Thursday, just a day away from TGIF, but don't let your interest flag as there is still so much to accomplish online, it's a never-ending feast of things to consume. Last days for Maxon's 3D design show, and Lightfair Connect, while there are a few more days for the ALD assistant LD boot camp. So check it all out, along with our Throwback Thursday look at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's 1958 Blues Suite on July 23, 2020. And there are a lot of things to catch up on before the weekend.
Training and Webcasts:
• July 23 @ 11am Eastern: Organic Creative Display: disguise Workflow specialist Shannon Harvey from Cosandier Consulting will discuss workflows to create organic sculptural LED installations using the disguise software toolkit. Showcasing his workflow for the Nur Alem Pavilion in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, Shannon will create an original sculpture live, broadcast from Blacklight XR Studio in Edinburgh, Scotland with technical support from Lucid Technologies, and XR content created in Notch & disguise by Creative Alchemy One. Register Here.
• July 23 @ 1pm Eastern: Ahead of the Curve: Realtime Visualization! It's here, it's now... Geoff Platt interviews David Perkins CEO and chief architect at Imaginary Labs about the importance of visualization, how visualization works, saving money and time by creating virtualized environments. Watch Here.
• July 23 @ 8pm Eastern: Wingspace Virtual Salon #11: Socially Distanced Theatre: Join Wingspace for a roundtable discussion about creating performance during social distancing. Join in on a discussion about how performing artists have adapted and innovated to create innovative work online or in-person during the time of Covid19. The salon will be moderated by Lianne Arnold and Kate Freer with guests Elena Araoz, Kamala Sankaram, Kristin Marting, Vicki Grise, Joshua William Gelb, & Katie Rose McLaughlin. Zoom Link.
Meeting ID: 871 0956 2455
Passcode: 653746
• July 23: Maxon 3D Motion Design Show: Red Giant, Cinema 4D, Redshift: A series of artist-focused streaming events (final day). Info and Registration Here.
• July 23: Lightfair Connect: A virtual conference for the architectural lighting market (final day). Register Here.
• Thru July 25: ALD Academy. A.LD Boot Camp: Learn To Be An Assistant Lighting Designer: A week-long workshop on zoom with a great roster of lighting designers and speakers Hosted by Tim Deiling and Rob Casey. Details Here.
An Important Conversation:
• Live Design and USITT co-hosted "A Conversation On Diversity And Anti-Racism In Entertainment Design," on Friday, July 10, 2020. Moderated by David Stewart, production manager for Disney Parks Live Entertainment, and an important voice in the ongoing quest to increase diversity in our industry, the full panel for this important discussion includes lighting designers Rachael Blackwell, Porsche McGovern, and Xavier Pierce, lighting/projection designer Roma Flowers, lighting designer/event coordinator Ebony Madry, and production manager Lawrence Bennett. Watch Below.
Special Events Coming Up:
• Themed Entertainment Creative Workshop Series: Sponsored by The Bezark Company. This is an unprecedented, multi-disciplinary, accelerated workshop series developed and led by some of the best minds in Themed Entertainment. Details Here.
• August 1 @ 9:30pm Eastern: Broadway Bares: Zoom In, the first-ever streamed edition of the frisky striptease spectacular, with favorite moments and numbers from Broadway Bares, as well as all-new, socially distanced performances from some of NYC's hottest dancers. As Bares creator Jerry Mitchell says, "You've got to Zoom In because it's sure to make your laptop tingle and your cell phone vibrate!" Zoom In Here.
For Your Viewing Enjoyment:
• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Blues Suite: The ballet that launched the sensational Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958. What is extraordinary is that Alvin Ailey was just 27 years old when Blues Suite premiered and it was only the sixth ballet that he had choreographed. Blues Suite is often documented as Alvin Ailey’s first masterpiece, where he had found his own miraculous voice as a creative artist presenting real people on the concert dance stage, defining his choreographic genius. Costumes redesigned by Normand Maxon; costumes for “Yancey Special” by Jose Coronado; sets and costumes: Ves Harper; lighting by Chenault Spence (original lighting by Nicola Cernovitch). From the 1985 PBS Great Performances special. Thru July 30. Watch Here.
• Thru July 23: Red Bull Theatre Short New Play Festival: Private Lives: New York’s gutsiest classical-theater troupe, Red Bull, offers the tenth edition of its annual feast of playlets. This year’s virtual version, hosted by Craig Baldwin, features live remote performances of eight brief works loosely inspired by Noël Coward’s Private Lives. Two of them—Jeremy O. Harris’s Fear and Misery of the Master Race (of the Brecht) and Theresa Rebeck’s The Panel—were commissioned for the festival; the other six (by Ben Beckley, Avery Deutsch, Leah Maddrie, Jessica Moss, Matthew Park and Mallory Jane Weiss) were chosen from among more than 500 submissions. Mêlisa Annis, Vivienne Benesch and Em Weinstein direct a luxury cast that includes Kathleen Chalfant, William Jackson Harper, Charlayne Woodard, Lilli Cooper, Edmund Donovan, Frankie J. Alvarez, Ali Ahn, Louisa Jacobson and Peter Francis James. Watch Here.
• Amadeus: National Theatre UK: Peter Shaffer’s iconic play premieres at the National Theatre in 1979, winning multiple Olivier and Tony awards before being adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. Designed by Chloe Lamford, lighting by Jon Clark, sound by Paul Arditti. Streaming thru July 23. Watch Here.
Watch Anytime:
• Lighting designer Mike Woods: Online training videos. Watch Here.
