“A true visionary” is a phrase that is often overused, but it’s probably an understatement when describing High End Systems co-founder Richard Belliveau. “He pretty much single-handedly changed the industry by building an automated light that was sold instead of rented in the touring industry,” states PLSN editor Richard Cadena. The list of his innovations includes the Laser Chorus, Dataflash, Intellabeam, Emulator, Cyberlight, Studio Color, Trackspot, Technobeam, X-Spot, Showgun, and ShowPix, to name but a few.
“He’s got extreme intelligence and artistic vision, which is very rare,” says lighting designer Chas Herrington. “He’s got great strength in the sciences, and really understands optics beyond what most people can. Plus he completely understands where an LD is coming from. He gets LDs.”
“Entertainment equipment is an art form,” Belliveau says. “When creating new innovative products a designer both uses the prior art and hopefully expands the design with new and innovative features. If at the end the product can create a new and exciting mood at a value that the market can accept, you have a successful product.”
Howard Ungerleider, LD for Rush and currently designer/principal of Production Design International, says he’s always been a fan of avant garde lighting and effects that push the envelope. So it’s not surprising that he’s been a longtime admirer of Belliveau. “He’s all about giving LDs like myself tools and ammunition to entertain people and has an appreciation for the artistic applications of lighting,” he says. “He’s one of the few guys who get that.”
Belliveau’s philosophy is simple: “The question that matters is: ‘What does it take on a stage to cause excitement and to get people motivated?’ If you build that, then the lighting designers will come.”
Belliveau was born in Hitchin, England to an English mother and an American father, who was a U.S. Air Force officer. Typical of military children, he moved around and attended a lot of schools in the U.S. and Europe. “Growing up I loved to spend my time involved with science,” he says. “In school I was that ‘mad scientist kid’ that always brought interesting projects to class.”
He would end up in Austin, where he attended high school. There he would earn extra money modifying guitars with humbucking pickups and repairing car stereos. This led to becoming a DJ, and furthered an interest in entertainment electronics.
Meanwhile, Lowell Fowler and his spouse, Sue, had founded Blackstone, an atmospheric environment installation company, in 1972. They also owned a club called Stars near the campus of the University of Texas. As Fowler was minding the club one night, Belliveau approached him and politely but persuasively informed him that he was not satisfied with the experience being provided by Stars. A conversation ensued, and next Belliveau started improving the club and working for Blackstone.
Fowler says that after a trade show, Belliveau saw what European lighting companies were manufacturing and he began importing them. “But he found problems, and became his own R&D department,” he says. “He would send them back with ideas about how to fix them. He really helped the lighting evolve and improve their design.”
The late 1970s found Texas in heady times. The oil crisis of the period drove Texans to drill, baby, drill, and begat “Texas Tea” millionaires. Belliveau adds that many of those millionaires wanted to invest in large nightclubs to satisfy their big egos. “I found myself designing expansive lighting, sound, and video systems for the fixed installation market. Planning these systems could take up to a year. In order for the install to be world class I found it necessary to specify and design very original equipment. Designs often incorporated custom computer-controlled rigging and video systems.”
The club craze in Texas hit a new high when the oil money flowed, and Belliveau was on hand to create some of the most dazzling nightspots of the time. “When Texas had oil money we designed and produced some of the nicest and largest clubs in the world,” he says. “My task was to design venues that were far ahead of their time.”
He was very involved in the development of the JEM ZR-20 fog machine and the Coemar Robot. Belliveau decided to take on the lighting manufacturing world and started building innovative lighting gear, experimenting with 5-milliwatt lasers. That led to the very first product he designed and manufactured, called Laser Chorus. “He hired several people to assemble them and product manage them and it became a worldwide hit. Sales went through the roof,” says Cadena, who worked with Belliveau in late 1980s and through most of the 1990s. “Then he started experimenting with strobe lights and out of that came Dataflash. After that he built the F-100 fog machine.” To sell all of this gear he opened a new company called High End Systems.
“In those early days I designed and manufactured a line of pro audio sound systems whereas my partner at that time, Lowell Fowler, specialized in multimedia slide projector systems used for entertainment,” adds Belliveau. “In the early 1980s we even used Barco’s entertainment projectors in some reference installations! (foreshadowing his future with the company). But too often our quality reputation was threatened by the weak quality of the lighting products we integrated and hence we set out to redesign existing lighting products.”
