Forecast For Thursday, April 8, 2021

UK's National Theatre streams Romeo and Juliet, one of the world's saddest love stories, in an original feature film version for TV. Directed by Simon Godwin, it was filmed over 17 days at the Lyttlelton Theatre last December under the COVID-19-safe working filming guidance and code of practices. The film airs i the UK on Sky Arts on Thursday, April 8, 2021 and on Friday, April 23 @ 9pm Eastern on PBS in the US. The director of photography is Tim Sidell, with production and costume design by Soutra Gilmour.

Behind the scenes, Romeo and Juliet:

  Training & Webcasts:

 April 8: New World Rigging Symposium (NWRS): Produced online by ESTA and USITT. Register Here.

April 8 @ 10am Central: Harman Learning Session: Mapping Techniques for Great Outdoor Lighting Image Projection with Marcus Persson and Robert Svensson: A discussion of outdoor lighting image projection becoming more recognized as a powerful creative tool for designers. They will also offer some useful tips and tricks for creating great results, using mapping techniques. Register Here.

April 8 @ 1pm Eastern: Ahead Of The Curve: Kerstin Hovland: Do you enjoy unwrapping presents? Opening those Amazon boxes to see what you forgot you purchased? We all do!! That's why we will be unwrapping the creative designers tool box to see what types of creative tricks and things you can create with all of the wonderful creative tools available to you today. Join host Geoffrey Platt and Kerstin Hovland from Electronic Countermeasures as they discuss creative technologies, content design, and tools of the trade for some of the most creative artists to hit the stage. Watch Here.

April 8 @ 1pm Eastern: Avixa: The Transition To Video Over IP: A look at what is involved in transitioning from traditional Pro AV systems to IP-based ones. We’ll discuss the main video over IP codecs and their applications, evaluate the trade-offs between quality, bandwidth, and latency for each, review basic network switch and encoder/decoder configuration and discuss how bandwidth affects system design. At the end of the webinar, you should have a much better understanding of how to implement Video over IP technology. Register Here.

Looking Ahead, Register In Advance:

April 9 @ 12pm Eastern: Theatre Artist Conversations festure special guests and engage in community dialogue to keep in touch and share ideas, resources and support. Join a conversation with lighting designer Dawn Chiang and designer/deviser Irina Kruzhilina, talking about their creative work during the pandemic. Register Here.

(left to right) Irina Kruzhilina and Dawn Chiang 

April 9 @ 2pm Eastern: ASTC-USITT Renovation Challenge: Student teams of designers present their solutions for the 2021 ASTC-USITT Renovation Challenge. Watch Below:

April 10 @ 4pm Eastern: Bridging The Gap—Audio System Design: A discussion from multiple perspectives. Designing a new system can be daunting. Don’t let it crush you. Join us for a round table discussion about the process and challenges of designing an audio system that meets the needs of the audience, the venue, and the engineer. With Todd Rambo and Ben Alexander. Register Here.

April 12 @ 6pm Eastern: New York City Vectorworks Entertainment Online User Group: Explore an advanced VR experience for entertainment design client approvals. A true example of interactivity, the user can turn design elements on and off by moving objects in the scene. Additionally, see how baked lighting and gobo textures add higher realism. In the second half, using Unity to achieve similar interactivity in 360 browser renderings. It's kind of like a Vectorworks Panorama but with additional virtual capabilities! With Lauren Smith of ScienceMonitor.com. Register Here.

• April 14 @ 2:30pm Eastern: Chicago Flyhouse Training: Forces and Loads: This class is a review of some basic concepts from physics that affect rigging work. • Review Newton’s laws of motion and examine what they mean for rigging • Consider the types of forces that can be applied to a rig and what those situations look like • Learn how to visualize the forces in a system and then communicate that information to others • Calculate loads across a beam, such as a batten or a truss • Review mechanical advantage with pulleys Instructor: Ed Leahy. Register Here.

 New Webcasts & Podcasts:

• GLP: 10 Out Of 10: Peter Morse: This is the extended episode of GLP's 10 Out Of 10 with LD Peter Morse, who has worked with an incredible list of artists including; Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Madonna, Usher, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Christina Aguilera. Watch Below:

• Light Talk, Episode 209, "Game Changer:" The Lumen Brothers talk about everything from the ETC Source Four Series 3 and the Desire Fresnel, to "The Glow Bowl." Join Steve, Stan, and David as they pontificate about: "The Light Talk Tik Tok Dance-Off"; Jeff and Jim's new book; The Chinese stealing the "Drone Focus Deluxe"; Deciding on what to retire in your school's lighting inventory; Indestructible Morpheus Color Faders; Is the industry becoming over-saturated?; Stan's definition of "Competency"; "Serenity Sounds'; Are the Source Four LED Series 3 and Desire Fresnels "Game Changers"?; and What to do with your old, dusty, hand-drawn light plots. Listen Here.

