; "BaglioneSacredvsProfanelove.jpg")
Pop quiz: What are the two most important tools of a lighting designer?
If you said Starbucks or the Internet, maybe you should consider a career in audio. If you said light and dark—congratulations, you just might have a future in this business.
Media servers allow the lighting designer to easily call up and play back video clips in real-time via a lighting console. Another advantage, however, of using a media server is having the ability to integrate live video into the show. Since the media server is a computer, it can be simple to connect a digital video camera and incorporate live images into your lighting cues.
If you’re from the Midwest, it’s not hard to figure out that the automotive giants in Detroit and their subsidiaries have met with economic hard times. In the land of buyouts, downsizing and exodus, Tom Bagnasco has been a fixture with the world’s largest auto manufacturer, General Motors, for more than 18 years—a feat for any designer. As an adept small business owner, he has learned plenty along the way and diversified his customer base. In our PLSN Interview, Bagnasco discusses lighting in the D.
; "Gadget.JPG")
If you’ve ever spent any time chasing down DMX data problems, then you’ll appreciate this little Gadget from Anidea Innovations, Inc. I once went to a job site at a permanent installation to program a console after being assured that all of the automated lights were installed, powered, cabled and working. When I got there I found all of that to be true except for the “working” part. Oops.
; "Samuels.jpg")
Transforming Broadway theatres into exotic locations is not a new concept; however it is rarely done to the extent found at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which has been converted into the tropical jungle home to Disney’s latest Broadway effort, Tarzan. Within this relatively small Broadway theatre, the untouched jungles of southern Africa come to life every night to tell the story of a boy left without his parents, taken in by a tribe of apes and raised as one of their own. To illustrate this classic tale, the production has utilized an extensive array of rigging and flying equipment to literally make the actors fly off the stage and in and out of the set with total grace. With the set designed by Bob Crowley, the production turned to Natasha Katz to light the show and capture the visual essence of this jungle adventure.
It doesn’t take an inordinate amount of scrutiny to see that the technical jobs in entertainment are a male-dominated domain. Look around at concerts and theatrical productions or on the credits after a television program or a feature film—the LDs, the mixers, the gaffers and the techs are overwhelmingly male. (They don’t call them best “boys” for nothing.)
Two-thousand attendees. Dozens of high-powered executives. A cavalcade of actors and one rock star, Lenny Kravitz, topping off the night. Putting on the annual Turner Upfront event, where TBS and TNT sell their upcoming season and programs to advertisers of Turner Broadcasting, is no small feat. This year set designers Atomic Design not only transformed the Theatre at Madison Square Garden into a flashy corporate showcase, they also reinvented the lobby as a glitzy faux nightclub for the after-party.
; "PLSN_Nightmare_Aug06.jpg")
I was working at a now defunct lighting company in California, and we had a tradeshow exhibit for a trucking show at the Louisville Convention center. I was in New Orleans finishing up a show at the time, so I missed watching the shop fill the order and ship it out. I flew directly from New Orleans into Louisville, expecting a typical tradeshow load-in. Hardly.
; "PLSN_LDatLarge_Aug06.jpg")
Whoa! Wait a minute. What I am doing back here on the LD page? I was hired for the programmer’s gig! Okay, I can do the LD gig too. I hope I will get paid the LD rate. What? You expect me to be the LD for the same rate? Okay, just this once. But next time I’m getting paid as both the LD and programmer.
Few people have escaped opening their e-mail in the morning and finding an appeal to their greedier side, offering to let them share in a multimillion-dollar bonanza tucked away in the Ministry of Whatever in some third-world country. Law enforcement officials refer to these as 419 scams, named for the section of the rather toothless criminal code of Nigeria, where most of these scams originate. Most people simply delete them, figuring no one would ever fall for the grammatically fractured and incredulous requests asking the reader to put up some of his or her own money in order to secure a piece of this windfall.
; "ScorpionScan_FX.jpg")
In the movie Toy Story, a forgotten toy cowboy by the name of “Woody” is replaced by a “laser-toting” action figure with the dashing name of “Buzz Lightyear.” Surrounded by other talking toys, including Mr. Potato Head and a piggy bank named “Hamm,” the following conversation ensues…
Mr. Potato Head: “How come you don’t have a laser, Woody?”
Woody (angrily): “It’s not a laser. It’s a little light bulb that blinks.”
Hamm: “What’s wrong with him?”
Mr. Potato Head: “Laser envy.”
; "Focus_Aug06.jpg")
Several years ago I was on a job site completing a lighting design and programming a show when the producer asked me a great question: “How do you use color theory in lighting a show?”
;){kind=link}
;){kind=link}