Episode #293 With Jeff Ravitz, one of the earliest television,
I guess, lighting for televised concert guys that there is out
there and was out there and still doing it today at a very
high level, still working with Bruce Springsteen today.
We had some great Bruce, Bruce Springsteen stories, a great
stick story that I didn't know and I've known Jeff for 20
something years. Just a fantastic talk and a
lovely guy. A lot to be learned from this
man. It's why he's always invited to
panels and different educational things.
He's a smart dude and he's got a lot of great information.
So enjoy episode #293 with Jeff Ravitz.
And please like and share and subscribe.
Thank you. Hello and thanks for joining me
again today on Geez of gear #293.
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Pulse Series. Well, although today's guest
hardly needs an introduction, I'm going to give him one
anyway, and I am going to read his bio as I usually do, and
I'll get to that in just a moment.
But I did want to say that I've recently seen him in Las Vegas
at LDI, where this gentleman took part in our Dining with
Dinosaurs event. And he was one of the big
highlights there, of course. And I'm talking about Jeff
Ravitz and I'll get into his bio in just a moment.
But first, I wanted to remind you because I haven't talked
about it in a long time. And I'm going to bring up the
graphic here too. Is coffee called Coffee who are
not officially a sponsor, but they are the Gees of Gear brand
of coffee. And I think haven't tried it.
Everyone who's tried it through this podcast has told me, wow,
you're right. I drink it every day.
It's fantastic coffee and I pay for it.
You can ask Jamie when you contact Coffee Cult to order
some. They'll tell you Marcel pays for
his coffee. We don't pay him, we don't give
him free coffee to talk about it.
And the reason that I pay for it is because the money goes to a
good cause. So Jamie and I cut a deal on
this. Where this geezers of gear
geezers grind coffee from Coffee Cult.
All of the proceeds go towards Roby backstage, which then gives
that money away to a good cause in our industry, one of our
fallen comrades or someone who just needs help, and they
determine how that money gets shared.
And so, yeah, first of all, try it because it's great coffee and
you get it at coffeecult.com. But secondly, buy it because it
does benefit our industry in a very positive way.
So I did want to do that quickly.
And now we'll go back to Mr. Ravits.
Jeff is a prime time Emmy winning lighting designer
specializing in live entertainment for multi camera
television, concert tours and special events.
His work includes award shows, comedy specials, concert films,
and televised operas with notable projects like the
Olympics, medal ceremonies, and world tours for Bruce
Springsteen, Cher and Ringo Starr.
Co-author of Lighting for Televised Events, Jeff is also
the broadcast lighting consultant for Coachella since
2016 and has designed permanent lighting systems for venues
including L as Microsoft Theater.
A global lecturer and recipient of numerous accolades well
deserved, by the way, including a Sports Emmy and the Parnelli
Lighting Designer of the Year award, Jeff leads his design
firm, Intensity Advisors in Los Angeles.
So. Please.
Welcome back to the podcast, Mr. Jeff Rabbits.
Mr. Rabbits, how are you? I'm great.
How are you, Marcel? And flip, fantastic.
I'm very good. It was, it was my mother's 94th
birthday yesterday and and she's still alive and I'm so happy
that she's still alive. And she, she is in a dementia
home. But you know, we still have her
and and that's great. So yeah, still kind of
celebrating because I'm just happy she's there.
And you have some good DNA there.
Well, let's hope. I mean, other than the dementia
part, you know, I'm, I'm trying to hang on to my brain as long
as I can. But but yeah, I mean, she's
definitely, she's healthy other than that.
Like that's the crazy thing. I have a, a very good friend of
mine who just lost his mother. She just had her 100th birthday,
I think at the beginning of December or end of November, I
can't remember. And then she died like the day
or the two days before Christmas at at 100.
And she was the opposite of my mom.
So she she had a very sharp mind, like her brain.
She could tell you everything that's happened in the last 50
years or 100 years, really smart, really bright, but her
body just gave up and, and she was 53 lbs when when she passed.
Oh, wow. And, and my mom's healthy.
She eats really well, all of that stuff, but just her mind is
gone. So I don't know which is worse.
I, I've been talking to my girlfriend about that.
Like, you know, if you had to pick one, which would you pick?
And hopefully it's neither. When you're aware but you see
yourself deteriorating, right? Yeah.
Or are you better off just not knowing what's going on and, and
every day is a happy day, you know, or.
Whatever exactly I. I don't know the technical term
or whatever, but my mom's version of dementia or
Alzheimer's or whatever it is, I don't even think they know the
difference. But she's happy.
Like generally she's happy. She's not beating up nurses.
She's not like doing all the angry things that I've heard of
so many friends of mine parents have gone through and she's had
it for quite some time. And yes, it, it progresses.
So every time it gets a little harder for her to to recognize
you or to have a conversation or whatever.
But but she's happy. Like, you know, I've, I started
this thing a few years ago where every time I go visit her, I
bring a muffin and I sing happy birthday to her and, and she's
so happy because it's her birthday again, you know, and at
first the home kind of gave me shit for it.
Like they, they said I was being deceptive and, and that kind of
thing. And I said hey look shut up.
You know, she likes it, she has fun.
And I could sing it again 5 minutes later and she'd go, oh
it's my birthday you know? Like she doesn't know so why not
make her happy for a few minutes, you know?
Exactly. I think it's a good thing that
you do. And when you consider that, you
know, people spend an entire lifetime paying attention,
stressing out, you know, having to, you know, just be on the
ball all the time, and then you have a few years where you can
just sort of relax and let the clouds pass you by and.
Maybe it's a little Restful, You're right.
Yeah, I like to think of it that way, by the way.
I, I like to think of that she's not haunted by, by her mind, but
but that she's at peace, you know, that she's, she's like,
whoa, look at the birds and she's in the bathroom or
something, you know, like there's no birds.
There's got to be some sort of upside.
And some people get angry in the heart state and then then
they're, you know, slaves to that as well.
So yeah, yeah. Who knows?
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you just to stay
on the health topic for a minute.
So I'm, I'm a big advocate. Like there's a doctor that I've
followed for years, probably since I turned 50, but his name
is Mark Mark Hyman. Doctor Mark Hyman.
I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but he's a he, he
is an expert in functional medicine, which the shortest
version would be basically food as medicine.
You know, instead of eating to, to have fun, you eat to sustain
yourself. And, and that food all has a
function. Everything that you eat has a
function. And but the, the general idea is
that you want to stay healthy until your last days.
So, you know, if, if you know, somebody could come down a
messenger and say, Jeff, you're going to live to 97 1/2 years
old basically at 97 and, and you know, just before 1/2 you, you
get a little bit sick and you die, right.
As opposed to the last two or three years or 10 years of your
life having dementia or heart, heart disease or cancer or one
of the those things. That's the ideal scenario.
Well, anyways, his company Function Health created a test
and I've had a few people in our industry do it.
It's, it's 500 bucks and you get 2 sets of, of tests and, and
it's blood and urine and, and they basically test 110 things
or something as opposed to your usual blood test is 10 or 15
things if you're lucky. And so it's very, very thorough.
And from that you get back all these results that tell you, you
know, your risk for Alzheimer's, your risk for 1000 different
things. And lo and behold, after all the
damage that I've done to myself in the, in the first half of my
life, I'm actually in very good shape and I'm, I'm of very good
health. And some will hate to hear it
that it looks like I could last a lot longer.
And one of the things they give you is your biological age.
And mine is 12 years under my real age.
So I turned 60 last year and, and it says I'm 48.
So I like that. So.
My goal is to become 40, you know, and can you go?
Backwards. You can actually, you can
reverse aging. And so that's what a lot of this
longevity science is all about. It's it's not just about slowing
aging, but reversing it and. What emotional age you're
talking about? No, no.
This is physical age. This is biological age.
This is like how you're how you're.
Yeah. Emotional age.
I think I'm already 12. I don't think I've ever gotten
past that, to be perfectly honest.
Yeah, but yeah, anyways, it's it's just something that I'm
pretty passionate about. So it's funny because my
girlfriend and I bought each other this set of tests for
Christmas, really fun Christmas presents.
And so she's just doing hers now and she's very stressed that
she's going to end up older than me in biological age.
And and so, you know, we got a bit of a competition going on,
so I think she'll get her results in a few days.
She just did the final Test today, so.
It sounds amazing, but I hope it's not just functional.
I hope it's fun eating too. Well, I think it is, but it
takes some time. You know, like one of the
examples he uses is when you can walk up to a Starbucks counter
and you're getting your coffee and you look at that food behind
the counter and you don't see it as food anymore.