 • ETC's New Product Presentation, Keynote by Justin Townsend:

• AVO and ROBE: The creative team at Robe has been using Avolites Titan to create their shows and videos for years; Avo spoke to Robe about the brand new Timeline feature. Watch Below:

Conferences & Special Events: 

• USITT21 Virtual Conference: The 2021 USITT Virtually Anywhere Conference was presented live March 8-12, 2021. The conference can now be accessed from virtually anywhere on demand. Available thru September 8, 2021. On Demand

Webcasts & Podcasts On Demand:

• Light Talk: Episode 208: The Devil's Triad: The Lumen Brothers talk about everything from Dimmer Doubling to Dr. Strangelove. Join Steve, Stan, and David as they pontificate about: Letters to Light Talk Central; The Beaver Junction Iditarod; "POE Anon"; Stan and Steve fight over Tungsten; What happened to ETC's Dimmer-Doubling?; Hitching your wagon to proprietary technology; Getting into the Worship Lighting industry; The Crippled Dragon 660; Deciding on scripts for educational theatre classes and productions; "Not dead, and under 30"; and Why can't DMX use just one wire? Listen Here.

• Geezers Of Gear Podcast: The Covid Crew Anniversary... yup 1 year to the day since our first! In March of 2020, we put together this small group of visionary leaders from the industry - and at the time - had NO idea what it was for. We just knew that we needed to talk through this, and hopefully, provide some guidance or insight to folks who were pretty shocked, anxious and stressed. We made some bold predictions (mostly WAY wrong) but we also said some things that really ring true, still today. It's been a hell of a year... and the gang reflects, listens back to some of our predictions, and continues to positively point north through the darkness. Brought to you by GearSource. Listen Here

Live Design's Plot Lines With Jeff Croiter: Tony-Award winning lighting designer Jeff Croiter shares and discusses the plots for his award-winning work for Peter and The Starcatcher. Hosted by KOI Award-winning LD/projection designer Roma Flowers. Q&A via live Zoom. Register Here to watch on demand.

Peter and The Starcatcher

• Casting Light Podcast: Host Jason Marin chats with DP Bill Berner on the serious business of lighting comedy. Berner talks about how he creates lighting for television, how the TV business works, and the protocols he works under on set during the pandemic. His nearly 40 years of experience on camera, first as a lighting designer and then as a director of photography, gives him insight into and informed opinions about nearly every aspect of the job. Listen Here.

• Artistic Finance Podcast: Taxes With Cory Pattak: This new episode features lighting designers Cory Pattak and Ethan Steimel discuss how to organize and itemize receipts for tax time. They go line by line through the actual list of itemized categories on their taxes. Once they make it through the 25 items, you can see it isn't as complicated as it seems. Listen Here.

• in 1: the podcast episode #104 Quarantine Happy Hour #8-UK Edition: Hopping over the Atlantic to chat with some amazing designers based in the UK. Before that, however, Howell Binkley’s long-time associates Ryan O’Gara and Amanda Zieve join us to talk about the newly created fellowship in Howell’s name and the upcoming March 1 deadline to apply. Then it’s on to the roundtable with lighting designer Tim Deiling, scenic & costume designer David Farley, lighting designer Lucy Carter, scenic designer Chiara Stephenson, and scenic designer Andrew Edwards. Hosted by Cory Pattak. Listen Here. 

• ETC Study Hall: Steve Terry chats with Dave Cunningham on the details of developing the ETC Source Four: 

• USITT: No More 10 Out of 12's- Why It's Time for Change: A discussion about the move for changing the traditional rehearsal known as the 10 of 12. Sound designer Lindsay Jones, scenic designer Regina Garcia, actor Rachel Spencer Hewitt, and stage manager Lisa Dawn Cave participate in this discussion. Watch Here.

Tony Award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington, guest on the Artistic Finance podcast, discusses how he has managed his personal finances during more than sixty years of designing on Broadway and running a design studio. With over 100 Broadway shows to his credit, not to mention a slew of other shows from Las Vegas to SeaWorld and beyond. He has been nominated for nine Tony Awards for Best Lighting Design, and won for the musical Chicago. Thanks to Ethan Steimel for this interview with one of my favorite LDs. Listen Here.

Images courtesy of Ken Billington

Featured podcast: Changing The Landscape: In 2020, a group of theatre designers, directors, actors, managers, and technicians, produced an open letter titled ‘We See You White American Theatre," and laid it square in the public eye. The letter detailed the many transgressions accumulated toward theatre-makers identifying as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, by the predominantly white American theatre in the United States, and has reverberated through management structures, teaching institutions and theatre producing organizations at all levels prompting a new, thorough, unavoidable level of public conversation and accountability. Joining host Alan Edwards to discuss these topics: Award-winning scenic & costume designer and activist Clint Ramos; assistant dean and assistant professor adjunct in Theater Management for Yale School of Drama and general manager of Yale Repertory Theatre Kelvin Dinkins, Jr; and managing director of the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts at Northwestern University Al Heartley. Listen Here.