After a concert lighting experience that opened his eyes at a young age, David Hunkins got started in live entertainment production and never looked back. He designed and teched shows in high school and college. In fact, he was so busy working to pay for a college theater education, he left school to work… and eat. His early career days were spent in the Milwaukee area working as a stagehand on lighting and scenery projects for theater, music, fashion shows, and events. His desire to tour led him to move to Los Angeles. Being in LA he was steered towards working in television production; a decision he never regretted as it led to working on high profile broadcast projects and learning lighting from some of the best in the business. He has gone on to larger and larger productions in music, television, and events, moving more into the production management. His depth of knowledge and wide skillset has earned him much work—and well-deserved respect—from his colleagues in the industry. Recently, Hunkins left the freelance life, joining 4Wall Entertainment as Director of Live Events with a broad national scope. PLSN was very happy to get some time to speak with him about his start in the industry and his career path.
How did you end up in the live entertainment industry?
The Moody Blues. I think I was 11 years old when my mom and her boyfriend dragged me to a Moody Blues concert out at Alpine Valley [Music Theatre, East Troy, WI]. I had no interest at all in going. Now I think they are an amazing group of individuals, incredible musicians and I totally appreciate them, but back when I was 11, I had zero interest in seeing them. So, I was sitting there at Alpine and at the end of the concert, because of course, “Nights in White Satin” was the encore, the lighting rig flew in and raked and 35,000 people jumped to their feet and lost their minds. And all these lights were pouring off the stage, and at that moment I was like, ‘I don’t know what just happened, but I want that to be my life. I want to do that. I want be a part of this experience.’ That was it. Ever since that moment, I was looking to be part of music, entertainment, lighting in particular, part of making the magic of that moment. So, yeah, that Moody Blues concert was the beginning.
How did you then start working?
When I was in high school, I met this guy Mik Moore when we were washing dishes at Carroll [University, Waukesha, WI]. It was a summer job but we were both into production. He was a sound guy and I was lighting guy so we started hanging out. We built a studio in his basement with an old eight-track quarter-inch tape machine and soundproofed the basement with whatever foam we could find. We recorded a bunch of really crappy high school bands there. We saved up our dishwashing money to buy speakers and lights and build some decks. We were doing bar gigs when we were in high school. We would borrow his dad’s car, stuff a bunch of PA in there and go do a bar gig. We should have been saving college money, but instead we were buying equipment. We were Miracle Productions.
Did you go to school for theater or production?
I did, I went to Carroll College. It’s funny, I’d never thought of going to school there for all the years that I cut through the campus on the way to middle school. But the theater department folks from Carroll came and saw some shows at my high school, Waukesha South, where I designed, TD’d and ME’d and were like ‘who’s this guy?’ They got me some money, some grants, that made it possible for me to go to Carroll. I spent two years there in the theater program doing lighting design, production design and tech directing. I only went two years, because I was too busy working to stay at school. I was working at Acme Production Services in Milwaukee already. I was working at The Riverside Theater, I was taking work calls at The Bradley Center, at Alpine. I was working my butt off to pay to go to school and I thought, ‘I’m paying to learn how to go do the thing I’m doing.’ I knew that’s wasn’t totally true, but I couldn’t really afford to eat and pay for school. So that was the end of it and I was off to the races working.
What do you think is an important trait or quality needed to work in production?
I think more than anything is the ability to see beyond your own responsibilities. That’s not a quality that’s necessarily going to make you a bunch of money or notoriety, but the more of that notion you embrace on an event or production, the more successful that production will be. Simple things like knowing how long is stuff going to take you to do it and understanding how will that affect others. You have got to see around all the corners. See well beyond the thing that matters to just you and see the whole thing. It is the whole thing that matters.
What do you enjoy most about your career?
When somebody tells me it’s not possible, that tends to be the most fun project, so, anything that hasn’t been done, stuff that’s not textbook. For the past 10 years, I would say a lot of the rigging and engineering work I’ve been doing has been fun like that. Some stuff I did at Radio City, when the guys at TAIT are scratching their heads for a minute. That’s a pretty good feeling; collaborating with those brilliant minds. Solving problems that are new, that’s what I enjoy. Not just solving the same old problems, because that becomes dull.
Who are some of the people who have been mentors during your career?
That is a long list, but I would start with Tom Beck. Allen Branton also. I got a great education from Tom Beck and from Allen Branton about the true art of lighting humans. There’s no better way to learn it than from those two people. Carsten Weiss [President of rigging company C2W] is just an amazing individual and so incredibly supportive and a treat to work with. One of the things that I look forward to with 4Wall is the opportunity to do more work with Carsten. Collaborating on engineering and problem solving and working on overall production solutions with him is great. We go way back. I owe Carsten a lot.
Is there a piece of advice you got at the start of your career that you still find applicable today?
It’s from my dad, I think it is an Einstein quote, but he used tell me, often, that inspiration is far more important than information. That still applies on a daily basis. [Ed. note – Einstein’s full quote: “I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”]
What has surprised you most about your career path?
Television, I think, was the biggest surprise for me. In early 2000, I moved to LA, and all I wanted to do was tour. I got connected with Tom Thompson at Prelite and he took me around LA. He introduced me to Barry Claxton, at Fourth Phase back then, and Susan Tesh at VLPS, and got me in as the crew chief with those folks. I am very grateful for that. Tom was another mentor for me. From that I did a Branton TV gig, I think the MTV Movie Awards. Prior to that, I loved music and touring; big shows, bright lights and really dynamic stuff. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of having to turn things down. It was so foreign to me, the idea of that gentle finesse of lighting. And so I did this gig and then I went back to Claxton and was like, ‘That was great. Can I get out on tour?’ And he almost came over the desk and choked me. He was like, ‘No! You’re a TV guy.’ I thought, ‘Sh**, I don’t want to do that.’ But it was profitable and, again, hanging out with Branton, I finally paid attention and then I really began to appreciate the art of a few square inches behind somebody’s head and how you make that an amazing, powerful thing, or the subtlety of the art of paying attention to those really, really micro details and making them right. I learned that from a designing, programming perspective, the whole television lighting experience, that I thought would be limiting, was in fact the opposite. I learned that there was so much more you could do, it is anything but limiting. I realized you just have to change the way you approach it, change the way you look at it. Appreciate it for what it is. It was that moment of understanding that made me stop thinking I know everything about everything. I really was like, ‘wow, I don’t know anything, but I want to discover more.’ That idea really broadened my career path. And I still always want to discover something more. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
