It has been a very busy 2014 for lighting designer Cory FitzGerald. Starting off the year working with his Seven Design Works’ partner LeRoy Bennett on the Bruno Mars New Years Eve Show at the Cosmopolitan hotel in Vegas, all the way through to the taping of the Beyoncé/Jay-Z On The Run performances in Paris for HBO. In between, FitzGerald provided designs for Skrillex — both the Mothership Tour and the San Francisco Takeover shows, Demi Lovato’s Neon Lights and current world tour, Beyoncé’s performances at the Grammys and MTV Music Awards shows and many more one-offs and special events.
FitzGerald, who started out to become a theatrical LD, has made the successful transition from being a lighting programmer to being a lighting designer for touring music acts. He has had a longstanding relationship with designer Bennett since he worked with him in 2006 on Madonna’s Confessions tour. Bennett, FitzGerald, and designer Tobias G. Rylander have partnered in the design firm Seven Design Works LLC. Recently, PLSN caught up with the always-busy FitzGerald and spoke with him about his work, how he got into the business, and what he enjoys about designing.
PLSN: Tell us how you got into the industry and what led to where you are today.
Cory FitzGerald: When I was 12-years old, I went to summer camp for theatre, but I quickly realized didn’t want to be an actor. That’s where I found lighting and scenery. I got into it and stuck with it. I started working at Angstrom Lighting in LA when I was 16. After lighting shows in high school and working on gigs over weekends, I attended NYU and received my degree studying lighting design for theatre.
I got an internship with High End [Systems], where I worked with Paul Sonnleitner. I started working closely with the Flying Pig guys and was soon doing bug testing and R&D for Hog III. I got hired after college to work with them and work directly with end users on the console side of things. I met a lot of people doing that as well as learned a lot about how consoles worked; how they’re supposed to work; and how people want them to work.
I left there to go do freelance programming, and the rest is history. I was lucky to get started working with a lot of different people. I ended up working with Roy on a tour in 2006. From then on, I was working with him fairly exclusively for everything. Now we’ve started Seven Design Works, and I have started building my own clients; working with Bruno Mars and a variety of other artists.
What are some of the more memorable projects or milestones in your career?
Definitely, the Madonna Confessions tour (2006) was a big step, because that got me into a level that I hadn’t been before. It was a challenge, but that was something that I really wanted to do. Troy Eckerman recommended me to work with him on that project with Roy; I owe Troy a lot for that. He had a lot of confidence in me, and I wasn’t going to let either of them down. It taught me a lot about what I knew; what I didn’t know; and what I needed to know, working on that scale. It was a great experience.
Working with Roy has been life-changing. Learning how he works, what he does, and how he approaches a project; and his approach to music has certainly opened my eyes and gotten me access to a lot of things. Working with iconic bands like Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein and Lady Gaga have certainly been milestones in my life.
There have been a lot of different projects that taught me a lot of important lessons; I am still learning all the time. Definitely, starting with Bruno at the beginning and going through his career exploding showed me how fast things can happen. When they hired me, he had a couple of successful singles. They had a ‘neon’ sign that they travelled with; of course now it’s a whole other story. Seeing that process from the beginning has been really interesting, and I have enjoyed sticking with it throughout the evolution of his shows.
Certainly Roy was a mentor; aside from him, who were some of your other mentors?
Pretty much anyone and everyone I ever worked with. Stan Crocker, Butch Allen, Willie Williams, Justin Collie, Spike Brant. Definitely, Paul Sonnleitner. When I first met him in New York and all of the Broadway people that I ran into and had the privilege of working with and sitting next to; just learning from that process. Everyone who was nice enough to hire me — or even talk to me — basically! I have had the privilege of working with a lot of very talented people generous enough to teach me things throughout my career so far.
Also, it was great to work with High End and all of the Flying Pig guys — Nick Archdale and Richard Mead really showed me a lot and inspired me. Seeing all the different sides of the business. It was very interesting; meeting people at tradeshows and connecting on the ‘industry’ side of things was super helpful in addition to meeting designers and working on a wide array of projects. I started by thinking I was going into the theatre world, and to be honest, the rock n’ roll touring industry wasn’t really on my radar until I was already in it.
How did people or projects help you make the transition from programming to designing?
