Hey everyone welcome back to The Notebook. This week I’d like to start with my first visit to the USITT here in Phoenix, Arizona. I was familiar with the LDI and NAMM shows where they have a lot of lighting displays, but not this particular one. Fortunately in a previous blog I plugged that I was in Phoenix and if anyone was in town could contact me to see an EastonAshe show. Little did I know that Richard Cadena would be contacting me saying that he’d be in town and interested in checking out a show. I happened to be interested in checking out the USITT since it would be a great opportunity to mix it up with my peers in the industry.
When I first arrived at the USITT I met up with Richard and got checked in. After making small talk and talking about my need for a console upgrade he took me over the Light Factory/ Stage Research booth first to check out some computer console software. These guys happen to be my saving grace since they have affordable gear in my range. The interface is easy to use and has a great fixture and effects library. Oh, and in the fixture library it shows images of that particular fixture which is efficient considering that we can get confused with name displays in some fixture libraries. This product is “a must have” in my book. Next I moved on to check out the Look Solutions booth. These guys are pretty much the fogger/hazer kings. They have a very impressive resume including product use on the sets of Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, David Copperfield, and many more. I particularly was interested in their Unique 2 hazer. The hazer has very minimal noise and has a filter on the sides of the product to help protect the fan and keep ventilation smooth. You also have an optional visualization you can get from it whether it is lasers or lights. Moving on to the AC Lighting booth where I got to take a look at the Vista by Jands. The Vista rocks for a guy like me that was trained in non linear timeline video editing. To see a lighting console carry a timeline to edit cues I was impressed. Also at the booth I gazed at how the Chroma Color Block DB4 worked. The fixture has great LED life hours and you can take different blocks to snap together make your own custom look with them. I also like that there is a diffusion bracket for the blocks to neutralize camera images getting burnt out from the intensity of the light. All and all I had a great learning experience and got to network with the right people to talk to about this crazy industry. After the show closed up it was time for me to get over to Tempe and start loading in for my light show. Everything was going great until I tried to fire up the hazer and moving lights. A bulb burnt out on one of my lights in the back and the power card in my hazer burnt out which definitely sucked. Oh well the show must go on you make the show happen first and foremost. This week we’re all fixed up and ready to go! Well I’m going to roll out and do some gear maintenance. Thanks for reading ya’ll!
Album of the week: Muse- Black Holes and Revelations
Movie of the week: BORAT!!! Sexy time NICE.
Cool Product of the week: Apollo Right Arm- DMX focusing tool you can mount pars, projectors, etc. on and adjust to a fine pan and tilt from your DMX console.
EastonAshe URLs: http://www.eastonashe.net http://www.myspace.com/eastonashe http://www.myspace.com/squints4 Don’t for get to email me at: Tonycap22@hotmail.com
