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Designer Tobias Rylander Joins the ProProduction Sessions at NAMM

The ProProduction Sessions at NAMM presented by PLSN & FOH are pleased to announce that Lighting and Conceptual Designer Tobias G. Rylander will be joining us for a Q&A conversation. Rylander’s global work includes a range of artist from Miike Snow to Beyoncé, as well as a decade of designing for The 1975. This insightful session will be on Friday, Jan. 26 at 3:00-4:00 in Room 204A at the Anaheim convention center, free to all NAMM attendees. As well as Rylander’s session, the line-up includes Industry Insights; Touring Truths; A Look Inside the Snakepit (the design team for Metallica); and Hot Acts with Top Designs (Sam Hunt, Janet Jackson, Luke Combs’ designers).

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.”

Virtual Horizons

At NAB 2022, roughly 50 out of 1,200 booths showed Virtual Production (VP) solutions. A year later there were 600 out of 1,500 booths in the segment. InfoComm 2023 also underscored the fact that VP as a market segment has moved from buzzy trend to something worthy of full blown R&D assets for manufacturers.

Designing ‘New York, New York’

‘New York, New York’ is a big, spectacular Broadway musical with stunning designs that saw Scenic Designer Beowulf Boritt win a Tony Award and Lighting Designer Ken Billington get a Tony nomination. They tell us about how their designs evoke 1940’s New York and interpret it for a musical theater stylized staging.

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?

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.”

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.”

In Memoriam: Bob Roach, Lighting Industry Veteran, 67

Bob Roach

Robert David Roach, 67 of Longwood, FL, passed away peacefully with his family by his side on March 7, 2023. Bob had recently been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and received a successful bone marrow transplant from his son, Mike. Sadly, in his weakened state he contracted pneumonia and was not able to rebound from it. He was born in Johnson City, TN on March 25, 1955 to John and Josephine Roach who preceded him in death. He was also preceded in death by brothers John and Jim Roach.Read More »In Memoriam: Bob Roach, Lighting Industry Veteran, 67

Nook Schoenfeld: A Great Character

Remembrances of PLSN’s late Editor Emeritus Nook Schoenfeld from Terry Lowe, President of PLSN publisher Timeless Communications along with PLSN Editor Michael S. Eddy and Managing Editor Frank Hammel

3rd International Drone Show Competition Winners Announced

The 3rd International Drone Show Competition, initiated by SPH Engineering’s Drone Show Software (DSS) team, announced its results. Participants from 31 countries competed for the right to get to the final and become the winner in one of five categories. Applications from drone show operators, event companies, firework enthusiasts, 3D animators, and other professionals involved in the drone show industry were evaluated by an international jury, composed of representatives of the media industry, drone enterprises, creative and design agencies, experienced high-tech entrepreneurs, etc. PLSN Editor, Michael S. Eddy was one of the judges for the 3rd International Drone Show Competition.

Read More »3rd International Drone Show Competition Winners Announced

Video of the Week: Women in Lighting // Celine Royer // Lighting Designer, Director, and Programmer

Celine Royer is a lighting designer, lighting director, and programmer who loves music and creating shows that appeal both to the audience and to the bands she works with. She has had an unusual path into lighting, switching from being a hairdresser and a singer in a band to a career as a lighting technician in France. She moved to the United States so that she could work with bigger shows and acts than the ones that were available to her in France. She has now worked with many different bands and acts including Jennifer Lopez, Linkin Park, Mike Shinoda and on Rupaul’s Drag Race for the World Tour and the Vegas residency.

Read More »Video of the Week: Women in Lighting // Celine Royer // Lighting Designer, Director, and Programmer