I have a feeling that we in the entertainment biz actually like our jobs. The reason is that we are always working with different people on various jobs until that project ends; then we start another project with a whole bunch of different folks. Along the way, we meet a lot of buddies — people who we meet with on occasion, but with whom we don’t stay in constant contact.
It’s a Tough Job, but Somebody’s Got to Do It
To say that Axis deBruyn’s career path has been frenetic is like saying Bill Gates has a little money. Today, deBruyn owns his own company at the age of 36, and he has a gratifying career as a freelancer. We caught up with him to talk about how he got started in the industry, how he got through the dot-com bust, and how he found his niche in Las Vegas.
Church balances modernization with historical integrity
Certainly any kind of installation work demands a high attention to detail, and everyone from architect to designer to installer to end user needs to be on the same page. The team that worked on the two-year renovation of the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, took that pressure, doubled it and then doubled it again.
After all, these pros were working on a building that was originally opened in 1867 and has been at the center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-ter-day Saints for 140 years, as well as the venue for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s weekly broadcast. Yet, this was not just any kind of renova-tion. “It was more than an install,” reports Lorin Morse, lighting designer and operator in the LDS Church Audio/Visual Department. “It was a gut-it and start over.”
Transylvania Meets Broadway
Look out Dorothy! Kansas is out — Transylvania is decidedly in! The team that created the mega-extravaganza The Producers is at it again, this time with the musical version of the 1974 Mel Brooks Academy Award-nominated hit film comedy Young Frankenstein.
When New York brain surgeon and professor Frederick Frankenstein inherits a castle in Transylvania from his grandfather, deranged genius Victor Von Frankenstein, he goes to Transylvania and carries on with his grandfather’s mad experiments in reanimating the dead. In the process, he falls in love with his sexy lab assistant, Inga.
“As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.” — Albert Einstein
I was fortunate enough to start in the lighting business when my own personal circumference of darkness was oh so small. I didn’t even know enough to know how little I knew. I was in the lighting business a long time before I stumbled across the secret to understanding the relationship between the five lighting metrics. It’s called ED-100.1.
“ED-100.1 Light & Color” is the first section in the Fundamental Level of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America Lighting Education (www.iesna.org). The entire course is excellent, but if you do nothing else, read and understand pages 1-12 to 1-16 — the part that explains the five lighting metrics. You’ll learn in just a few minutes what it took me years to find out: The five lighting metrics hold the key to understanding all you need to know about lighting.
For fifteen years, Lighting Designer Fenton Williams has been working with the same band. In the early days, the audience was smaller than the entourage that currently travels with this group. Now, Williams enjoys a steady gig with a popular band; so popular in fact, that he almost has to fight his way to the console to start the shows.
The band, of course, is the Dave Matthews Band, and Williams lights them with the help of his partners at Filament Productions. Williams recently came off the road and graciously agreed to talk about what it takes to create a production involving so many visual elements.
Dear Bradley is a world-famous lighting advice columnist who has graced the pages of publications such as the Broadway Programming Times and Automated Lighting Syndicate. PLSN is pleased to bring this tantalizing sample of Dear Bradley’s works.
I don’t know if it will get you money for nothing or chicks for free, but I want my ACN, and so should you. ACN is the latest control protocol developed by the ESTA Control Protocols Working Group and was published late last year. It stands for… never mind what it stands for. It could stand for Another Cool Name or Artificial Canadian Nickels — it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what it will do and where it will eventually take this industry.
Hey, hey the time has come for another blog. I just got done the last part of Bonerama’s east coast tour since the last time I posted. Some interesting developments have happened after the Baltimore show at the 8 x 10. Since I live here in the Baltimore area and we had a few days of down time. I invited a few of the guys from the band to have a couple of beers and talk about some ideas I have for the lighting design in the future. So I pulled my notes and made a master list in chronological order based on what we should move toward first.
A common mistake is to check the status of a rig by simply turning on all the lights. While this does indicate if everything turns… Read More »Rigging Refresher
There are several methods you can use for triggering nonlighting devices. The most common is through Musical Instrument Device Interface (MIDI). By using MIDI Show… Read More »Trigger Happy