PLSN Interview

Recently, I had the opportunity to catch up with one of the hardest-working programmers in media servers, Michael Zinman, owner of The Zinman Co. (zinmanco.com). His work can be seen on a wide variety of television shows ranging from awards shows like ESPN’s Espy Awards to game shows like NBC’s Minute to Win It. In addition to designing content and programming for broadcasts, Zinman also is a prolific software designer, the creator of iPhone apps including In Your Back Pocket and Genielux. I wanted to find out more, so I tracked him down for a discussion on how the role of the Media Server Programmer & Designer has evolved.

Clifton Taylor Provides a Multi-Purpose Lighting Rig for LDs at New York's Fall for Dance Festival 

PLSN: In your opinion, what is the basic difference between a lighting designer and a lighting director? You have both of these titles.

Clifton Taylor: The lighting designer is the person who conceives of the lighting, works with the choreographer and comes up with the conceptual basis for the lighting choices. The lighting director is the person who works for the company, and it is her job to recreate the lighting wherever the company performs.

Celine Dion has said: “If God would have a singing voice, he would sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli.” Dubbed “the world’s most beloved Italian tenor,” Andrea Bocelli has performed for political figures, the Pope, and in packed stadiums. He’s collaborated with opera’s top names and pop stars as well as Muppet puppets.

Edmond Deraedt has been a fan of Richard Thompson since he first heard his band, Fairport Convention, in 1991. "I have always considered him a musical genius," Deraedt says. He had the opportunity to light some of Thompson's solo acoustic concerts around the New York area and in California. In 2006, Thompson came to the Inter-Media Art Center in Long Island where Deraedt worked as the lighting director.

You could say that Joe Branam's story is one about a guy who ran away with the circus and made good. Of course there's more to the man than that, but it starts with the uncommon fact that he began a rigging career on the performance end of the equation.

All lighting designers want to create compelling visuals that inspire awe, but not many of them will tell you they feel a responsibility to represent the visual aspect of the band they work for. Jason Liggett is perhaps unique in that regard as he described in his quest to become the lighting designer for alt rock band Wilco. For someone who started as a security guard in a nightclub, Liggett has come a long way.

From a Baltimore teen working raves during high school to designing the video system for the Opening Ceremonies for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, Scott Chmielewski has been at the forefront of lighting and video technology. In this month’s PLSN Interview, we discuss digital technology from the designer’s perspective.

Bill Sapsis has been at the forefront of rigging for the past 28 years. His company, Sapsis Rigging, is one of the leading rigging companies in our industry, and he’s spent countless hours helping develop programs that make rigging safer and easier.

If there was a box in which we could put lighting designers who are creative, expressive, imaginative and intelligent, Willie Williams might be the first to be put in. And he would probably also be the first to break out. The artist and production designer is a master of re-creation, often the first to conceive an idea and the first to abandon it and move on to a fresher one.

The first time Scott Warner knew what he wanted to do in life was at a concert. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he’d find it somewhere around the front of house. After studying to become a sound engineer, he realized he really wanted to play with lights. Luckily, his best friend knew a band that could help him realize his dream.

Eric Wade, owner of Wadespro, Inc., has been in the moving light business in one way or another since…well, since its inception. He is the favorite programmer and lighting director of many of the industries’ leading lighting designers. The demand for his services is so high that he often programs a show and turns it over to an operator after it is up and running. He’s also an accomplished lighting designer.

From Junkyard Theft to Living the Dream

Petty theft doesn’t pay, but it can lead to a dream job in the entertainment lighting industry. In this month’s PLSN interview, we speak with Robb Jibson, who explains how his deviant behavior led him to the lighting industry and why he’s living the dream.