Healy Lights Million Second Quiz
It’s being called the “first fully convergent TV experience,” and LD Kieran Healy is responsible for the lighting design. The new NBC primetime game show, The Million Second Quiz, with host Ryan Seacrest, allows viewers at home to play along using an app and, with a bit of luck, an opportunity to appear on the show. In the live competition, contestants test the limits of knowledge and endurance in intense bouts of trivia for 12 nonstop days and nights. (This totals up to the “one million seconds” of the quiz.) It all takes place in a giant, three-story hourglass-shaped structure. Competition will air live Sept. 9-19.
Healy is responsible for designing the ambiance of the nonstop competition action in the hourglass. Then he has to focus his attention to the one-hour live show segment. Healy explains: “There will be 23 hours of the show streamed live from a set on the first floor of the building using a ‘skeleton crew.’ I will be there for the one hour per night during a live primetime show on NBC. This will be set up outside on the top of the third floor of a building in midtown Manhattan. The final night will be a two-hour live finale on NBC.” Before its air dates, Healy added, “It’s kind of groundbreaking, and I’m still figuring it out. And it’s outside!” See more at nbc.com/million-second-quiz…
KISS to Crüe
LDs Robert Long and Sooner Routhier collaborated on The Kiss Monster Tour, which included the band’s longest Canadian trek to date along with a swing down the eastern U.S. in July and August. This team is also designing Mötley Crüe’s return to The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for their second residency Sept. 18-Oct. 6, dubbed “An Intimate Evening in Hell.” Crüe’s Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Tommy Lee are reportedly involved in crafting this customized run for The Joint.
So Long, Megadeth; Hello TSO
LD Bryan Hartley just wrapped up the fifth edition of Megadeth’s semi-annual Gigantour festival outing across the U.S. and Canada in July and August. Along with Megadeth, the 2013 lineup included Black Label Society, Hellyeah, Device, Newsted and Death Division. Now it’s pedal to the metal for the annual holiday extravaganza, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Although Hartley pours his soul into each new annual design for the duplicate East Coast/ West Coast runs, he hints that it is “extra special” this year. “This year I break away from the traditional big light show look with something very special and entertaining — something I have never done with TSO,” Hartley says. “That’s all I can say. Come see the show — it will be stunning!”
20 Years of Lightswitch
LDs John Featherstone and Norm Schwab started Lightswitch 20 years ago with the opening of their Chicago and San Francisco offices. Since then, others have joined in to help their vision in lighting and media design including principals Howard Werner in New York, Chris Medvitz in Los Angeles and Bradley Malkus in Orlando, with their newest outpost now in Hong Kong.
“When Norm and I started Lightswitch, we never really thought Lightswitch would expand much beyond the two of us and some of our friends, much less into an international company with so many team members,” Featherstone says. “But if that expansion is due to one thing, it is the incredible support we have received over the years from the countless stage hands, programmers, tech staff, manufacturers and vendors.
“We’d like to give a special ‘shout out’ to the backbone of successful projects, year after year, and that’s all the folks who work ‘in back’ at all the rental shops to support our team. Whether pulling cable, tech’ing lights, prepping consoles or loading trucks, we can’t do what we do without you doing what you do. So even though we rarely meet you and you rarely get to see the shows, your hard work is every bit as important as that of the ‘front line’ of designers, programmers and road techs. So thank you, shop staff, you’re our unsung heroes, and we salute you and your 20 years of support!”
Thomas Tunes Up for Alan Parsons
LD Martin Thomas sent his design for Todd Rundgren out with Sam Raphael for the remainder of the U.S. summer leg, while he got R&B artist Jill Scott started on her summer dates. After a Northeast U.S. sweep, he brought in Theryn Knight to finish that tour, while he focused on a design for the Alan Parsons Live Project.
