ACTIVIDADES DE ENSEÑANZA-APRENDIZAJE

The position of a concert lighting designer or director differs from that of his or her theatrical or television counterpart. One of the main differences lies with their responsibilities. The concert lighting designer is often the only design artist associated with the pro-duction; only larger concerts can afford to have a separate scenic artist or video director, so the light-ing designer is usually consulted for all such visual concepts. Another difference is that only rarely is

13 Nick Holonyak, Jr., 2004 Lemelson – MIT Prize Winner. News Rel ease from the ECE Department, University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaigne, March 20, 2002.

14 2006 Finland ’ s Millennium Technology Prize awarded to UCSB’s Shuji Nakamura.

there an extended rehearsal schedule. Often a light-ing designer has one day to rig the lightlight-ing, with no thought of a stop-and-go technical rehearsal. New visualization software (see Chapter 21) has emerged to help designers get a handle on managing the grow-ing amount of movgrow-ing lights and digital media, even without rehearsal time.

Concert lighting designers must have a highly developed musical sense. Although many are not skilled musicians, they have a natural aptitude for musical interpretation. Because of the ever-changing venues and artist needs, most lighting designers go on the road with the shows they design. A few do leave the show in the hands of an assistant or the lighting board operator, but most designers stay with the tour to personally run the console and call their own cues.

This style of lighting design is an art of imme-diacy. Lighting designers are not artists who have the luxury of putting paint on a canvas or chipping away at a piece of stone and then standing back to think about their next move for an hour, a day, or a week. They must react instantly, often with no time to document what they did, so they must try to remember and write it down later.

Concert lighting design is an intuitive art.

Although very intricate cues can be programmed into highly specialized lighting consoles, there is still a sense that what you are doing is of the moment . There is no script and no cue sheets to make nota-tions on. Ways of noting lighting cues have been developed but in a much different form than the standard theatrical method. Chapter 6 will detail several methods. Preparation and organizing clear drawings and charts are key. Every day brings new locations and a new set of problems to solve.

Adaptability is a must. One of the most important lessons to learn is:

There is no such thing as a bad decision; the only wrong decision is to make no decision .

If you are prepared for all conceivable prob-lems, then you can deal logically and calmly with the everyday stresses. Although many innovations have been tried over the last 50 years of concert lighting, techniques are still evolving. Just when we think that the size of lighting rigs has been pushed to the limit, a new idea is tried that pushes the physical resources of the media and particularly the physical structure of the buildings, as well as our imaginations, further.

Just when it looked like no more moving luminaires could be brought to market, digital moving luminaires appeared. Just as the light sources seemed to max out, LEDs invaded the entertainment market. This is a business that never stands still, and you as a designer can never be complacent. The need to stay on top of what is new is a must. Artists always want the newest or the biggest or anything different, good or bad.

I do not believe in an analytical approach — this business is one quarter art, one quarter science, one quarter intuition, and one quarter adaptability.

Teaching by doing, experimenting, and learning what others have tried can be of the greatest value. That is why this book is presented in four main parts. Section I is a discussion about what you need to understand about the work: the business and physical sides as well as the creativity it takes to succeed. The authors have a very strong conviction that designers need to be well versed in business to get ahead in the real world.

Section II investigates some of the tools currently being used. Section III takes a look at some interesting designs done by great lighting designers working today.

They refl ect what was done to solve both the creative and business needs of their specifi c touring projects.

These needs are, in our view, inseparable. Also, for the fi rst time we will look at how artists perceive their role. Finally, Section IV, the Postscript, is the author’s assessment of where we are going in the future.

nyone following the business of rock & roll touring has probably become familiar with the term roadie. I would like to counter the stereotype that this term has established and discourage its use in the future. The term roadie carries a certain degrading connotation, having its roots in the tradition that spawned another infamous rock & roll term — groupie. Many road crew members in the early years may have been little more than male groupies (family and friends of band members) who simply wanted to hang around with the band, but the industry and its requirements have changed dramatically in the past decades. Rock &

roll as a whole has become more sophisticated and technically more complex. As a result, the persons charged with the care of the band’s equipment pos-sess technical capability and communication skills.

These skills are absolutely necessary for today’s tour-ing groups and the ultimate success of a tour.

Although people like Michael Tait in England and Chip Monck in the United States were able to start very successful careers in the 1960s without theatrical training, it is much less likely today. Road crew members have evolved into trained technicians with specifi c expertise in electronics, musical instru-ment repair, lighting, sound, video projection, cam-era technology, and the allied theatrical arts. The untrained hangers-on of the early years have been replaced by dedicated, trained, touring professionals.

Call them equipment managers , technicians , graphic artists , directors , or managers. The explosion in technology for both sound and computer light-ing means that the people on the road today have

received extensive training, usually by the rental equipment company, before they can go on the road.

You can’t just pick someone up off the street; there isn’t a place for “ grunt ” labor anymore.

But , sadly, even after 45 years, we are in many ways still bridging new frontiers, and there are few standards or formulas in this business. Crew size, wages, titles, responsibilities, and equipment com-plexity are factors that vary with the nature of the show, the whims of the artists and their management, and the fi nancial limits of the tour. The titles and duties listed herein are general defi nitions as applied to rock & roll touring and are subject to adaptation.