BUSINESS
Who: Michael Cannon, CEO, 4Wall Entertainment Lighting
What: Rentals, sales, installation and design of entertainment lighting
When: Founded in 1999 with partner Bill Lairamore
Where: HQ in Las Vegas with locations in New York and Phoenix
Dec. 1, 2007 was World Aids Day, a day set aside by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the global AIDS epidemic, and Gearhouse South Africa was busy supplying design, full technical production and crew for the 46664 Concert staged in Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium.
Following the huge popularity of TV’s Dancing with the Stars comes Dancing with the Stars — the Tour. The tour features a revolving door of celebrity guests and dance numbers. On a recent night, for example, “Mr. Las Vegas” himself, Wayne Newton, made an appearance, along with Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan, who was voted off the show early in the season, to the dismay of many. Also on board for the tour were emcee/dancer Drew Lachey and dancer Cheryl Burke.
The word “Evanescence” is derived from the Latin word meaning “to vanish,” and that’s just what several of its band members and management have done since the band formed in 1998. But one element that leader and vocalist Amy Lee insisted on not changing was lighting designer/director Lawrence “Loz” Upton. Upton, who has designed the lighting for Smashing Pumpkins, Staind, and Marilyn Manson, among others, has a penchant for artists with more of a classical design aesthetic.
Martin Professional understands at least one thing about this industry — it thrives on new products. To that end, the company released a plethora of new products late last year, one of which is a new fixture designed for permanent installations as well as small clubs and theatres. This sleek, small product takes the original Mini MAC to a much higher level.
When I’m not writing about video for PLSN or tracking down the latest video innovations on the concert stage, I make my living writing technical manuals for my clients. Way back in the last century, when the mighty Ampex was downsizing, I left the company to start my own business thinking that I could make a living producing sales, training, and marketing videos for broadcast manufacturers. However, a trend soon emerged after the first few dozen cold calls. Potential clients told me that their customers loved their products, but hated their manuals (and since this is a fine, respectful publication, we can’t print the client’s actual descriptions of their own manuals).
Amid a growing field of computer-based lighting pre-visualization systems, lighting designer Charles Kirby and his company have been busy building and improving on a more organic and interactive method of modeling light. By taking advantage of today’s fiber-optic and LED technologies, Thematics is giving designers — and students of the craft — a way to build fully-operational scale models of their lighting designs.
“Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.” – Nikola Tesla
A C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet is a very big aircraft. With a maximum payload of over 85 tons, the U.S, Air Force uses this aircraft to move anything from troops to the 70-ton M1 Abrams tank.
The rules for lighting a concert in front of a camera are quite different than lighting one for the eye. The cameras tend to pick up things that the human eye cannot. Over the years I’ve had to teach myself how to change and adapt my show so it still looks the same to the audience and still looks good on camera. The fact is that this particular evening’s performance is not meant to be perfectly lit for the 15,000 people who bought tickets; it’s for the million people who will view the concert footage.
I walked into my first ESTA Technical Standards Committee and quickly surveyed the room. Situated around the conference table were some of the brightest minds in the industry and some of the most dedicated people upstage of the proscenium. I felt like a Ford driving onto a Mercedes lot.
Last year seemed to be a tipping point for Thomas Edison’s most ubiquitous invention. Early in 2007, California Assemblyman Lloyd E. Levine proposed legislation that would ban incandescent lamps. The move was dismissed as a political stunt, but it did initiate some global hand-wringing and soul-searching, and that led to political initiatives in Canada and the 27 member states of the European Council to announce that those countries would begin researching similar out-with-incandescent lamp strategies. In mid-year, Australia became the first country to proclaim a policy designed to eliminate the most energy-inefficient forms of incandescent lighting. This will take the form of a standard — yet to be determined — for light source efficiency that must be met by every lighting product sold. Whatever that standard eventually is, it will certainly be far greater than the approximately 5 percent efficiency of the everyday incandescent bulb, which loses 95 percent of its energy in the form of heat.