Monday Morning Zen
You have to check this out! Imagine flying through a fireworks display…
Emotion and Motivation for Lighting Design
Believe it or not, designing lighting to music is a lot like acting in a play. There has to be motivation relative to an emotion for action to take place. If you ever have a chance to speak with a stage actor, ask them if they memorize their lines or if they learn their lines, develop a character, and then, in working with the other actors in the play, create the motivation and emotional connection necessary to make the dialogue more natural. The better actors will tell you that they do they work a process like the one I described rather than just memorize lines. By working the process, the actor can convince the audience that they are that character and involve them in the show. Go watch Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich in “Death of a Salesman” or Alec Baldwin in “Glengary Glenn Ross” and you will see exactly what I am talking about. These actors preformed these rolls flawlessly, in my opinion, because they not only understood their characters, but understood the motivation and emotion behind their actions.
Creating cues and looks in lighting design is really no different. The lighting should reinforce the mood or action on the stage. This means that no cue should ever happen without the motivation for it to occur and it should help to evoke the emotion that the song is trying to create. If you think about the character development process while you are listening to music, you will start to see the colors that the song should be, and the movements (or lack there of) that should accompany the music you are programming to. Take Marc Brickman’s interpretation of Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from the Pulse tour.Every cue and color makes sense. Not only did he know the music, but it was apparent that he was emotionally attached to it. He may not have had the same attachment as the band, but the design of the song was very personal, and to the audience, it draws them in past just the music.
Not everyone gets to design music they can get deeply emotionally involved in. That is a fact in our industry. This is where the character development process can help you out. I cut my teeth running lights for cover acts on cruise ships. Trust me, I did not love all of the songs that I had to design for. I started out fighting the music and not getting any personal enjoyment out of most of the songs I was designing lights and it was apparent in how the shows looked. Eventually, I figured out that something had to change, and it was me. I had to work out a way to be able to listen to the music and find elements in every song to work cues into. This is where I can honestly say I started to enjoy styles of music past just rock. I found that getting emotionally involved got easier because I was making myself part of the process of character development in so as much as the lighting was a character in of itself. To me this is a big part of the difference between designing a show and just programming a show. You have to listen to the music and not just hear it.
So, give it a try. Listen to the music you are being asked to program to and try to make it your own. Find your meaning and let the lighting design become a dialogue between the lights and the music.
Roxy’s Downtown Goes Full-Speed CHAUVET Professional!
Like a proverbial cat, the stately building on 412.5 Douglas in Kansas’ largest city has gone through many lives.
Rabbit Creek Church Embraces OVATION
ANCHORAGE, AK – (For Immediate Release) – New opportunities often come when you are expecting something else. Such was the case with Rabbit Creek Community Church. A rapidly growing house of worship in the southern section of Anchorage, Rabbit Creek was looking to upgrade its audio system as part of an effort to enhance its increasingly popular video streamed services. With this in mind, its leaders called Stark Raving Solutions, a Kansas City firm well known for serving the audio, video, lighting and staging needs of churches.
As expected, the Stark Raving Solutions team provided Rabbit Creek with an audio system that enhanced the phonetics of its live and broadcast services. However, before the Stark Raving team packed and headed back to Kansas City, they suggested a small addition to the project that would have a big impact on the quality of the church’s services. Drawing on their experience lighting other houses of worship, they urged Rabbit Creek to add four Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal fixtures from CHAUVET Professional to the church’s lighting rig.
“The major part of the project was to install an audio system,” said Jess Stark, General Manager of Stark Raving Solutions. “Lighting was only a small part of the whole project. However, when we saw the stage, we felt that the Ovation fixtures could make a major contribution to enhance the look of services both live and on video. Light output from Ovation is better in our opinion than other LED and non-LED options for 575-watt fixtures. The graceful dimming curve is very useful during the transition into worship part of the sermon.
