Friday Flickr Lighting – Alive Lighting

This weeks randomly Friday Flickr Lighting Porn comes from Alive Lighting.  You might better know the designer as Jim Hutchinson or Jimonlight.com.  Jim is a member United Scenic Artist local 829 and has been designing and playing with lights for a number of years. Jim was the lighting designer for the Oklahoma City University production of A Christmas Carol in 2007. Jim was joined on the production team by Costume Designer Billie Boston. Thank Jim for adding your photos to the Flickr Pool!  you can see more of Jim’s work on his website, www.alivelighting.com.

If you want to see your lighting design work featured here on iSquint, be sure to add your photos to the Friday Flickr Lighting Pool.  Each week I randomly select a photo from the pool to feature here.

LEDs + Snow = Lighting Goodness

If you didn’t already know, the International headquarters and base of operations for iSquint is in Washington, DC.  Starting Friday night, the Washington DC metro area was under a blizzard snow warning and expecting one of the heaviest snow falls in recent history.  And boy, did we get it!  At 6am Saturday morning, there was about 4-5″ of snow already on the ground and it just kept coming.  By noon, we had an additional 6″ of snow.  By 6pm, at least another 6-8″ of snow for a grand total ranging from 18″ – 24″ depending on your location.

I have always loved snow and the effects that snow covered lights produce.  How about the icicles hanging from the roof line with multi color lights lighting then from behind… OH, the magic of it all!  Well, I wanted to re-produce just a little bit of that magic to share with you.  The other night I stopped by Home Depot to pick something up and noticed they already had Christmas lights 40% – 60% off!  And to top it off, they had some LED strings left! How could I pass up such an offer!

The images below show how simple and easy making some beautiful lighting with some off the shelf string lights.  Then or course there is the snow part that is not as easy to come by.  So what is the point here?  Get out and make some good looking lights with what ever you have laying around or can find on the cheap.  Learning and exploring with lights doesn’t have to be limited to the theatre or even a lab. Just get out and play!

Friday Flickr Lighting Porn – Boneyard Prayer

This weeks randomly chosen Friday Flickr Lighting Porn comes from Harold on Flickr.  I would love to give Harold a little more credit here, but I just can not find any more information on him!  So if you are out there Harold, drop me a line and I will update the article with your info.

The photo is from Redmoon Theater’s 2008 production of Boneyard Prayer in Chicago Illinois.

Boneyard Prayer explores struggle, sorrow, and salvation, drawing from such varied sources as William Kennedy’s Ironweed, Dante’s Inferno, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, tramp art, Santos sculpture, and other period literature, music, and art. Boneyard Prayer tells a Depression-era tale of one man’s fractured life and ultimate redemption using various forms of puppetry and shadow images, along with extraordinary music inspired by the songs of the age.

Thanks Harold for adding your design work to the iSquint Friday Flickr Lighting Porn Pool.  Want to see your work featured here on iSquint?  Add your lighting design work to the iSquint Flickr pool, Friday Lighting Porn.  Each Friday, I randomly select a photo from the pool to be featured here.  Please don’t forget to add a few details about your work!

Friday Flickr Lighting Porn – SUNY Fredonia

This weeks randomly chosen Friday Flickr Lighting Porn comes from SUNY Fredonia Department of Theatre and Dance. the above images is from the 2007 production of Rocky Horror Show at the Rockefeller Arts Center on the Walter Gloor Mainstage.

The Department of Theatre Arts at SUNY Fredonia was officially created in 1972 by founding chairman Dr. Jack Cogdill upon the opening of the Rockefeller Arts Center. Each year, The department puts on 5 mainstage productions with a range of shows from classical plays to contemporary and modern musicals.

To learn more about the Department of Theatre and Dance at SUNT Fredonia, visit the departments website at www.fredonia.edu. What to see your lighting design work spotlighted on iSquint’s Friday Flickr Porn, add your images to the iSquint Flickr Pool. Each week, a Lighting Design photo is randomly chosen from the Pool and featured here on iSquint.

Friday Flickr Lighting Porn – @BatFishLighting

The past couple of weeks, I have not been able to get a Friday Flickr Lighting Porn photo up due to LDI and then Thanksgiving following the next week.  This week, The Friday Flickr Lighting Porn is back in full force.  This weeks randomly selected Photo Comes from @batfishlighting or better known as Jacqueline Steager.  The image comes from Jacqueline’s lighting design for Troy: The Gates of Hell at the Little Theatre at San Francisco State University.

You can see more of Jacqueline’s Design for Troy: The Gates of Hell by visiting here online portfolio at www.batfishlighting.com. Want to see your lighting deign work featured on the Friday Flickr Lighting Porn?  Add your photos to the iSquint Friday Flickr Lighting Porn Group on www.flickr.com. Photos are selected at random each week and feature lighting design wok of our readers.

Photo Credits: Claire Rice

More #LDI2009 Show Floor Pictures

While you wait for me to process all the information from this weekend at the 2009 LDI Show in Orlando Florida, I thought you might like to browse the over 200 photos I took over the weekend. I am still working on the videos and interviews from the weekend that will go up shortly.