The company suffered a setback when one of its “exclusive” European suppliers started selling direct to other companies. It was a huge blow, and no one would have blamed Belliveau for sulking, settling for lesser products, or even changing careers. But what he did instead was head straight to his workshop. Cadena says he can still recall the determination in Belliveau’s face.
“After about six months of the most intense R&D and hard work you can imagine, the first Intellabeams were built. Once he gets an idea, he doesn’t stop, and from the first day he worked furiously on a new automated moving mirror fixture.”
“High End was created as way to distribute entertainment electronics worldwide,” Belliveau says. “We distributed equipment that was both manufactured in Texas as well as from other creative entertainment manufacturers throughout the word.” High End included Fowler and partner Bob Schacherl.
Robert Mokry recalls interviewing for a job with Belliveau. Belliveau, then in his mid-20s, gave the 19-year-old a written test for the job. While he’s never taken a written test for an industry job since, “it was an indication of his thoroughness,” he says, adding that working under him had a big impact on his life. “He was good at electronics and had amazing determination. I admire him because nobody ever handed anything to him on a plate, and he never let anyone tell him he couldn’t do something.”
Mokry, co-owner of LightParts, Inc. with ex-High End technician Don Pugh, says that Belliveau played a large role in the use of glass patterns becoming part of the lighting industry. “Richard invented all of it,” he says. “A lot of the now-typical looks you see with color, he invented.”
Despite his relative youth, Belliveau was clear about what was needed to succeed. “Quality of the install and the equipment used was always a first priority,” he says. “How else are you going to get repeat business? In order to make this happen I was very fortunate to surround myself with a team of very competent coworkers. I hired many of our first technicians after standing for hours at Radio Shack just waiting for local electronic hobbyists to come into the store so I could ask them if they might like to work in entertainment electronics.”
Mokry reports that while it might be typical to give a new piece of gear a “drop” test, Belliveau would drop it off a dock or even a forklift. In the mid-1990s, High End instituted break-resistant mirrors, and golden hammers were created and used to beat on them in front of clients.
But work of another kind was needed. High End was being pigeon-holed as a “disco” lighting company because of the pinspots and mirror balls they started selling in earlier days. With that reputation, the concert touring industry wanted nothing to do with the Intellabeam. Belliveau’s reaction was to offer a $1,000 bonus to the first High End salesperson that could put the lights on a major concert tour. That tour was Dire Straits, LD’d by Chas Herrington.
Today Herrington is president of Zenith Lighting. But in the early 1990s when he was working for Dire Straits he was also designing the lighting for a nightclub in Bali. He called High End about buying Intellabeams for the job. Upon learning he was also LD for Dire Straits, High End aggressively went after him. They flew him to Austin where Belliveau picked him up in a Hummer, which was extremely rare back then. “It scared the life out of me!” Herrington laughs.
At the factory, Herrington was impressed by the possibilities of the Intellabeam. “What intrigued me was the speed of the mirror,” he recalls. “It was capable of incredible stuff because of the speed.”
He was also impressed with Belliveau. “He was extremely receptive to anything I wanted to implement, and was willing to consider my suggestions to make it more road-worthy.” Belliveau and company delivered, including a control system that married analog and digital technologies. Challenges? Sure. At first, the new lights were blowing through lamps at an incredible rate. But Belliveau got on the phone with lamp maker Phillips and got them to make what he needed. No detail was too small either: when Herrington said the original silver finish of the lights should be black powder-coat, the change was done. “He understood all of it.”
More than 70 High End lights went out on that tour and significantly changed concert touring.
The relationship the two men remains to this day. “Richard is a man of vision — there’s no question about it. He’s able to get things done before many of us are even done asking questions. Nothing is impossible with him.”
Belliveau is an inventor with over 65 patents. Among them are many “firsts,” including a low-powered laser using microprocessor and stepper motor technology, a laser emulation system using a xenon lamp, and the first digitally addressable RGB color-mixing profile spotlight. His innovative work with optical thin film manufacturing specifically for the production of high-volume dichroic filters for the lighting industry was tremendously influential. He’s been responsible for some of the most kinetically jaw-dropping moments during the last 20 years of automated lighting technology.
“I think intelligent lighting has been an evolution that has been taking place throughout history, going all the way back to the times of Magic Lanterns,” Belliveau says. “Motors and electronics were added to lights in the 1950s. My first experience with a remote-controlled color changer operated by a lighting desk was the PanCan produced by Peter Wynne Wilson in the mid 1980s.”
