Long Range Lighting, Again...

A year on from re-creating Billy Elliot in Japan remotely, five months on from programming Waitress in Japan remotely, Rob is remote-re-lighting and remote-programming again - this time for Billy Elliot in Korea.

Remote lighting plans were put in place for this production at a point when travel into Seoul from the UK was not allowed. Even as that became possible (with two week quarantining), Rob decided to continue to work remotely because of the uncertainty surrounding international travel. Lovely as Seoul is, it would be unfortunate to be there and have the rules change so you weren’t allowed home…

The remote working system Rob has designed is a refinement from that used for Waitress, with two video feeds offering the best balance between image quality and low latency, and then a working set-up that includes a large monitor for stage view, and an Eos Ti console connected to the Korean console via theBRIDGE networking system. Considerable care was taken with camera specification and, particularly, colour camera set-up to give the best possible representation of the stage to those working from afar. As before the only drawback is a crazy work schedule: a Korean working day maps to a 1am-2pm day in the UK.

The other different this time is that the lighting designer, Rick Fisher, will get to be in the theatre once he is allowed out of quarantine - so there will be ‘eyes in the room’ and so an ability to make real, useful comparisons between the on-stage image and the on-camera image.

Technical rehearsals for Billy Elliot in Korea begin today; the show previews from August 31st, and opens on September 5th.

Remote Lighting at Virtual Showlight 2021: [link]

Back In The West End!

Six months since the last attempt at getting shows open again, Rob has been back in London’s West End, helping get shows open again - in this case programming for lighting designer Jack Weir on Death Drop at the Garrick Theatre, which re-opened on Wednesday night.

In a theatre? With a cast? And a creative team? And then - an audience?! It’s a bit like normality is returning!

Death Drop: [link]

Cats - 40 Years On

Forty years ago today, a new musical with an unlikely subject reflected in its single-word title opened in London: Cats.

It would be fair to say that in the run-up to its opening, no-one gave it much chance of success.

Twenty-one years later, as its London run finally came to an end, it proved those cynics wrong - and it continues to do so, with performances still running around the world.

To mark the show’s anniversary, Rob set out to talk to the people who put the show together - and in doing so established much of the way shows are done today, and indeed much of the basis for the live entertainment industry as we know it now. Quite an achievement.

You can read all about it in the latest issue of LSi magazine, out now.

Cats in LSi: [link]
Cats in The Stage: [link]
The original lighting plan for Cats: [link]

Upcoming (Virtual!) Appearances

Rob will be involved in three on-line sessions over the next few weeks, covering quite a diverse range of subjects.

On the morning of Wednesday 12th May, he’ll be part of the panel talking about the EU’s Ecodesign regulation (and its new post-Brexit UK equivalent) as part of the PLASA Online 2021 event, alongside PLASA’s Peter Heath, Silke Lalvani of Pearle, and Christian Allabauer of OTHG. This will be a great place to learn about where things have ended up with these regulations, how they might affect you as a manufacturer or user of lighting equipment, and what might happen in the future in both the EU and the UK.
[Link]

That afternoon, Rob will be back as the host of a session on the recent production of Romeo & Juliet which combined real performers with virtual scenery and lighting. Rob will be chatting to those responsible for the production - Ryan Metcalfe, who produced it,, created the visuals and edited it all together, designer Jamie Osborne and sound designer Olly Steel.
[Link]
Read about the production here: [link]

Two weeks later, on Tuesday May 25th, Rob will be back as part of the ‘Virtual Showlight’ day, which sees the wonderful Showlight event move online for the year. Rob will be teaming up with Ken Billington and Aaron Porter to talk about their work lighting the musical Waitress in Japan - without leaving home!
[Link]
Waitress Japan: [link]

Both PLASA Online 2021 and Virtual Showlight 21 are free to attend and contain many fascinating sessions. Sign up today!

Lighting and Programming Without Leaving Home

Rob is currently programming the musical Waitress in Tokyo from the front room of his home in London - working with the lighting designer Ken Billington, who is sitting in his office in New York!

One of those things that would have been dismissed as nonsense a year ago, before Coronavirus hit, now feels almost normal - and while it’s certainly not an ideal way of lighting a show, it does at least allow a show to be lit at a time when travel restrictions mean there was on other way of lighting it.

Rob was originally scheduled to work on the show in Tokyo, having programmed the London production of the show for Ken a couple of years ago. However, as Japan closed its borders to arrivals from America and the UK yet the show’s producers decided to press ahead with the musical, an alternative plan had to be formed. The question: was it possible to light a show with the production desks spanning the world?

