So I guess I am supposed to write about sound on this Blog.  And that is cool.  I like talking about sound.  I am really opinionated and stuff.  Also it is what I do.  Sound I mean.  I design and mix musicals.  So I definitely have a thing or two to say about it.  But I would rather start this blog by talking about something that means a lot to me.  I live in New York and I mix on the Great White Way or Broadway.  I love living in Manhattan and all of its inconveniences.  But there is an issue that I would like to see changed in the Big Apple and it is an issue very personal to me.  No more dogs.  Enough already.  The sidewalks are like walking through a minefield that Princess Di has not cleared.  And they smell.  They are foul creatures.  Truly.  I mean let’s face it.  I am not allowed to walk up to the bus stop and urinate two feet from someone, yet there is a dog pissing right beside me.  I have a two year old and he isn’t allowed to defacate in the middle of the sidewalk.  He has to wear a diaper.  Maybe if dogs wore diapers.  That wouldn’t be so bad.  Or maybe medical science can help.  I mean we put a man on the moon almost forty years ago.  Isn’t there a way we can replace their bladder and bowels with some kind of tupperware that could snap out and be cleaned?  I mean don’t get me wrong I like dogs, just not their by-products.  Now how about those d&b Speakers!

Spring 2008 Class Schedule:

Monday:
Design Methodology w/ Barreca 8:10-12:30pm
Graduate Lighting Design I w/ Holder 4:15-7pm
Advanced Light Lab w/ Holder 7-8:30pm
Lighting Design Seminar w/ Holder 8:30-10pm

That is only 10.5 hours of class on a Monday this semester!!! Woot!

Tuesday:
Advanced Vectorworks w/ Sherwood 10:10-12pm

Wednesday:
Graduate Performance Analysis w/ Ehn and Heinze 9:10-1pm

I am also signed up for Production Credit for designing Platee.

Interim is finishing up this weekend at school, so I thought I’d touch on a few of the highlights from the more technical lectures I attended.

Lightwright 4
I was incredibly lucky to spend an afternoon with John McKernon and hear him discuss some of the ins and outs of Lightwright. It was kind of nice to hear some of the reasons behind our favorite LW4 qwerks. So here is a small selection of some things I found interesting:

• If you expect to transfer files between MAC and PC, forget using the ° symbol in instrument names as it does not always transfer the degree symbol because of ASCII values.
• Lightwright was actually created before Excel ever came out. I think a lot of people don’t know this, and might explain any frustration people have between the two programs.
• When is the next Lightwright coming out?
It has been a while since LW4 came out, but there are a variety of factors that affect LW 5’s release. Primarily the coding language for the program has changed, and John has started rewriting the 180,000 lines of code from the ground up again. He’s about ½ way through it.
• If you have spare units. Make sure to set their channel numbers all to 0. This way the lights will not be linked together. Example: If you listed them all as channels S1-S15 or all as channel 1000. If you delete any one of those lights, you potentially can delete all of them.
• If you record focus information like a shutter cut or bream focus, and you want to reset the field easily, just click the word associated with it…such as beam, SL, Top, Bot etc…
• For PC users, hold Ctrl-Shift to get the copy paintbrush tool.

SFX 6
This is basically a new program from Stage Research. Forget anything you ever learned in SFX 5.6. The entire program has been rewritten from the base up. It has gone through a huge facelift which has made it a much more flexible and desirable program. I am not going to go into that many of the new features in the program. (If you’re interested check out this LD article about it Click ) All I am saying is, if you are going to upgrade to SFX 6, be ready for something brand spanking new.

It’s Monday and that means there is a new episode of American Gladiators on NBC tonight. My slight obsession with the early 90’s version of the show is of course rooted in lighting. Who could forget the pastel colored orange, red and blue ovals occasionally viewed in the ceiling? Or perhaps some narrow-spot PARs doing the standard finger light effect in the background. And my personal favorite, the intense down pools of light around the scoring pods in powerball. Needless to say, when I think back on the classic version of the show (especially with the more recent late night re-runs on ESPN) it made realize that this was one of the first television shows where I noticed lighting playing a major role.

What has American Gladiators evolved into day? For starters, it is hosted by Hulk Hogan, but more importantly is has a mighty impressive lighting package. The show must have hundreds of movers in the arena plus a variety of other LED and strobe instruments. To be honest, I am a little surprised such a major event was not covered by Live Design. I am sure it would be a fun story to cover. I would love to get a glimpse of the light plot, find out what consoles the LD used, and actually find out who designed it. I’ll admit I have not taken the time to read through all of the credits at the end of the program.

For some reason I associate this revamped American Gladiators lighting to an article I read last year about updates Natasha Katz made to A Chorus Line. (see the article: Click Here) I think it is interesting to discover the decisions behind using modern technology to support a revival of a show and how it affects the overall outcome.

Today I was preparing materials to do a lecture in Korea… It’s on the evolution of modern lighting and multimedia. Kind of taking it from some of the first contemporary attempts (Laurie Anderson, Tommy on Broadway, U2’s Zoo TV… On through to recent Nine Inch Nails, and my own Nickelback)…

And I was just blown away by how absolutely right on the ‘earlier’ stuff was. People know I’m fond of that Robert Edmund Jones quote about combining actor and onstage image. I mean that was 1919 !!! The ideas aren’t recent, but man the practice has gotten extremely accomplished. I really have respect for people like Laurie Anderson and Willie Williams who led the way sytlisticially to so much of what we see today. ZooTV is pretty frickin fly man. Just try to do stuff that they haven’t already… I dare you ! Really. It’s easy to do what’s done before. I want to go out there and NEVER hear “oh that looks great, just like that U2 show I saw”… I love seeing what they did, where they’ve been, then spinning around and looking some other direction.

I’ve got a great article cooking on Artistic Intuition… Keep an eye out for it in March… Maybe April. I have several really fabulous designers talking about that first artistic ‘gut instinct’, where it comes from (for them), and how they then communicate and manifest it. Shaping up to be a real hum dinger.

Peace Out,

BOB BONNIOL