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Tips & Tricks

A Projection Problem (and Solution) for Adele’s Vegas Residency

PLSN spoke with Silent House Studios LD Cory FitzGerald and STUFISH Senior Partner Ric Lipson on their design for Weekends with Adele at The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. “One of the big challenges was finding a fabric that we could project onto that would be bright and clear but that would also be dark enough when you didn’t want it to be lit with projectors,” noted Lipson. “We worked with a company called Carbon Black. They have a fabric that is a very dark gray. It’s essentially covered in a coating that reflects the laser projection in a much brighter way than a traditional projection surface. That became the silver bullet for making the projection look great on the sliding panels.”

The ‘Give a Damn’ Factor

Jerry Slone, Production Manager for Luke Combs’ World Tour, sees a common thread in all the vendors supporting the trek: a high “Give a Damn” factor. “Mike Brammer’s ‘Give a Damn’ is really high,” Slone says, of the Special Event Services (SES) exec who is providing the tour’s lighting and audio, along with a G2 Structures K2i HD stage as well as trucking through sister company SET. “I would say that about all our vendors,” Slone adds. “Everybody really cares.”

Streamlining Projection Mapping Workflows

The team at Luke Halls Studio needed a tool that would help to embed clients into the process at every stage, allowing them to drive conversation and present their ambitions in a simple way that did even the earliest of concepts justice. They saw Mapping Matter as a clear solution to these needs. “This is my only process now for specifying a rig for production,” says Zakk Hein, Technical Manager and Creative Associate at Luke Halls Studio. “The 3D model downloads and data output for your rig give you instant results the moment you get onsite, and both your team and the client can feel confident and involved at every step of the journey.”

Returning to Lititz with a Continuing Commitment to Positive Industry Change

‘THE Conference: Live at Lititz’ will return to the Rock Lititz Campus on Dec. 6, 7, and 8, 2023. Building on the success of the inaugural 2022 conference, which featured more than 620 attendees, 30 sponsors and vendors, and 70 diverse speakers, the number of available tickets is increasing to 800 for 2023. As Production Manager Charlie Hernandez puts it, a key point of discussion will be “How do we leave the industry better than we found it?” adding, “There are a lot of smart people in our industry. Let’s all get together and try to come up with solutions, have a conversation, and try to come up with different ways of doing things.”

Avoid Extinction by Adapting to Tech Changes

PLSN’s LD-at-Large, Chris Lose, notes that, after years of feeling like the “young gun on the crew,” where he could easily “work circles around lighting techs who struggled to adapt to new technologies,” he has once again started to “feel the creep of maturity” set in. The solution, he notes, is to guard against extinction by adapting to technological changes, detailing his journey from working with a Strand 520i to the Wholehog II, grandMA1, grandMA3, while eyeing a future that could include consoles that harness AI to optimize show production.

AI and Dynamite

This quandary of good and bad came to my mind when following the conversations raging around Artificial Intelligence (AI). Will AI become this generation’s dynamite? We now have companies producing AI programs to do just about anything and everything. Then, a whole new crop of companies are developing products to detect content created by AI, mainly to prevent cheating and unmask deepfakes. Many in Hollywood are warning actors who are thinking of being scanned and whose imagery can be turned into digital avatars. Tom Hanks said his career could go on forever with the advent of AI. Is that what we really want? Nothing against Hanks, but is that acting, is that a human creating art?

Hard Work That is Rewarding

In regard to getting staff to carry a production company’s ethos and vision into the field, “I look for people who understand it’s hard work, but the hard work is VERY rewarding. Counting hours or days in this industry does not compute… I believe that our success has been a result of us doing things differently. It’s what sets us apart, makes us unique, and defines us. Hard work, determination, sacrifice, dedication mixed with common sense decision making.” – Aaron Soriero, Founder and Lead Production Designer of Music Matters Productions (MMP)

Skip the Idea of a ‘Plan B’

Amy Melia, a Lighting Director & Programmer, says she recognizes and appreciates all the opportunities that have come her way. “There are people who have vouched for me and opened doors I never thought to even knock on,” she says. “I will not give up when faced with a negative response for any reason, be it my age or my gender. Those who came before didn’t and if I do, then we can never change the game for those who will come after us.”

Her advice to others is simply to skip the idea of having a “Plan B.” “If you have a Plan B, do that, because this Plan A is demanding. If this is your Plan A, do it. I’m literally having the best time in my life and if you want to do it, take the time to learn, take the training, read the manuals, then nothing can stand in your way.”

Green Touring Resources

There are several organizations like Overdrive Rocks, Zap Concepts, Reverb, Effect Partners, and Hope Solutions that help live events, tours, concerts, and venues with cleaner and more efficient energy options. One of the organizations leading the charge is the Music Sustainability Association. MSA is providing a framework for industry-wide action and systemic change. Production managers can easily consult with these experts prior to a tour going out. MSA’s green rider provides a perfect example of how we can still tour without wasting necessary resources and bringing live music to the masses.

An Excellent Example of Adaptive Reuse

For almost 100 years, the Morton Salt complex housed the packaging and distribution operations of the Morton Salt Company. Chicago’s 16 on Center (16OC), who operates other Chicago music venues including Thalia Hall and Empty Bottle, joined forces with local developer Blue Star Properties, R2, and Sky Deck, to transform the historic site into a creative hub that includes performance venues. This spring, a 3,500-capacity indoor space opened with a lighting assist from Upstaging. The new indoor space complements the 5,000-capacity outdoor concert area that began hosting shows last summer. PLSN spoke with Account & Project Manager, Steve Wojda of Upstaging and The Salt Shed’s Director of Production, Tim Schoen about this noteworthy example of adaptive reuse.

Lighting Muse’s ‘Will of the People’ Tour

Designers Jesse Lee Stout and Sooner Routhier were looking for a way to visually express the band’s desire for a show design that would convey a narrative of “an extreme group of vigilantes resetting the world to ground zero” (Stout) with a “rig that feels like the skeletal nature of a post-apocalyptic, near-future world” (Routhier). Upstaging provided 122 CHAUVET Professional Color STRIKE M fixtures, most of which were in a horseshoe configuration around the stage, with others under the plexiglass stage. “They are one of the main workhorses of the show,” Routhier says, noting the importance of reining in their intensity through most of the show and limiting the full intensity blasts of light to “only a couple times in the show” so they will deliver maximum impact.

From “Designer Spotlight,” PLSN, May 2023, page 34

What Do I Mean When I Say XR?

The usefulness of words hinges on a consensus of what they mean. In his “XRticle” published in the May 2023 issue of PLSN’s “In the Volume” section, by Matthew Ward, who is part of the Emerging Technologies at Fuse Engineering Workshop and Head of Product with Superlumenary LLC offers his interpretation for how Reality, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Extended Reality (XR) and Mixed Reality (MR) can be understood, then goes deeper in analyzing the trickiest one on the list: XR.