PLSN recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ken Jones, a prominent lighting programmer and designer based in Las Vegas. Ken is probably one of the busiest and most talented programmers in the corporate theatre world that I’ve ever met, and his affection for media server technology is a passion we share. I’ve had the opportunity to work on a few events with him, and I always find myself challenging the boundaries of both my own knowledge and the limitations of the equipment when we work together.
PLSN: Ken, thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat. You mentioned you were getting on a plane soon and would be gone for two months; is that correct?
Ken Jones: Yes, it is. I fly out tomorrow and have two shows back to back.
What can you tell us about these projects?
The first show in San Diego is for a large health food company with 11,000 attendees, and there will be two of us programming. I’ll have all the Hippos on my system (Hippotizer from Green Hippo) and Troy Eckerman will be programming all the lighting. We were hired by Staging Solutions and will be working for lighting and scenic designer, Sean McCarthy.
The Hippos will be driving three 100-foot-wide 5:1 projection screens; one of them also has a large scenic arch in front of it that we are projecting different content on from the same projectors. It’s a fairly complex setup that will require some creative alpha masking between us and the Encore system so that at times video world can take control of portions of the screen while we keep control of the arch. Also, for us, it will be the first time we’re trying out FlexRes. It’s a new feature still in beta testing for the Hippo that allows you to directly load media files with much larger aspect ratios than before. It’s great because it cuts out the need to split a single media file that is 3600 x 720 into separate clips. This certainly saves some time on file management especially on this project; we are using FlexRes because we have nearly 600 media files to load and manage.
That sounds impressive!
Yes, it ought to be quite the spectacle! As soon as that show ends, I take the red-eye to New York for a meeting and then get right into pre-viz for the next show with my great friend and amazing designer Gene Lenahan. I have programmed this show for him over the past 16 years. This show is really like no other corporate show I’ve ever done. We will be on site for 31 days, and there is usually a large cast, full orchestra, original music and typically eight to 10 production numbers that will be triggered with SMPTE timecode. It’s a two-day show with multiple waves. I’ll be programming both lighting and media for Gene, and this year we have 400+ conventionals, 250 moving lights, 400 LEDs, and 2 PRG MBoxes. It’s always a really fun one to do!
How would you describe the types of projects that you work on most frequently?
The majority of my work is on large corporate shows and tradeshows. I’ve always enjoyed this niche of the business. Every show is different, bringing new challenges and ideas, and they usually include various forms of live entertainment. Plus, I get to work with a lot of incredibly talented and cool people. I dig it.
When your clients come to you with an idea in mind, do they allow you to guide them toward products that might work for their purpose?
That really varies from project to client. Very often the people I work for know exactly what they want to do and know what they want to use, but there are times when I am asked for my opinion of what I think would be best used to help them achieve their vision.
Give us a bit of background on your career. How did you get started in this industry?
Well, I’m second generation. I’m the very proud son of Ken Jones Sr., who got me started right out of high school in the business by joining local 720 back in 1987. He was the Head Electrician at the Desert Inn Hotel back then, so he would bring me in to work on show changes and teach me the ropes. I spent a few years doing that and bouncing around the other showrooms and ballrooms in town, which eventually led into a fulltime house job at the Las Vegas Hilton. I later became the head electrician and board operator in that showroom; and because we had new stars coming in every couple of weeks, I got my first tastes of programming and lighting design.
Nowadays you can be found at FOH. Do you describe yourself as a programmer, designer or a combination of both? When did you officially make that switch?
I suppose I’d describe myself as combination of both. I get hired to program for a lot of great lighting designers, and I also have a nice client base that I do design work for. And I enjoy both roles.
I don’t believe that I officially or consciously ever made “the switch”; for me it just organically happened this way. For years I worked as a production electrician and/or programmer, and loved it, but found myself gravitating more to the programming side. So I just tried to learn as much as I could about that and started taking more jobs that allowed me to concentrate only on that.
And I think being a programmer has naturally led into my being asked to do more design work. It seems that more and more often, on the small to medium size shows, at least, that the clients are looking for one person to do both roles.
When you work as a designer, do you do your own programming, or do you work with a programmer?
I’ve always done my own programming on the shows I design.
What do you like about both roles?
I have been very fortunate over the years to program for some seriously talented lighting designers, and it is always incredibly fun for me trying to bring their visions to life. On the flip side, it is also very rewarding being the designer and having the freedom to create things in my own way.
How often do you find yourself programming both media servers and lighting on a project?
Pretty often, actually, and it seems to be more and more all the time! But I usually do a couple very large shows a year where we have separate programmers for lighting and media.
Organization must be crucial to be able to handle both aspects of the show.
Yes, it really is the key to being efficient. I am forever trying to find better ways to organize everything I do. When you are programming both lighting and media servers, time management becomes another serious consideration as well.
