Lighting
grandMA console.
Since the Opening ceremonies had projection on both horizontal and vertical surfaces
with performers flying and moving throughout
the field, Dickinson decided to use a technique
he had previously employed to help control the
light and avoid blowing out the imagery.
“Our approach was to take and put a large
quantity of instruments below field level in tech
pits. The lens of the instrument was at the level of
the field. By using a lot of framing instruments —
VL1000 and VL3500 Spots in the pits — we were
able to get the lights to actually hit performers in
the middle of the field of play without polluting
the projection.”
Wells had 12 Lycian M2 2.5kW followspots
in the tech pits and in the upper portions of the
stadium were 16 followspots including Strong
Gladiator IIs and IIIs, 10 of which were retrofitted
by PRG to handle 4kW lamps.
“The cueing was tricky because of the low
The projection grid on the field of play at BC Place.
Mapping the video projectors was critical.
son adds. “We started at 275 Lux (26 footcandles
(FC)), but because of considerations with the projections, by the time we went on the air we were
under 200 Lux (19 FC).” By contrast, lighting some
of the built scenic elements including the ‘carved
out of ice’ platform for the Olympic officials, the
crystal totems and the multi-legged cauldron
for the Olympic flame required a tremendous
amount of light. Each of the four automated legs
of the cauldron had a VL5 Arc as well as an Arri
200W HMI Pocket PAR. There were also four PRG
Bad Boy luminaires under the center of the floor
to tightly uplight the crystal cauldron. The crystal
stage for the Olympic officials had over 200 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlasts inside.
“Those pieces had probably 800 to 1,000 lux
(74-93 FC) pouring onto them,” says Dickinson.
“Because so much of the light passed through
them; they did not capture a lot of light, which of
course gave them that crystalline quality.”
Split Focus
plsn
The lighting was split between Hume and
Frank’s V676 consoles, which they were able
More pre-Olympics testing at PRG LA, with 1,630
Cam-Lok connections and 2,316 S400 connections.
400 automated lights including Vari-Lite VL3500
Spots, VL1000s, VL2416s, Martin Professional
MAC 2000 Performances, and PRG Bad Boy luminaires. Many of the automated lights were in the
tech pits or on the balcony rail positions to allow
for tight control of the lighting. Frank controlled
approximately 1,200 fixtures including VL3500
Wash, A&O Technology Falcon 6kW searchlights,
Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures and Philips Color
Kinetics ColorBlasts. Most of these lights came
from the outer extremes of the stadium and
were much wider angles.
Hume, Ward and PRG chief technician Jason
Trowbridge worked out how the consoles would
be split and how the two systems would work
on the PRG Series 400 Power and Data system
network. The Vancouver Games was the largestto-date Series 400 Power and Data Distribution
System layout. The S400 distribution system in
Vancouver used 27 S400 racks. One S400 rolling
rack supports up to 72 lighting units. There were
1,630 individual Cam-Lok connections and 2,316
individual S400 connections. The use of the S400
system was key in keeping excess weight off the
trusses because of the decreased cable required
and the decreased number of connections,
which also cut down the time for installation.
Also by using the Series 400 system Ward could
easily give the victories ceremonies crew control
of part of the main lighting system. Though they
had a separate rig, they used 25 percent of the
main rig.
Weighing the Options
plsn
“The inflatable roof has no structure, so we
were limited on the amount of weight that we
could hang overhead and that limit got more
and more critical the further that we moved into
the center of the stadium,” says Dickinson. “That
was exacerbated by the fact that so much of the
motion control of people, screens and scenery
were being flown from the very center of the
roof, which meant that we had limited instrumentation choices in the center. That’s where
I put some of the Bad Boys along with some
VL3500 Spots.”
The VL3500s were used for framing and the
Bad Boys were used for downlights, especially for
performers during a section in the opening referred to as the tree ballet where the performers
flew up through a mist giving an effect of them
flying up to the heavens.
To the 60,000 stadium spectators and billions worldwide, the hard work and many challenges solved by the production team resulted in
a memorable presentation of talent, technology
and spectacle.
40 PLSN APRIL 2010
30-40.100.1004.indd 40
4/6/10 1:34 PM
To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Greg • 702.454.8550 • [email protected]
Employment
Help Wanted
Applied Electronics, a leader in the
manufacturing and distribution of trussing, electronics, and staging seeks a in
house sales representative. Candidate
must have industry experience in sales
and theatre/concert production. Applied Electronics is located in Virginia.
