For more than a decade, Roz Fulton-Dahlie has been making a name for herself in the industry under various titles, such as lighting designer and resident video designer for Kinesthetic Sense Dance Company, assistant designer at MODE Studios, and assistant professor of Theatrical Design & Lighting Technology at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). As an LD and a CalArts protégé of video designer Bob Bonniol, Fulton-Dahlie has designed for concert tours, theatrical performances, and dance, and also won the Triangle Award for Best Lighting in 2011. Now, she operates under the title of media specialist at ENTTEC.
Fulton-Dahlie will be presenting a two-part session, “Design On A Dime,” at LDI 2016 on October 22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Live Design caught up with Fulton-Dahlie about her career path and LDI session.
Learn more about Roz Fulton-Dahlie’s LDI sessions, “Design On A Dime”: Part I and Part II.
1. How did you first become involved in the entertainment industry? Did you always intend to be a designer?
I became involved with the industry in high school, when a friend had me cover his props position on the final show of our senior year. Soon after, I was heading off to college in New York City with a focus on choreography, but as I had enjoyed working backstage, it wasn’t long before I was busking consoles for bands and nightclubs in Manhattan.
The hardest part was convincing my mother I wasn’t going to starve by pursuing a career in lighting, which was odd to me, as I knew dancers have a harder challenge finding work. I changed my major in college and went on my first rock tour during the fall of my senior year, attending classes part time by flying back to New York on my days off. After college, I worked for LSD, before it became PRG, and toured as an LD for small bands, living in both New York and Los Angeles. I spent a year in architectural lighting with Fisher Marantz Stone and ended up discovering that I wasn’t ready for a desk job in my early 20s. On a rock tour in 2004, I happened upon CalArts, met Chris Barreca, and decided that’s where I wanted to be.
2. Who or what influences have helped bring you to where you are today?
The biggest influence in my career will always be MODE Studios: Bob and Colleen Bonniol. As mentors within my graduate school faculty, they were instrumental in my expansion into video. I assisted them on many productions, both during school and after graduation, often generating media in Adobe AE or working in the field with media servers. Under their guidance, I started to explore more technology and latched onto [Cycling ‘74] Max/MSP as a method to explore media in an interactive setting.
3. How did you go from teaching at UNCSA to becoming a media specialist at ENTTEC?
With changes in my personal life, I required a flexible work environment that accommodated my parenting choices. After leaving UNCSA, I was courted by ENTTEC, who gradually worked with me over the past year to develop the position.
4. What does your current job entail? Is it a culmination of everything you’ve learned, or is it a more targeted specialty?
My current position targets my teaching background with the creation of educational media for ENTTEC products, as well as my creative side in custom media content work for presentations and trade shows. As one would expect, a proficiency with Adobe software is always needed when dealing with video media.
5. To whom would you recommend your conference sessions at LDI, and why?
The sessions are geared toward students, independent artists, and hacker-minded individuals who want to expand their video capabilities yet are constrained by finances. The participants should walk away with a better grasp of the capabilities possible to them with affordable software options on the market. Whether it’s taking software to a new level or combining various programs to achieve new possibilities, the ideal outcome of the class should be a revelation of many more ways to expand our work as artists.
I feel it is imperative to convey to this LDI class that one doesn’t need to fear technology. One doesn’t need to be a master of a technology to make it serve your particular artistic needs. This comes out more in the second part of the class, where we talk about how [the panelists] addressed issues in productions.
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