Now, you know, you've pretty much passed the test, you've
gotten through it. You know, like Froot Loops
aren't food. You know, all that stuff isn't
food and, and where you crave broccoli as opposed to craving a
bowl of Froot Loops. You know, that's when you've
sort of crossed the chasm and and gotten into a place where
you're eating well and it's really it's just down to Whole
Foods. You know, like you eat a steak,
try and make it a grass fed. And I don't know if you're vegan
or something, I'm sorry if, if you are, but you know, if you
eat a steak, it make it grass fed, that's going to be the best
of the best and, and, and eat eggs and, and eat, you know,
sort of like 1 ingredient foods, you know, So anyways, right,
It's. Fun.
And it's the preservatives and the processing that you know,
that really gets you so. That's the worst.
And seed oils, right? And seed oils.
But maybe when you hit that 97 and a quarter, maybe you can
say, give me a big bowl of Froot Loops.
I just want you to say fuck it. Fuck it, I'm going to start
doing cocaine and smoking cigarettes and eating Froot
Loops. Yeah, it's like that's what I
want to do at the end of my life. 80 years without a froot
loop I'm making. It up right now yeah that's
funny that's funny yeah. I.
You know what I mean? When I was a kid, I ate Froot
Loops, and come to find out, because I was in Canada at the
time, like there's this, I forget what the food dye is
called #5 orange or red or something.
But it's the really nasty one. And we use it here in the United
States in Fruit Loops, but they don't use it in Canada or in
Europe in Fruit Loops. So the Fruit Loops, as healthy
as they could be, are healthier in Canada and Europe than they
are in the United States, which is kind of nutty.
Wow, I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, the health.
Diet. So I'm with you.
I'll keep that in mind, he says. OK, great.
Are these kind of friends that you're giving me here?
Yeah, I'm a big label. Reader.
Yeah. Are you really?
I am. I am.
Yeah, good for you. It's all it's all about those
preservatives and and and processed things can't
pronounce. Yeah, totally true.
Totally. I mean, does that sound
appetizing? Dexa blah, blah, blah, blah,
like words that are this long. Does that sound good for you?
No. OK, then maybe you shouldn't eat
it. I mean, you can't taste it, so,
and maybe it makes it taste better, at least when you're
used to it. You know when you withdraw from
it and you get used to not having it, then yeah, then then
you do notice that stuff. Totally true.
Well, and the other thing is like we went to a, we found
we've been living in the same place for like 5 years and just
figured out that right up the road from us, there's a farmers
market that are literally the farmers from this area.
I'm in Wellington where we've got lots of horse farms because
it's, it's a horse place here and but all the farmers around
there bring their their stuff and they sell it at this, this
farmers, it's a proper farmers market, right?
And we bought bread there and it, it's like, you know, really
nice, really good, healthy, you know, it's not like the
modified, you know, whatever and enriched flour and all that
stuff. It's, it's proper stuff.
And so we bought that and it was absolutely amazing sourdough
bread, absolutely amazing. And like, on the second or third
day, it was already moldy and we were like, right, I forgot.
Like, real stuff actually goes bad after a short period of
time. Right.
Yeah.
They buy bread every day in France, correct?
Yeah. Well, and that's actually one of
the interesting things that I talk with people about a lot is
I happen to be a pasta and pizza freak.
Like, I could eat either one of those every single day, except
physically my body says hell no. Yeah.
And, but have you ever noticed, like when you're in Italy, you
can eat bread and, and pizza and pasta all day and you, you don't
get that stuffed, bloated, full feeling that, that you feel like
hell here. If you have, if you have pizza
for lunch and pasta for dinner here in the United States,
you're just dying like me anyways.
Right. Who knows what they put into it?
Yeah, well, and that stuff. Wouldn't last three?
Days you know yeah and you know a big part of of what it is is
they use proper like ancient grain pasta and and flour is not
enriched flour. It doesn't have all the crap
added to it. And so it's, it's, it's an
interesting thing like unfortunately, as you can hear,
it's a rabbit hole that's pretty easy to go down when you start
and you start reading some of these books and stuff.
Next thing you know your your bio hacking your your health,
you know and. It's everything.
And you know, if you if you do think about it and if you
believe that what you are, what you eat, it's important.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally true.
So I saw you at LDI. You were part of our dinosaurs
thing, which I think you're far too young to be a dinosaur,
Jeff. Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah, and we appreciate you
doing that. Soon we're gonna actually put
together a call to talk to people about doing it again next
year, Obviously much larger, very different.
We're going to have a panel. We're going to, we're going to
make it like somebody said something about the fact that it
would be much more fun if we could like riff with each other
and, and bust each other's balls and, and have a good time.
And you can only really do that on a panel.
It's hard to do when you you're at different tables and stuff
so. All noted.
And what we've heard sort of loud, loud and clear is people
want, and you know this because you do it all the time, but
people want more access to people like you and to be able
to share, take some of your knowledge away and apply it to
whatever they're doing. And so it's, it's, it's fun to
have another way of, of doing that, you know?
You know, maybe, and I know we talked about wanting more young
people, students and people that are just launching their careers
in there because that's really what they want to sort of tug at
our pants legs and ask us about. You know, that's what we've
done. If nothing else, we've been
through it and we might have a thought or two about that for
those people. But who knows, maybe since
there's that lunch involved, maybe we spend the first half
hour having that one-on-one, say having lunch at tables being
spread out and then it's Ding, Ding, Ding.
OK, everyone up, you know the the panelists up onto the stage
and get into it as you're discussing it.
Might actually be the opposite of that.
Or or the opposite. Might be the opposite because
then, by the way, students who are sitting there watching the
panel would get a feel for yeah, this rabbits character is the
one I want to go to his table. So, you know, in a sense you're
marketing yourself while you're on the panel.
And, and then, but you know, I'll tell you, one of the
challenges is that we are dealing with this corporate
thing, the company that owns LDI and, and of course everything
they touch has to somehow be profitable, where none of us is
doing it for money. We're all doing it to share
information. So yeah, I mean, I got to get
past that machine and and make sure that that everything works
out for them as well. But the idea is to get a lot
more students in there. Some of that'll be done through
corporate sponsorships, some of it will be done through maybe
just LDI saying you can invite, you know, the 1st 100 people.
And then after that, it's got a, you know, it's paid at these
different tiers or whatever. And then, you know, you just
like, you could do the same thing that Parnelli's do where
you get companies to buy tables and and then you invite people
to fill those seats. So we'll see.
We'll come up with a way. But again, I appreciate you
being a part of it. It was fun to do.
Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it being part
of it. It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, you're, you're always very you're always very giving with
your time. And and, you know, in all the
notes that you sent me for this podcast scattered throughout or
you know, Jeff speaking at this, teaching at this, you know,
sharing information at this. And I love when people not just
blowing smoke up your your skirt, but I love when people in
our industry are willing and able to, to do those things
because it's super important, super important.
You know, casting it forward is truly what it's all about,
especially in an industry like ours.
It's kind of a a very specialized industry.
It's hard to get real information.
We can learn a lot in school, but you learn so much more when
you're out in the world of experience.
And how else does somebody that's just getting into the
business know that? And I like cutting the corners
for people. I like, you know, the idea that
maybe it's not going to take five years or 10 years to
acquire a certain amount of of knowledge and understanding of
what it takes to work your way through the industry, both from
a career standpoint as well as like whatever your art or craft
might might be. And if I figure if we, as the
more experienced people, can help somebody get from point A
to point B that much faster, than our entire industry grows
faster. I agree.
Yeah. Well, and also like, would you
agree that there's sort of a disconnect between the old
school and the new school ways of doing things?
And I think some of that needs to disappear and stay old school
and some of it needs to be pulled forward into the into the
new school way of doing things. And so that's where I see a lot
of, you know, just some of the call it real fundamentals, like
showing up on time, like, you know, just whatever tools you
should always have with you and just a lot of the anecdotes and,
and things that come from people who have done it for a very long
time. I love when that information
gets shared. Like, you know, Jake Berry is
really good at at telling people and don't forget to do this, you
know, and always do this. And, and sometimes it sounds
maybe a little bitchy or whatever, but it's true.
Like these are really good values, you know?
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
I think that if we take, you know, the old school and the new
school put them into a blender, I think that's, you know,
probably where where we want to go.
But I mean, people of my generation and Jake's
generation, we didn't have that many people really to look up
to. We were starting in the business
at a time when, you know, production as we know it today
was really just ramping up, yeah, going from nothing to
something. And so now here we are as people
that can you know, kind of give give a couple of notes to the to
the new people that are just. Coming.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, let's face it,
like back then, one of the things is probably, I don't know
if it was the same for you, but if if you look at the earliest
days of technology, it didn't exist.
So a lot of times if you needed something, you actually
literally went to a machine shop across the street and said, hey,
can you build me one of these things?
Because I need this arm. To like hold a light over this,
you know, set piece or whatever. And you know, now it's all just
there like the the toolbox is full at this point, right?