“The APLP tour is a tune-up for the 35th Anniversary Tour of the release of his iconic album, I Robot, and will proceed into 2014,” Thomas explains. Upcoming 2013 dates include a full symphony orchestra and 60-plus voice choirs in Medellín, Colombia and Cern, Switzerland, and concert dates in Dubai, Mumbai and various cities in Germany and Bulgaria. 2014 will see the tour come to the U.S., South America and Asia.
Dot 9 Designs Debuts
Google has inspired Geoffrey Platt’s Dot 9 Designs (dot9designs.com). He explains, “If you type dot 9 into Google, the first thing you will see is a Wikipedia link referring to the nine dot puzzle which relates to ‘thinking outside the box…’” Thus begat the name and logo for the event production designer’s own full production design and technical consultation firm. Platt’s artistic toolbox includes “just about every trick in the book, including large curve blended screens, moving scenery, rotating stage elements, pyro, multi-resolution LED screens, to every new moving light fixture on the market.” Describing the scope of his work, he says, “One of my largest feats over the past six years has been designing a show for an average of 6,000 people three times a year in different venues across the U.S. with a completely different look and feel for each city using the latest technologies.”
Keeping Up with Cosmo
LD Cosmo Wilson is racking up airline miles world tripping and band hopping. After Australia/New Zealand, Philippines and Singapore with Aerosmith, he lit a few Foreigner dates in the NY/NJ area, including a show at Citi Field after the Mets/Cubs game, then to Europe calling spots for Def Leppard, and back to the U.S. for Aerosmith, returning to Europe with Foreigner, and then to Japan/China/Taiwan with Aerosmith again. It wasn’t all work — there was some play when he attended the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony with Foreigner’s Mick Jones and Lou Gramm, and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. “I’ve never been so busy, but I love it!” Cosmo says.
Benoit Richard’s Film Frenzy
LD Benoit Richard spent three months in New York programming “all the big sets” for the film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. “It was such an adventure to shoot exteriors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island, I felt like I was on an endless episode of The Amazing Race!” Somewhere in there, he designed the concert lighting rig for the new filmed intro to Sunday Night Football on NBC with Carrie Underwood, which rolls out in September for the new season. He then spent August in Chicago working on The Wachowski siblings’ movie, Jupiter Ascending with Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. Director of Photography is John Toll, who was the DP on last year’s Iron Man 3, another Richard project.
The “Other” Mike Wood
Florida’s Mike Wood (mikewoodld.com) — to distinguish him from Texas’ Mike Wood (mikewoodconsulting.com) — most recently returned from New York City where he worked on Born Blue: A New Musical, directed by Anthony Rapp and written by Caren Tackett. He plans to travel with the show to Colorado Springs, CO in January 2014 on the next leg of the tour. Wood also finds time to teach theatre design and technology at the Howard W. Blake School of the Arts in Tampa, FL.
Quick Cues…
LD Brent Clark is touring the world with Stereophonics. “It’s a design in flux,” he says. “One day we are headlining a festival in Tokyo, the next day a club in Australia and then a big outdoor gig somewhere after that, then a club. So it’s pretty up in the air.” The tour hits the U.S. Sept. 19…Baz Halpin designed Black Sabbath’s show, touring North America July 25-Sept. 3.
Michael Keller programmed the lighting…Two Door Cinema Club’s LD Chris “Squib” Swain gears up for a North American tour Oct. 2-Nov. 12…LD Greg Ellis is on the road with Pretty Lights…LD Andy Knighton is in his eleventh year with Rascal Flatts, designing the new tour, “Live & Loud.”…LD Ian Staer has designed Smash Mouth’s show, the headlining act for the group tour Under The Sun…LD Ian Peacock recently logged two weeks in Eastern Europe with Michael Bolton. Other than a few “lost in translation” moments in Minsk, having no intercom in the lighting booth and other cultural differences, he enjoyed the trip. “Life is indeed very good!” he declares.
What’s on your fall touring schedule? Share your news with Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com.
