Production designers Simon Clark and Jeremy Roth of Stageworks are pretty cool dudes. Not only have they built a spaceship for Skrillex and produced a show for Deorro, complete with breakdancing pandas, they have designed for the likes of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Ratatat, Wilco, and Mazzy Star. Offering lighting, video, scenic, and production design, the design duo from Stageworks has also designed lighting for the Main Stage and Dance Tent of the Sasquatch Music Festival since 2009 and both of the stages at the Watershed Music Festival since it began in 2012. Their latest endeavors include the production and lighting design for Deorro’s performance at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2015—you know, the one with the breakdancing pandas—and the lighting and programming for this year’s Sasquatch Festival, for which they also provided the lasers.
Live Design caught up with Clark and Roth before they arrived onsite for Sasquatch.
1. What sort of design philosophies do you bring to the Stageworks team?
I’ve always been a fan of a ‘less is more’ design mentality. One of my favorite artists is James Turrell. His art installations are very simple in nature but have a profound visual effect on the viewer. There is a lot that can be done with color, texture, and intensity that acts on the audience on a subliminal level. In scenic design, I gravitate toward unusual textures and materials with asymmetric shapes. In lighting, I like to use slight modulations in hue and intensity to support the drama of a moment on stage, without distracting from what the performers are doing. I’m not afraid to crush the audience with strobing and blinders when appropriate, but I try to really find that fine line of production being present on stage without upstaging the performers.
I spent a lot of my early career designing effects and elements for other designers. Dave Lights taught me the value of taking the physical presence of lighting and rigging, and using it to maximum scenic effect, a trick that Jeremy and I lean on heavily to this day. Joe Atkins taught me the value of symmetrical asymmetry and how to subtly achieve very dramatic looks.
JR: When I’m running lights for a show, I do a lot of manual bumps and swells with the faders. No matter how many lights I have, I always try to keep at least one system on manual intensity control—no running effects, etcetera—and keep that in time with the music. That’s one of the reasons I still like to have ACLs and blinders on my rock shows. I’m a bit regressive when it comes to technology. I tend to prefer incandescent sources and simple tech to some of the newest stuff out there. Depending on the artist or project, sometimes it’s totally called for to have all of the amazing new gear from Ayrton spinning around all night, but I would much prefer a simple source with really smooth dimming, homogenized color output, and a great selection of patterns and effects. The Martin Professional MAC Aura, GLP [impression] X4, [Martin] MAC Viper, and [Martin] Atomic strobe are still my go-to lights for theatres and sheds. For me, a great show is less about exactly what tech is being used and more about how tastefully someone is using it.
2. How do you two collaborate during the design and production process?
JR: At the beginning of a project, Simon and I will usually sit down and talk through our ideas and concepts. Sometimes that includes initial input from the artist but often not. I bring my pile of crayons, and Simon brings a ream of napkins to draw on. Once we have something we both like, I will take the pile of napkins and begin to flesh out the concept in [Cast] wysiwyg or [Maxon] Cinema 4D. That process will usually bring up a whole host of additional questions and possible design paths to go down. At this point, we put together an initial concept book full of renderings, drawings, and our notes on possible directions. We try to leave this first pass as broad as possible to allow the artist to hone in on the parts they like. Once we have more solid direction from the artist, or not, we revise again and again until we have a final design.
As I spend time creating and adjusting the designs, I am constantly running into questions about how to make certain elements work right from a rigging or fabrication standpoint. Simon has a lot of experience and knowledge in fabrication, rigging, and theatre in general from his days working in the West End and Broadway. I am constantly sending him rough drawings for feedback and to review for feasibility. Throughout the process, we try to keep at least one foot in the door of reality in regards to costs and the physical reality of implementing our designs on stage or wherever they may live.
Coachella, Collaboration, And Creativity
3. Were there any challenges in designing Deorro’s show for Coachella 2015?
JR: Doing a show for the first time with full production—video, lights, lasers, cryo, live mixed I-Mag, dancers, costumes, and special guests—and no proper production rehearsal is always going to be challenging. Doing it on one of the largest festival EDM stages in the country as your first performance was quite an undertaking. We are generally not fans of bringing large productions into festivals. The festival environment can be tricky as they are trying to meet the needs of many different acts within the budgetary and time constraints of the festival.
For Deorro, we had an entire new deck of visuals created by Scott Sunn that had to be mapped onto an extensive set of screens with different shapes and sizes. We also had an entire van-load of dancers and special guests who needed to come on and off the stage at the right times. From a lighting standpoint, the stage was designed for DJ performances and not really to properly light people performing on stage. There was one truss almost directly over the apron and audience eye candy trusses where you would want a downstage key lighting position. I was able to use the GLP impression X4 XLs on the sides of the stage and the new impression X4 Bars, which I love, across the apron as kicker lights to get light onto the performers. Aron Altmark and Alex Ares had an extensive punt page built that I added my own bits to. They were both really helpful in getting what we needed for our show. We had it pretty well dialed in by the second weekend.
4. In what ways is your respective partner in design valuable to your own creativity?
JR: Simon’s done a bit of everything in this business. He technically knows the ins and outs of the equipment and the proper methods for putting it together safely. He’s also a brilliant creative. There is a lot of synergy, creatively speaking, between us. He’s always open to my suggestions, and we both seem to share a similar design aesthetic. Usually, we both agree when something is or isn’t working creatively. I like that he tends to push boundaries. He’s always got a “Ooh, what if we...” ready when I least expect it.
SC: Jeremy is almost the perfect marriage of artist and designer with a flawless creative “long game” combined with precise technical drafting skills. Our aesthetic is very similar, and our desire to work outside the box gives our designs the ability to transcend normal. Jeremy always has an eye for how our rigs will interact with other people’s production, whether we are the ones coming in or whether we are on the receiving end.
5. What projects are currently in the pipeline?
JR: Personally, I’m most excited about my new design for Wilco debuting this summer. I’m making a custom soft LED product that should be pretty spectacular.
SC: Stageworks made a massive investment in Absen’s really good A7 video panels. We have spent a lot of the last year finding ways to use them as a scenic element, thus allowing us to use content as part of our lighting design. It’s tricky getting clients away from the idea of a big television on the stage, but I am excited to finally get some of these designs on the road later in the summer.
For more, download the June issue of Live Design for free onto your iPad or iPhone from the Apple App Store, and onto your Android smartphone and tablet from Google Play.