Right, right, right. No, I mean, I think of really,
you know, The Pioneers of the equipment in our industry, you
know, people like Chipmunk that were just resourceful and said
maybe if we just take an idea from a car headlamp and turn it
into a stage light and how can we do it?
And somebody like Bob C, you know, helping to create, you
know, the the can. And yeah, that's the exciting
part. It's almost like, you know,
creating mayonnaise, you know, these completely life changing,
you know, industry changing things that are so small yet so
huge. All of it, like all of the the
multi pin cable and the like audio.
Some of the stuff in audio is even more radical because it
needs to be louder. OK, let me go think about this.
And they'd go back into their garage, you know, nail a bunch
of things together, put a big fat speaker in it.
Maybe if I bend this piece of wood over here, I think that's
going to make it push out this way louder or whatever.
And, you know, JBL and a lot of the big companies were created
like that in somebody's garage. And they just needed a a bigger
speaker to be able to project the sound a little bit further,
you know, as the venues got bigger and you know, like, you
think about the stuff they used for the The Beatles at at Shea
Stadium or whatever, like it's unbelievable.
You know, it's, it's unbelievable.
Like right now you. Wouldn't use those little
speakers on the ground. Pretty much the size of a wedge.
Monitor now. Well, and the lighting, you
know, I mean, you wouldn't use that today in a nightclub or, or
in a, you know, somebody's basement for a party, you know?
Well, you know, I've been working for Ringo for over 30
years and my first meeting with him, he just said kind of take
it easy on me because the last time I did this, there were just
three follow spots. So, you know, it's hilarious.
And it's very easy to burn my head if you're not careful.
That's hilarious. That's hilarious.
You're still working with him today, right?
I am, I am. I'm very lucky he's.
He's amazing. I mean the fact that he, what is
he now, 80 3/4? Two, I think 83.
Yeah, and you know, touring isn't easy.
I even if you're staying in Four Seasons hotels, it's still not
easy. You know, that's right.
There's a lot to it. And so for him to still be out
there and still doing it and still pulling those huge groups
of talented musicians together to do those shows who reveal.
It. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing.
It's so amazing. And Paul, I mean Paul equally,
you know, very different, but equally like just so impressive
that, you know, and Mick and all of the guys that are in their
80s and, and, you know, let's face it, the 70s weren't easy on
people, you know? That's right, if they made it
through till now. Correct.
Yeah. Like, you know, acid was sort of
mainstream back then. It was like, everybody does
this, you know, breakfast exactly.
You know, instead of Froot Loops, we take acid and, and lo
and behold, it was probably better for you than Froot Loops.
You know, probably you're still alive.
So. Anyway.
I'm not advocating for taking acid children, please, as you're
listening to this, do not listen to anything I'm saying.
I'm a shit talking idiot from Canada.
But but yeah, it's so you know, when I say the disconnect from
from sort of old school to new school, it's, it's not
necessarily even equipment related because obviously you
have many different choices today for equipment that's all
so damn good, regardless of who your favorite manufacturer is.
And I know for many, many years you were so loyal to Morpheus.
And I actually want to get into that when we get into your,
your, your history a bit. And you know, let's face it,
like if you could compare anyone's technology today to
some of the early Morpheus fixtures, at the time they were,
they were leading edge, but not so much now.
And so the fact that you were creating shows with with that
technology versus today's technology, very different sort
of mindset and skill set and all of that stuff.
Yes, yes. I mean, the only thing I'll say
about that old technology is that the leap it took from its
predecessor, which was the Leco in the PAR, yeah, was a much
bigger leap than I think we're making now, smaller incremental
leaps. Not that I discount any of the
the great advances that we're lucky to, you know, have the
advantage of today, but I think in those days they were really
going from zero to 60 in two seconds.
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean massive.
You know, two decades, massive leaps, but even like things like
the, the color fader and the, you know, just all of those
technologies, like it's almost fun being old because you, you
remember when each of those things happened and how
incredible it was and how it changed shows and how it changed
your, your ability. Probably, you know, as a
designer, I would guess like just wow, now I can do so much
more. Well, clearly less fixtures.
That's right. Yeah, absolutely.
Nobody's using less fixtures. That's.
The thing that's that's the dumb thing, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Like we used to have to have a, you know, 1000 Park Hands just
to be bright enough in each of the four or five major colors.
That's right. And, and now we have 1000 moving
lights. Each one of them can do every
color you could possibly want, but we still have 1000 moving
lights on shows for some reason. Yeah.
You know, bigger is better, more is more.
And I guess I subscribe to that theory too.
And as we work in really big venues, you like really filling
the space and, you know, thinking about things visually
in different ways than we did way back then where, you know,
you'd be in a big arena. But really all that was lit was
that little postage stamp of a stage, right?
Yeah. You know, And now we're lighting
the entire arena and putting lights in every nook and cranny
to just really make the experience a 360 degree, you
know, visual treat. Well, and plus you're doing
television with so many of the shows that you're a part of as
well. So you do have to, you know, you
do need that audience lighting and stuff, I guess.
But when when you're pushing to 1000 moving lights, are you
suggesting that that's the designer and not the artist
who's who's wanting bigger and more and.
I guess it's a combination. I certainly know I, I, I
realized that it seems like there's a lot of just fru fru
put in. You know that when when you
think that you can really light the band with 20 lights, what's
all the rest of that stuff doing?
That's true. And but it is, you know,
creating that extravaganza feel and and also visually filling
things in, certainly for television.
When you think about a multi camera shoot and there's a
camera looking at every imaginable point of view to the
stage, you know, some of it's almost it's behind the stage,
some of it's from the performer's point of view
looking, looking out at the crowd.
You want a background of some sort everywhere so that it's an
immersive experience. You know, everybody in the room
becomes part of the show. That might not be the same same
concept for an opera, but it certainly is for, you know, for
a big rock show where it just becomes, you know, big
celebration. So that's a little bit more
justification. Do the, do the acts ask for
that? I'm, you know, some people will
give you the mandate that I want it to look really huge.
Some, in some cases they want it to be subtle and simple and you
have to find ways to make it look big without so many
fixtures. But you know, I, I think it's
more the designers than it is the bands.
Really, I, I guess I always just assumed it was the artist ego.
You know, like Beyoncé saying, you know, you better make my
lighting package look better than that nasty little Taylor
Swift, you know, and I was probably the worst Beyoncé
impression ever, But you know what I mean?
Like, I always just assumed it was the artist, the artist ego
just saying that there's was this big.
I want this big. Well, I'll tell you, I'm, I'm
down to just a few touring acts at this point, my career.
And that's not the mandate they gave.
They give me, I, they pretty much let me do what I need to do
and I'll show them what I have in mind periodically in the
design development phase. But I don't, I haven't really.
Certainly somebody like Bruce Springsteen doesn't say I, I
want it to be bigger than anything the world has ever seen
or bigger than the stones. That's not his MO at all.
But I think he knows that we're going to come through with a
show that's, you know, equal in magnitude to the performance.
That he's getting He doesn't want to look small.
Right, right. Yeah, I completely thinks.
About it until he sees it. That's one thing about that
particular artist. He has to to know what he likes.
Does does Bruce get involved in that process?
Like does he, does he sit with you and say, what if we could do
this instead? Or what about this?
Or does he? Is he?
Over the years, and it's been over 40 years for me now.
Yeah, that's wild. By the way, congratulations.
Like what a what an unbelievable ride, you know?
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very, very fortunate.
And you know when you work for somebody that long, you kind of
get into their head and know what they like.
So I would say in the last several years there's been less
pre production exchange of ideas with us.
He just trusts you. But he's also done some crazy
smaller projects over the years. The Seeger session show, that
was a real departure for him, anything he had done.
And the, and the few times that he's done solo acoustic shows,
that's where I've really gotten into, you know, one-on-one early
discussions. But that's it's been many years
since we've done anything like that.
And, you know, there were ideas that he would toss out, things
he would ask for. We would do those things and
then he wouldn't like them. You know, artists have to
develop their own vocabulary too, to speak to the designer.
And sometimes they ask for something and it's totally
misinterpreted. And so it's a, it's a dance to
get that done. But no, I'd say in the last, you
know, 1520 years he and I have had very, very few pre
production exchanges other than him seeing drawings.
That. That management presents to him.
Well, that that's because it's you, you know, like, I I mean,
if it were some young unknown designer or something, he'd
probably be a heck of a lot more involved.
But he trusts you, you know, obviously you've earned trust
over that many years. Yeah.
So is there any sign of him stopping?
I mean, obviously he's going to have to at some point.
We all do. I guess you know, he was.
He was interviewed last year and they did a documentary about the
the assembly of the most recent tour.
Yeah, it's still in progress, even though they're off for a
couple of months. And they said, so Bruce, you
know, when, when do you think you're going to hang it up?
