NAIAS 2019 in Detroit
A Look at GM’s Booths, Lit by Nautilus Entertainment Design Detroit has hosted an auto show since 1907, becoming the North American International Auto Show… Read More »NAIAS 2019 in Detroit
A Theatrical Thrill
Scenic Designer Jason Sherwood on the Sam Smith Thrill of It All Tour Sam Smith is currently on the road in support of his second… Read More »A Theatrical Thrill
SKALAR in Berlin
For Skalar, a large-scale art installation that invites visitors to explore light and sound in an environment that combines the raw industrial beauty of a derelict power station with the scale that brings to mind the soaring interior space of a cathedral, light artist Christopher Bauder and musician/composer Kangding Ray made use of lighting fixtures from Robe.
Particle Dance
Daniil Simkin’s Falls the Shadow at the Guggenheim Museum Fuses Projection and Dance
For Falls The Shadow, a dance piece created for the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series and staged in the famed art repository itself, choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo and principal dancer/director Daniil Simkin teamed up with projection designer Dmitrij Simkin and costume designer Dior for an unusual convergence of fashion, technology and art. Four dancers had their movements captured by motion sensors, which generated 3D mapped visuals that were then projected back onto the floors and the ramp of the famed building.
Robb Jibson is Just So Midwest
Fall Out Boy Wraps Up a Two-Year Tour with a Fresh Look
It’s been about 20 years since Robb Jibson graduated from high school and got his tail back to Chicago, the town he loves and swears his allegiance to. He’s been practicing lighting ever since, and from what I saw at the Fall Out Boy (FOB) show the other night in Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN, he has mastered his skill. Even as he claims, “I’m never done building this show. I will be refining it until the last gig.”
Opera Lighting: Broad Strokes, Big Drama
When the production staff at San Diego Opera opened the containers from the rental house — the ones that were supposed to contain the Michael Yeargan-designed set for their production of Aida — they could hardly believe what they saw. They saw nothing. The containers were empty. Their one-week production schedule did not allow for setbacks, nor could they replicate the set in their own scene shop. The automated, winch-driven scenery with its steeply raked floor had to exist somewhere, but finding it could take hours, or even days.
The Design Process: Vita Motus
It’s too bad the name Industrial Light & Magic had already been taken by some obscure film producer named George Lucas. Otherwise, the terms would perfectly capture the work of Heather Shaw and her firm Vita Motus Design Studio. As she defines it, Vita Motus (vee-ta moe-tus) is Latin for “life vibration,” loosely connoting being attuned to and going with the flow. She describes her company’s designs as futuristic, with a focus on conceptual experience and immersive multimedia sculptures. Vita Motus fuses cutting-edge technology and pop culture into an entirely new world of its own.
Lightfaktor Breathes Light into the Vulcan Gas Company
The walls are breathing with embedded LED columns floor to ceiling, an ebb and flow of color saturation fully controllable and synched to the music. The lighting rig, on trusses in the center of the room, pumps like a giant heart, churning out organic fluid-motion digital images and 3-D shapes flipping and spinning in space.
Virtual Design: The Right Tools Make All the Difference
Over the last 20 years, advances in computer technology have benefited the entertainment industry. In particular, CAD programs have altered—for the better—how designers execute their ideas. But the benefits of digitizing workflows have changed more than just how we approach design. As a result, there’s never been a more exciting time for our industry. And as the growing availability of mature software tools continues to improve our design thinking, idea communication and the installation and execution of design concepts, we’ll continue to benefit by doing it more efficiently and accurately than ever before. When I reflect on this evolution, the journey has been remarkable. I’d like to share my own journey and how I arrived to this point in time today where we finally have at our fingertips the right tools for the job.
Intellectual and Emotional Emulsion
I don’t know why you got started designing lights, but for me, it was color. Specifically, how color acts as a direct visual manifestation of my feeling about a piece. I’m sure there are people who get into creative pursuits for other reasons, but for me, I can not imagine doing so without it being driven by a desire to create and participate in a work of performative art. It was music that did it first, followed in short order by dance. And that is how every project begins for me — with some initial creative impulse. Everything else derives from there.
Fall Out Boy and the Art of Lighting the”Mini Tornados”
How does a production designer light and stage the most human form of a natural phenomenon?
“They are like little mini tornados on stage,” laughs Production Designer Alex Skowron. “They just spin all over.”
“They” are Fall Out Boy (FOB), the hot young band that just finished its successful Infinity on High tour. It’s led by sarcastically slanted bass-ist/songwriter and potential tabloid-fodder Pete Wentz. (Between his club fights and rotation of high-profile girlfriends, he’s precariously close to becoming this country’s answer to Pete Doherty). Wentz, a talented showman with a whacked imagination, pushed to create a show that would become a visual orgy of the senses, filled with moving video screens, pyrotechnics and pranks. Keeping up with the band and supporting their energetic show takes some of the most creative minds in the business.
The Golden Egg
Nikola Tesla was down on his luck. It was 1886, and he had just lost his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, to his financial backers who believed that Tesla’s ideas were impractical. He had no money, and he was forced to work as a manual laborer to put food on the table and have a place to live.
Tesla was one of the most brilliant inventors of all time. Before he walked off his job working for Thomas Edison, and before he started his own company and lost it to his investors, he conceived an idea for building an AC induction motor. At the time, there was no such thing.