The immediate challenge was whether it was possible to connect two ETC Eos consoles across the internet. It seemed that a Virtual Private Network (VPN) would be required, ideally one that was easy to configure. Research led to the discovery of the company Just Networking, who it turned out were making the perfect pandemic product: theBRIDGE, a hardware VPN solution aimed at the entertainment industry. They’d tested it with grandMA consoles successfully; their UK distributor LCR supplied a couple of units and tests were carried out using Eos consoles between two locations in London - successfully! Additional units were immediately dispatched to Tokyo and London.

Next, Ken Billington’s associate Aaron Porter designed a system of Zoom calls to effectively replace both the traditional comms in the theatre and the traditional view of the stage from the auditorium. Finally some additional equipment - consoles, large monitors to provide a stage view - was delivered to Ken Billington’s office in New York and Rob’s home in London by the show’s lighting supplier, PRG.

Finally, all of the elements were put together as the show loaded-in in Tokyo: the consoles came on line, Zoom connected everyone together, there was some adjustment of cameras to make the picture look like everyone remembered the show to looking like (since the rig and showfile are from earlier productions), and off the show marched into a rapid tech… The will to make it work and the support of the team in Japan, particularly production manager Takaaki Tanaka, head of lighting Wataru Okazaki and his team from ASG, and interpreter Sonoko Ishii.

It’s not an ideal way of lighting, and not definitely not how you’d want to work if you had a choice. But it works - and as a result the show will open on time in Tokyo next Tuesday, March 9th, before touring.

Waitress Japan: [link]
theBRIDGE: [link]
Ken Billington talks about the project: [link]

One Thought Out Of Three Hundred

Rob is delighted to be part of theatre maker Russell Lucas’ 300 Thoughts for Theatremakers on-line series of discussions - which can be found here.

The full range of talks take in every aspect of theatre making, each conversation with a fascinating person - quite the company to be amongst!

Rob’s talk was about lighting in a world after both Brexit and Covid. In many ways, it continued, updated and expanded on the session Russell organised and Rob led about the effect the EU’s lighting regulations would have on smaller theatres back in 2018. Here Rob talked about the final version of the EU lighting regulations and how entertainment lighting had won many of the concessions it required - but how many of those concessions are likely to be rendered irrelevant as manufacturers discontinue specialist theatre light bulbs through lack of demand. He also talks about how the work on this regulation had fuelled a discussion about a need for an organisation representing every part of the entertainment industry in discussions with Government - something that had was ultimately not put into practice, but which would have been invaluable in the Covid emergency.

Rob and Russell’s conversation can he found here: [link]

A trailer for the whole series can be found here: [link]

Why Does My Console Do That (- find out on January 19th!)

Rob is delighted to have been asked back online by Martin Professional - this time on Tuesday January 19th, with a presentation that combines his loves of both the very latest lighting technology - and the generations of lighting technology that led up to it.

Entitled Why Does My Console Do That?, the talk also has a subtitle - the sometimes unexpected histories of functions we take for granted - and why some have gone missing along the way - that explains a bit more about the content. Rob’s aim is to take key functions we take for granted on current lighting consoles - ‘record’, or ‘track’, or ‘preheat’ - and trace their history back through generations of lighting controls to see just where they came from, and why they were put there in the first place. Sometimes that will track back to lighting control before computers. Sometimes even further back, to lighting control before electricity!

As well as looking at key functions that we still have, Rob will also touch upon some very useful functionality that has somehow got lost along the way - and will wonder aloud whether some of it could usefully make a comeback.

The variety of hats Rob wears provides the background to what should be a fun look back at lighting history rather than a dry history lesson. As a lighting designer and programmer he’s often been the first to use the latest technology on shows. But he also charts lighting history in his monthly Classic Gear column in LSi magazine, and was one of the creators of the UK’s Backstage Heritage Collection which aims to document entertainment technology online and preserve it in real life.

The talk takes places on Tuesday, January 19th at 5pm UK Time / 11am US Central Time. You can book online now: [link].

Details of the many other online sessions being offered by Martin and Harman can be found here:
[link].

Sitting In The Co-Pilot’s Chair - Available Online Now

Rob’s on-line presentation for Martin Professional, Sitting In The Co-Pilot’s Chair, looking at the work of the Lighting Programmer and their relationship with the Lighting Designer, is available to view on-line now for those who missed it live.

The presentation seems to have been enjoyed by those who watched it, many sticking around to ask interesting questions at the end…

Rob is now working on a follow-up presentation, which will appear sometime in January. Stay tuned for more information.

Sitting In The Co-Pilot’s Chair: [link]
Other Upcoming Martin Webinars: [link]