LD at Large

Last month, I wrote about the benefits of working with some small lighting companies. But this article is dedicated to the shoddy lighting vendors out there. They will promise you the world and an abundance of fabulous gear. But as soon as you get to the gig, it doesn’t take long to realize some salesman/owner of a little company has bent you over a barrel. I’m like an elephant. I don’t forget these people.

It’s a good year for work. The usual constant stream of emails from friends looking for work has subsided. There is actually a shortage of board operators for tours this summer.  Lighting companies are running out of gear, but more important, running out of good techs. I walked in to a mega lighting shop last week and the first thing I was hit with was “Do you know any guys we can throw out on the road?”

This month finds me programming a rather cool show. It’s an Idol-type tour in which four contestants do their best to imitate Freddie Mercury while playing live with a Queen cover band. The “Queen Extravaganza” is an actual professional touring show conceptualized by founding Queen members. The show itself is quite different from any others I have done, as designer Rob Sinclair has a unique game plan and a simple set of rules that we must follow for the entire performance.

Over the last 10 years, the live entertainment business has been overrun with video panels. We have high res, low res, 6mm to 80mm, cubed-shaped and cylinder shaped — heck, they have video elements that roll up into a truss like your overhead garage door. I like to play with all of it. But the problem I notice is that, no matter how high your screen’s resolution, it never looks as good as a well-projected image.

It seems that every product you buy nowadays comes with a disclaimer. A little piece of paper shoved inside the box along with whatever product you purchased. This paper will list all the things that the product should not be used for or things it actually won’t do. It’s my theory that these pieces of paper are there to protect the manufacturer from liability for just about anything that could go wrong. No matter what, the last thing anybody hawking gear wishes to do is refund your cash. So if the item breaks, functions incorrectly, or causes any damage to anything or person in its vicinity, they want you to know, in advance, that it’s entirely your fault.

Last fall, I heard from my friend Missy. She manages the Chicago-based rockers “Rise Against.”  They had been on tour last year and were looking to revamp their look and wanted some ideas. Their production guru is Jon Dunleavy, a man I had gigged with before. I reached out to him to inquire what they were looking for. They had a few requirements they wished to base a design around. First and foremost, they were a punk band. They didn’t need a lot of hoopla. Just a few backdrops and some rock ‘n’ roll lighting. They had some set carts that they would carry around the world this year, and they wanted a lighting package that could attach to the carts. They also wanted some “light boxes” that could spell out the letters, “R-I-S-E.”

My wife was concerned that our three-year-old wants to spend all his time with the iPad. Then I mentioned that someone told me the first word spoken by his 18-month-old daughter most mornings is “iPad.” I don’t know right from wrong when it comes to kids and mobile devices. But I do know that if we are playing with a toy and I get an important business call, I can hand my child the iPad and he will stop whining immediately.

I just spent a month doing benefit gigs all over the country. A musician decided to devote some time and talent to raising money for various charities in a dozen towns, and he asked me to light him. The majority of the gigs were in theaters and clubs that had some in-house lighting of their own. In order to raise more money for the needy, I decided to try and do these shows with almost no additional lighting, despite the fact that the artist was used to sold out arenas with big rigs.

I’m feeling pretty humbled this holiday season. Apparently I have a lot of friends in this wacky business of ours. And they thought enough of my work to cast a vote my way for a Parnelli Award this year. I cannot give enough thanks to all of you who helped me win this award for best lit concert tour of the year (Kid Rock’s Born Free tour). But I could never have gotten where I was, nor created a show that looked this good, without the help of a lot of people. Nor could I have gotten where I am without a lot of breaks from others. And I believe in paying it back.

Say you had a bazillion dollars and it was your birthday. And you decided to have a party for, say, 1,000 of your buddies. What exactly would you do? I’d be that guy who hires Van Halen to play at my barbecue. I don’t count on it.  However, I recently got to witness what happens when someone who could throw that type of a shindig actually does.

What’s your favorite color? This is a question I ask my 3-year-old occasionally. He answers with  “green” most times. Then he asks me back the same question. “That would be Lee 119,” comes the reply.  That’s because I’ve had the various numbers of gel colors brainwashed into my head. All good lighting guys memorize these numbers over time, and if you don’t know what Lee 119 means, you may be new to lighting.

A spotlight does just what its name says it will do. Light a spot in a crowd to draw attention to it. A light shone on one person in a crowd will make them stand out, but so will a “key” light on stage. The difference is that a spotlight uses an operator to follow the performer around as he struts about on stage, keeping him illuminated as the intended focal point of the audience. The history of the spotlight can be traced back to 1550, when an Italian named Sebastiano Serlio used a brightly-polished barber’s basin (reflector) placed behind a torch to reflect the light through a bottle (lens) on the other side of the flame.