Designers Archives | Jim On Light

Let’s Nominate Jefferson Waful, Umphrey’s McGee, and ECTO Productions for a 2013 Parnelli Award!

September 18, 2013/in Amazing Visuals, Concert Production, Designers, Just Plain AWESOME. /by Jim

We have about three methods out there in the entertainment lighting industry for lighting designers to be showcased. One of those yearly methods is the PLSN Parnelli Awards — it’s like the Oscars for the production industry!

This year, I think we should nominate one of the best LDs for the best bands out there with the best set of production: Jefferson Waful, Umphrey’s McGee, and ECTO Productions, who supplies UM’s tour kit. This is my opinion, of course — but if you share this opinion, let’s get Jeff and UM on the bill for one of the best events in the industry to showcase some true talent in this business.

Here’s a look at the form you’ll want to fill out:

Here’s how to do it:

Go to the Parnelli Awards nomination site: http://www.parnelliawards.com/nominate.php
Under “Lighting Designer of the Year,” type in JEFFERSON WAFUL — under “Show:” type in UMPHREY’S MCGEE
Under “Lighting Company of the Year,” type in ECTO PRODUCTIONS — under “Show:” type in UMPHREY’S MCGEE

When you’re ready to submit, your form will look like this:

It’s that easy. Let’s show our love for one of the TOP acts on the touring market with one of the top LDs out there in the business!

STUMP Tour Time-Lapse – Umphrey’s McGee and STS9’s Joint Tour! #UM #STS9

September 12, 2013/in Concert Production, Designers /by Jim

This is excellent, and we’re keeping with the whole stop motion theme today. This is a video uploaded by the UMVideo account on YouTube — the music you’re rocking out to during the video is Umphrey’s McGee’s Wizard Burial Ground.

Enjoy!

Here’s a bonus bit of rock and roll for you on this fine Thursday… Women, Wine, and Song at Alpharetta, GA! Why? Well, WHY THE HELL NOT?!

Return of The Daily Lamp – Facetada by AndreuCarulla Studio

September 4, 2013/in Designers, Fixtures, The Daily Lamp /by Jim

While I was unemployed, I had to take a small hiatus from The Daily Lamp. I was spending ten hour days looking for work, and it seemed like every freaking door slammed shut when I was looking. But now, I have not only a job again, but time to write more DAILY LAMP offerings, and this time it’s brought to you by Barbizon!

Today’s Daily Lamp is an interesting transitional design by the Spanish firm AndreuCarulla Studio. The funny thing about this lamp is that it started out as a silly little amouse-bouche plate for food that never fills you up. I only know that term from watching Top Chef. Check this out, it explains what the hell I’m talking about before we get into the lamp:

FACETAT dish from ^C studio on Vimeo.

This lamp, the Facetada, is literally made of that plate from the video. It’s like a disco ball that had bad anxiety and just needed to break loose. What do you think?

FACETADA lamp from ^C studio on Vimeo.

From the video page:

Ceiling lamp created from the Facetat dish. We have devised a new manufacturing system; starting from a flat sheet we are able to model the geometry of the lamp to our liking.
The final result is a unique piece of lightweight appearance, which distributes the light uniformly on the bottom, while reflects spectacular patterns on the ceiling, creating a warm ambiance.

Buyable limited edition.

Video by Pau Carulla

Nine Inch Nails’ New Tour Design Pretty Much Nine Inch Kicks Ass

September 4, 2013/in Amazing Visuals, Concert Production, Designers, Just Plain AWESOME. /by Jim

Do you know who Roy Bennett is? Are you in the lighting industry? Let me help you out here — go check out Roy Bennett, then come back here. I’ll wait.

I wouldn’t say that I’m a NIN fan; but then again, I wouldn’t say that if one of their tunes came on the radio I would turn it off. Nine Inch Nails has their place for me in the world, but then again I’m one of those trippy dippy jamband people who love the groove. Call it what you will. One thing is certain — Roy Bennett’s kick ass production and lighting design work for NIN is definitely just that: kick ass.

Check out some great video of the pre-production, with those excellent mobile video panels — video put together by The Moment Factory:

NIN Festival Tour – Teaser from Moment Factory on Vimeo.

Then watch this — an AWE-SOME pre-production video of the rehearsals and interviews with tour staff:

Then, Nine Inch Nails fans, a video of the entire performance at the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands. Here’s the setlist, followed by the video!