And he said I'm not stopping until the wheels come off.
Well, that's not happened. Now he's got a lot of options
whether he could continue to do E Street Band tours where, you
know, it's conducive to being on a stadium stage where he is
jumping off the stage and running on the ego ramp all the
way to one side of the stadium and all the way to the other and
out on. You know, I don't know how long
he'll be able to do that. He's still doing it, but I know
and but at the end of this tour, which more or less, you know,
may end at the end of 2025 with scattered dates, I don't think
they're going to be hitting the road as solidly as they did the
last couple of years. But they've got some make up
shows to do and they've filled in and they may just get
inspired to do do a little bit more.
Who knows? I'd feel he's going to keep
going at this pace and then he can do solo acoustic.
He can do that way. He can put together like an R&B
band because he's gotten into R&B in a big way in the last few
years. Interesting.
So he can do things that are less physically demanding, you
know, maybe even less vocally demanding because, you know, an
E Street Band show. He does a lot of, you know,
singing and screaming at the top of his lungs.
And that's part of the appeal and part of his of his, you
know, personality. But you know, you do something
like a solo acoustic, he's barely even on the mic.
You know, he he shows some subtlety when he does that.
And I think that would be something that would appeal to
him. So anyway, long long answer.
But the rest, the rest of the street band, they hold up pretty
well, like Van Zandt and and like are the rest of them.
They're they're doing OK too, because they're all getting up
there too. Absolutely, yeah.
We're all aging. I had a discussion with Max
Weinberg, the drummer. Last year and we're just kind of
talking about, you know, our lives and we kind of got back
together after not seeing each other for for a couple of years.
And, you know, he's saying, yeah, that, you know, with
drumming is, you know, perhaps the most physically demanding
job in the band. And he said, well, I've learned
how to, you know, play harder without working harder, you
know, and a guy like that, he's spent so many years, you know,
at the kit. He knows how he can get the
sound he wants without, you know, at working every muscle in
his body to, you know, 100%, right, Right.
That's kind of what it's all about.
I mean, you can, you know, tennis preservation, how to do
that. Everyone you know figures that
out at some. Point.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the young ones are always
preservation. Like.
Man, you know you don't have to put, you know 300% of yourself
into it if you know what you're doing.
Well, it's similar to athletes like, I don't know if you're a
tennis fan, but everyone always said Nadal was going to, you
know, there's no way this guy's going to even make it to his
30s. But but he he changed his tennis
style as he got into his 20s and especially into his late 20s and
early 30s. And eventually he did have to
retire, but but you know, he was a crazy like 17 year old, like
he, he got every ball that he wasn't supposed to get and stuff
like that. But I remember, you know,
McEnroe and others would always say this guy ain't going to
last. He needs to let some of those go
by him, you know, because he's killing himself going after some
of these balls. Yeah.
And similar thing, you know, you got to start thinking longevity
and and sustenance, you know, how can I keep this thing going
as long as possible? Right.
You know, right. I did see his last match on TV
and yeah, it was the same thing. He was running after every ball,
going for it, you know, as hard as he could.
And so. Yeah, what about Djokovic?
Like Federer, who doesn't seem to exert nearly, you know, the
energy. No, he seems like he's putting
no effort into it. Yeah.
Djokovic to me is, is a phenom. Like this is a guy that could
possibly play till friggin 50 years old, you know?
Yeah, yeah. He'll just, he'll find a way
because he's so in charge of of his physical body and his his
strength and his fitness and all of those things.
He's just got such a better, you know, understanding of what he's
capable of than anybody else does.
And you know, I hated when they booed him when he exited the
Aussie Open because that's a guy that's super authentic.
Like he's not leaving because he's down on the scorecard or
something. He's he's leaving because he
knows his body and he, he can't, he can't keep going, you know,
so that's why he walked away because I've seen him come back
way too many times from 2 sets down.
He's not going to quit, you know, he's, he's not that guy.
Yeah. So exactly.
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Who?
So you said three artists that
you're still working with. Who are the other two?
Not Styx, right? Not no, actually it's only two.
I'm not really involved with Styx anymore, OK?
And and that was almost a 50 year relationship, yeah.
I know that was a long one too. But it was just time for me to,
you know, Libby Gray, who's who was our tour lighting director
for many years, had taken the show to a really good place in
my absence there in other parts of the world.
And with her improvising and taking, you know, the bones of
what what had been created before really turned it into
something of her own. And so it was time for me to
step back and let her do that. But I'm still involved with
Ringo and kind of in the same way I designed the show.
I'm, you know, maybe a creative consultant.
I do the plot and I you know, but but there are some really
talented. Yeah, you don't tour with it.
I don't. I don't tour with it.
Yeah, You know, Greg Classen is out now.
Susan Rose was with it for, yeah, 20 years.
She did a great job. And yeah, both of those lighting
directors really take it so much further on a day-to-day basis
when they have to improvise, use local equipment and that's, that
doesn't really match up to the original plot.
So, but I am still involved, you know, with Ringo and then and
then Bruce. So I'm really not out there
looking for touring work at the moment.
I'm, you know. I mean, it's funny because
there's so many people that I talked to.
Obviously my podcast is called Geezers of Gear, but there's so
many people I talked to whose artists are getting close to
aging out. And I always ask those questions
like, OK, so you out looking for 25 year old artists, you know,
to replace them? Or are you going to phase your
career into a different stage? When, when, when those artists
phase out and you get a different bunch of answers?
Obviously for everyone it's a different, you know, life plan
or whatever you want to call it, a strategy that says, you know,
I'm going to go spend more time doing whatever, learning how to
water ski, you know, or whatever it is.
I don't know but. I was always interested in so
many different things. And there was something about,
you know, being on the road and touring that I felt, you know,
for me anyway, was sort of a self limiting scenario.
And as I toured less and even though I was, I was given the,
you know, the privilege of designing these shows,
rehearsing them and then exiting, you know, the, the
tour, that gave me the opportunity to get into some
different things. And I thought, well, maybe
something like architectural lighting would give me the
opportunity to travel less and use my brain in a different way.
And I did that for a, for a number of years.
It wasn't really, you know, something that I that that I
enjoyed all that much, but TV had been something that had
always sort of ran an undercurrent throughout my
career because it was there early on when when I first began
is when MTV suddenly, you know, arrived on the scene and
everybody had to have a music video and teams of video.
People would come in and and and shoot a live show or take the
band into a studio and do some sort of like semi scripted
thing. And I would sort of watch that
in with with great interest. And I thought, you know, later
on, Fast forward many, many years, I thought, well,
television is something that I could probably grow older more
gracefully in because, you know, it's a, it's a field where you
know, they, they value the experience And you're, there are
a lot of, you know, older people, you know, 50 plus people
in it, whereas the touring industry, they are, you know,
recruiting from the cradle. Yeah, it's a young man's game
right now on people's game. I shouldn't say man, because
there's a lot of fortunately. I mean, I think it's a really
great thing. You know, I'm not, I'm not a big
DEI guy, but I love that more women are coming into our
industry and and young girls and stuff.
I think it's good for for them and it's good for the industry.
It's a great career. You know, yeah, I, I, I totally
agree. And I, and I do think that it's
a younger person's game. And when you've got younger acts
who are the ones that are really, you know, charting
highest, they want, you know, people that they can relate to.
Those artists want somebody that's more or less in the in
their age group and somebody who is attuned to all of that music,
liking that music better. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Although it's, it's funny because I, I recently had Marty
Homme on the podcast again and, and we were talking about that
and you know, he's, he's not what I would call that new
generation young person or anything.
But you know, he's got Olivia Rod Rodrigo, he's got, he's got
a few young artists and that are very hot.
And so I don't know, I think well at the tour, he's not
designing for them. He's the tour manager.
He's. The tour manager you sort of
want, you know? The experience?
Yeah, that's true too. You know, so, but yeah, I mean,
I, I agree. Now I have the advantage of
working at Coachella every year. Yeah.
And that gives me an opportunity to plug into a lot of artists
that I wouldn't be paying that much attention to otherwise.
And so I get like, a full, you know, master's degree in new
music every year. Yeah.
So what is your what, what's your basic, you know, in a
nutshell, responsibility with Coachella?
Well, I'm, I'm there as the broadcast lighting consultant,
OK, for whatever that's worth. And how much I really accomplish
is anybody's guess. Most of the headline acts come
in with what I'm supposed to do is help all of these acts
understand that we are showing this streaming around the world,
80 million plus hits every year and growing annually.
And just to understand that it it's important that those people
that can only see the show on their computer screen or their
phone or whatever need something to look at that is friendly to
the camera. That doesn't mean blow it out,
make it look like the 11 O clock news.