Benefits include competitive salary,
healthcare, and a 401K plan. For consideration please forward resume via
email to: [email protected]
NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE!
42 PLSN APRIL 2010
To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Greg • 702.454.8550 • [email protected]
ADVERTISER’S INDEX
COMPANY
PG#
PH
URL
Apollo Design
11
800.288.4626
http://plsn.hotims.com/29707-104
Applied Electronics
25
800.883.0008
Atlanta Rigging Systems
22
Barbizon
PG#
PH
URL
MSR - Mobile Stage Rentals
33
877.882.8889
Ocean Thin Films / SeaChanger
23
727.545.0741
404.355.4370
Osram
19
888.677.2627
6
866.502.2724
Performance Truss
21
863.607.9100
BMI Supply
12
518.793.6706
PR Lighting
5
253.395.9494
Branam Enterprises
30
310.637.4727
Production Intercom
8, 11, 32
847.381.5350
Bulbtronics
35
800.227.2852
Robe Lighting s.r.o.
17
954.615.9100
Chauvet Lighting
C1
800.762.1084
Show FX, Inc.
12
562.903.7285
Checkers Industrial Prod.
13
800.438.9336
Stage Crew
35
702.682.9514
City Theatrical Inc.
13
800.230.9497
Staging Dimensions
15
866.591.3471
Clay Paky (Italy)
9
609.812.1564
Stageline Mobile Stage
33
800.267.8243
CM Rigging
39
800.888.0985
Strictly FX
C3
847.290.0272
Creative Stage Lighting Co., Inc.
14
518.251.3302
Techni-Lux
C2
407.857.8770
Daktronics
10
800.843.5843
Ultratec
2
888.655.6887
Doug Fleenor Design
13
888.436.9512
Upstage Video
31
610.323.7200
Elation/ American DJ
C4
866.245.6726
USHIO
27
800.838.7446
Entertainment 1
5
818.407.1357
Xtreme Structures & Fabrication
32
903.438.1100
Entertainment Services (CAT)
8
866.762.5228
ETC
7
608.831.4116
MARKET PLACE
InfoComm International
34
800.659.7469
Arena Drapery Rental
42
404.713.3742
Johnson Systems
38
403.287.8003
City Theatrical Inc.
42
800.230.9497
JR Clancy
6
800.836.1885
Light Parts
42
512.873.7106
Lex Products
37
800.643.4460
Light Source Inc.
42
248.685.0102
Light Source, The
4
803.547.4765
Lightronics
42
757.486.3588
Lightronics
1
757.486.3588
New York Case/Hybrid Case
42
800.346.4638
Lightwave International
3
412.965.2737
RC4 Wireless Dimming/ Theatre
Wireless
42
866.258.4577
Look Solutions
12
800.426.4189
Roadshow
42
800.861.3111
Upstaging, Inc.
42
815.899.9888
Martin Professional
Mega-Stage
41
40
954.858.1800
(01) 450.359.4000
COMPANY
2010 APRIL PLSN 43
LD-AT-LARGE
By NookSchoenfeld
Illustration by Andy Au
The Art of Schmooze
O
ver the years, I’ve come to realize that talent isn’t always
enough to get you by in life.
You might be a gifted designer, but if
you can’t talk a good game, sometimes
a gig may pass you by. To keep working
steadily in this wacky business of ours,
you have to have an edge, something
that makes you stand out, something
that makes people remember you long
after they’ve witnessed your talents
on a production or shared a meal with
you. You’ve got to have your schmooze
down.
Exuding Confidence
COMING NEXT
MONTH...
Visualizing a Career
PLSN interviews
Daunte Kenner: DJ,
music promoter,
master electrician, LD,
programmer, stage
manager, and today,
mostly a production
designer.
Staging a Show
The May 2010 Buyers
Guide covers the stages
that support the show.
A Fine Line
plsn
The Internet defines schmooze
thusly: “To converse casually, especially
in order to gain an advantage or make a
social connection.” I can’t say it any better than that. Before you wow someone
with your talents, you must be able to
enlighten them with conversation and
make them feel that bringing you into
a gig they are involved with is going to
be an asset to them. If you exude confidence, the first time you make contact
with someone, they are relieved. They
feel 100 percent better knowing they
hired a pro, simply because you have
schmoozed them.
For instance, two hours, ago I got a
call from a friend who said, “Dude, I’ve
got this guy who needs you. Can you
give him a ring and give him one of
those patented Nook raps that makes
him feel confident?” This promoter had
just booked a tour that has a lineup of
10 bands a day playing amphitheaters.
