Concert Lighting
Q. Was a set or staging already proposed before you became involved in the lighting design? Fortunately for me, I was the stage set designer and the lighting designer on this tour, so I was the one proposing the stage design! I might as well tell you now that the reason that I took an interest in stage design and began to act on it early on in my career was twofold. The first reason was because I was hired as a lighting designer and not considered enough to be told that there was a set. It only took one time for me to build the lighting system for a tour rehearsal one day and show up the next day with a full set built on stage. What’s this? I had no idea! I didn’t have enough lights to cover it, and it was too late to get more. That was before the advent of moving lights, where you could cover multiple positions. After that, I started asking questions about staging before rehearsals started. Second, when I asked managers to meet the set designer prior to a tour, it was usually to see a scale replica model. By the time I was involved, though, the build process had started and it was too late to add any additional lighting in the set—a thought that many early rock & roll stage designers didn’t consider. For me, adding lighting and electronic controlled effects in the set adds another layer to the overall stage picture. Set lighting in touring is fairly common now, but it wasn’t always that way. Q. Were other creative people brought in later? Yes. I like to rely on all the help I can get. As production designer, you can easily spread yourself too thin—a likely prospect that I try to avoid. First the stage set: The builder was selected for the tour because they had proprietary material that I wanted. It looked like real castle stone. It was dimensional, lightweight but durable and roadworthy. The added surprise bonus was that their service went way beyond providing material and building a stage set to specification. They essentially became my partner during the build process, contributing creatively as well as engineering a cohesive set, all from the early beginnings of conceptual drawings. With regard to video content and lighting, there were hundreds of cues for both the LD and the projectionist/operator. It is important for me to allow the 252
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LD and associated operators to make the show their own, so their new ideas and suggestions for improvements were welcomed during the creative process and added to the show. Q. Who was the lighting contractor, and did you have any say in the choice? There has been a long-standing association with Nick Jackson, formally of Light and Sound Design and now Production Resource Group (PRG). He has been the lighting account rep since the early Black Sabbath tours, which has been a trusted professional and personal relationship. Needless to say, PRG was a shoo-in for the Heaven and Hell tour. Let me explain that, as a designer, I like to stay relatively impartial to the choice of lighting companies. I may have a favorite, but my job is to submit a plot to the companies bidding for the tour, which generally give three choices to the management. When it comes to choosing lighting companies, I let the managers make the calls. I will stay available to field technical questions that may help the potential vendors understand the requirements better and help the managers understand the quotation variances. The reason that I say that is because, in my years of doing this job, I have been accused of things that I am not devious enough to think of myself. It was all because one lighting company was selected over another one and I was put in the unsolicited position of being responsible for that decision. I just have to shrug my shoulders and move on—whatever! On smaller scale tours, you don’t find competition so tightly controlled. It is like any other business, though— the more money and higher caliber of tour, the more political and competitive. Q. What was the timeline from first meeting through to your first show? I attended a lunch meeting with one of the managers in Studio City, California, in July and the first date of the tour was the following January. It was plenty of time to have conceptual design meetings, develop new ideas, select materials, and line up vendors. Q. How does this timeline compare to your other clients? For me, it is never a cut-and-dry timeline formula to develop live productions. I had a