Now the headliners on the big stages really understand that
before we even begin. And the only thing I really have
to remind them of is levels. We don't really care about weird
color and things like that. We're not trying to necessarily
make everybody look that pretty, you know, unless, unless they
want to be. I would assume that if you're
Beyoncé's lighting designer or Taylor Swift's or Lady Gaga's,
you're going to do your best to make them look really good.
Anyway. What they need to understand is
sometimes levels can get way very uneven and I can help them
smooth those those sorts of things out.
It's the smaller tent. So, you know, Coachella has a
couple of big headline stages and then they've got the smaller
tents where the new acts and the indie acts and the acts that are
just almost ready to, to burst onto the headline stage are
playing. And a lot of those acts say my
artist wants no light on them. And so when you look at a, a, a
smaller lighting system of maybe 100 lights, none of them are
aimed at the stage. It's all out, you know, at the
crowd. Yeah, that part looks good.
And I say, look, if you could just devote 10 lights, that one,
that one, that one, that one onto your artist.
And it doesn't have to be even lighting, and it doesn't.
It just needs to be some level of illumination.
To see the artist. Yes, there are people that would
like to see your lead singer, they'd like to see your
guitarist, etcetera, etcetera. If I can do that, if I can take
it from zero to four. Yeah.
On a on a zero to 10 scale, I feel like I've accomplished.
A lot interesting. Yeah.
You know, it's funny because I can't remember which who it was.
Somebody on my podcast said it to me one time where he said,
you know, I'm designing a show for 20,000 people right here,
but like 2 million people that are going to be viewing it on a
on a four or five inch screen. And I'm very thoughtful about
that. So he's, he's actually designing
it. And as he's looking at the show,
he'll look at it on his on his iPhone or whatever as well.
Because you know, by the time the show ends, there's going to
be 10,000 of those videos that are uploaded to YouTube or
whatever. And so many people are going to
see it, so many more than those in the audience.
And so why wouldn't we give it some thought even at that level?
But then you talk about a Coachella.
So I mean, I think it's really wise that they have you there
that and my guess is that you're just trying to get them to be at
least thinking about that. If nothing else.
You know, like just think about the fact that there's more
people seeing it on a phone than are seeing it in front of that,
you know, B or C or D stage that you're on right now.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
You know, the live audience is perfectly OK with the big broad
picture and with the ambience in the room, they can probably see
what's going on on stage anyway. There's a lot of video, there's
just a lot of bounce light. But that doesn't work for the
cameras. So it is those people that are
just watching on their phone. And so it's gratifying if I can
bring it up a couple of notches. I hate to make it seem like my
bar is set so low that if I take it from zero to four, that's
sufficient. But believe me, that's a good
day. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's really
complicated, you know, because again, everybody has, you know,
their set of goals. And then I think the when you
have a lighting designer for some small up and coming act or
whatever, and then you have this other lighting designer who's
coming in and saying, hey, we want to make sure that, you
know, his, his back's going to go up a little bit.
Right. Like you can't come in here and
tell me what to do. I know.
Sent on my work many plans. Yeah, well, you're not the most
physically, you know, frightening food either.
So. So if you're coming out to my
front of house location and telling me what to do, you know,
I'm not sure that you're going to scare me much.
Just like, who's talking? Oh.
There he is, that guy. That's funny.
So are you serious? And in saying that, the
television thing was just kind of like a almost accidents like
where you just went well, you know, this MTV thing is getting
kind of popular. Like, these people are going to
need somebody who knows how to like these things, and maybe I
should do that. It was a little bit of that.
I mean, I was intrigued by it as well.
For one thing, I was intrigued by the fact that it wasn't as
easy as it looked. I thought that, you know, what
they would do would be bring in some big 10 KS and just flood
the stage and that would be that.
And that's not what they did at all.
They came in and they made it, you know, by and large they made
it look, you know, fairly interesting and did change a lot
of my levels. And I thought, wait a minute, if
there's more to this than than I realized.
And then I kind of the light bulb went off and I realized
it's so much about the close up because 90% of the shots are
more or less some kind of a close up or A2 shot.
And, and it's not easy to make those, those shots look good and
make people look, you know, decent.
And, you know, that little smear of color that looks so good to
the live audience looks a little weird when it's out of context.
And that's all you're seeing. And you're seeing somebody with
a big smear of orange or, or blue on their face.
It doesn't make as much sense. How can you do that same thing
and sort of impart that color statement but not make it look
so strange to the people that are that are watching on on
their TV? So I did get intrigued by it,
but I also saw it as the future. I saw it as, you know, a
different way, you know, to operate.
And I like the precision of it for some reason there.
There was something about the mechanics of how light and and
the camera and the iris of the camera work that that I enjoyed.
And then I partnered up with Jim Moody.
Well, that didn't hurt. That didn't hurt.
And he had a lot to say and a lot to share with me.
And, you know, just really, I, you know, I developed kind of a
love for, for the art form. How could how could I make those
shows look as good as possible on camera without robbing the
live audience of the experience also?
And that that was early 90s, I think, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it started in the 80s
and. And the other thing about it was
that I, I resented the fact that the video crews would come in
and they'd sort of push me aside and try to relight my show.
And so I thought, well, I want to learn more about this so that
I'm valuable to them and they won't feel so compelled to to
Get Me Out of their way. Right.
So that was so. And then by the 90s is when it
really started to to take hold. And then in the 90s is when I
partnered up with Jim and really started seeing the stuff he was
doing and, and befriended people like Bill Klages and Bob
Dickinson and watch what they did and saw how artfully they
they did what they were doing. And I thought, OK, this appeals
to me. Yeah, yeah.
And I know I should know the answer to this, but I'm going to
ask you anyways. Really specifically like live
music and and sports and stuff like that.
Not television or, or film or any of that kind of lighting,
right? Yeah, I, you know, I wasn't
really equipped to go into film. I suppose I could have tried to
become a cinematographer, but that really wasn't on my plate
because I had, I was so firmly involved in the live
entertainment industry. And.
And I saw that there was this whole thing about live
entertainment being shot for TV. That was an enormous market.
And there were all of these people there that didn't
understand it. Yeah, you know, they didn't
understand what that transition was going to be and these other
consultants and you know, so-called experts had to come in
and help. And I thought, okay, I can be
that person. So when I aged.
Out. Of the touring industry, that's
something that I can, you know, that I can do.
Plus, I find it really interesting, other than the
one-on-one, what friction that I might have dealing with, you
know, an LD that I would whose show I was adapting.
And so I thought I was a recipient of that for so many
years. I should know psychologically
how to approach these people. And that's what I did.
I tried to create some sort of a bedside manner that wasn't so
off putting. Yeah.
Yeah, I know that. I I've been witness to some of
the situations where, you know, somebody's got a tour out and
then Brandon or you or someone is brought in to light it for an
HBO special. And you see some of the
discussions, let's call it that, are not always extremely
productive. But I think by this point, we've
all gotten pretty used to it because of all the streaming and
all the different things that go on now.
Like, I think more shows are shot for television than are not
at this point, you know, or shot for some type of a device
anyways. Plus iMac.
Yeah. Yeah, iMac.
Yeah, of course. Have digital cameras made it so
much easier now? Well, I mean, for sure there was
a time when the cameras were so much less forgiving for light
levels and colour and certain colours were, you know, you were
taught like the first lesson you learned when you were getting
into television was no red because cameras couldn't
register red. Now they can.
And there's so there's so much more.
And now of course. You can go down to super low
light levels, which you wouldn't do for a concert necessarily
where there's a live audience, but you might do for a show
that's on a sound stage where you're not worried about the
audience. And there's so many advantages
to working at lower light levels that that the cameras allow you
to do that. What?
Why wouldn't you? Yeah.
What about video, though? Like, like all the LED screens
that everyone has? Is that a real problem when it
comes to shooting it for for television?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
It just seems like a brightness war, you know, like you're going
to go that bright, we're going to do this, you know, and
everything. The levels just keep getting
higher and higher and we're getting lights that are now 6070
thousand lumens on these rigs. And it's like, what for?
Like when did we ever decide that it needed to be bright as
the sun, right? Right.
Well, you know, and whoever ever has their their hand on the dial
wants their toy to be the biggest I guess.
Right. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
But. But but truly, you know, there
was a time when the screens needed to be brighter just to
register properly. If you took it down to the level
that you know the lighting people wanted, it would start to
flicker and lose, lose quality. Now the screens can go down to
much, much lower levels, but the problem is the brightness.
I mean, you can never get anybody on stage bright enough
with the stage lighting to match what those screens are putting
out right in your face. You.
Know on the face, on on. It is like reflective.
The screen is direct light right in, right into the eye and right
into the camera. So there's that, and then the
that's gotta be. Difficult that that's tough
because I mean, it's even hard when you're trying to take a
selfie or something, you know, just to, you know, to light your
to light your face enough with, with an LED screen behind you
that's just blasting forward or whatever.
