I got a call from a production manager friend last month. His band was looking to go in a new direction, and he was searching for a new production designer. He asked if I would like to submit a design for their world tour that starts next year. “Sure,” I say. “Gimme a few days with a thinking cap on.”
I was told that several other designers had been approached and I would be submitting a design that would sit on a table next to a few others. The band members would slowly pick through the different concepts and choose one designer to go with. I’m not a big fan of competing for work with my friends, but this is how the game is played at times, and I’m stuck with it. I submit a design and get on with my other gigs.
A few weeks go by and I never hear anything or bother to pick up the phone myself. I figure the gig has gone to one of my friends. Then I get a call from the band’s PM. “They spent a lot of time looking at the different concepts. But they all keep coming back to your presentation. And they’ve decided to go with you for the next tour. They really like your work. There’s just one thing.” I’m expecting to hear now how another group of millionaires has no money and needs a break on design fees. Instead, my buddy pulls a complete 180 on me. “The band loves what they are looking at”, he explains, “but they’ve asked me to come back to you with this question. ‘If you could design a show that’s totally cool, original and something that’s never been done before, what would it look like?’ And is this even possible,” he adds, “or has it all been done before?”
The answer to his questions was yes, it is possible, and no, it hasn’t all been done. You see, there is always something that’s never been done. U2 and their designer Willie Williams prove that every tour they do. Something new can be done. The tricky part is letting your imagination work — to get ideas festering that you can branch off of. You see, I hate timelines and schedules when it comes to my imagination. That’s why I keep it on at all times. I just can’t think up something original on the spot and present it. I need it to be a work in progress all the time. And something original is a lot of work for me. But I have a friend who excels at designing stuff that is totally off the hook. I doubt this guy has ever walked a beaten path in his life. His forays into unbridled turf on his lighting designs is legendary. He even calls his company “Lite Alternative.”
Fomenting Energy
I met Paul Normandale about 15 years ago. The Beastie Boys were going on tour, and Paul was hired as their designer. Someone had recommended me as a programmer/board op for the tour and we connected over the Internet. Paul had designed an enormous structure that was close to 200 feet long by 200 feet wide. His idea was that the band would play on a circular stage in the round, but didn’t really have a set. Just two turntables and a microphone. Paul had a different idea. He was going to use the 20,000 fans as his set. You see, the fans at a Beastie Boys show are totally out of control. The minute the house lights go out, all the fans jump over the hockey dashers and try and form the largest mosh pit possible. Bodies are hurled as this growing festering mob is worked into a total frenzy by a slew of rhymes.
Paul pretty much lets me do whatever I want with his design. He just has a few guidelines. Everything is simple. Other than an opening look for each song, we will be working on the fly and punting with 200 various light fixtures. Three cues per song is plenty, according to Paul. Each song should try and look different, with different lighting elements used for 1 particular song or another, depending on whenever you felt like bringing them up. Of course I had never worked under such constraints before, but I’m up for the challenge. Paul has surrounded the perimeter of the circular stage with Lowell DP Omnilights. For one song, I will use just them and nothing else. For another song, I will lower in a truss that has eight 2K fresnels with color faders on them, nothing else.
Paul had another gimmick on the show. He decided to place about 20 high small motors in the truss. Attached to each of the motors was a 4-lite mole that would lower down to within 5 feet of the audiences’ heads and go up and down like a yoyo. I questioned him on this, as it didn’t make much sense to me at first. My mind was running in circles as I inquired, “What exactly are you trying to light here?” Paul explained that actually, each motor would have two 4-lite moles attached to the hook, placed back-to-back. As these lights went up and down, they spun in all sorts of directions. With 20 or so of these chasing, and nothing else on, we could turn an entire arena upside down with delight. At the culmination of the show, the band would bust into “Sabotage,” an extremely energetic song. The mole lights would start dangling and flashing, and the beast would start roaring. The beast is a term I first heard Conrad Coriz use to describe the audience at a Beasties show. The way it moved and how I lit it with Paul’s design was just something that can’t be described, only witnessed in awe.
Maximum Response
Designing outside the box is the only way that Paul designs. I once saw a show where he used so much pyrotechnics that the light illuminating from all the flames and sparks was pretty much the only light on stage for a song or two. I’ve seen him invent crazy curved metal pieces for Coldplay that fly lights in bizarre arrays. When Paul goes for an effect, he wants the maximum response. Some people may be content to use four confetti machines at a show and douse the front 20 rows of people. Paul will settle for nothing short of 20 machines and wants every fan in the venue to be pulling streamers out of their hair. I stopped in to see a Kings of Leon show last year. Paul had amassed a giant wall of assorted old battered conventional lighting fixtures and strapped them together in flying carts. It looked like a giant pile of junked lights randomly stacked from the floor to the ceiling. But they all worked. How does one come up with ideas like this?
So I do have this idea for a light show that has been a work in progress for a few years. It is original. It is huge. It is complex, and it moves. It also would cost about $200K per week to rent all the video, lighting and scenic elements to make it work. I submit the drawings to the band. They like it, but I think the price tag scared the bejesus out of them. I think they just wanted to test my imagination. And see if I could come up with something along the lines of a classic Normandale design.
