Mile-High Bruce Rodgers
Earlier this year we noted that Bruce Rodgers was the set designer for this year’s Democratic National Convention. So when Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Party nomination for President tonight at Invesco Field, on the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, he’ll be doing so while standing on Bruce’s work. Pretty heady stuff, when you think about it.
Rodgers, for his part, sounds to be having a good time onsite, considering. “It’s been an awesome week,” he wrote to us in an email today. “The wildest part is the lack of fire marshal control, hah!”
Here’s a not very good shot of the Invesco set:
There have been some misguided, idiotic rumblings in the blogsphere about how tonight’s set, with its Greek architectural references in the Doric style, is one more example of Obama’s elitism, when in fact, it’s meant to reference the Lincoln Memorial, where MLK gave the Dream speech. Research, people, research!
There may be a few other suprises too, Rodgers says. “I’m totally excited about the cable cam shots you’ll see tonight!”
Here’s a photo of the set he did inside at the Pepsi Center:
Bruce Dickinson is the LD for the DNC; we’ll have complete coverage of this event in an upcoming issue of LD. Haven’t heard who’s doing the RNC, but if anyone has that info please email me.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Bruce Rogers’ DNC set design looked phenomenal, the lighting, projection, everything, even the Band & Columns! I would love to see an expanded article from Bruce on the technology he used, he may have put the Democrats over the top. Now for the other side, the Designer for the Republican National Convention should be fired or at least never have been given the go ahead with the designs. The only shot that looked even close to being good was the wide shot that made the people on stage look like specks. They used this HUGE ass screen that dominated the entire Stadium. Then played back just straight video clips that looked like power point at best. When they went to close up shots of the Speakers (used 95% of the time) they were shot against the very bottom of the Huge Screen, which was usually Black or brown flowing water (NYC). Why not just use a black curtain (save $2 Mil) if that is all you see , it looked good in the 70″s. The designer for the RNC must have been a Democrat. The whole production for the DNC was run like a real production, it was a festive atmosphere with the band, it all looked & ran smooth, compared to the Republicans that looked like a train wreck, this coming from a Republican. At least Palin had some good things to say even if it was not in the prettiest setting. Bruce try to get the RNC Gig in 2012!
Leave a Comment