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Eye Candy

Eye Candy

Today I am in charge of eye candy. This involves throwing different pieces of media onto soft LED panels and some V9 hidef video modules that Nocturne has brought down to WTTW's TV studio in Chicago.

Scheduling and Walking The Line

     OK, so now that I have the introduction out of the way. I am going to speed up with the more recent things I’ve been up to. Recently I’ve been running some bigger shows through outside production. I got to run a great club show with an LSC Maxim XL console 6 Clay Paky mirrors and 6 Martin 250 washes with 200 pars at The Rams Head Live in Baltimore, MD. They have a fun rig and I think the pat pad on the Maxim was fun. You can pretty much use this pad like a touch screen but instead you can assign parameters by moving your finger right or left across a certain part of the pat pad.

 

Keeping Your Old Numbers

    Being found is important in our biz. I think that’s why people keep their old email addresses and phone #’s. I got a couple calls this week from cell phones with area codes I recognized as San Francisco and Atlanta. However, both of these calls originated from friends I know who now live in Seattle.

Saturday Night

I just spent 90 minutes jumping up and down behind a lighting console. I wasn’t angry. I was lighting a punk rock band.

High School Auditorium Gets High-Tech Facelift

Complete refurbishment, acoustic overhaul and state-of-the-art lighting and video installations: it sounds like improvements made for a theatrical company of national significance, not a high school auditorium in Kentwood, Mich. But sometimes star treatment is found in strange places — and East Kentwood High School’s refurbished high school now contains technology and planning that puts it on par with many of the country’s top performance venues.

American Audio Visual Center, Inc.

Who:
American Audio Visual Center, Inc. (AAVC). Within AAVC is Team Staging.

What:
Audio-visual and multimedia staging company providing turn-key presentation, multimedia and staging support for corporations, producers, meeting planners, associations, product launches, corporate meetings and events.

Sand, Sun and Insanity

Hey, it’s New Year’s in Rio. No worries.

Last month I got a call from my friend, Alex Skowron, the LD for the Black Eyed Peas. The band had booked themselves on a beach in Rio for New Year’s Eve, but they had another gig on the 29th in Las Vegas. He couldn’t make it to Brazil until the show, so I covered for him. Dave Hill had designed a replica stage and lighting rig for Rio and five other cities around the globe. I was to clone Alex’s show to Dave’s rig for a show that would be broadcast worldwide. I kept a running diary of observations, and you’re in luck because I’d like to share them with you. 

The Amazing Power of Community

“I not only use all of the brains I have, but all I can borrow.” — Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States (1856-1924)

I, Swami Candela of the third millennium, know all, see all and tell all, except that which I do not know, see or tell. I know the words to “Louie, Louie,” and I know how many LEDs fit on the head of a pin. I hold all the answers to your lighting questions. 

Touring is About to Get a Whole Lot More Complicated

Last August, British airport security agencies announced a ban on boarding with musical instruments on scheduled commercial aircraft departing the U.K. for abroad, a restriction that applied as well to tours that stop or lay over in a U.K. airport and then move on to other ports of call. The move drew instant complaints and, proving that musicians — even drummers — can organize themselves when properly motivated, a groundswell of protest that ultimately got the restrictions eased…somewhat.

Martin MAC 700 Profile

The Martin MAC 2000 line of luminaires is arguably the most successful series of moving lights sold to date. It is almost impossible to accurately predict what combination of features, reliability and cost makes up the perfect product. Chalk it up to a whole lot of skill and at least a little bit of luck.

Robe ColorSpot 2500E AT

Robe Lighting has recently introduced their latest and most powerful fixture to date. The ColorSpot 2500 spot is a hard edge automated fixture that has all the bells and whistles you would expect from a premium product, but its brightness makes this fixture stand out. With the advent of all the 1200-watt wash lights that have come out, the fixture has become a necessary addition to their product line. This new fixture competes in this class, and it will be a major player on the stadium rock circuit or as a searchlight or special effect for many trade shows.