I think that it’s a tough transition. It is something that you have to decide that you want to do. I believe that every good programmer obviously has a lot of designer qualities in them; you have to be able to take an idea and make it reality, which takes a lot of skill that isn’t just knowing how the console works. Working with designers and understanding what they want quickly and creating it is an invaluable skill, especially once you can create a visual shorthand with someone; it becomes a great partnership. As creativity grows and builds, I think there is a natural desire to see one’s own ideas come to life, and there is nothing quite like seeing a project develop from a spark of an idea to a room full of fans watching something you’ve made.
I was lucky to be able to start working with and designing smaller bands and reaching out to people; getting different projects that couldn’t necessarily afford a well-established person, and were willing to grow with me. You have to earn your stripes and go through the process; see all of the potential hazards that are going to come your way. Start to learn how to deal with all that comes with being the designer; the budgeting, drawing, being able to deal with last minute changes such as: ‘suddenly we want to change the set list;’ or ‘we don’t want or can’t afford a particular design element’ after budgets have been done or work has already started. Learning that side of it.
I had a lot of good mentors and worked with a lot of amazingly talented people over the years. Learning by example and learning how they dealt with everyone, from artists to programmers to production managers. Absorbing all of that as much as I could. It’s always a learning process; I feel that I certainly haven’t learned it all yet or learned enough, but it’s slowly getting there. I’m learning more every day.
As a designer, how has your background as a programmer influenced your designs?
It’s definitely a blessing and a curse, because you know exactly how things work and what your limitations are. So you are instinctively forced into that tunnel of what is possible as opposed to ‘what do I want it to do?’ You really have to combat that and say to yourself, ‘To make this happen, maybe I have to rethink what I’m doing or what I’m using or just stop and start over from the drawing board.’
I’ve been pushed by some of the best to make lights do things that they don’t necessarily want to do. To me, it’s more about pushing things to within inches, or even a bit beyond, of what can physically be done. Getting exactly what you need and making sure that, throughout the course of a show, you’ve done every trick that can be done. What I’ve noticed recently is I am approaching artists that I’ve worked with before and, when re-doing songs or tours with new music/new rigs, I think, ‘This is what we used to do, but how would we do it now? Is there a new way to take this?’ Knowing that this time needs to be totally a different experience. I’ve tried things like limiting myself into only using certain fixtures during a song, because that’s an idea that I aesthetically want to try. I like pushing myself to try using fixtures in new ways that I haven’t before. It’s always a process of getting better and pushing yourself harder. Trying different things that make sense with the challenges of what you’re trying to do with the music; not just because you’re bored.
What do you find to be most challenging as a designer?
I think the constant challenge is to be ahead of yourself and be different. Keeping fresh ideas for different artists and different music. Constantly listening to new music, or even music that you wouldn’t necessarily like in your personal life and then trying to think of ways to create based on that. Forcing yourself into different genres and coming up with new ideas. Constantly pushing yourself to make it more interesting and relevant; taking an existing idea and pushing it to the next level.
It is a challenge for sure; keeping ideas fresh while still taking them through the realization process. It is useless coming up with an impossible or unobtainable idea, so the question becomes, ‘How do you make the impossible idea a reality?’ That is when the real challenges begin.
What do you find to be most enjoyable as a designer?
Watching the show unfold during the performance. It’s great to see every choice and every process that got you there being realized on stage, it’s very rewarding. From the initial concepts, to drawing, redrawing, drafting, redrafting, setting it all up, and programming it to finally having an audience there and enjoying it. There’s a real sense of accomplishment in that. It’s unique to have that sense of a job well done when you know all the steps that got you there.
Tell us a little about the Seven Design Works partnership.
It made sense to join together when we all started talking about it. The three of us have different design backgrounds, and we all wanted to start working with new and upcoming artists that want to expand their show and build on their aesthetic. Taking advantage of Roy’s experience and expertise, and combining it with the Tobias and myself, I think we have a very strong team. It is a unique collective idea, and while each individual design project is different, we are not trying to apply a ‘blueprint’ to every show that is simply repeated; rather we meet each artist and develop unique designs and ideas to match their aspirations.
I have learned to love getting to work with artists over a number of years. Working with them on multiple types of events — multiple tours, TV shows, special events — and growing with them; helping to develop a design identity for the artist as well as myself.
On to the Next One!
