As we take a last look at 2020 — gladly, in the rearview mirror! — PLSN checked in with our lighting community for holiday happenings, more pandemic pivots that changes lives for 2021, and any slivers of silver linings that can reported. Looking forward to live events returning in 2021.
Spear-Heading Sets for Lindsey Stirling
During lockdown, production designer Alec Spear launched his new set design and fabrication company, Non Linear Design and Fabrication, in Logan, UT. His mantra is to provide sustainable, affordable and flexible solutions, with the use of recyclable and reusable materials when possible. His company’s first job was working with electronic violinist Lindsey Stirling’s pay-per-view Christmas special, Home For the Holidays, which aired Dec. 12. Planning started in September, with Stirling hiring many of her regular crew (including Spear) for the shooting of the virtual concert experience.
Spear built 10 sets for the 10-song show. “It was a super cool special,” Spear said. “We followed roughly the same setlist and flow as her previous Christmas tour, but brought to life a lot of the scenic elements she’d been using as video content on the road. We designed and built over the month of October, and spent 10 days in early November in Las Vegas shooting everything. Lindsey is kind and working with her is always great.”
Spear has wanted to open his own shop for a couple years, but touring took up his time. “It’s been a real blessing to have some free months to get things up and going, and I’m excited to be in a good place to take jobs when live entertainment comes back. That has been my biggest silver lining of 2020,” he said. Visit @non.linear.design on Instagram.
While the 82nd Airborne Division Band’s roots reach back to 1942, the members keep current when it comes to concerts. Not only do their have their own arsenal of lighting equipment, but they also have their own ideas of how they want to present their choral and musical shows.
Based at Ft. Bragg, NC, the event was designed to be two nights of a drive-in music festival on the parade grounds at Pike Field. But for Covid-19 and weather related reasons, it pivoted to a daytime show indoors at Fayetteville Coliseum. And instead of audiences, it would be live streamed. When talk turned to televising the event, they wanted to enlist the talents of LD Bryan Hartley for his Trans-Siberian Orchestra designs. As Hartley was busy with TSO’s livestream show at the same time, LD Cosmo Wilson said was honored to be another designer on their wish list. “Everyone in the band was stoked to hear that the LD for AC/DC and Aerosmith was doing their lighting,” Cosmo said. “And for me, it’s an honor to work with the military.”
Originally, Wilson was asked to design for a four-post roof with an upstage and downstage truss. “Once it got moved indoors, they said we had 250 feet of truss and I designed a rig with finger trusses, and made sure we had enough real estate for the lights,” Wilson said. “The main thing was that they wanted it to look good on video. I wanted to make sure every person in the 60-person band was lit well. Everyone was playing their hearts out, so I wanted to make sure every one of them were all seen in the video. It was traditional music, but I still made it dynamic. I didn’t use a lot of strobes, but I rocked up Little Drummer Boy!”
Lighting the Rink and Three Rooftops
Myles Mangino recently found a few outdoor projects in which to work safely. In New York City, ice skating at The Rink at Rockefeller Center is a tradition that continued on this year, but with masks and limited skaters. Mangino designed and installed a new lighting system — with Wizard Studios — at the iconic venue. Matt Guminski joined him as a programmer.
Mangino continued more outdoor entertainment for Rolling Stone magazine’s Rooftop Sessions. With ATD-AV, he designed three identical stages to raise funds and bring awareness to Musician’s Foundation and the Sweet Relief Musicians fund to support friends in the music scene. Three different bands — Oddisee, Elle King and Cold War Kids — lit by three different LDs, on three rooftops across three boroughs of New York City, framed by iconic skyline views. Myles designed all three stages, and programmed and operated the Manhattan stage for Cold War Kids. Operators Matt Guminski handled the Elle King concert in Queens and Ross Graham ran Oddisee in Brooklyn. Watch the recap at rollingstone.com/rooftopsessions.
Holidays at the Apollo
Mike Berger was happy to take part in For The Record’s holiday project, Sing Your Hallelujah, with Shoshana Bean and guests. Berger designed and programmed the special — with Eric Norris as gaffer — shot live at New. York City’s legendary Apollo Theater in November. On-demand video is available until Jan. 9, 2021. Visit singyourhallelujah.com
Mullen Pivots to Construction
Designer Watch recently wrote about LD Rachel Mullen’s drive-in opera project. She’s now singing a different tune as operations manager at Mission City Construction Inc. in Santa Clara County, CA. “The Bay Area design and build firm specializes in residential and commercial projects,” she said, “and they are involved with every aspect of construction from the very beginning stages of architectural design to the completion of the project.” She said much of her new full-time gig of managing and overseeing overall operations involves quality control, safety, productivity and labor.
An Active Activity
Patrick Dierson is thankful that The Activity’s 2020 comes to a close with several broadcast projects over the last two months: the launch of T-Mobile’s T-Vision product, Dell Technologies’ virtual Dell World event, McDonald’s Investor Update 2020 and this year’s Sports Illustrated Awards.
Silver Linings
Carter Adams reports in about recent gigs working with the People’s Choice Awards, and an ice skating rink and church Christmas show near Sacramento, CA. “I feel super fortunate to have worked at all in 2020,” he said. His silver lining is his move in December to a new home in Oakland, CA. “Everyone left the Bay Area, and rent prices crashed,” he explained. “This made it possible for myself and my partner Samantha to afford an actual house — still renting, of course. We will have more space to work from home these next few months.” The first thing he will do is frame and hang on his new walls his PLSN “On The Road” profile (PLSN, May 2020, page 9) covering his early 2020 tour with country artist Allen Stone.
Martin Thomas said, “Silver lining for me is that I have had time to spend with my significant other, Missy, and we have been raising our rescue Border Collie pup, Happy, as a two-parent household. I’ve had time to also manage new group Grant Hill and MOS, and we will be releasing their first album on Feb. 19, 2021.”
LD Jonathan Smeeton expressed his silver lining thoughts from the U.K. waterways: “Man! Did I retire at exactly the right moment. Love to all from my English canal boat.”
Reach Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com.
