Dana Roun, Full Sail
Who: Dana Roun, Program Director, Show Production & Touring Associates Degree Program
What: An entertainment media college
Where: Winter Park, Florida
When the Snowman Talks, the World Listens
Did you happen to see a snowman asking a group of Democratic presidential candidates about global warming? If you did, then you were watching the CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate. I had the opportunity to work on the event, but this time I was the lighting programmer, and I was not involved in the video production. But it’s interesting to note how a production changes when there is video in the mix.
Synchronicity Part 2: The Spread of ACN
Last month, I talked a bit about the recently approved ACN (Architecture for Control Networks) standard. Now that you know a little more about the reasons for the new standard and some of the underlying concepts, I’m going to talk about a couple of specific pieces to the puzzle that will benefit systems large and small.
Martin Magnum 1200-1800 Fog Machines
Martin Professional recently added two new versions to its Magnum family of foggers: the Magnum 1200 and Magnum 1800. Each of these machines has similar features, including the way they look, an aluminum carrying handle on top, a storage compartment on the side of the unit to store accessories and a remote timer control.
Compulite Vector Red
Compulite is an Israeli-based lighting console manufacturer that has been in business for over 25 years. During the last few years, the company has expanded its range to include several new models. The Compulite Vector now comes in four models that vary according to how many faders and DMX512 outputs you need for your purposes. The company also manufactures programming wings and playback wings that can be used with an outboard PC. The playback wing can be used in conjunction with any model to add an additional 10 faders and cue keys. We had an opportunity to Road Test the Vector Red.
Lighting the Business Meeting: A Hard Day’s Night Behind the Console
No matter which part of our biz you’re in, chances are you’ve worked a business conference. You set up like a dog for 18 hours straight, just to repeat the procedure for days. But as the meetings commence, you become aware of the hardest part of the whole gig — staying awake.
Doing the Road Her Way
Audra Breyer integrates the "boy's club."
Audra Breyer is a Jill-of-all-trades, who just happens to be the master of integration on John Mayer’s current tour. We caught up with her long enough to find out what it’s like being a woman in a boy’s club, how she got to be where she is today and the thing she likes least about our industry.
Calling the Show
Mark Dobrow makes Mary Poppins fly.
When you have a musical show that encompasses whirlwind set and costume changes, magic tricks, a flying nanny, seven floors of dressing rooms, hundreds of lighting, sound and automation cues, nearly 50 crew members and a 40,000-pound house set that moves and breaks apart, not to mention requiring four assistant stage managers to run it, you call on a production stage manager who really knows what they’re doing. A highly experienced Broadway and touring veteran, Mark Dobrow rises to the major challenge of running Disney’s hit show Mary Poppins each and every night. His love for his work and relaxed demeanor undoubtedly make him a sea of calm in a turbulent backstage environment where somebody or something is always in motion.
Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation to Build Teen Center
Industry called on to help create music center, vocational school for disadvantaged youth in Phoenix — and beyond.
Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation (SRF), a Christian nonprofit Arizona Corporation he formed with Chuck Savale in 1995 dedicated to teenagers and children in need, has long held popular events like the Christmas Pudding Concerts and celebrity golf tournaments to raise money and awareness for their cause. Now they announce their most ambitious goal yet: a 29,000-square-foot center where troubled youth can learn everything about the music industry, including what it takes to run a concert tour.
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.
Tracking Made Easy
There are many concepts and principles every automated lighting programmer should know. The most important is probably the principle of “tracking.” It is actually a very simple concept, yet is often the most difficult to teach and learn. However, once tracking is understood, its impor-tance to automated lighting data becomes clear.
Fashionable FX
The Fourth of July just passed, which is Christmas and New Year’s all rolled together for the pyro industry. But no sooner have the last em-bers of a glory star fallen to the ground, than the live special effects business starts figuring out how to make an even more complex magic act foolproof enough for Bon Jovi and Pfizer.