“Since we were already engaged in the audio upgrade, we convinced the church to let us add some Ovation fixtures,” continued Stark. “It was easy for us to add the lighting upgrade and change their outdated control system while we were there, because the fixtures were in stock and could ship immediately. We didn’t need to make a second trip to Anchorage to install four fixtures”
Rabbit Creek, which started out in 1985 as a five-member church that met in the pastor’s rented home and later rented in the local YMCA, before moving into its current spacious and attractive building, has always be receptive to new opportunities, whether they take the form of new ways to engage worshippers or an unforeseen need for an outreach program.
Seeing an unexpected opportunity to enhance the visual quality of their video services, Rabbit Creek’s leaders agreed to have the four Ovation fixtures installed as front lights. Stark Raving Solutions installed the LED ellipsoidals in a front position on overhead truss about 10 feet to either side of center stage.
“The throw distance from where we positioned the Ovation ellipsoidals is about 40 feet,” said Stephen Ellison, lighting specialist at Stark Raving Solutions. “Given the output of these fixtures, they have no problem covering that distance. In terms of coverage, color temperature and even flat light field, they are equal to or better than any incandescent fixture. Of course as LED fixtures they also offer the benefit of lower maintenance and utility costs.”
In addition to providing superior lighting, the new LED fixtures offered Rabbit Creek Church clear cost saving advantages. The church saved in the installation process because the Ovation fixtures did not entail electrical contractor costs, since there was no need to change the existing electrical system other than adding outlets. Also, since the fixtures have wireless DMX control, there was no need to run DMX wire.
Rabbit Creek Church is also saving money because the LEDs consume less electricity and generate less heat. In the long run, the church will also benefit from the longer lamp life of the LED fixtures. Since the Ovation fixtures at the church are installed high off the floor, changing lamps in a different type of fixture would have caused maintenance headaches.
For their part, the church’s leaders and congregation could not be happier with the impact that the four Ovation ellipsoidals have had on the quality of their broadcast services. “The flat even light and color temperature really make a difference in the quality of the video productions,” said Ellison. “When you look at the stage lighting now and compare it to just a few years ago, it’s hard to believe that four fixtures could make such a big difference – but they do.”
For more information, check out Stark Raving Solutions.
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PVP X6IP at the GEICO 500!!
Geico? Awesome. Geico 500 with the new PVP X6IP outdoor video panels from CHAUVET Professional? MORE awesome!
LINCOLN, AL – The folks at insurance giant GEICO know a thing or two about marketing; after all they made a lovable gecko the world’s most famous lizard! So as a major sponsor of one of America’s most popular sports, NASCAR auto racing, it was only natural that they would come up with ways to maximize their on-site exposure. This is exactly what they did during the GEICO 500 at the fabled Talladega Superspeedway, using a wall of CHAUVET Professional PVP X6IP outdoor-rated video panels from Dynamic Productions USA.
Attracting over 80,000 spectators and millions more on television, the GEICO 500 is not only one of the most popular events on the NASCAR racing circuit; it’s also one of the most exciting. Located at a former Air Force base in northeast Alabama, “Dega,” as it is affectionately known to millions of race fans, is not only the longest NASCAR oval track, measuring 2.66 miles, it also has some of the steepest banking and widest lanes in racing — all of which makes for wild and unpredictable racing with 30 or 40 lead changes per race not uncommon. Outside the track itself, a New Orleans Mardi Gras style atmosphere prevails on the legendary Talladega Boulevard.
Fans attending this type of event are seeking intensity, and the CHAUVET Professional PVP X6IP video wall did not disappoint at Talladega. Thanks to the panels’ illuminance of 4,500 NITS, the bold colors and video images they displayed stood out even in the light of a sunny Alabama day. “Everyone involved in this project was very happy with the looks we got from the panels,” said Brian Rosenblum of Dynamic Productions USA.
The Talladega race was the second event on the GEICO NASCAR tour to call upon the intensely bright PVP X6IP to generate on-site excitement. Earlier, the panels were used effectively by GEICO at the Richmond International Speedway.
Dynamic Productions has been providing gear for GEICO’s NASCAR Tour events for three years through its client RedPeg Marketing. In 2015 RedPeg decided to add an LED video wall to its on-site displays. This was part of RedPeg’s very successful efforts to activate GEICO’s NASCAR sponsorship by creating an interactive experience that engaged NASCAR fans’ passion for the sport. For example, at Talladega, driver Casey Mears displayed his #13 show car and played trivia contests and challenges with fans on the GEICO stage. There were also photo opportunities with GEICO’s racing fleet, and an all-new, interactive “Pit Stop Challenge.”
