“Hometown Heroes” Going Strong in 30th Year
Here’s the thing: we’ll do a big American Airlines event in the convention center, or something in your backyard.”
That’s Terry Cain, speaking like a true hometown hero. And it’s not surprising: In October, in Orlando, Cain’s company, Dallas-based Gemini Light, Sound, Video, received the 2011 Parnelli Hometown Hero Award for Best Lighting Company of the Year.
A Cool Blast of Holiday Spirit on the Las Vegas Strip
Every year around Christmas, Sin City outdoes itself. The 2011-2012 season is no exception. With its holiday spectacular, “Winter in Venice,” which began November 21, 2011, and runs through January 8, 2012, The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino is currently staging its greatest outdoor show since its owners, Las Vegas Sands Corp., broke ground in 1997.
Theatre lighting designer. Concert lighting designer. Television lighting designer. Professor. Lecturer. Author.
Jim Moody has many vocations, but despite an amazing career so far, producing a head-spinning list of great rock acts he’s worked with, there’s one role that he puts above all those: Mentor.
Santa Claus came early for me this year, and as a result, I’ve been propelled into the exciting world of the iPad2. I spent the first few days with it loading games and magazines (i.e. PLSN, http://plsn.com/wp/app), but then I thought about what else might be available for lighting professionals. And that’s when a whole new world unveiled itself for me.
Creative LED products have been around a while in various shapes and sizes. Products like Barco’s MiSTRIPS, Element Labs’ Versa TUBEs and Mega Systems Inc.’s Mega-Lite Bright Stripe are examples of products that let the user essentially map video content to LEDs to create unique visual effects. An LED product that takes mapped low-res video content even further in terms of configurable flexibility is the Solaris+ LED Video curtain from G-LEC. Solaris+ builds on a network of flexible strings with 360°-viewable LED pixel spheres. Unlike fixed LED displays, Solaris+ can be gathered up to form 3D shapes; hung in drapes; or attached to moving hoists, enabling the video display to transform its shape in 3D space.
What OWS Might Show Us about Staging
Just about two months to the day it began, the original Occupy Wall Street’s run was over. It didn’t exactly get the kind of perceived permanence that shows like Miss Saigon or The Lion King achieved a few miles north around Times Square, but it’s not simply coincidence that the terms “staging” and “staged” appear frequently in conjunction with news stories about OWS locations around the U.S. That’s because, like any interactive phenomenon, organic or premeditated, these protests have shown some level of production values.As you begin this New Year of 2012, resolve to learn more about the clock/calendar features of your console.
It is a New Year and time for a new calendar. As you prepare to look ahead to all the wonderful gigs that await you in 2012, you should consider not only your personal calendar but also the calendar functions on your automated lighting controller. Because lighting controllers are built on computer platforms, they can provide many functions including automated tasks at specific times and/or dates. Although the exact method will vary from console to console, the basic principles of programming to a calendar remain the same. As always, be sure to read the user manual of your console of choice to learn the exact keystrokes required.
What was special about the New Year’s Eve show? A punter would say, “The pyro, the confetti cannons, the balloon drop!” A production person, meanwhile, might answer, “Oh, it was the usual: pyro, confetti cannons, the balloon drop…”
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