Okay folks, it's Friday, and we are still doing more stuff online than in person, although there have been some clever social distancing experiments for live events. As usual, Friday is a pretty quiet day, so it's a good time to kick back and catch up on the podcasts and webcasts of weeks past, as well as the ones on Saturday and Sunday. Also a good time to register in advance for next week's goodies as you enjoy the weekend of August 14-15-16, 2020.
Training & Webcasts:
• Saturday, August 15 @ 9:30am Central: OISTAT: Designers on Design: Czech costume designer Simona Rybáková will be presenting on Constructive Dialogue and Posing the Right Question in Costume Design. Register Here.
• Saturday, August 15 @ 2pm Eastern: The Creative Quarantine Sessions: John Iacovelli: Join Alexander Whittenberg as he interviews award-winning theatre/film/TV scenic designer John Iacovelli. Live Here.
• Sunday, August 16 @ 7pm Eastern: 4Wall Entertainment Sunday Roundtable: Featuring some of the top design educators in the country: Mark Stanley, associate professor. Boston University College of Fine Arts; M.L. Geiger, arts professor, NYU TISCH School of the Arts; Dave Grill, co-director of the Theatre Design/Technology Program, Purchase College; and Lap-Chi Chu, head of lighting, UCLA. Watch Here.
Looking Ahead, Register In Advance:
• Tuesday, August 18 @ 2pm Eastern: USITT: Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Tools and Resources: Even without the uncertainties of life in a pandemic, the unique environment, and stresses of working in the entertainment industry are extremely challenging. It’s critical to make sure you, and those you care about, stay healthy; mentally and emotionally as well as physically. Learn about the tools and resources available through the Behind the Scenes Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Initiative including a peer-to-peer chat app, online therapist finder that only includes therapists who understand the industry, anonymous online behavioral self-assessments to help understand what you’re feeling, easy to navigate resource links, and suicide prevention information presented by the executive director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Register Here.
• August 18 & 19: LEDucation: A virtual trade show and conference about LED lighting technology, presented by the Designers Lighting Forum of New York. Register Here.
• Wednesday, August 18 @ 7am Central: Martin Professional Learning Sessions: Architectural Lighting Products and Lighting Techniques with Annie Dafni: Lighting is the 4th dimension of architecture. In this session, we will explore the Martin architectural lighting product portfolio and also learn about the techniques of facade lighting with a demo model. Register Here.
• Thursday, August 19 @ 11am Central: Martin Professional Learning Sessions: Conceptual Design Principles with Craig Rutherford: Where do you start when tasked with developing a lighting design? What makes a design memorable and interesting? This webinar will explore the fundamentals of visual design with a focus on lighting concerts and developing a coherent style. Register Here.
• Thursday, August 19 @ 4pm Eastern: USITT: Education Commission: Online & Distance Learning: The USITT Education Commission welcomes all members of USITT to join a series of conversations specifically aimed at sharing online and distance-based teaching practices. Whether you are looking for innovative approaches to challenging circumstances this fall, or are able to share successful ideas with others this is an opportunity to specifically connect with academic colleagues in your discipline. Register Here.
An Important Conversation:
• Live Design and USITT co-hosted "A Conversation On Diversity And Anti-Racism In Entertainment Design," 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 Here.
For Your Viewing Enjoyment:
• Thru August 15 @ 7pm: New Ohio Theatre: Ice Factory 2020: This avant-garde theatre festival is all digital this year and continues with Burning Church, a kaleidoscopic new musical tracing the lives of church leaders and congregants amid political movements, tragedies, and spiritual rebirth. A Burning Church will be presented in Ice Factory 2020 not in its eventual form, as a fully-staged, full-length book musical, but rather as a presentation of the show's songs and scenes in the form of parables. The event seeks to imagine the role of the church in movements for liberation and the form that church and theater can take when gathering is not possible.Video design: Katherine Freer; sound design: Twi McCallum. Get Tickets Here.
• Manual Cinema: No Blue Memories: The Life Of Gwendolyn Brooks: No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks brings to life the story of one of Chicago’s most beloved figures. She was an icon, a poet laureate, and a Pulitzer Prize winner—but she was also a treasured educator and mentor to the countless writers and children who knew her as their very own “Miss Brooks.” Puppet design by Drew Dir and Lizi Breit, sound design and effects by Ben Kauffman, lighting design by Claire Chrzan, costume and wig design by Mieka van der Ploeg, sound engineered by Mike Usrey and Kim Kozak. (Thru August 23) Watch Here.
trailer:
• 7pm Eastern: The Metropolitan Opera Nightly Streams: Week 22 of operas from the archives. Watch Here..
• Cirque du Soleil Behind The Curtain of Toruk, The First Flight, inspired by James Cameron's Avatar. See how Avatar went from screen to stage. Watch Here.
• Broadway Bares: Zoom In: Don't miss the first online version of Broadway Bares, the signature sensational striptease produced by and benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Although this year’s in-person 30th anniversary celebration, originally set for June 21, was postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual evening will live on digitally through this streamed sizzling striptease featuring NYC’s hottest dancers. Watch Here.
Training & Webcasts When You Want:
• History In The Making: Steve Terry In Conversation With Dave Cunningham and Gordon Pearlman... A time machine talk about the advent of computer-controlled lighting consoles. Watch Here.
• Elation Professional Online Learning Center: Provides lighting professionals with easy-to-access learning options, the new resource site is full of free educational and training material. Watch Here.
• The Elation Hour: A series of interviews with leading designers from film/TV, theatre, concerts, corporate events, festivals, and more... Watch here.
• Scott Parker: A lot of training videos to choose from, from his Stage Seminars to a book review of Richard Pilbrow's Stage Lighting Design. Watch Here and Here (Stage Seminars)
• 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.
• 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.
Podcasts:
• Artistic Finance Podcast: Ethan Steimel interviews Steve Woods, one of The Lumen Brothers who is usually heard on the podcast Light Talk, on his journey from being an on-the-road lighting designer to becoming a professor of lighting design. Listen Here.
• Signal To Noise Podcast: Episode 61 delves deep into the art of theatrical sound design with guests Jason Crystal (associate sound designer, Hamilton, The Cher Show) and Elisheba Ittoop (sound designer, The Edge of Night, A Raisin In the Sun, Testmatch). The conversation with co-hosts Michael Lawrence and Willa Snow explores how technical tools help achieve artistic goals, and comparing and contrasting sound design for musicals and straight plays. Listen Here.
• 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 2: It’s Not That We Don’t Exist: Perception of the Unknown: In this episode, the first of two parts, Steve Jones, former director of production at the Apollo Theatre in New York City, sits down with LD Alan C. Edwards to tell us where he came from. Beginning with his origins in Flint, Michigan where he started taking part in theatre activities in grade school, Steve started taking theatre seriously after a sports injury sidelined him for the remainder of his college career. He walks us through his experiences in applying for grad schools, leaving Flint, MI, and his first big-time job in New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 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: TECHnically Speaking: Jess Moody: A chat with Long island NY-based lighting designer and programmer, Jess Moody, on her passion for concert lighting and extensive experience in lighting for dance and theatre. 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