Well, it's like it being in front of a window.
Yeah, of course. And trying to take a picture and
somehow your face gets really dark and the window looks great,
right? So there's that.
And then the color is usually way off.
And like for any, for instance, situation like Coachella where
they spend the entire first half of the show day in daylight.
And so of course, the screens have to be bright and they and
they're usually matched to daylight as you get closer to
night time and then completely, you know, night, night time,
those screens need to come way down because the stage lights
just can't compete. And so it is, it's a little bit
of AII don't want to say battle because the technicians that are
all starting to understand what the objective is, but it is a
coordination and it is a little bit of a of a waltz.
Yeah, or a battle. Yes.
Yeah, it was a bit of a battle. I think I called it a war, so I
was even less diplomatic. But yeah, I can see that being
problematic. And light to the stage too.
I mean, somebody that's standing next to a screen is getting all
this weird color and and brightness on them that doesn't
necessarily look that good. Yeah, yeah, You know, I, I, if
you've ever listened to my podcast, I usually start out
with how do you start? And honestly, I don't even know
the answer to that even as long as I've known you and and you've
been on the podcast, but you were part of a group of people.
But like, did you go to theater school or did you?
Yeah, yeah. I'm, I grew up just outside New
York City, the New Jersey part of New York.
And I, I got exposed to some Broadway shows when I was young.
My dad took me to some shows and I really kind of got into that
and theater and always kind of pursued that throughout school.
So I, I, I thought I was going to the theater.
There was no rock'n'roll on those days or what in television
or film, which really I didn't see my way into.
And I love the idea of, you know, the connection between the
show and the live audience. It was something that even as a
kid that intrigued me. So I did go to college for
theater where you study everything and do everything.
So you know, and and that's good.
You know, you you learn every your craft from both sides of
the stage. And when I got.
Out you studied acting as well I.
Studied acting, you know, I mean, I, I, I saw that as a
potential path. I've got to say where I grew up,
I, there wasn't much exposure to stuff like lighting and the tech
side acting seemed to be acting or directing seemed to be what
you would do. And when I got college, I
suddenly realized that there were a lot of people that were
studying the technical side. And as it turned out, my college
roommate was really into lighting and got me to take some
classes. And I just gobbled it up and,
you know, really, you know, connected to it.
So when I got out of school, I actually did act for a couple of
years, but I was also lighting simultaneously.
I just, you know, take whatever I could to pay the bills.
And at one point it just sort of flipped because I'd been a, a
musician in, in high school, I played keyboards in a rock band
that I, you know, had with my friends and I had a little bit
of local success. So I always miss that.
And I just put it totally aside when I went went to college.
But one day shortly after I graduated, I saw an ad for in in
one of the arts magazines in Chicago, because I went to
school in Chicago and they were looking for a lighting director
for National Recording Group. So I thought, OK, called the
number, had an interview, got the job because I was one of the
few people that had any lighting experience.
So we're all kinds of people applying for the job, but none
of them had any experience. We're talking about the early
70s where everybody just wanted to, you know, join the circus or
join rock. Band.
It's just wild though, that they'd advertise for a lighting
guy in the local, you know, newspaper or whatever that's.
Hilarious. Yeah, no kidding.
That's hilarious. And you just happened to see it.
I just happened to see it. Destiny.
I had seen a Grateful Dead show in Chicago about a week before
and it was one of the first shows that had real production.
And I think Candace Brightman was probably there, but I
certainly didn't know, know her. I mean, I'm sure she was there.
We talked about it when it when I met her years later.
And it was all like Lycos and Pars and beams and and haze and,
you know, kind kinds of things that production turned into.
But it was one of the few shows that really was carrying that
that level of production. And it was everything that I had
learned in theater school you weren't supposed to do.
The lighting was supposed to be invisible.
You maybe you were creating a, a Thunder and lightning effect.
But aside from that, you were supposed to be realistic, you
know, unless you were doing some sort of, you know, abstract show
that required, you know. Some stuff was on display and
part of the show, basically. Yeah, right.
That's interesting. I never heard it, never heard it
described like that, but it's so true.
And, you know, all this lighting that was really tangible, you
could reach out and touch it. And I thought, wow, that breaks
every rule I've ever been taught.
But I like it. So here I was just maybe seven
days later and I saw this ad and I thought, OK, you know, let's
let's give it a try. And you know, like 2 weeks later
I was in a nightclub lighting lighting a band and taking it
and going around playing colleges and opening for bigger
bands where I kind of saw what the early level of production
was, you know, trees and you know, no trusses yet pre Truss.
Wow. Yeah, I mean even that great for
bed show that I saw they had scaffolds but they didn't have
Truss. Wow, that's amazing.
And. That band wasn't Styx, was it?
That wasn't Styx, but they were. But they were in Chicago, too.
So I was working for this band and we opened for Styx and I got
to know them. And so that was sort of my
graduate band. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, what? They needed someone, and I was
one of the few local LDS in Chicago that understood the the
vibe and the art form of rock'n'roll.
At that point. I'd had a year or two in into it
and so I got the you're a. Crusty old veteran now.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly those terms.
That's wild. So that's how it all began and
it was really one thing led to another.
But Styx was really good for me because they they really sky
rocketed to fame. I mean, it was a time in history
where, you know, they were, you know, considered, you know, that
prog rock, A lot of people thought they were British just
because of the style of of music and, you know, the sound of the
lead singer's voice. But they weren't, they were just
from Chicago. But we did some really
theatrical things. And when they said, well, we're
we're doing a new tour and we're about to release a new album,
what do you what do you want to do?
I would always throw backdrops in and scrims and all these
theatrical techniques that I knew were fun and they were
willing to spend a little bit of money.
And then we would. I mean, I, I don't want to say I
choreographed the show, but there were times that I would
say if you guys on this particular guitar moment where
everything stops and it's just you 2 guys playing the guitar
riff, if you guys would stand like back-to-back over here, I
could have this light on you and then.
Very dramatic effect all. That kind of thing, you know,
when it was really simple to do. And so little by little, we kind
of had this, you know, theatrical repertoire growing.
So was was the first band that you went out with the the club
band? Was that your first paid gig or?
And. Then don't tell me Styx was your
second. Well, I had worked around around
Chicago for some other small, small bands and then I had gone
out on the road with the with the Corons.
Oh. Really Beijing.
They they invited me to go out on a Kiss tour and it was Kisses
first big arena tour. It was right after the Kiss
Alive album came out and I want to rock.
Was that cheap trick opening? Everybody opened for them, you
know, so. I'm just trying to 'cause I
remember I saw KISS when I was. I had to be 12 years old or
something the first time I saw KISS.
What are you? Doing and it was in the Calgary
Corral, the the old hockey arena in Calgary.
And it was just, it was for me, it was life changing.
Like it just changed everything I believed about music and shows
and all that kind of stuff. I was in in bands at the time.
But yeah, that was it was everything.
Yeah, it was everything. It was just, yeah, fun.
Just spitting blood and lighting things on fire and stuff.
I was, I was hooked, you know, that I was so into KISS at that
point. It was like, wow, this is so
amazing. I didn't know what to expect.
I was not aware of them at all. I went out really on the 1st
show and I remember being in the back of the house and we were
playing some theater in Buffalo or someplace and they were
testing out the flamethrowers. You know that big flame pots
which happened to be. They bought them from the
original Wizard of Oz production where if you remember when the
Wizard is first seen, there are these flames that are shooting
up around him. They bought those devices from.
That. And that's.
An interesting story. Cuz it wasn't something that was
like around that you could just buy.
Yeah, there was no. City.
Nobody was using anything yet back then in live shows.
It was obviously they were one of the first big real show bands
like that, if not the first. I don't know, I guess the Dolls.
Or so I think so. Yeah.
But I felt this heat on the back of my neck.
I was setting up a console out front.
And I turn around and I see these flames and I'm went, OK,
this is gonna be different. Yeah, I bet you see these. 7
foot tall guys and high heels and right crazy outfits and
you're like, what, what were you telling your parents about all
this stuff? Because I mean, you're, you're a
fairly young Jewish kid, you know, from New Jersey.
You know your parents had to be going, Jeff.
Now what are you doing? No, I got to say they found it
kind of interesting. I mean, really knew I was off
the off the deep end when I went to theater school.
Yeah, and. I know.
Thank goodness. They were really supportive.
That's awesome. Found it interesting.
Crazy fun. Yeah.
That's cool. Yeah.
I wasn't getting myself into trouble.
So. Yeah.
Did they were they able to get out to any like Springsteen
shows or anything along the way or they go or of them did they
Good. That's amazing.
Yeah. That's amazing.
That's so much fun when you're able to share your work with
your parents like that. Yeah, Yeah.