Martin Codd, VP of Operations at RedPeg, noted; “This is the first experiential marketing activation in the USA to integrate the new Chauvet 6mm LED screen. We have tracked this technology for years and believe that the inflection point has been reached on both a cost and technology basis. As innovators within the experiential industry we are very happy with the partnership of Chauvet and Dynamic Productions; this will be the first of what we anticipate will be many programs where we will be able to showcase and stream content from multiple media sources onto LED screens.”
The PVP X6IP was selected to be a part of this marketing project because of its IP65 rating, weatherproof SMD 2623 LEDs with a pixel pitch of 6.9 mm, 4,500 NIT brightness, and its 8% transparency blow-through design for outdoor applications. Sealable louvers provide the option of closing the panel to block back light when used indoors, a feature that Dynamic Productions appreciates when using the panels in other applications, according to Rosenblum.
Dynamic Productions used 60 of the PVP X6IP panels, which measure 19.7 x 3.27 x 20.35 inches/500 x 83 x 517 mm, to create an impressive video wall. Controlled via an Edirol LVS-800 8-channel + 2x VGA Mixer, the outdoor rated panels were used to show videos of GEICO commercials, abstract patterns and IMAG images from the GEICO stage.
In contrast to the actual race itself, which as usual was marked unexpected twists and turns (part of the excitement!), the panels performed flawlessly throughout the event, helping RedPeg drive the GEICO marketing message to NASCAR fans.
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For more information on Dynamic Productions visit: www.dynamicprodusa.com
For more information on RedPeg visit: www.redpegmarketing.com
Ovation F-165WW Warms Up Fashion Show in Nigeria
CHAUVET Professional Ovation F-165WW fixtures stole the show at the recent Music Meets Runway annual fashion and music show organized in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos.
NEXUS Helping on THE WHO Hits 50!
Tom Kenny is strutting his Nexus stuff in another amazing tour design, this time for The Who Hits 50!, coming soon to a city near you! Check it out!
Meghan Trainor ROCKS Nexus 4×4 and NXT-1!
Next NXT-1 and Nexus 4×4 Step Up Energy Level For Meghan Trainor On Today Show!
NEW YORK – Grammy-nominated singer Meghan Trainor has been making waves ever since she burst on the music scene. It’s not just her highly resonant voice and distinctive blend of blue eyed soul, doo-wop and pop that make this effervescent star stand out, it’s also the confident, carefree way she defies expectations about body types and sets an example for 21st century women to define their own standards. Trainor’s independent exuberance was on full display during her recent appearance before millions of viewers on The Today Show, supported by an appropriately dynamic lightshow featuring a collection of CHAUVET Professional Next NXT-1 and Nexus 4×4 LED panels provided by WorldStage.
Lighting designer Peter Greenbaum used the Next NXT-1 and Nexus 4×4 to create a seamless look on The Today Show’s Summer Concert Series Stage. “I wanted the lighting to pull everything together on stage, so we got this free-flowing ambience that caught viewers up in Meghan’s performance,” he said. “Meghan’s songs are so lively and full of fun, we couldn’t create a lightshow that was anything less.”
Greenbaum used 20 Next NXT-1 panels in his design. All of the panels were placed on the stage deck, six lining the 12’ runway and 14 masking the upstage musician’s riser. The LD placed these panels as close together as possible to create a unified look on the runway. Complementing these panels were 12 Nexus 4×4 units, three on each of the stage’s four upright truss structures.
Arranged in diamond patterns, the Nexus panels were oriented toward the bottom section of the downstage truss and top section of the upstage truss, helping to create a multi-dimensional textured look. “We used the Nexus panels as diamonds rather than squares,” said Greenbaum “This configuration added an extra element of fun to the design, which was fitting given the nature of the performance.”
