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Tips & Tricks

The All-New Laser Show

Chris Lose looks at the advent of laser source lighting fixtures, noting: “The newest kid on the block is laser source lighting fixtures. Soon, we will see our old friends, arc and tungsten, replaced by this newer, more efficient technology in certain applications. Laser sources are brighter, more functional, and more efficient than even modern LED beam fixtures. The progress towards more efficient ways of creating dramatic and immersive visual experiences will never cease. However, we cannot proclaim progress without respecting that progress can come with inherent changes. Although the struggles are real, many of these changes can be overblown or misconstrued. It is important to understand that these are not the lasers being used in a Pink Floyd laser show. They cannot track down missiles and they cannot slay Darth Vader. …

Using Lighting to Create Movement for ‘The Coast Starlight’

PLSN spoke with Lighting Designer and Educator Lap Chi Chu about working on two shows at Lincoln Center simultaneously; “Camelot” and “The Coast Starlight.” Both shows rely heavily on the lighting to help audiences understand the context of the scenes. Here the designer talks about his approach using Astera tubes within a lightbox onstage for “The Coast Starlight.”

Realizing an Otherworldly Location

For the Nickelodeon ‘Kids’ Choice Awards” digital performance segment with rapper/Nickelodeon star Young Dylan, LA’s Lulu Studio 18  worked with Silent House Principal Tamlyn Wright, who was Creative Producer, Production Design for the segment. They created the otherworldly, kid-friendly virtual environment using virtual production techniques. “The timeline was a little different than a regular design and scenic build. You have to settle on things quite quickly; wrap up your design earlier on, as there are visual artists involved to create what you’ve designed. Lulu’s Unreal technical artist, and the art direction team at Nickelodeon, uploaded all the Cinema 4D asset files, which was fantastic to start as a base. But once those came into Unreal Engine, there were days of retexturing, rescaling, relighting all of these objects, which were assets from the Nickelodeon style guide.” Wright continues, “It was a wonderful answer to the creative challenge of a performance in a space that was unbuildable and supposed to be happening in this weightless atmosphere. It was a really fun place to explore as a designer and it all folded together brilliantly.”

Using Technology to Accelerate the Design Process

Steve Cohen and Bob Bonniol collaborated on the lighting, video and scenic design for Blake Shelton’s “Back to the Honky Tonk” tour. Bonniol built a virtual video environment that worked as an extension of the physical set design using Unreal Engine. “We had created Blake’s honky-tonk. The idea was utilizing this video screen to be an extension of that environment,” said Cohen. “It was like you really couldn’t tell where the physical ended and the virtual began,” Bonniol added. “Working on Unreal was so nimble and so fast, and I was able to bring elements together so quickly; to light them and plot camera moves through them…we had 13 days of rehearsal, but because we were moving so fast, using Unreal, that allowed us to basically take three complete, thoughtful passes at the show, which is unheard of in concert work.”

Sneak Preview of 21st Parnelli Awards Program

Terry Lowe, president of Timeless Communications, founder of PLSN and FRONT of HOUSE Magazines and co-founder of the Parnelli Awards, has announced that the program to the upcoming Parnelli Awards can be seen online. No, the winners of more than two dozen categories will not be divulged, but you can check out all the nominees for this year’s awards, including Lighting Designer of the Year, Lighting Company of the Year, Hometown Hero Lighting Company of the Year, the Indispensable Technology categories and more. The program also features more information on the history of the two-decade-plus awards program along with profiles of this year’s honorees for career achievement – Roy Lamb (Lifetime Achievement), Keny Whitright (Visionary) and Marty Garcia (Audio Innovator).

Bidding Adieu to ‘Phantom’ on Broadway

For LD Andrew Bridge, the final April 16 production of Broadway’s “The Phantom of the Opera” after a 35-year run was particularly poignant. “The opulence and the way it is choreographed on stage, the scene changes and all that, we will miss that. There aren’t many shows that can do that now. We have something like 150 people working each performance. You can’t do Broadway shows today with that size crew, cast and a 27-piece orchestra, it’s just not viable. So, I think we’ll all miss the opulence of that kind of Broadway show.”

For Festivals, Keep Fixture Options Limited

For this year’s Neon Countdown festival held at Wonder World Extreme Park in Bangkok, Thailand, organizers turned to Morrison, CO-based Collyns Stenzel and Las Vegas-based Ed Shaw for a remote lighting and production design. For all his festival designs, remote or not, Stenzel is a believer in streamlining the challenges facing guest LDs and programmers with a limited number of fixture types.

Making Platforms Fly

PLSN spoke with TAIT’s Paul Sapsis, Technical Director about the flying system and TAIT’s work on the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show Starring Rihanna. “We did a lot of very conventional work to do a very unconventional thing, said Sapsis. “Think of the system, essentially as a theatrical counterweight system driven by closed loop counterweight assist winches. Then to deploy that system theatrically, we laid out points like riggers and then built trusses into the roof itself for our sheave points and for where we had to do field rigging, essentially making their grid into a theatrical grid. We had eight points per platform. Eight points, four lines a side. Then we replicate the geometry that we hit on the platform with the rig in the air.”

Planting the Seeds for a Skilled Workforce

Kristi Ross-Clausen, director of the new Stage and Entertainment Technology (SET) certificate program at Madison College in Madison, WI, notes a surprising abundance of entertainment industry jobs in this section of the nation’s heartland. But there’s a problem: “When live events started happening again after the Covid shutdown, over 30% of the workforce didn’t return.” The new SET certificate program is a direct response to all the employers in the area who had been contacting Madison College looking for workers.

The Joy of Tinkering…if Time Permits

I want to make sure that the lighting is as good as it can affordably look. I want to make sure that every music change gets the attention that it deserves. I want to explore different looks and see what fits best…