You may have never heard of Cody Stoltz, but if you have, then you know why this young man is special. At 13 years of age, he absolutely loves lighting. While most people his age are still playing with their friends or dealing with the changes that come with transitioning to life as a teenager, Stoltz knows what he wants to do; he wants to be a lighting designer. He’s even saved his money and invested in his own lighting rig, and he’s an intern at New Orleans-based RZI. PLSN: How did you get interested in lighting at such a young age?
Cody Stoltz: I’ve been interested in it for a really long time. When I was younger I wanted to design a show with moving lights and design the stage from the ground up. I think a lot of that — buying a lighting rig, and getting to do what I am doing now, would be the NOCCA — the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. The school is one of the best in the world for pretty much everything. They have a good set-up on their stage; it’s a very expensive system. But, what made me buy my lighting system was that they wouldn’t let me play with the console when I took theatre classes there.
Your parents work in the industry. Did you parents take you to a lot of shows when you were younger and did that influence you?
It might have somewhat. Doing that, I learned more about what the equipment does and the brand names of the equipment, but as far as me being really
interested, I’ll pay $50 or $60 for a ticket to see a good light show.
Did you go to a lot of live shows when you were younger?
A lot of festivals but not a lot of big lighting shows. One of the first ones I can remember that had a good light show was Duran Duran. Steve Rehages’s younger
sister brought me on stage to see them. I didn’t know who they were but my Dad (Erick Stoltz) told me to go see them because they were good.
Being in the business is kind of in your blood, isn’t it?
My mom (Ashley Boudreaux) does it, my step-dad (DJ Boudreaux) does it, and my dad used to go out on tour. But I never really experienced any of that. But, since I started with this, my step-dad’s always giving me a heads-up on things that I should and get.
How old were you when you thought this was something you wanted to do?
Probably about five or six years ago.
Did your school have classes that exposed you to lighting?
The last school I went to had eight PAR cans and dusty, decrepit followspots that hadn’t been used in years.
Were you interested art or other creative studies?
I’ve been interested in pottery and art class, but it wasn’t really anything that fulfilled me.
But you do have a creative side to begin with, and then you discovered lighting. When did you start going to NOCCA?
I started going to the Saturday classes right after Mardi Gras.
What did you have to do to take those classes?
For Saturday classes, you had to fill out a form and list some references. There was also a fee for Saturday and summer classes. For summer classes, which I did for two weeks, it was $100, and for Saturday classes, it was like $10.
From what I understand, you worked with audio and pyro systems during the NOCCA production of Tommy.
I helped with pyro. But I got to learn how to handle it and how it worked. I watched them do it and learned about the controllers they use for it. And I was doing backstage
microphones and I got put on the audio gear.
But didn’t you really want to do lighting?
Yeah. The first day or so, I did nothing but prepping and hanging some lights.
Since you couldn’t work with light more extensively, was that an incentive to buy your own system?
I’m not really sure if that was before or after Tommy. I think it might have been before.
Did you save your money to invest it in a lighting rig?
Yeah, I did. I think on my first order I invested about $350.
What did you buy?
Eight PARs, a little 16-channel console from Elation, and clamps and stuff like that. I didn’t know a lot about conventional systems at the time, so on my next order, I bought dimmer packs for the PAR cans. Since then I’ve kind of grown from there. I got a couple of hazers and some followspots. I really didn’t have enough money to get anything like moving lights, but I’m tying to save my money to get Martin MAC 250s and three Atomic strobes for my rig.
That’s impressive. I heard that in addition to saving your money to build a bigger lighting rig, you’re doing an internship so you can continue to learn more about lighting.
Yep. At RZI Lighting, with Ray Ziegler.
What are you doing there?
I’m doing a lot in the warehouse. I’m learning a lot about different fixture personalities and how lighting systems are built. I’m learning about new lighting equipment and different brands and other equipment that will be good for my rental company. I’m also helping load and unload trucks. For the past three weeks, I’ve been learning about consoles. The first console I learned was the Pearl from Avolites. Then, the Jands Vista came in and I’ve kind of learned that. And, I just got a chance to program some preset cues that were used on the Coca Cola Stage at the Essence Festival using an Avolites Pearl. They actually used all them, too. And one of them was the walk-in look.
Do they set up the board for you and give you some lights and let you run with it?
Whenever they have something new there, I just go up and take a couple of minutes to pull some moving lights out and hook them up to the console. No one really shows me anything unless I really can’t figure it out, so I had to learn everything from a manual, which can be hard.
I used to proof manuals, so I feel your pain. If you could, though, would you sit down with every board and learn it?
If I had the chance.
Do you see yourself as more a lighting programmer or do you want to be a designer?
Even when I see lighting shows designed by the best of the best, I still have a few things I’d add. I want to design a system from the ground up and run it.
To that end, didn’t you recently attend a training session at High End Systems?
Everyone at High End was really cool and friendly. They say down and taught me one-on-one. Mitch Peebles was the one who was teaching me and he hooked up a console to visualizer and he showed almost everything on the Hog console. It was a great.
I also heard that you had a good experience when Rush was in town. Can you tell me about that?
Howard Ungerleider, the lighting designer, put me on the headset and I got to listen to all the cues. It was great and I learned a lot. And if it wasn’t for Howard, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to go to High End.
You’re already networking. You’ve got a bright future in this industry.
I hope so.
