As you may have noticed, our website has a new look. Or should I say a new “skin.” That’s what the kids in the new media department call it. We call it LD2.0. You can call it awesome.

With a renewed focus on blogs and forums, the LD website is moving toward the social networking model gaining so much popularity all over the net. We think that makes sense, given the more

In case you haven’t heard or read, we have gone back to the idea of an all-digital version of our upcoming LDI Show Daily (you know, the one you were only able to get at the show in print for the last two years?). This will enable anyone who’s not at the show to get an update everyday with goings on from the classes and the show floor.

And more

Lighting legend Richard Pilbrow was kind enough to invite me to the first dress tech for A Tale of Two Cities, the new musical opening next month on Broadway. His hook was he wanted me to see “the future of lighting control.” How could I say no to that?

Over lunch with Richard, associate designer Michael Gottlieb, and programmer Rob Bell (moonlighting from his gig as product manager with Horizon Control), the trio explained that Tale is the first Broadway production to integrate Strand Lighting’s Light Palette VL (with Universal Attribute Control) with Cast Lighting’s WYSIWYG and West Side Systems’ Virtual Magic Sheet. The result, the designers say, makes for a more dynamic, intuitive and designer-friendly graphic representation of the output and orientation of the lighting rig. Richard personally configured a video display to indicate, graphically, and in real time, levels and positions of lights. He cued the show (with over 1,300 control channels) without any other display from the lighting console.

I got to watch a bit of it at the first dress last week at the Hirschfeld. Well, a tiny bit anyway; the proceedings got something of a late start, as first dress tends to do. The setup is really quite something; Pilbrow can simply look at his computer screen and see exactly what happening with any individual unit on the rig at any given time.

Look to see more about this interesting new control concept in an upcoming issue of Live Design. In the meantime, here’s a quick breakdown of the entire lighting crew on the show as well as the rest of the design tem:

Lighting Designer: Richard Pilbrow

Associate Lighting Designer: Michael Gottlieb

Lighting Programmer: Robert Bell

Assistant Lighting Designers: Kathleen Dobbins, Graham Kindred

Production Electrician: Michael Ward

Assistant Electrician: Paul Ker

Followspot Operators: John Blixt, Thomas Burke, Bob Miller

House Electrician: Michele Gutierrez

Director: Warren Carlyle

Scenic Designer: Tony Walton

Costume Designer: David Zinn

Sound Designers:Carl Casella and Domonic Sack

Special Effects: Greg Meeh

Hair Design: Tom Watson

A few months ago I bought one of those nice octo core Intel Mac Towers.  My intention was to build my own media server.  I maxed the RAM (16GB), added 3 dual head video cards, and an onboard RAID controller.  I set up a RAID5 with 4×500GB drives for a total of 1.5TB of superfast storage.  For the software I’m using Garage Cube’s Modul8.  It was written for speed and more

I went to see Stone Temple Pilots last night at Jones Beach Theatre (a venue famous for being on the water and the sound not always being so great), courtesy of designer Alastair Bramwell-Watson, and I have to say, when performers are on, they are really on. With all the rumors of lead singer Scott Weiland being on-again, off-again (the wagon, that is), some of my colleagues joked the show might not even happen, and I was pleased to say there were wrong. Weiland was spot on. He sounded great, as did the rest of the band.

Visuals looked great, by the way, as well…a mix of Vari-Lite VL3000 Spots and Martin MAC 2000 Washes and Profiles, as well as some Atomic Colors, DWE strips, and PixelRange PixelLine 1044s provided a nice rig, while a huge LSI Saco V-Lite Screen covered most of the stage backdrop, served by a High End Systems Axon Media Server. That’s why we’re there, right? That and 1:45 of rockin’ STP songs.

You can read all about Bramwell-Watson’s design in the August issue of Live Design.