Hard to believe it was over a month ago that I attended the cocktail party for the 2008 Lumen Awards at Chelsea Piers in NYC. The Lumens are the annual awards given by The Illuminating Engineering Society, New York City Section, to honor outstanding architectural lighting projects. The party is quite festive, overlooking the Hudson River, and the cocktails are followed by a gala dinner and After Glow party, which was lit by Marsha Stern this year, with a rig that included a Hippotizer media server, so it was nice running into Marsha, and “Chippa” and Scott Vontobel from TMB, as well as old friends from the architectural lighting arena such as Paul Gregory, Christen Methot, Sepp Spenlinhauer, etc….oddly the press was only invited to the cocktail party so I didn’t actually get to see the awards presented, but they went to a wide variety of projects, with a full list available at www.iesny.org/Lumen.aspx.

I was pleased to see that Paul Gregory was honored for the Times Square Ball, winning a Citation for Increasing Public Awareness of LED’s for the new ball that drops on New Year’s Eve. As the press release stated: Referencing their theatrical experience, designers Paul Gregory, Christine Hope and Bret Anderson knew that the ball’s triangular crystals had to sparkle as much when viewed from 500′ away as they did 10′ away.



The Times Square Ball was covered in the November issue of Live Design (http://livedesignonline.com/stagingrental/fly_ball/index.html)

Nice that a performing arts facilty was in the winner’s circle as well: the beautifully designed Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, in Orange County, CA, where once again LEDs played an important role in meeting energy codes. The architectural lighting design is by Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, New York, N.Y.

Also honored was the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y. with its cool white lighting designed by Tillotson Design Associates, New York, N.Y.

Congrats to all the winners!

Well, I’ve just returned from 3 weeks of cruising aboard the inaugural voyage of Holland America’s ms Eurodam. I’ve designed a bunch of shows for Holland America over the last 4 years. Working in the modern cruise era is always dissonant, the theatres are ultra modern, equipped beyond the wildest imaginings of many. Multiple stage lifts, turntables, incredible tracked & automated fly systems that keep flying pieces from moving against the ships motions… Hundreds of Vari*Lites…

And, happily enough for me, a big flying full stage backdrop of MiTrix, and a rack full of Hippotizers to feed it delicious content.

Yet, I’ll not pretend that this entertainment is aimed at the serious dramaturgs among us (this is that dissonance part)… Let’s face it, this is frothy, fun, uh… Air filled stuff. But it is really pretty, and secretly, I really enjoy it… It’s entertainment… You can take the boy out of Vegas, but…

So our mission would be to cook content and cue it for a musical review show called Nightlife. We’d also be making some content tweaks in another review, In Concert. This in the company of my most able Assistant/Programmer, the irascible Sean Cagney.

In the mean time, one of my other partners, Matt Skerritt, would be leading a shooting crew (well really it was just him, me, and our good friend & Grip Gregg Gilmore) in producing all of the custom on-board media that would go with the introduction of a new class of ship. Staterooms have televisions… And these ships all have unique identities in terms of marketing, information, and safety media. So Matt would be shooting and editing on board as soon as the ship left the Fincantieri Shipyard in Venice. By 10 days later he would have to be done creating many pieces of on-board media, just in time for a gala christening and the first cruise from Rotterdam.

It would be a chase to the finish for us both. And we would all do it in a virtual communications blanket. The ship’s onboard telecommunication and wireless internet services didn’t activate until 3 days before we reached Rotterdam. We were unable to access any media not with us on the ship. We couldn’t even call home or check emails… Ever seen what an email box looks like after 2 and a half weeks of not checking it ? Ugly…

But it also cleared the way for us to focus solely on the gigs at hand, which were numerous enough to demand it. Ultimately all the stage shows would be sync’d to SMPTE Timecode and run from a custom AMX control system. First we had to write all of our cues in Sean’s GrandMA console. Then identify our proper placement in TC, then merge with the lighting cue stack. Plenty of layers to peel technically. This in addition to generating super hot, pop content.

In our ’spare’ time we created all of the media for the christening ceremony itself. A huge dockside arena was constructed, and we would work with XL Video’s fabulous gang from London to setup multiple LED screens, roll content from a Catalyst, and catch onstage fun with a sizable IMAG setup. Various Holland America historical pieces, some ship building documentary, and a tribute to the Dutch Royal Family (who attended).

Ultimately we docked in Rotterdam, carried the proverbial day, and delivered a sparkling, vastly entertaining new ship to the cruise mad masses.

Congratulations to Holland America. My what a large boat you have !!

Now off to Amsterdam for some Rest & Recoup… “Hey isn’t that Patrick Dierson and Jay-Z in that Bentley ? I love Europe !”

I had lunch with the folks from Wybron yesterday and had the chance to see a pretty sweet new app the company will be launching (possibly ready today along with the new iPhone release) that contains a virtual gel swatchbook for all the popular manufacturers you know and love.

Wybron prez Keny Whitright let me play with it a little bit, and it’s very handy. You can scroll through loads of gel colors, compare those from different manufacturers, and get just the right color info you need, all right there on your iPhone and for just $10. There’s another new app that’s a color calculator for Wybron’s CXI scroller (for just $5 more), so you can scroll through the two CMY gelstrings, line up the color you want, and it gives you the values you need. The catch? You have to have an iPhone, but I hardly think that’s going to hold anyone back in our biz. I know about a dozen folks who slept out for the first release, so I can only imagine how many we’ll see by the time LDI rolls around.

I was interested to see that Cascade ACM SIGGRAPH (the organization of computer graphics enthusiasts and professionals; also hosts of the annual SIGGRAPH conference) is holding a “Bring Your Own Art” (BYOA) evening, thanks to its Oregon and Southwest Washington’s local chapter. The event is on Thursday, July 31 from 6:30pm to 9pm at The Art Institute of Portland. They’re billing it as an “open mic night” for graphic artists and inviting anyone creating computer-generated artwork, including animation, 2D and 3D models, works in progress, to fine art and web design.

I think a lot of work by projection designers and content creators out there would certainly qualify. Stock footage users need not apply, to be sure. We’ve all seen some stunning content emerge in the last few years, from designers, multimedia artists, VJs, you name it. I think it’s art, even if you guys are already professionals getting paid to create it (unlike poor Van Gogh, only appreciated in death). We live in a business of commissioned works.

Check out how VJ act Dijjital Ambiance uses a system based around an Apple octo-core Intel Mac Pro tower with multiple video cards, a RAID array, and Modul8 from GarageCube server software to pump out live visuals:

Anyway, contact info, if you’re interested: Michael Smith at byoa2008@cascadesiggraph.org before Friday, July 25. They ask that you are able to provide contact information, title of your work, and a description, including size.

More location info at: The Art Institute’s website. Oh, and it’s free, and you can simply attend for a nice night of graphic arts. RSVP to cascadesiggraph@gmail.com.

Bruce Campbell, freelance lighting designer and photographer from New Orleans, shared this photo and jokes, “Mirror Ball Operator Needed in Hammond, IN.” He adds, “Stuff like this has been my hobby for years, and signs are the best.” Thanks sharing, Bruce.