Belliveau would shift focus toward digital luminaires as opposed to automated lighting during a critical time for the industry. “Full-color gobo projection for concerts and corporate events has always been desirable in entertainment,” he explains. “The development team at High End Systems worked with digital lighting concepts and ideas since the mid-1990s. Full color lithographic gobos were good, as first shown in Cyberlight, but we knew that animations in full color as created by light valve technology would yield a much better result.”
High End’s Laser Chorus was a laser scanner system that could operate with 12 multicolored low-powered lasers. It’s hard to underestimate the breakthrough: no one thought that a 5mW laser could be useful in a lighting presentation, “but by using multiple units we demonstrated what was indeed possible.”
Another advancement was the Color Pro. “Color Pro used an additive dichroic combining system that allowed a red, blue, and green light source to be combined to a single output,” he says. “Color deviation is highly perceivable to the human eye especially when operating lights side by side. High End’s development arm, called Lightwave Research, at that time produced an optical laboratory to manufacture high-spec dichroic filters. These filters turned out to be essential for the manufacture of today’s automated lighting.”
Fowler confirms that having 70 Intellabeams out with Dire Straits put the company on the map, and gives credit to Herrington for taking the chance. “When we saw the tour, it was absolutely amazing.” Moving lights became bread and butter fixtures quickly. Even the High End team was surprised at how quickly they were selling — even in Europe, and in places they hadn’t imagined, like opera houses. “That light just crossed so many markets — symphonies, ballets, TV, cruise ships.”
When using Cyberlights on a tour, Ungerleider called Belliveau and told him he wanted to hang one of his lights outdoors upside down. Belliveau said, “Well, just do it and let me know what happens.” Of course the rain poured, and the lights filled with water — yet still worked the whole show. “I called him the next day and said, ‘Man, you have good lights!’” he laughs.
Fowler says the Emulator was another high point — another item that people didn’t know they needed until it was built.
Belliveau and company were pioneers in showing people that video projection could be used as another entertainment instrument different than conventional video projection. “A lighting director can now easily control the video produced by the digital lighting as well as other conventional automated lights on the stage. This reduces the costs associated with separate dedicated video and lighting control systems.”
Belliveau’s love for the technical extends far beyond the live event world. In his early days he built head-turning car audio systems that regularly won awards in addition to turning heads. Fowler says a line of speakers he built was also ahead of his time.
Those who know him only casually know of his love for high-powered cars. His rides have included Corvettes, a Dodge Viper, and even a Lamborghini. At one point, a section of the High End facility where they made fog machines also shared the floor with his car collection.
Today Belliveau is chief technology office for HES Barco and “still works like crazy,” Fowler confirms (who too is still with the organization as Industry Relations Advisor). With Bobby Hale, engineering operations manager and the rest of the R&D team, several new products are in the works that will no doubt result in more visionary breakthroughs.
“Sometimes you didn’t know where he was coming from, but he is the most persuasive person I know,” Fowler says. “He just really cares about products that make people go ‘wow.’”
And he confirms Belliveau’s “mad scientist” reputation. “He gets so focused, just stays with something and works it until he gets it. There were many mornings I’d come in to find him still there from the night before. Then he’d show me what he was working on and I’d go, ‘Oh — now I see what you were talking about!’
“Sometimes you had to remind him to eat.”
Fowler adds with a laugh that Belliveau never developed a liking for “focus groups.” “Richard always thought that was B.S. He didn’t care what people thought they needed now — he was always building things that people would need. He is always looking to the future.”
Mokry says he is one of the fairest people he’s ever known, though he doesn’t advise to ever come to a meeting with him unprepared. If there was a flaw in a proposal, he’d find it instantly. “He applied that to product development, which is why everything that came out under him was so good. He’s blistering smart, remembers everything he’s ever read or heard, and is the ultimate ‘polisher.’”
“He would come up with anything you wanted,” Ungerleider says. “I talked strobe light to him once and he said he’d make one that will blind me. He’s always been that guy who you can go to with an idea and talk to him and does what he can. I don’t know anybody else who does that.
“He’s a great character of incredible integrity,” he adds. “He’s one of these charismatic, genius guys who changed the industry and helped mold it into what it is today.”
