VIDEO: Ravitz Lights Buddy Holly Special on PBS

Lighting designer Jeff Ravitz designed the television and live-show lighting for a PBS special commemorating what would have been Buddy Holly’s 75th birthday, titled Buddy Holly: Listen To Me and shot at Hollywood¹s Music Box Theatre. The star-studded evening, produced and coordinated by Songmasters, with Jennifer Cohen and Regan McCarthy as executive producers, and Grammy-winning producer Peter Asher as music supervisor, featured performances by Stevie Nicks, Lyle Lovett, Chris Isaak, Graham Nash, and Patrick Stump, among other guests.

“It was an incredible thrill to work with Songmasters and to light this roster of amazing performers," says Ravitz. “As with most shows lately, the venue’s tight space and schedule hardly allowed for what the producers and I wanted to do. We supplemented the in-house lighting and focused on the priorities of making the stars look fabulous and imparting as much unique vibe to each song as possible. When all was said and done, we were very proud of the results. It was a group effort at its finest.” Ravitz worked on the broadcast lighting with his associate at Intensity Advisors, Kristie Roldan.

The venue already houses 12 Robe ColorSpot 250 ATs, as well as six Martin Professional MAC 500s and five MAC 600s, various ETC Source Four ellipsoidals, PAR64s, and single-cell cyc lights. Ravitz supplemented the rig with gear supplied by Olesen Theatrical, including a dozen Clay Paky Alpha Profile 1200s, four High End Systems Studio Color 575s, 10 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRs, two Altman Lighting Mini-10s, two Lycian SuperStar 1.2 followspots, various ETC Source Four ellipsoidals, and an ETC Eos console.

Check out the PBS preview for a sneak peek:


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