Is Flying Drone Tech the new crew position in production? LD Chris Medvitz of Lightswitch would agree. He has four cities of auto shows on his agenda. But it was his involvement in the Infiniti exhibit and press events at the Los Angeles Auto Show that pointed toward the future.
For Infiniti’s new car reveal, Medvitz had a stack of white boxes creating a wall between the spectators and the new car. When the event started, dramatic music and strong light beams created a fanfare, and then magically, one by one, each light box — stacked like a brick in a wall — flew up and away to gradually reveal the car.
Each box, made of a lightweight fiberglass material over aluminum frames, contained a flying drone outfitted with lights. A crew of 30 people handled the 18 drones custom built by Aerial Mob. At the end, as spectators cheered and whistled, one wondered: was it for the new car or for the cool presentation? Catch the magic on video here: plsn.me/Auto-Drones.
Medvitz has also been occupied with the Nissan press events and Subaru exhibits at the Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and New York auto shows. He’s now designing the show for Lionel Richie’s upcoming residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas April 27-May 18.
J. Lo’s Vegas Residency
Jennifer Lopez launched her Las Vegas residency Jan. 20 at Planet Hollywood’s Axis Theater with a A-List of celebrities in the house. The show, All I Have, was designed by Cory FitzGerald from Seven Design Works, with Davey Martinez as lighting director. Nicholas
Militellodesigned and created all the video content. Loren Barton programmed media servers and Mathew Cotter headed up the D3 team. Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo directed the show. Lopez’s show ran until Feb. 9, with the second leg May 22-June 12. “This was a whirlwind of a project, but couldn’t be happier with the result. We have an amazing team and an amazing artist,” FitzGerald says. Next up, FitzGerald starts on Justin Bieber’s Purpose world tour, which kicks off March 9 in Seattle.
A Solo Rose
LD Lee Rose, formerly with Design Partners Inc., has gone solo. “Since the word got out that DPI was closing I’ve had some offers to ‘join up’ with some others but I’m waiting to see what this year looks like. After 14 years with Ocean, Rose & Associates and then 18 years with Design Partners, I thought that I should spend some ‘me’ time. In the meantime I had to put something on a business card so I looked at the plethora of web domains that I owned and leerosedesigns.com seemed the most appropriate. For the moment I’m a solo artist. We’ll see what happens this year.”
Quick Cues
After three years off the touring scene, LD Dan “Malibu” Krygowski enjoyed his recent road trips. “Over the past three months I designed the Midwest Emmy Awards and I even brought on board longtime designer and friend Robb Jibson to be the show’s lighting director. I also designed, programmed and operated for ABC7, the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival Parade for the fourth year with fellow designer David Moravec. Finally, I was in Phoenix for the College Football Playoff Playlist,” continues Krygowski, “where I was once again working with one of my former artists, John Mellencamp.”
LD Joey Troup is out with Vance Joy’s “The Fire and the Flood” tour, which runs through Canada and the U.S. Jan. 12-April 3. Troup is also directing his show, and says while this is a new design, “The Vance Joy acrylic panels have been a fixture (no pun intended) in the camp for some time that I have inherited.”
LD Mark “Junior” Jacobson toured with Tool throughout January.
LD Dale Doucette is designing “The Rock Hall Three For All” tour featuring Heart, Joan Jett and Cheap Trick. Mark DevlinDesigns is creating the video content for Heart. Doucette will send out Gabbi Scheff to operate it for him this summer July 14-Sept. 12 across North America, as he remains behind and tends to his winery. His harvest was plentiful, he says. “The wine world is wonderful! Ninety gallons divided by five bottles per gallon. So yeah, life is good!”
Production designer Paul Normandale is creating Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams tour, which kicks off March 31 in South America. This also included involvement in Coldplay’s Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show on Feb. 7. Next on his drawing board are tour designs for Massive Attack, 5 Seconds of Summer and Stone Roses.
LD Matt Mills is deep in design and programming for Disturbed. Pre-production starts Feb. 1 with the first show Feb. 10 in Canada. The band co-headlines with Rob Zombie in May.
Steve Garner heads to Orlando to program the annual corporate Matrix Hair Products show for LD Rob Strohmeier, then returns to NYC to program the Fall Fashion season for LD Florian Schecter.
LD Ed Warren flew out for Mumford & Sons’ South African tour at the end of January.
LD Dara Guiney and his wife welcomed a baby girl, Poppy, in the new year. At the end of February he heads out with Awolnation to support Fall Out Boy’s winter tour. “I’m looking forward to working with Fall Out Boy’s LD Robb Jibson and the great rig he has designed.”
LD Mike Swinford kicked off Jason Aldean’s new “We Were Here” tour. He’s now working on the upcoming NBA Allstar Game in Toronto, Rascal Flatts tour and the CMA Music Festival.
LD Patrick Woodroffe and senior designer Terry Cook, both of Woodroffe Bassett Design, teamed up again with longtime Lighting Director Michael Keller for Black Sabbath’s tour called “The End,” which began Jan. 20 and runs to Sept. 21. Woodroffe gives kudos to Eric Marchwinski for the “very complex programming.” The band says goodbye to the road with this, their farewell tour… but that’s until the next one, right?
Plans for 2016 taking shape? Send the details to Debi at dmoen@plsn.com.