It was a great time walking the show floor with our friend and fellow blogger, Mr. Jimonlight.  Together we saw an some amazing things that we are going to be covering in the Post Show Podcast that we did together. It was a great time to meet new and old friends on the show floor as well as the #LDI09tweetup on Saturday night. Thanks again to EVERYONE for all the great memories, I had a great time!

To view my photos from the weekend, visit my 2009 LDI Show Flickr set.

Update: #LDI2009 – More Photo Goodness

I just added more photos to the iSquint Flickr 2009 LDI Set.  I saw some pretty cool stuff in the afternoon. We got some close up photos of the new Fire and Ice LED fixtures from ETC.

I also got a closer look and touched the RSC LightLock From Total Structure.  Pretty neat device. It was announced back at PLASA and is being shown here in the US for the first time at LDI.  It’s really neat to move the fixture and watch the LightLock correct and get it back into position!

I also learn of a couple of other things that were announced just this morning that I’ll be writing up here shortly. Thus far, it has been one wickadly long day on the feet, but the foot traffic on the floor seemed up from expectations.  Atleast that is what most of the exhibitors said!

Only two more days of #LDI2009 and there is still plenty to see. Stay tuned, it’s only just begun!

More #LDI2009 Photos Added

I just added some more photos from the first pass around the show floor this morning to my LDI 2009 Flickr Set.  Jim and I have seen some neat things is the first pass around the show floor.  Our eyes are still recovering from the amount of lasers, haze and moving light action going on.  Make sure to follow our twitter feeds, @iSquint & @jimonlight for quick updates with images and things to note.

Up Close and Personal with the grandMA2 with Series 2 Software

We had a chance to get a close up view of the grandMA2 full size running series 2 software the other day.  The grandMA2 consoles have already begun to ship.  But series 2 software is still in the works.  While it is very close to being released, the new software is hoping to be released later this year or early next year.

We had a chance to sit down and take a look at the new desk with a version of the new software. There are some pretty sexy new things on the grandMA2 such as the multi-touch display for mixing and shaping a fixture, the ability to run series 1 or series 2 software and of course, the 30 motorized faders. Our favorite change on the console is the enter button.  While the button still operates as normal, the label has changed from Enter to Please, so the syntax is even closer to English or what what you might hear over the headset, “Give me Channel 1 at 50 Please”. That is German engineering for you!

Here are just a couple of photos and a quick video that we put together on the grandMA2 Full Size with Series 2 software.

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Friday Flick Lighting Porn – Mark Wynn-Edwards

This weeks Friday Flick Lighting Porn comes from Mark Wynn-Edwards.  You may know him better at @marktherockld on flickr.  Mark’s photo was randomly chosen this week to be featured here on iSquint. This photo is from Mark latest tour with Emiliana Torrini. mark explains a little about what he was trying to achieve and some of the lights he used.

From the very beginning  Emilianna (Torrini) had an idea of what she wanted to achieve with the lighting as this was the first time she had a lighting designer normally she used house lighting techs, but it was decided for the last tour of a one year run to bring in an LD with production.

It was decided the lights were to be cohesive with the moods of the music ,limited to generally a very earthy colour pallet with no gobo’s ( emiliana hates them) with the lighting used in a very empathetic way.

The 4 strip backdrop was used as a cyc and for the upbeat moments as emphasis using sudden splashes of colour , was also used for creating effects with the mirror balls and the moving lights.

The back drop was lit  with Colour blast  led fixtures. I was very impressed with the fixture for colour spread and colour mixing.

The colour blast were also used around stage to light up Backline and band again to add splashes of colour and add dramatic emphasis at key moments.

6 VL 2000 hidden behind the backine and were shooting through the Backline – as I was not able to use gobo I decided to use the shafts of light created as as light breaks through as an effect and create atmosphere  – this proved very interesting as the band would have an impact on what the lighting looked  like so you would get breaks in the light created with the neck of a guitar or the drummers foot  for example.

For the darker sentimental  moments there were  3 mirror balls lit with 5 source 4 and the VL2000 and at times the house moving lights.

FOH control was from a Jands Vista T2 ( my own)  this console proved to be a real asset as house generics and moving lights were being re-patched every day but still have the same show because of its fixture patch capabilities.

Wanna see you Lighting Design work featured here on iSquint?  Add you photos to our Friday Flickr Lighting Porn group.  When adding images to the group, add a little bit about the show or event. Want to see more of Mark’s work or contact him, visit his website at www.markwynnedwards.com. You can also read his Where is the Industry Heading interview that he did here on iSquint as well.

USITT – Day Two Wrap Up

Day two of the USITT Stage Expo comes to a close in Cincinnati.  It has been quite a busy day on the show floor with new products to see and play with.  While we crunch the information in to a manageable and understandable piece of information, we have uploaded more photos from the floor. Visit our 2009 USITT Photo Gallery here.

USITT – More Photos Added To Photo Gallery

We have added more photos from setup of USITT in Cincinnati.  We had to leave some photos out of the gallery for the moment.  We don’t want to take give everything away before tomorrow!  Trust us though, there are some amazing things planned for tomorrow.

Visit Our USITT Photo Gallery

Doors to the Stage Expo open promptly at 9:30am EST.  If you are not at the show, fear not, we have you covered! Make sure to check back through out the day and on into Friday and Saturday.