00:00:00 — Copy of A
00:06:09 — Came Back Haunted
00:11:28 — 1,000,000
00:15:32 — March of the Pigs
00:19:45 — Piggy
00:24:24 — Terrible Lie
00:29:27 — Burn
00:34:16 — Closer
00:38:50 — Gave Up
00:43:55 — Help Me I Am in Hell
00:45:19 — The Warning
00:49:01 — What If We Could?
00:52:53 — The Way Out Is Through
00:56:33 — Wish
01:00:21 — Only
01:04:41 — The Hand That Feeds
01:08:17 — Head Like a Hole
01:13:58 — Hurt

Sweet. Roy, you’re AWESOME.

Thanks to Pitchfork for the first video and The Auto Didactic in the Attic for the green smoke image!

Pink Floyd’s Lighting Designer, Arthur Max, Has A Bad Day on Headset – in 1973

July 3, 2013/2 Comments/in Animations, Concert Production, Designers, History, Industry Professionals, Just Plain AWESOME., Light Art /by Jim

It’s the day before Independence Day off here in the USA.

There is nothing you’re doing right now that can’t wait for 11 minutes while you watch Arthur Max at the office while working a 1973 Pink Floyd show in Detroit — the venue ruled that Pink Floyd had to use the Union spot ops from the venue instead of the Pink Floyd crew, and with some animation, this is one of the best things you’ll see today! Thanks to Cliff Port, a fan filmmaker that really got a good belly laugh out of me today!

You know who Arthur Max is, right? He’s a production designer and artist who does a ton of movies now, but lit Floyd back in the day along with working for Bill Graham at the Filmore East. From IMDB:

A native New Yorker who worked as a Stage Lighting Designer in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the music industry, and then, after studying architecture in England and Italy, went on to do several architectural design projects in London. He entered British film as an assistant to several British Production Designers in the mid-1980s. First for Stuart Craig on Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and Cal (both 1984) and then for Ashetton Gorton on Revolution (1985). His Production Design career began withTV commercials during the years 1985-1995 for many different Directors, including Ridley Scott and David Fincher, with whom he would go on to collaborate on feature films.

This is so awesome, I think I may just watch it again.

HUGE thanks to Simone Kay’s YouTube channel!

PHISH! New Video Clips of the Hampton Coliseum Reunion Shows from March 2009

June 15, 2013/in Amazing Visuals, Concert Production, Designers, History, Industry News, Industry Professionals, Just Plain AWESOME., Light Art, Lighting Design /by Jim

I started digging my way through the 2 terabytes or so of uncut, backlogged video I have to process. Behind every folder is something I have forgotten that I filmed, and I am uncovering some really fun stuff!

Here’s a handful of clips from when Greggity and I flew the famous mockingbird from Columbus, OH to Hampton, VA for the Phish reunion shows on March 6-8, 2009. The clips I had sitting in a folder were, in order:

Army of One
Wilson
Down with Disease JAM
Contact
Tweezer Reprise

Enjoy! Also check out Greg and I chatting with Chris Kuroda, Phish’s lighting designer, during the Hampton 2009 run, all four parts:

Part 1:
http://www.jimonlight.com/2009/03/23/interview-with-chris-kuroda-lighting-designer-for-phish-part-one/

Part 2:
http://www.jimonlight.com/2009/03/24/interview-with-chris-kuroda-lighting-designer-for-phish-part-two/

Part 3:
http://www.jimonlight.com/2009/03/25/interview-with-chris-kuroda-lighting-designer-for-phish-part-three/

Part 4:
http://www.jimonlight.com/2009/03/26/interview-with-chris-kuroda-lighting-designer-for-phish-part-4/

Ready? Get your coffee, have a seat, and rock out!

PHISH! 2009 Hampton Coliseum Reunion Shows from JimOnLight.com! from Jim Hutchison on Vimeo.

The Daily Lamp: Rich Brilliant Willing’s Monocle Lamp, Which Keeps an Eye on Everything

June 13, 2013/in Designers, Fixtures, Interior Design and Lighting, LEDs, The Daily Lamp /by Jim

I’m hoping I’m not overselling this one, but I think the design is tight. This is called Monocle, from design firm Rich Brilliant Willing. It doesn’t look like much, but I think this product is outstanding — that’s why it made the Daily Lamp!

