Local EDM Artist Brings Joy to a City, Performing on a Landmark
Cleveland’s famed Terminal Tower has been around since the late 1920’s when the 52-story landmark became the first skyscraper in Cleveland as well as the second-tallest building in the world by the time it was completed. The building is aptly named as the Amtrak and local railroad lines run through the basement.
Over the years, the building has been a well-lit, prized element of architecture, starting with sodium vapor fixtures for years before getting an upgrade to LED fixtures in 2016 when the owners (the K&D Group) brought in some 508 Color Blasts from Color Kinetics to bathe the building’s exterior in any color they would like. These fixtures were programmed and run from a Pharos Light System Manager that Vincent Lighting had customized to work with the VLS Designed CoPILOT Architectural system. Vincent Lighting Systems is the systems integrator for the K&D Group, supporting the IP65-rated Gen 4 fixtures from Color Kinetics.
As the whole nation slowed down to a crawl last March, morale was sinking fast. Tom Siko, president of Vincent Lighting, the largest lighting equipment vendor in the Ohio area, talked to the owners of the Terminal Tower about doing something special with their lighting to bring some cheer to the people of Cleveland. He pitched the idea of programming the Terminal Tower’s lights to a OneRepublic song entitled “Better Days.” The owners gave their permission to give it a go.
Vincent Lighting offered to supply a designer and electrician to figure out the best way that they can tie this system into a grandMA2 console that their in-house lighting designer Kristen Jones could program and operate. To make this happen without having the public watching countless hours of lights flashing during programming, some previz work was needed in the shop. The designer and crew pulled it off, and the folks in Cleveland loved the end result.
Fast Forward to August
A couple months go by, and there’s literally no improvement in the prospects of staging big live events in America. Tom and the owners talk again. But this time it was more along the lines of, “Let’s do something much grander, something that’s never been done before,” explains Siko. “The folks in NYC have the Empire State Building, which they choreograph lighting on the top for special holidays and events. That gave us some inspiration, but we started thinking of how we can take that to another level.”
Meanwhile, local EDM artist and music icon E-V was pondering his next move. With the pandemic in play, there was nowhere for him to perform. He started thinking about rooftop performances and alternative venues that he might be able to play safely. As the story goes, while walking around his city with a friend, he was discussing ideas when his friend pointed at Terminal Tower and suggested, “Why don’t you set up and DJ up there?” A seed was sown.
E-V sent multiple emails to people he hoped could connect him with the K&D Group. He then put together a proposal, which was approved…but only for inside the observation deck. “I was like, ‘What do you guys think about doing it outside?’ As many hoops as you imagine there are to jump through, there were all those, and then some. The FAA has to clear the drone to fly. The number of people has to be right. It took three and a half months of planning and logistics. But we got it done.”
The owners circled back with Tom, and a plan was hatched for the artist to perform a one hour set high above the city that they could record to be streamed at a later date. The idea was well-received and further plans were developed.
Siko explains, “Rather than have the artist inside on the observation deck, it was a great idea for him to be on the outside where he could be captured by camera along with the building’s physical lighting by the drone as it moved about the airspace. So the 44th floor balcony it was.” His DJ rig was set up there, and additional Astera Titan tubes were brought in to add some light to the artist for close-up shots. “The important part of the whole project was to make sure we documented the whole event with a few cameras so we could edit it down later to view online. Fortunately, I knew a good drone company in town.”
Aerial Agents was brought in to work with E-V’s company and supplied a drone that captured mountains of footage during the shoot, with dramatic sweeps and aerial pans of the building as well as exterior shots of the artist at work. The show was shot to tape at the end of last August, and it went live on Oct. 7 as a benefit for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
E-V brought in the usual gang that works on all of his videos to shoot the footage and edit it down to the one hour show to be streamed later. A camera crew included a fixed camera on the 44th floor, two ARRI RED digital cameras, two guys walking around with Gimbals, and a fixed position on the street to catch the building.
In addition, E-V brought in a local singer-songwriter he manages named Siena Bella, and she performed a song the two of them wrote together. She was filmed inside the observation area on the 42nd floor simultaneously as the DJ performed two flights above.
Kristen was brought back in to design the lighting, but this time, the show would be an hour long, with no dress rehearsal. Jones had to busk her way through the entire set. “The biggest challenge wasn’t so much the programming, as we had full faith in Kristen’s ability, but was figuring out how to integrate the grandMA control surface to work with the KiNET system, a Color Kinetics Ethernet protocol system used to address and control their fixtures,” notes Siko. “Before Kristen could previz the light show, we had to build a scaled model that we could use for the grandMA2 Visualizer. That in itself was a feat, as our company had to construct a model of the building. It also entailed sending a team all through the tower to figure out which fixture was lighting which area of the tower, and what the actual DMX address for each one was, so they could patch the console.”
Normally, the lights on the building perform slow fades from one solid color to another. This was the first time the citizens of Cleveland got to catch a glimpse of the lights flashing to the beat as the artist performed for the cameras. During the filming, tweets around the town suggested the lighting had gone crazy, with people wondering what was causing this.
As far as topping this stunt in the future, E-V states, “that’s gonna be very hard, but with this team, I know we can! I have two or three plans moving forward as we speak. Very big Cleveland Landmarks, and a super-unique hidden gem,” he teases.
E-V on Cleveland’s Terminal Tower
Recorded Aug. 2020, Streamed Oct. 7
Crew
- Lighting Designer/Programmer: Kristin Jones
- Systems Integrator/Controls Specialist: Taine Gilliam
- Lighting Co: Vincent Lighting/Tom Siko
- Building Management: K&D Group/Matthew Rinker
- Producer: Gaby Schneider
- Lighting: Chris Hardman
- Director, Editor & Camera: Owen Zubek
- Drone Provider: Aerial Agents/Thomas Wasinski
- Camera Op: Drew Griffing
- Photography: Kevin Inthavong
- Cameras: Sceneamatix (Camera)
- Spider Studios Camera Op: Ben Schigel
- Poster Artwork: Glen Infante
- Guest Artist: Siena Bella
You can view the performance at www.plsn.me/E-V
