Based in Glasgow, Scotland, lighting designer Jared “Jazz” Hutsby is currently out on tour in France with One Night of Queen-Gary Mullen and the Works. He is also a visualization technologist at Stageport, a UK company that works with producers to digitize event locations and share critical information with production teams. His projects include Vclub, a virtual interactive nightclub that allows viewers to experience the Glasgow club scene from their homes. Vectorworks is part of his toolbox, and he will be a featured speaker at the Vectorworks Design Summit, November 1-3, 2021, which will be all virtual this year. Live Design caught up with Jazz to talk about his projects and use of Vectorworks.
Live Design: How does a Glaswegian become a visualization technologist?
Jazz Hutsby: I've been working in the entertainment sector, predominantly with lighting as my discipline, since 2004. You have to keep up to date with new technologies, and as I began to provide production support to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2016 I needed to brush up on my CAD skills, which has led me down the route of increasing my knowledge in that area, particularly in Vectorworks and lighting pre-visualisation. The pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, forced myself and colleagues to explore the use of digital techniques for productions even further, creating close to life replicas of venues for livestreaming. This, in turn, led to a production manager, Stephen Roe, who I've worked with for years, to contact me about joining his company, Stageport, on several funded research projects. As I joined the company to bring my Vectorworks and pre-visualisation experience to the projects, it was decided that the most appropriate job title was visualisation technologist, as it has been my job to integrate those aspects!
LD: What kinds of projects are you working on now?
JH: Stageport has been very lucky to have had two concurrent research projects running, Tramway Revisited—an Innovate UK project, and The EIF Challenge—a Creative Informatics project. Both of these projects are are founded in the exploitation of AEC Technologies within our industry, so researching how BIM workflows can benefit our own production processes, saving time, money and creating a more sustainable industry. The Innovate UK project's particular focus was also how this could help in post pandemic recovery. These projects are nearing completion, so the next phase, for Stageport, is to evaluate what works, what are the benefits exactly, and how can we make it cost effective for productions and venues to create digital twins of their buildings and shows.
LD: How do you use Vectorworks in your workflow? What do you like about the tools Vectorworks offers you?
JH: Vectorworks has been a key part of my own workflow for years now, I use it to create design concepts and all of my lighting plans are drawn within the software. On many projects I facilitate and combine other departments drawings into Vectorworks to create master paperwork for the production. I also use Vectorworks to do all of my modelling in, as it is the package I'm most comfortable working in. For Stageport, Vectorworks is key for exploiting 3D BIM models for our industry, due to the softwares BIM capability. The Spotlight module workspace allows complete Entertainment design to then be facilitated from the converted BIM model. I've always found Vectorworks tools package to be comprehensive, in fact I would say I only use about 10to 20% of the softwares capabilities! I'm most excited about the cross platform developments that Vectorworks has with the Datasmith export to Unreal and Twinmotion, as well as the MVR export, which has made pre-visualisation so much easier.
LD: Have you looked at Vectorworks 2022 release, if so, can you comment on some of the new features...
JH: I have only recently upgraded, so not had a chance to fully play, I'm very intrigued by the developments in Redshift, from OpenGL, and, of course, the new direct link capability with Twinmotion! There are so many new features to explore, it may take a while!
LD: Where do you envision yourself in five years?
JH: Difficult question, as I've never approached my career like that, I've always taken the opportunities that appear and see where they go. I'm loving the direction that Stageport is moving in, I think the research we are doing can provide huge benefits to the industry, so in five years time I hope to be creating a network of digital twins of venues around the world!
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