• Ross Video: Ross Live | 2020: A weekly series of presentations, podcasts, and product launches designed to highlight best practices across a range of live production environments. Watch Here.
• MA Lighting grandMA3 onPC command wing XT: A new member of its grandMA3 onPC solutions range: the grandMA3 onPC command wing XT. With the grandMA3 onPC software pre-installed on a built-in MA motherboard, the grandMA3 onPC command wing XT offers MA3 power with onPC flexibility– just add up to four touchscreen monitors, and it's ready to go! Watch Here.
• Special Events Services: The Gray Room Sessions: Rig includes Elation DTW Bar 1000 variable white LED battens, Elation Cuepix Blinder WW2 lights with warm white 3,200K COB LED, and ADJ Z100 3K LED PAR. Watch Here.
• GLP 10 Out Of 10 With Tom Campbell: This is the extended 10 Out Of 10 interview featuring revolutionary LD Tom Campbell, who has extensive portfolio including The Hunna, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Zeds Dead, John Grant, and Bullet For My Valentine and many more!. Watch Here.
• Elation Virtual At Home Demos: Overview of the key features and unique benefits of some of Elation’s newest lighting products, a demonstration that gives lighting pros an opportunity to assess if a luminaire is right for their needs. Products showcased include the Fuze Spot™, Fuze Pendant™, Fuze Profile™, Fuze SFX™, Smarty Max™, Artiste Van Gogh™, Artiste Monet™, Dartz 360™, CW Profile HP™ and WW Profile HP™ ellipsoidals, along with the Magma Prime™ hazer from Magmatic atmospheric effects. Watch Here.
• Strand Lighting: Theatre Systems Design Basics. Presented by Bobby Harrell. Watch Here.
• frame.work videos are now online, a conference for video professionals. Watch Here.
• 4Wall Entertainment: Archives for Sunday Roundtables and Thursday Tales From The Road. Watch Here.
• ETC Story Q&A with Tom Littrell: thoughts from Outreach and Training Specialist Tom Littrell on LEDs. Read Here.
• Unreal Interactive Demo. Watch Here.
• Opera America – live streams.
• ETC On Headset: The Billington Files
• TDF Stages, list of streaming performances updated daily.
• Scott Parker: A lot of training videos to choose from. Watch Here.
Podcasts:
• Light Talk With The Lumen Brothers: Caribbean Dreaming: The Lumen Brothers welcome their good friend and LiveDesignOnline guru and LDI creative director, Ellen Lampert-Greaux. Join Brackley, David, Ellen, Stan, and Steve as they discuss: Cruising around Tierra del Fuego in the Light Talk Catamaran; Letter from Campbell (our youngest fan); A meal for Toffee; Ellen's octopus story; The history of LDI; Steve reveals the secret password for LDI; The Earthquake at the Infomart; The Donner Party on their way to LDI Reno; The Hall of Fog; Blowing up cars in Reno; BAM years; Living as an ExPat; Ellen's detour; Organizing how to run a film festival without a cinema; "Octopus on a Stick"; Ellen's views on the future of the Entertainment Industry; and Expanding revenue streams in a post Covid world. Listen Here.
• In 1 Podcast: Changing the Landscape – Episode 1: It’s Not That We Don’t Exist: A brand new mini-series entitled ‘Changing the Landscape: Examining Race in Theatrical Design.’ Guest hosted by lighting designer Alan Edwards, this multi-part series will ask the questions where are the theatrical designers of color in history? Why has the roster appeared to grow only recently? What are the challenges of going from grade school to professional? And is there anything that can be done? In this first episode, ‘It’s Not That We Don’t Exist’, Alan sits down with Cory to discuss the impetus of the mini-series and then talks with lighting designer Kathy Perkins who tells us about her path from Mobile, Alabama to the world of professional design, why she decided to document and write about Black theatre-makers, how she thinks schools can do better at recruiting and seeking out young Black students, and whether she believes there is a shortage of Black designers or just a perception problem. She is a great and knowledgable voice to kick off the series and we hope you’ll join us over the coming weeks as Alan speaks with educators and designers such as Toni-Leslie James, Steve Jones, Luqman Brown and more. (photo lighting designer Alan Edwards). Listen Here.
• Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast: Leadership Under Covid: Kevin Poyck just had his legs under him as CEO and president of Signify’s Americas Market Group when the outbreak threw his business into chaos. He shares his thoughts on virtual offices, managing at a distance, and the shape of post-pandemic normalcy. What really brought him to our show today was a recent study at Boston University that confirmed how effective a new Signify UVC lamp really is, which leads to a vintage Philips UV disinfection manual and the modern rush for germicidal lamps. It’s time for us all to turn a page as we proceed out of our current crisis. Listen Here.
• Technically Speaking, USITT Podcast: Featuring 2020 Barbizon Lighting Company Jonathan Resnick Lighting Award winner, Jasmine Lesane, a lighting designer & director dedicated to realizing visions through innovative design solutions, and a recent grad of Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama. Listen Here.
• LD At Large With Chris Lose: Recent episodes include Michael Berger, Seth Robinson, and Rob Koenig. Listen Here.
• The Evolution of Special Effects With John Canning of Digital Domain: Tyler Gates and Sophia Moshasha catch up with John Canning, executive producer at Digital Domain, to talk about how animation and special effects in media production have evolved to become higher quality, less costly, and easier to achieve with immersive technology. Listen Here.
Industry Resources:
• USITT Women In Theatre Network