Eric Marchwinski is the uber-talented programmer behind many of the biggest tours, musicals, and live television events happening today. From Katy Perry to the Rolling Stones, this young man has risen quickly to become one of this industry’s elite programmers, working with some of the biggest LDs in our business, including Baz Halpin, Patrick Woodroffe, Roy Bennett and Eric Wade.
Eric’s career rise seems fast when compared to the typical story of a tech coming up through the ranks from crew guy to programmer, and it started at Berklee College of Music. Growing up just north of NYC, he enrolled at Berklee in the hopes of becoming a live sound engineer. His life took a different turn when he applied for a work-study position on the stage crew.
Once he began working in theaters on campus, he was exposed to lighting, and he began working continuously around Boston on the Local 11, on stagehand calls, and occasionally with a local company, East Coast Lighting & Production Services (ECLPS).
Here Eric met Bob Morrissey and Nate Almeida, and that connection eventually led to the offer to go on the road with Trey Songz. When Songz began opening for Usher in 2010, Eric’s fate would take another turn. During the Usher tour, LD Eric Wade fell ill, so programmer Eric stepped up to assist, and that fateful opportunity would eventually lead him to meet LD Baz Halpin, with whom he instantly connected and continues to work with frequently.
These opportunities all put Eric in front of some incredibly well known people in the industry, very quickly.
PLSN: Thank you for taking time out of your crazy schedule to chat with me. Lately I’ve seen your name on a lot of projects with quite a few A-list LDs.
Eric M: I’m very fortunate to work for a broad spectrum of designers on a variety of projects. It gives me various perspectives and I get to learn how they work. I’m very happy with my position right now, I enjoy not being the designer just yet. Being surrounded by designers I look up to and can learn from will make stepping into that role more comfortable when the time is right.
So do you primarily use the grandMA2 or do you use other consoles at this point?
The grandMA2 is certainly my weapon of choice these days. I consider myself fortunate to be able to choose my tool on the productions I work on now. Coming up, though, I needed a more versatile skillset — from Hog to Avo to ETC. I needed to be able to jump in anywhere and succeed. With the versatility of the MA2 and time invested on workflow, I can now confidently say “any show you throw at me, I can program it best on this desk.”
You have the reputation of being one of the fastest, if not the fastest, MA2 programmers in the business right now. How do you balance speed with the artistic eye necessary to be creative too?
Programming, to me, is the perfect blend of technical and artistic — left brain and right brain. Finding the balance between looking up and looking down is tough, though. Like with any craft, it requires practice — both behind the desk, and facilitating the art. When you hit the point that all the “how am I going to do this” becomes subconscious — that’s the sweet spot. You can look up and focus on the art on the other side of the room; the data management becomes second nature.
Let’s talk about your workflow on the console. What do you like about the MA2, and how do those features help you create your workspace?
The MA software is linearly structured and organized, which I find intuitive and comforting. The command line and its syntax allow a user to create macros with the power to speed up your unique workflow. With so many ways to accomplish a task, the flexibility of a command line based infrastructure means anyone can find themselves at home with the desk. Over the years, I’ve been able to construct and develop a workflow that best suits my needs as a programmer. When people ask me “how are you so fast,” the answer is simple — “I know where things are.”
Can you walk us through your desktop?
Ergonomics was a high priority in developing my programming layout. With so much time spent in front of the desk, it’d better be comfortable, and comfortable equals speed. I use my smaller multitouch screen for utility — groups and macros live near the programming section of the desk. The first screen on the right (Screen 2) is where my layout view lives. The next screen over on my left (Screen 3) is where all my presets live. Between those three surfaces, I have everything I need to “touch.” Screen number four on the far left becomes ancillary data, as it’s somewhat out of reach.
The dead center of what I call “the working area” is my cue list. The “why” I’m affecting sits center, book-ended by “what” fixtures I’m affecting on the right and “how” I’m affecting them on the left. Regardless of what preset type I’m dealing with, the cue list is dead center; it is the focus of the show after all. I’ve placed essential programming macros including “Label,” “Shuffle Selection,” “World is Selection,” “World is Full,” and “Clear All” on view buttons for quick and frequent use.
