Visual Light is a U.K.-based design house started by Nick Whitehouse in 2002. Bryan Leitch soon came on board as a design partner. Since then, the two have been working hard to become one of the most highly-regarded design teams in the world. Whitehouse and Leitch continue to collaborate on de-signs, striving to strike a balance between art and practicality. Some of their previous and current clients include Justin Timberlake, Coldplay, James Taylor, Kylie Minogue and Timbaland.
When you’re young and bulletproof, the last thing you think about is what might happen should you become unable to do your job. But it’s something everyone should plan for. How will you pay your bills? How will you feed your family?
I had the good fortune to have met him — an honor that I cherish to this day. During the 1970s and 1980s, I also had the good fortune to have worked at the company that he founded — the company that invented videotape recording. At that time, the company was a powerhouse, 6,000 strong and the dominant worldwide force in the AV industry. To this day, the work ethic that was a part of the company’s very name remains a fundamental part of my own ethic.
It’s become painfully evident to me that this industry has been overrun with people who take too much responsibility for their actions. Every day it seems like I’m on a show where a technician double-checks his work, a programmer tests her backup console or a designer accepts the blame for an uneven front wash.
People! This has got to stop!
Days before InfoComm opened mid-June in Las Vegas, one of the world’s leading projection video purveyors announced the acquisition of one of the lighting industry’s most well known brands. Barco’s purchase of High End Systems further solidifies the ongoing convergence between video and lighting and in the process seeks to redefine what had been individual sectors under the rubric of the events market. High End Systems, Inc. was majority-owned by Generation Partners, a U.S. private equity firm, which acquired the company in 1998.
“In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.” — Henri Matisse
The world of stage productions has really grown complex in the last 10 to 15 years. Not only have automated lights become standard, but so have digital audio consoles, complex show control systems, motion control and networking. Often these systems must be synchronized via MIDI or SMPTE to ensure a reliable and repeatable production. While it can be amazing to sit back and watch a programmed light show run automatically, it is also a bit disheartening to walk away from a desk and have the show continue.
Often enough my work takes me abroad. And just when I thought I’d played a gig in every corner of the world, some band has found a new locale. There was a time when South America seemed like a distant land, an impossible place to do a proper show. But that’s in the past. Now I get to teach the locals how to do shows in lovely places like Ethiopia and Kazakhstan.
Last week I was out in San Diego and Anaheim doing rehearsal shows for Marco Antonio Solis. My priority to this gig is to board… Read More »Dos Rehearsals
Many lighting companies all over the world employ someone who can speak English. Once I find out who this person is, I start corresponding. The… Read More »Overseas gigs require planning and patience.
DVI, or Digital Visual Interface, carries an uncompressed digital video signal to a digital display device such as an LCD display or projector. The protocol… Read More »Understanding DVI
Apple will let anyone sell software on the App Store, giving software developers instant access to an international distribution hub. While there are pros and… Read More »Using the iPhone for Stage Lighting