If it is a complex setup or if there is a lot of custom media to load, I always try and push for a media manager/tech. Having that person on the show with you to deal with loading files, managing updates and keeping things working smoothly is so crucial and helpful; I can’t stress the importance of this role enough.
How much pre-programming do you usually do, and do you use a visualization program?
Depending on the project and my role, I do pre-programming whenever I can. Sometimes that just involves picking and organizing the media for the show and other times it is full-on programming with the lighting console and servers.
I’ve been drafting in and using wysiwyg for the past 10 years and also have used ESP Vision quite a lot. Even if you don’t get the preshow time to program with it, it is still such a fantastic tool to have so you can start programming right away before you ever get control of the rig.
What consoles do you prefer? Are you
fluent on several?
The grandMA2 is definitely my console of choice. Before I made the switch to grandMA back in 2007, I was a WholeHog programmer so I can still find my way around on that when I need to.
What are a couple of your favorite features that stand out in the grandMA2?
I love the layout windows and how much they have evolved on GMA2. It’s such a great tool for organizing, selecting and seeing what your fixtures are doing. I also use it for media servers because it allows me to see what layers I’m outputting on. The Smart Window is another huge feature on the console especially now that they have added CITP capabilities to get thumbnails of your media from your servers. And, another great feature is the macro functionality. Obviously macros are nothing new but they have come such a long way, and I am always looking for ways to use them to speed up programming and make life easier.
Do you have any favorite lighting fixtures?
There are a lot of great fixtures out there and I certainly have my go-to’s for specific things but lately what’s been catching my eye the most are fixtures like the Ayrton Magic Panel or Chauvet Nexus Panel. I like that they can be used at times as a normal conventional type of fixture such as an 8-lite and then instantly transform into a colorful pixel mapped thing of beauty.
You’ve also said that you really enjoy working with media servers. What about this technology excites you?
Media servers are definitely exciting to work with because of features like pixel mapping. I really like to be able to match what the automated lighting is doing with the media server whether it’s via pixel mapping or just through cueing; I think it’s important to have integration between the all of the elements.
Can you expand on some examples of this type of integration between lighting and media servers?
On a recent show where I was programming with [PRG] MBoxes, the client came in with an idea for using an application that involved audience participation. After instructing everyone in the audience (15,000 attendees) to download this app on their smart phones — the app was called “Wham City Lights” — certain musical notes that the band played would trigger the cell phones in the audience to change colors or strobe. We also had 300 Color blasts that were hung all over the rig focused at the audience, and the LD Paul Efron said “Hey, do you think you can make all of the color blasts sync up and do the same thing as all those cell phones?” Loving any opportunity that forces me to go shopping, I headed to the Apple store where I was able to get a connector for my iPhone that I plugged into the input of the MBox, and then we were happening. I just love that geeky kind of stuff!
You’ve mentioned that you’ve used the Hippotizer and MBox on recent projects. What are some of your favorite features of these servers?
I prefer MBox and Hippos to other servers I’ve used. I like them both for different reasons. For instance, Hippo has a feature called Live Mask that allows you to create custom masks for your raster live and very quickly. It’s a pretty amazing feature. And the ability of the MBox to crossfade between clips on a single layer really is a hard one to beat. It makes programming so nice.
Your clientele roster reads like the Who’s Who of corporate giants with everything from technology, software, insurance, retail and pharmaceuticals on it.
I’ve had many great “memorable moments” and the opportunity to work with so many talented people over the years. I’ve always loved what I do for a living. It’s always very challenging and rewarding.
Ken Jones on Using Original Content for Custom-Made Solutions
Asked if media creation knowledge is a prerequisite for a successful career as a media server programmer, Ken Jones notes that, while not an absolute necessity, “it’s definitely a feather in your cap.
“There have been shows where the clients have given us pictures and asked us to just scroll through them on the screens, which we did, but when I had time during rehearsals I made them into a cool carousel or an animated montage,” Jones continues. “And they loved it. Other times I’ve played around with creatively animating their logo or something. It’s fun and it really opens up a whole new world of potential. I’m really just a novice at After Effects, but I own it and can get around well enough to do what I need.”
Jones adds another example — a recent medical assets show, where LD Sean McCarthy created a piece of content as a solution to a challenge in the show.
“There were dancers on stage rehearsing a routine that they wanted the audience to follow,” he recalls. “They were discussing IMAG-ing one of the dancers the whole time when Sean got the brilliant idea to video one of the dancers with no light on her in front of a green screen. Then we alpha masked out the green and used that clip as an overlay on top of the media we were running on the scenic background layers, adding all kinds of interesting effects behind the dancer clip. It was a last minute idea that we were able to pull off very quickly, and it was extremely cool! I really enjoy pushing technology beyond the traditional applications because it can give you the extra ability to create those unexpected WOW moments for your clients.”
Although rarely in Las Vegas, Ken is based there; he can be contacted via lightnotions@me.com at any time.