Earlier you mentioned layouts and how important they are to your workflow…
From the start, I made a decision to build my workflow around the graphical structure of layouts. I generally build layouts based on position, because that’s how I subdivide the rig. I organize fixture types within those positions, usually starting with all the flown fixtures in one layout, floor fixtures in another, upstage walls, torms, thrust, audience, and so on. When it comes time to build a song, what I’m looking at on the stage is what I’m looking at on my screen. The time spent on accurate layout views pays off when programming offline as well.
The power of layouts is showcased with tools like the lasso. I don’t create quite as many groups and instead use the layout lasso, MA tricks, and worlds to isolate and select what I need. Worlds are very powerful when coupled with selections. I use a “World as Selection” macro that essentially isolates me into a world with what I’ve selected. The ability to drill down into layers of a larger picture and safely affect just what you want — is gold.
Many of the large tours you’ve programmed involve automation. Are layouts useful for keeping track of that information?
Layout views provide instant feedback as to the status of your rig. On a fundamental level, “Is it on, is it off, is it red, is it white?” We apply that concept to the more complex shows we come across that benefit from that type of “status,” beyond lighting fixtures.
For instance, on Katy Perry’s Prismatic tour, we were dealing with 32 major axes of motion and 40 minor axes of motion within the Tait system. For all of that, there were 22 custom icons on my layout that would represent different parts of the system — the treadmills, elevators, winches, etc. Through custom fixture profiles and imagery in the desk, we essentially created a feedback protocol affected by Art-Net, meticulously set up on the automation side. When the winches have faulted and stopped, the icon for the winch flashes red, alerting me of an issue. They’ll pulse green if that axes is in motion and be static white if the axis is static and ready.
On shows like Bon Jovi and Pearl Jam, the automation integration required additional logic on the MA side, such as if/then and variables dependent on the state of the system. The MA, coupled with Tait’s Navigator system, and their programming team, led to some amazing collaboration.
Very clever! This leads me to the stage view and the elaborate MA3D models that you create in your show files. Do you use the stage view for previz?
While we don’t look at the stage view window much, having all our fixtures accurately placed in XYZ space is especially important. This is crucial when we’re using PSN in tracking systems like we did on both Katy and Taylor. XYZ is also a valuable tool when storing focuses, only made possible with an accurate 3D file.
Earlybird Visual is a company I founded with my business partner, Kirk J Miller, back in 2013, while we were working on Bon Jovi. What we created, in part, was a previz service that focused on accuracy and efficiency — a utility toolbox for programmers. With Joe Bay and the team at EBV, we’ve been able to create some of the largest, fastest 3D files for some of the biggest shows out there.
Taylor Swift’s 1989 Tour is a great example of how complex the files can get. There’s one show file for a production with six different configurations. There’s a massive propeller (automated lifted, tilting, rotating runway) with three different lengths — 60 feet, 80 feet, or 100 feet depending on venue. There are focuses for each of those conditions, compounded by the fact the show bounces between arenas and stadiums day to day. We use the power of some heavy macros and a well-constructed and streamlined file to allow this to all live within one show file and translate at the push of a button. We rearrange the environment, moving, splitting, and rotating lighting positions, swapping models between arenas and stadiums and more. We do everything the crew does day-to-day, in the push of a button — giving Steve Foster, the LD, the right rig in 3D when it’s time to make updates.
Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
I hope to be beginning the transition into a more creative role on shows as a production designer. I’m still learning how it’s done and understand that none of what I do in front of the desk is time wasted. Working with Baz, Patrick, Roy and others has helped me look at the show from a higher altitude, understanding that lighting is one of the many key ingredients. I hope to see Earlybird grow and hope to be at the forefront of creating the new model for how a show is created.
Eric’s company, Earlybird Design, can be reached at www.earlybirddesigninc.com.