Monocle has two diffusing options — a flat diffuser that (I assume) spreads a little less than the dome diffuser, below:

Flat diffuser:

Dome diffuser:

Both Monocle styles are warm white LED, around 2700 Kelvin, and run around $425 USD. That’s quite a jump up in price from your typical $10 Lowes or Home Depot styled monocle-esque fixtures, isn’t it…

About the Monocle lamp, from Rich Brilliant Willing:

With one eye on his subject, Monocle provides a strong yet warm beam of LED powered light. This rotating surface mounted fixture has been shaped from milled aluminum, resulting in a smooth and clean product perfect for any space where warm directional light is needed. In order to augment your view, Monocle enjoys placement above your shoulder or head..

Materials

Milled aluminum, braided cord

Specification

LED, warm white

2700K, 95 CRI

100-120V Input 60Hz

13W Power Consumption

Dimensions

5.25″ Dia. x 4″ Depth

133mm Dia x 101mm Depth

I just love this little guy!

Thanks to Rich Brilliant Willing for the greyish images, and DeZeen for the rest!

This Ferrite Toy NEEDS Some Light Added to the Ends

June 13, 2013/in Designers, Just Plain AWESOME., Lighting Toys, Uncategorized /by Jim

I saw this toy on Geeks are Sexy (which they are) a few days ago — imagine this toy with an LED source of some sort placed at either end. Then, imagine that LED source as a color changing source that had some kind of proximity-sensed or dynamic magnitude sensed interaction where somehow the amount of ferrite fluid near the sensor allowed for different changes in color…

And I could go on for freaking days about this kind of stuff. It’s why sometimes I want to get an Electrical Engineering degree so I can design and build the four moving heads and one scanner I have floating around in my brain. Oh my gosh. That would be an amazing day.

Check this out:

This project by David Markus was featured on Kickstarter, trying to raise $30,000. Like everything awesome on Kickstarter, the project raised almost $50,000 bucks by the time it finished. It’s definitely awesome. Now what needs to happen is some lighting designers need to get their hands on it! This is an awesome — AWESOME — revitalization of the classic “floating fluid” toy. David, this is awesome work.

Amazing. GAH, can you imagine a whole tank of this stuff?!

Thanks Core77!

The Daily Lamp: Terrence Seah’s Cloudline Lamp – Sleek, Slim Uplight

June 12, 2013/1 Comment/in Designers, Fixtures, Interior Design and Lighting, LEDs, The Daily Lamp /by Jim

Today’s Daily Lamp is a really minimalist but inventive take on uplighting in the home. Meet Terrence Seah’s Cloudline Lamp — a true uplighter with a sleek design and nice lines:

Cloudline, designed by Terrence Seah for seller Livdin, comes in white and red, and both are $239 bucks. From the Livdin page on the Cloudline:

Enhance your room with warm diffuse light and set the mood with touch-sensitive dimming. The Cloudline lamp is simple to wall-mount, and takes up no floor space. Pleasing illumination in an equally pleasing package.

FEATURES

Bright light equivalent to a 60W incandescent light bulb

Energy efficient 13W power consumption

Long lasting 20-year lifespan LED bulb

Aluminum construction with glossy powder-coated finish

Oiled walnut accent

Long braided power cord

SPECIFICATIONS

Lamp, 21.5″(L) x 2″(W) x 3.25″(H)

Dimmer Switch, 5.5″(L) x 1.75″(W) x 0.75″(H)

Power Cord, 6′ plug-to-switch, 8′ switch-to-lamp

It sure is beautiful! Can you imagine five or six of these around a large room?

Thanks, Uwofo!

Not Your Grandma’s CFL – The Brain Compact Fluorescent Lamp

June 11, 2013/in Designers, Just Plain AWESOME., Lamps and Sources /by Jim

From Belarusian design team Solovyov Design comes an awesome bit of compact fluorescent goodness that breaks the mold of the typical corkscrew-shaped glass envelope. Meet the Insight CFL from Solovyov Design:

I love seeing photos of the design team after meeting their lighting product for the first time. It’s almost like seeing into someone’s soul before you see their face. LOVE IT! Meet Solovyov Design chief designers Maria and Igor Solovyov. Maria, Igor — JimOnLight loves your work!