They will sell 5,000 to 15,000 tickets
per day to teens willing to jump up and
down to anything new. The bands are
ones you’ve heard of, but can’t really
name any of their tunes. But that’s okay.
return, I have now convinced quite a
few readers to check out this device
he peddles. And since all my friends
are starting to get addicted to this
console, lighting companies are buying them. His good schmooze and
$100 worth of sushi will turn into half
a million bucks in sales in the next
year. No joke.
If you exude confidence, the first time you
make contact with someone, they are relieved. They feel 100 percent better knowing they hired a pro, simply because you have
schmoozed them.
I rang him up and introduced myself. I didn’t try to sell myself, I just
rapped it down with him. I explained
that I am the Nookster, purveyor of rock
lighting, and I can make his show look
amazing for not much money at all. He
could sell his $20 tickets and still afford
to have an amazing-looking concert
that will satisfy everyone at the show.
And, I said, I will fit the entire lighting
system in 15 feet of truck space. I exuded confidence. I didn’t even promise
anything, because by the end of my five
minute conversation, I had this cat convinced that picking up my phone call
was the best move he had made all day.
I am not a salesman. That’s a game
which I have no desire to play. You may
ask, “What are you talking about? Sales
and schmoozing is the same thing!” Not
in my world. I like people who can talk
a good game, but they have to deliver
and be witty. Most of the salesmen I
know in the lighting biz are not witty.
Sure, they pick up the check at the
end of the meal, and they shove fancy
bottles of wine in front of you, compliments of their companies. But if they
are not truly cool, it’s all just a free meal.
Good Fun
plsn
I love going out with the guys
from Inner Circle Distribution, the
dudes out of Florida that push Coemar, because they keep me laughing for hours. They even ask if they
can borrow some money at the end of
the evening to pay for the check. (Just
kidding.) They entertained me until
my sides were bursting and made me
want to use their lights, not necessarily because they have a good product
(they do), but because these cats are
just such great guys. They take time
out to hang with me. They schmooze,
not because they want to peddle
something, but because they want to
live life to the fullest and enjoy their
job. And I will remember that. Tomorrow I will call them and get some gear
for the festival.
I haven’t seen my buddy Timmy
Brennan in a while. I have to call him
next week when I’m in Vegas. He’s
one of the kings of good schmooze.
I may not use his rental company for
lighting too often, but I truly love the
console he distributes. To be honest, I probably would have never
thought of even trying this desk if I
hadn’t chatted with him. But he told
me about it over a meal one day and
then he shipped one to my house to
check it out. He schmoozed me. In
plsn
Now, there is a fine line between
schmoozing and BS. I’m a grown man. I
don’t need to be stroked by another man.
In fact, it pisses me off. And I can tell the
difference between a compliment and
a stroke. I already know that I have the
skills to pay the bills and don’t need my
ego fed. In fact, it turns me off. In the art
of schmoozing, one can go too far, and
that’s when I realize you are just a salesman and not my friend. When that guy
goes to the can, we all make fun of him
and order another 100-dollar bottle of
wine on his tab while he’s peeing.
One salesman I know always buys
dinner for all the LDs who come to town.
I once worked for the same company as
him, and he would ask me to tag along
to dinner or have me introduce him to
other LD friends of mine who were in
town. This guy was the Anti-Schmoozer,
the king of brown-nosing. As the meal
started, he would tell you how great
that show you did looked last year
(yawn). Then as the empty wine bottles
grew in number, he would talk about
himself continuously until you wanted
to slice your wrists. I had friends call me
the next day and say they would gladly
rent my company’s lights as long as I
promised they would never have to talk
to this dude again.
Walking the Talk
plsn
I know another wonderfully funny
guy. He is a pleasure to be around, and
he gets some choice gigs simply because he has his schmooze down pat.
The problem is that he never gets any
repeat clients. He’ll design a big production while selling himself .The managements will slap his back on opening
night while trying to convince themselves that they have done the right
thing by hiring this dude. But in the end,
something goes wrong, and the band is
looking in another direction. He never
seems to get hired back.
The moral of the story is, schmoozing can be a
great attribute, but
remember this: If you can talk the walk
you can get your foot in the door, but it
won’t keep it open unless you can’t walk
the talk.
Nook Schoenfeld is a freelance lighting designer. You can schmooze him at
[email protected].
Touring Season
We cover the concert
tours for the 2010
season.
44.100.1004.indd 44
4/6/10 1:04 AM

Road Test: Lex Products Slim Dimmer, page 26

Transcription

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