PLSN Interview

There’s a visual glow — a kind of Electric Aura — around Toronto. It’s the energy of precision planning — a year ahead of time — that goes into a show with seven and a half minutes to set up, 15 minutes of adrenaline-pumping performances, and three frantic minutes on the clock to clear the field. The Canadian Football League celebrated the 100th championship with the SiriusXM Grey Cup Halftime Show Nov. 25. Along with 50,000-plus Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders fans on site at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, millions in Canada, the U.S. and beyond saw the Grey Cup and halftime show via TV and the Internet — making the event the most-watched Grey Cup and halftime show in CFL history.

PLSN: How did you begin your career in the entertainment industry?

Mitch Kaplan: My entry into the visual arts started in 1978. A schoolmate and I secured the rights to sell the print services for 3M brand Scanamural, the first large format, ink jet printer. This was the beginning of digital printing. It eventually evolved into billboard size, photo quality print vinyl graphics that you see everywhere. In 1988, Large Format Digital video display evolved from the technology of pixel manipulation. We were pioneers and the times were very exciting. Our very first sales call netted a $250,000 rush order for a sports marketing company. That was our catalyst into the digital world.

We recently sat down with Greg Smith, an industry veteran and owner of Navigator Systems. He details how he got started in AV support for corporate events (by being in the right place at the right time — in his case, with a friend at a bar). He also talks about how Navigator Systems and HireTrack rose to prominence, and closes with a few general words of advice on how to succeed in the live event business, even if your focus is only on “a very miniscule part.”

Peter Morse is one of the most sought-after lighting talents in the live event industry. He was named the Parnelli Lighting Designer of the Year in 2004, was nominated for an Emmy in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, and won the Emmy in 1997 for Bette Midler’s Diva, Las Vegas HBO Special. His list of clients includes Madonna, Prince, Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, Usher and many more. He’s had an enviable career and continues to do big things — but he paused recently to go on record with PLSN about his journey so far.

Like the name says, Strictly FX does just that, strictly special effects. The Wood Dale, IL-based company specializes in providing lasers, pyrotechnics, flames, confetti, cryogenics, and mischief. Since its founding in 1996 by Ted Maccabee and Mark Grega, the company has grown to be an award-winning staple of concert touring with a client list that reads like a Who’s Who of the music industry.

The Japanese Band’s big show at MSG got an assist from PRG

The Japanese group L’Arc-en-Ciel is celebrating its 20^th anniversary with a world tour and making some concert history along the way. They became the first Japanese band to ever headline at New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) with their sold-out performance on March 25, 2012. Starting off the final leg of their world tour at MSG is a daunting undertaking — doubly so when you are starting off your first show with a brand new set, lighting, and video. The group decided to bring in concert touring production manager Tom Hudak to handle the Garden performance as well as the subsequent European dates and some of the Asian tour stops. PLSN spoke with Hudak about the MSG show.

Joel Nichols, who has a background in steel manufacturing, saw an opportunity more than two decades ago to bring low-cost custom gobos to market.  Starting with a phone number, Rolodex and fax machine, he began the company in 1992.

David Linton’s recent sound and video installation, The Cortical Degausser, which was featured at New York’s Clocktower Gallery Nov. 1-Jan. 13, employed synchronous and proportional sound and colored light pulsation delivered via video signal and viewed from special stations. As a result of the frequency of pulsation, closed-eye visions of spontaneous geometry was experienced by most individuals while their eyes are open. While Linton’s work exteriorizes and socializes flicker phenomenon, it leads to an unusual interactivity that occurs in the neurologic chain of each viewer.

For Def Leppard’s 2011-2012 Mirrorball tour, show designer and video director Jonathan Beswick, who has been providing the band with distinctive video looks since 2006, worked with LD Kenji Ohashi to go beyond mere I-Mag to fuse lighting and video into rock ‘n’ roll looks that are even bigger than those achieved on previous tours. Higher-resolution video panels — and more of them — made that goal possible, and lighter-weight gear helped keep the production’s rigging, setup and tear down challenges in check.

For loopdiver’s repetitive dance motions, video plays a key role

Co-founded by choreographer/media artist Dawn Stoppiello and composer/media artist Mark Coniglio, Troika Ranch creates contemporary, hybrid artworks through an ongoing examination of the moving body and its relationship to technology.

After more than two years performing 110 shows over three legs that visited much of the world, the U2 360° tour took its final bow this past summer. Boasting the highest-ticket grosses and a record-breaking final attendance of over 7,000,000 concertgoers, the both commercially and critically successful tour pushed the envelope of every production discipline. At PLSN, we wondered how some of the production team would reflect back on their incredible journey now that it had come full-circle (Okay, you had to see that coming.)

PLSN: Can you tell us the story of Goodbar briefly?

Alex Koch, video designer: Goodbar is based on the gruesome murder of Roseann Quinn, a young school teacher by day, club fiend by night who was murdered in NYC in 1973. Judith Rossner retells the story in her 1975 novel Looking for Mr Goodbar. The book’s 1977 film adaptation directed by Richard Brooks affirmed the story’s hold on the public conscious and it was something of a cultural touchstone.