So I've got to say, they were. They were happy for me and so
cool. Although if they would have seen
Kiss, they might have been like Jeff.
Yeah, they never did see KISS. Yeah, we should have a talk
here, Jeff. Yeah, that's wild.
And so that was your first time that you actually went on tour
was was with the Crones and, and, and the Crones being
upstaging, of course or eventually, I don't know if they
were upstaging yet. But they were, they were OK.
I met, I met Robert Crone at a show that my original club act
was was performing at. And so he was standing back
there because upstaging it provided the gear and we just
got to talking and kind of exchange numbers.
And the next thing I know he had actually called me to do a
couple of small shows with him. It was literally me and Robert
Carone in a in a U-Haul or a Ryder truck taking a bunch of
car cans out of his garage or renting them from one of the
local vendors in town to get what he didn't have, and the two
of us driving somewhere like Wisconsin and doing a show for a
day. So I had done that for a while.
Yeah. That is wild.
And and did you go? To their party this year at UPS,
at LDI. Yeah, I did.
I saw you there. I can't remember.
I think I had about 12 glasses of wine by then.
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was some good wine. Yeah, the wine is always good at
that party. It's it's crazy.
But I had a really nice. So it was kind of a funny moment
because I saw Seth kind of Houdini out the door and I was
super tired because I I can't change time anymore.
So I've been getting up at 3:00 in the morning in, in Las Vegas
or four in the morning every morning, right?
Yeah. And so I was dead tired and it's
like, I don't know, 9:00 or something.
And I, Sarah was with me and I said, let's Houdini, let's,
let's pull out. I'm just going to wait for the
right moment. And I see Seth duck out the
door. And so I go, oh, Seth, Seth, you
know, like I wanted to talk to him.
And now I'm out the door, you know, into the restaurant part.
And I'm like, ha. And he goes, whoa, something up.
And I go, no, no, no, I was just using you because you just left.
So I'm using you. So then I'm on my way physically
like to go up the stairs to get out of there and I run into
Robert. He's been coming back from the
bathroom or wherever he was, but and I ended up in probably, I
don't know, a 30-40 minute talk with Robert.
We just had this very cool, very long, nice talk.
I, I love that guy. Yeah, they're, they're such nice
people. They really.
Truly and deserve all their success.
Oh heck yeah, yeah. And they do have a lot of
success. Yes, yes.
They got some success, so. So that's why I thank for
getting me getting me in the door.
So they called me for for Kiss, met a bunch of bands and, and,
and all of their tour managers and so forth doing that.
And Styx actually opened for for Kiss several times.
And I remember one night, weird fit.
It was actually pretty good. Really.
I mean God playing bands but. It was early earlier in Styx's
career also. It was pre Tommy Shaw.
Yeah. Do you know anything about them?
You know, Tom, Tommy had joined them in like 76 and and gave,
you know, an interesting shot in the arm, a really good, you
know, to the band. So Stick got Styx got the band.
The crowd really, really revved up.
So they were a good opening act for yeah, yes, people were that.
Was like, that was like Lorelei and light up and all that stuff,
Yeah. Exactly.
I I got so into sticks when I heard that.
Like I heard Lorelei and Light Up and I don't remember if there
were other songs on that album, but I was just like, wow.
And it is incredible. Yeah, they were huge.
And I just, I flipped out when I heard that.
I was like, this is the coolest band I've ever heard.
And so, yeah, that's cool. And, you know, Tommy Shaw is one
of those guys that have such a high degree of appreciation for
because he is still doing it and not mailing it in.
Like, he's like Steven Tyler, but Steven Tyler can't quite
hold it together completely, you know, But sounds good.
Looks like a rock star, does the songs as well as he ever did.
He's amazing. That guy.
He just totally agree. Doesn't seem to age.
You know, he's amazing. And and, you know, the rapport
with the audience I think is better than ever, you know,
yeah, so good how they've managed to just get better over
the years. Yeah, I mean, even when I see
people uploading iPhone videos or whatever and I'll watch them
do whatever it is and I'm just like, man, he's still so good.
Like he sounds incredible at whatever age he is now.
And you know, God bless him. And, and Lawrence Gowen's a
funny one because I knew Gowen personally in Canada when he was
Gowen and, and you know, he, he got a little big in Canada, but
nowhere near as big as as Styx, obviously.
So that's been an incredible ride for him as well.
Absolutely, and he's been good for them.
Oh, amazing. Like he was such a good fit for
what they needed. You know, they needed a showman.
They needed a good singer who could do those parts that Dennis
did, and they needed a great keyboard player.
And he just really fit the bill. He's very, very.
Flamboyant. Not flamboyant might be the
wrong word, but he is kind of flamboyant.
He's a showman, you know? And a good way.
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, physically great on stage. Yeah, no, he's fantastic.
They God bless him and the the longevity that that band has
pulled out and they just keep packaging them with Journey or
with REO Speedwagon or with all of those bands from the same
basic era. Yeah.
And it just keeps going. The train keeps on a roll.
And they were just here in South Florida recently.
I got invited and I didn't go, but yeah, Yeah.
That's cool. So.
So what did that lead? So by this point, do you know
that this is the career I want? I want to be a touring lighting
guy or or. Yeah, absolutely.
At that point, there was no question in my mind.
I still have. You ever on a crew, like did you
ever have to be a tech, a lighting tech or anything, or
did you just go straight to lighting director, lighting
designer? No, actually when I when I did
kiss, I was on the crew and so and that was good.
That was really good for me because that was a bigger show
than I had ever been involved with on on sticks.
They hadn't done anything quite like that.
So I got to see how all of that worked and, and just live that
life and work that schedule and I got to run the opening act.
So that was always fun. So I got, you know, a little bit
of LD chops doing that so. That's amazing experience.
Yeah, that took off a lot of the the pressure of having to learn
that stuff on the fly later on, obviously.
Yeah, it's huge value. Yeah, I mean, I had to learn the
terminology and you know, just the literally the the route from
the dimmers to the light to the console.
And figure all that out. So, but I did that for six
months and then I, I left and I went back to Styx and I had
left, I had left Styx, you know, for, you know, little, little
sabbatical and no, excuse me, I'm, I'm not to get too bogged
down in the, in the details. It was that that club band, I
left the club band, went to kids, went back to the club band
and within a month I got the, the offer from Styx and so on
again. So I had a couple of, you know,
quick turnarounds and the. Styx thing lasted like you said,
50 years, 15 years. Incredible.
That's. Wild wild.
You made some good choices on artists.
You know, I, I guess I was in the right place at the right
time and, and yeah, fortunately I, I said yes.
Now, when I, when I was offered Bruce, I said no initially.
Really, a lot of people don't know that, but I was I, I was
with yes at the time, and I was you.
Can't say no to yes. That exactly that's.
Sure. That's probably the dumbest joke
I've ever said. No but but good good so and I
didn't. I couldn't see my way to
extricating myself from from the yes tour initially but thought
about it for a couple of days and turned around and re
accepted the the offer so. Which yes, tour was that?
It was at nine O 2. One O 2, one O yeah.
Smeeton ended up doing it, didn't he?
Well, after I after. After you left.
Actually, he came in as a programmer, believe it or not.
Yeah. So I was, I was out there with
them for about 6 months and I got the Springsteen offer.
So I turned it over to a friend of mine named Merle McClain, who
if you know, but he was, he was a good friend of mine who I
thought musically and and lighting designer wise, he was
permed for it. And then I had just seen
Jonathan's Thompson Twins show. Jonathan was just really kind of
newly out-of-the-box as this, you know, lighting as this
Varilite programmer slash designer.
And that Thompson Twins tour was really groundbreaking, as small
as it was. And he programmed the whole
thing and and designed it. And so I went to see the show
and I said please, you know, come and program varilites for
us, which he did. And between me, Merle and
Jonathan, I thought we did, you know, we created a pretty good
show and I got the Gabby there. I went to Bruce.
Yeah, I saw that show. It was good.
Yeah. So so you said no because you
were with Yes, but you you did want to like by that time Bruce
was had already taken off, right.
Well, it was pre born in the USA.
Oh, it was just after the river tour and he hadn't done anything
in a in a in a a few years because he was recording the
album and doing some other things.
So I, I didn't feel inclined initially to, to leave the Yes
tour. But, you know, I thought about
it and, you know, discussed it with some friends and thought,
well, that's an insane decision on my part.
So I quickly backtracked and, and, and accepted the offer.
And on that show, born in the USA, of course, turned out to
be, you know, Britain's most successful album.
He went from from star to, you know, mega superstar on that
tour, right and we so we were all there.
It was a two year tour hitting the entire world and just had a
ball doing it and it. Still hasn't ended that tour
still hasn't ended. He's still touring.
Price of tickets has gone from like $5.00 to 5000.