Taking advantage of the color rendering capabilities of the Next NXT-1 and Nexus 4×4, Greenbaum created a rich variety of pastel hues on stage to match the mood of Trainor’s music. Also adding to the upbeat mood of the lighting design was the interplay between the LED light sources of the Next NXT-1 and Nexus 4×4.
“I love the look of the individual cells on both units,” said Greenbaum. “The smaller cells on the NXT-1 and the larger ones on the Nexus really work well together. This is especially so when you add the movement of the NXT-1 panels. So you have smaller beams and large ones, moving beams and static ones, plus all the changing patterns and colors. It all adds up to excitement and fun.”
Greenbaum relied primarily on preprogrammed patterns in the CHAUVET Professional units for the Meghan Trainor lightshow. “Given the nature of our production schedule at The Today Show, we have very little time for programming,” he said. “However our programmer Mike “Googs” Gugliotti and outside LD Phil Grosso did an excellent job pulling everything together. Between them and Drew DeCorleto and the team at WorldStage, we accomplished some pretty impressive things. Anytime you have an artist like Meghan who has so many dimensions to her performance, you want to create lighting that does more than just sit there on stage. Based the feedback we’ve gotten, I’d say we created a lightshow that stepped up for a very energetic performer, and that feels very good.”
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For more information on WorldStage visit: www.worldstage.com
LUSH 2015 Awards Glisten with CHAUVET Professional
Lush Cosmetics recently had an amazing visual show at the BIC in Dorset — color, pixels, and a great group of people made this show absolutely excellent! Check it out!
Broward Center for the Performing Arts Goes #ROGUE!
The beautiful Broward Center for the Performing Arts got even more beautiful this week after a huge renovation package that included the ROGUE R1 Spot from CHAUVET Professional! Check it out below!
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – After completing a $60 million renovation project that earned universally positive reviews, the management team at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts might have been forgiven for resting on their laurels. However, accepting anything less than perfection has never quite been the way things are done at this multi-venue theater and entertainment complex, which sits on 5.5 acres of palm tree-lined riverfront property in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Occupying a gracefully balanced modernistic building designed by American Institute of Architecture Gold Medal winner Benjamin C. Thompson, the center has become one of the most popular theater venues in the US by combining its stunningly attractive setting with a richly diverse range of theatrical, entertainment and event offerings. So when management felt that the lighting in the center’s newly built ballroom needed to go beyond what a conventional system could deliver, they didn’t hesitate to search for something more impactful and flexible. This is exactly what they found in a collection of Rogue R1 Spot LED moving fixtures from CHAUVET Professional.
“We had just completed the renovation project, which included the construction of this new multi-purpose ballroom event space,” recalled Lucas Bonewits, Production Supervisor at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. “Upon completion of the project, we began looking at our lighting options in the ballroom. Conventional lighting worked well, but it was missing that flair that so many weddings, parties, and media events desire – and that this venue deserves.”
The center’s team contacted their vendor Miami Stagecraft to discuss their wish for upgraded lighting. “After speaking with us, our vendor arranged a demonstration of a variety of Chauvet moving head fixtures,” said Bonewits. “After the demo, it became very evident that given our needs the Rogue R1s were the direction to go. In fact we felt so certain about the Rogues that we doubled our order so we could have them in our inventory for one of our other ancillary spaces.”
Bonewits positioned 12 Rogue R1 Spot fixtures evenly spaced around the center of the ballroom. “We felt that positioning the Rogues this way would give us as much flexibility and coverage as possible,” he said. “We have great variety of functions, events and shows in this space and each has slightly different lighting needs. One of the good things about the Rogues is that they have the flexibility to meet all the different demands we encounter. We use them in several ways: as wall washes, stage washes and lighting the crowd, among other things.”
The Rogue R1 Spot features a rotating 3-facet prism, seven interchangeable gobos, 16.5° beam angle, and motorized iris and focus for beam shaping. According to Bonewits, the Broward Center for the Performing Arts has drawn on these and other features of the Chauvet moving fixture to create a variety of looks for the ballroom’s diverse range of functions.
“We felt that a ballroom that’s a part of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts should be able to deliver a certain flair to any function or event,” said Bonewits. “People expect that from this institution, and the Rogues help us deliver that kind of excitement.”
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