This year Mercedes-Benz has been launching its new model luxury automobiles, but along with its sophisticated exteriors, the lighting needed to shine on the advanced electronic technology inside. A key theme: “driverless driving.” To accomplish this, the German auto manufacturer tasked its longtime lighting designer Richard Profe with using lighting technology that would also reflect the luxury, efficiency and high technology of its own cars.
When it comes to lighting, Profe has been in the driver’s seat for the car company since 2000. But for the first time, he drove the specs to include only LED equipment: not only on the cars, but on the booth architecture, graphics and back office area. While the concert world displays its fixtures in full view in a rig above the stage, Profe veered off the path, hiding the fixtures within the architecture. The objective: not to show the lighting fixture but to focus on the atmosphere. He described his lighting concept of “Mercedes-Benz World” as a mashup of looks from the stage, show, fair and lounge. Having no choice in the display vehicles’ color, he must readjust his lighting accordingly. Challenges include the juxtaposition of lighting a shiny paint exterior surface with the light-absorbing softness of a luxury interior. Here, the Stuttgart-based LD points to his 25 years of lighting experience to know the exact angle he needs to direct his beamage. Profe also considers how the light saturation changes from when the stand is vacant to when it’s crowded with spectators. “We fill up the spots between the cars with tungsten light, so the crowd will look healthy,” he explained.
Profe’s lighting design company, TLD Planungsgruppe GmbH, employs 40 in its three German offices. He also delves into other disciplines including sound design, video and staging; technical project management, visualizations and preprogramming.
Profe’s production designs for the auto manufacturer extends to other situations where the cars require lighting, from TV commercials and trade show booths to magazine print ads. “We will be asked very often for our opinion and also we created a manual on how to illuminate the Mercedes-Benz booths for Asia and the U.S. There are so many departments and agencies working for them, we cannot do everything, but we do all their ‘A’ list shows!
“Lighting is never boring, and the projects bring me together with interesting people,” he added. “A lighting designer has a high responsibility for art and a high requirement in keeping the client’s budget on target.”
The Return of Steve Owens
Industry veteran/LD Steve Owens has been off the road the past four years. Catching up with him on The Doobie Brothers tour in Austin, Texas, Owens reveals what held him home-bound: liver cancer. That led to chemotherapy, a liver transplant and to complicate it further, a heart attack caused by his cancer medication. “I kept it quiet,” he said of his illness. “Only a few people knew.”
The current Doobie Brothers tour is his first time on the road since, and he’s proud to discuss his clean bill of health.
“The party days are over,” he said, describing his better choices, including how he now seeks out nutritious foods in grocery stores while on the road to keep his immune system at top notch. He’s feeling better than ever and grateful to get back out there doing what he loves doing and with crew friends he’s known for years.
How did he spot the signs of his illness four years ago? It started with general symptoms that one would find normal on a life on the road, he said. “I was tired a lot — I had to take a nap every day in the afternoon.”
If there’s any advice he has to give, Owens points to one thing: get insurance. Read more about Steve Owens in next month’s “On the Road” feature.
Ravitz Directs Festival Broadcast Lighting
Jeff Ravitz was the director of broadcast lighting for this year’s Coachella and Stagecoach Festivals in Indio, CA. The performances achieved record viewership from YouTube webcasts and AXS TV broadcasts. Ravitz worked with the festival designers and the individual lighting directors of bands playing on five individual stages on three consecutive weekends.
“The mission is for the TV version to retain all the excitement and artistic integrity of the live show that the festival audience is seeing,” Ravitz said. “The webcast and broadcast audiences see a different show, nevertheless, and the focus is much more directed at the performers and less at the big wide shot that shows the entire lighting system.. There is full sunlight for the first half of the day, but even that requires carefully placed fill light to look better on camera.”
Quick Cues
LD Preston Hoffman is designing the lighting for the band moe.’s summer gigs along with the Summer Camp Music Festival’s moonshine stage and festival site lighting for the Boston Calling Music Festival. Between all of this road work, he is collaborating with his brother on several lighting installs.
Cody Stoltz is programming Toby Keith’s new tour for LDs Eddie “Bones” Connell and Seth Jackson. “It’s going to be a pretty big rig this year, around 180 fixtures,” Stoltz said.
Take a breather from your hectic summer schedule and let Debi Moen know your plans. Reach her at dmoen@plsn.com.