But you know, aside from that, you know, it's, it's all pretty
much the same. Crazy that all on on the Bourne
in the USA tour, that was just when the Jacksons Victory Tour
was out as well and we all were invited to the Victory Tour but
they said but you have to buy your ticket.
So it was a $75 ticket. This is 1984.
Bruce was the best seat in the house for Bruce was 1875.
That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, that's wild. 75 bucks for
the Victory Tour. Yeah.
And you had to pay. Did you pay?
You know, we were supposed to pay and somehow I never did.
I think that you know, the tour manager must have bought.
Somebody, somebody's going to be come and look and going.
Hey, $75. Yeah, plus interest, plus the
Houston $5000. Yeah, yeah.
Oh my God. You know, Bruce, OK, so the
artists, I guess are somewhat responsible for ticket prices,
but the the whole dynamic pricing thing gets a lot of
artists in trouble. And you know, again, I think
it's one of those situations where things are done maybe for
the right reason and then it spins out of control and it
becomes all wrong and all bad and everything else.
But you got to do something. Because what's happening is if
Bruce is selling tickets for 300 bucks, call it, none of them end
up in the hands of fans at that price.
They're, they're all bought up by, by resellers and then
they're sold again on the, on the secondary markets and they
become $5000 anyways. And now Bruce isn't making any
of the money. The promoter is not making any
of the money. Certainly Jeff Rabbits isn't
making any of that money. And you know what I mean?
So like, why shouldn't the artist at least get a piece of
the fans that are willing to pay $5000?
Why shouldn't you get a piece of that?
So I see some common sense to it.
I see some logic to it. And, and guess what people could
say, but he's greedy. Well, you know, people don't do
things because they don't want to make any money usually.
Like generally there's going to be a commercial side of
everything we do, right? We all want to be able to
survive and God forbid, be able to afford, you know, a vacation
or a a meal every once in a while, you know, like.
Yes, absolutely. Well, and and I'm not defending
the whole dynamic pricing thing, but I, Bruce did put out a
statement saying anybody that doesn't feel like they got their
money, money's worth may go to the box office and get a full
refund for whatever you paid. And I guess to date, there's
been none of the. Refunds.
Yeah, well, because probably half those $5000 tickets are
reselling for 10, you know, because there's so much friggin
available cash out there right now that people, if they want to
go see Bruce and they want good seats, what's the price that
they won't pay? You know what I mean?
That's like I just, I just saw, what's his name, Hendricks the
OR Hendrick the guy? Rick Hendrick, he owns a bunch
of car dealerships. I just saw on one of these
auctions, I think it was a Meekum auctions, he paid like
$3.5 million for the 1st 2025 Corvette CR1 that's coming off
the line like it's serial number OO1.
He paid $3.5 million for it. I mean this is a Corvette that
will sell for about 175,000 in the dealership.
But you want serial number OO1 Guess what you know?
And when I start going up over 2 million, I was like, you gotta
be shitting me. It's a it's.
Worth whatever anybody will pay for it.
Correct. And, and the problem with
tickets is that when you're talking about Bruce Springsteen
or Taylor Swift, name the price because you're going to find
people and there's and so you have to adjust to the market you
have. To yes.
You know I. Just from the consumers point of
view, when you look at the website and there's a ticket for
$800.00 and then you look 5 minutes later and it's $2000,
then you really feel kind of ripped off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I completely get it.
I get it from both sides though. Because again, the problem is
that rich guy who wants to go see Bruce Springsteen is going
to pay 5 grand. He'll pay it from some seedy
scalper somewhere. The tickets, you know, pass
through several sets of hands or whatever.
Why shouldn't that be a controlled situation where, you
know, the money is going back to the artist and to the promoter,
the people who actually paid the money and put in the effort to
put this show on and everything else versus the scalper?
So I don't know. It's it's a problem that's as
old as as concerts. You know, the scalper situation.
But I get it. And actually, the way you the
way you phrase it makes sense. Yeah, well, that's something no
one's ever said to me once. You know, Marcel, you just said
something that really makes sense.
Let this date and history show. Exactly.
Well, it's recorded. This is a good thing.
So now, now it's there in Forever, you know, I'm in
Forever's Ville having made sense.
So Styx, Bruce Springsteen. And so that just lasted a few
years, like where you were just touring and being real happy and
everything, and then you discover this MTV thing and.
Well, so that that's when I thought there there really is a
way to make a lateral at least a lateral move, if not an upward
move in into this field. And I was always interested in
that field, never thought that I would be able to find my way
into it, didn't really understand it.
And once I started to get a feel for what it took, and there
would be years off sometimes between Springsteen tours and I
would either fill it in with some other tours or I would
start to find, you know, through Jim Moody and some other
friends, start to find some television work.
I, you know, gaffed a show for Jim once so that I could see
what was going on. And then he slowly began using
me to substitute for him on shows where he was double booked
and he couldn't be there. He would kind of help me through
the design process until I kind of had a firm grasp on my own.
So I was doing studio shows as well as as rock shows, really
starting to understand how the camera works and that's kind of
what it's all about. So at that point I saw, OK, this
is something that I can do almost as a parallel career to
working with Bruce and working with a a few of the other rock
bands that I was doing it. Seems to have worked out OK.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I, I love that idea of
the live show being turned into, into something that could be
consumed by, you know, TV viewers.
So and then at one point it just sort of like turned around.
I still have a couple of rock things, but I would say 90% of
my year is doing television style things.
Yeah. And, and sports was just sort of
a natural extension of that. I'm sorry, what sports are we
talking? About Super Bowl, just the
sporting events that you've been involved in, in lighting for
television as well. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Sorry, I haven't actually lit a sports event, but I have,
although I did did one that I'll mention.
But yes, that was just the first Super Bowl that I was involved
with was produced by the Disney people that I knew from several
shows that I had done at Disney World.
And and so I went up against, you know, several other
designers in a bid process and was was selected.
So that was an exciting thing to be a part of because it was so
enormous and outdoors dealing with, you know, a kind of a
transition from day daylight to night time in a, you know, in an
enormous stadium where you had to set up in a 12 minute
commercial. Yeah, and I and I seem to recall
that was Miami. That was Miami.
That was Joe Robbie Stadium. I I was there because that was
the first time that we put those robo scans onto something and it
was a nightmare. That's right.
Well, it was certainly a a big
show. I think I was probably in a
little over my head as well, but we had a couple of technical
snafus that. And that we did.
And it it, it was a big enough show that we that we really
couldn't afford to lose many of the lights that we had.
My recollection is that by Showtime, everything was back
where it needed. It was, it wasn't easy.
I had a lot of guys that didn't sleep for a few days and we had
to bring some guys in from Denmark.
We, I don't know if you remember, but we brought in
Finn, who was the head engineer for Martin in Denmark.
I remember. And yeah, I mean, it was, it was
just, that was one of the hardest weeks, I think of my
life because it went from, you know, excited as hell.
Oh, my God. We got lights that are going to
be on the halftime show for the Super Bowl to, you know, could
this week just be over already? Please, please just survive and
get through it. But you know, anything like
that. And there had not been that many
Super Bowls that had turned off the lights.
Most of the Super Bowls prior to that just had supplemental fill
lighting and it was marching bands and so forth.
And so I don't know whether that many companies had all the
infrastructure. Right.
No. And they?
Handle that. And it was the 12 minute thing,
yeah. Well, now it's so much easier
because you have IP rated lights and we've all done it 1000 Times
Now. And you know, like I remember
one of the things was you guys were programming and we had
lights all over the field and all of a sudden the sprinklers
came on. Yes, that's.
Right. These were not IP headlights.
And I think one of one of our texts, like mistakenly yelled at
one of the the NFL, you know, runs for guys.
And that was like a no, no, because those guys are God when
it comes to the Super Bowl. It's like, you know, you don't
mess with our field. You know, this is our field, and
this is sacred. And so it was like, OK, better
put, you know, garbage bags over the lights or whatever because
this is bad. Yeah.
Yeah, well, it was a learning experience for all of us.
Yeah. And, you know, I came away from
it with, you know, lots of notes on how I would do it if I ever
had the opportunity again. Yeah, yeah.
Well, and by the way, quite possibly the worst lip syncing I
think I've ever heard was Patti LaBelle.
It was so bad. It was like not even believable.
It was just like, what are you doing?
Like she's singing different words and stuff.
Well, I I guess it's been enough years since then that I could
tell this story. But, you know, audio wise, Tony
Bennett and Patti LaBelle were on the show.
Tony Bennett insisted on singing live.
Yeah. And Patti LaBelle insisted on
pre recording track that she would sync.
Well, Patti LaBelle couldn't remember her words, so she
wasn't lip syncing to the. Track.
Even though the track continued, Tony Bennett forgot the words to
his song. He was standing there with a
live mic and nothing coming out at all.
Yeah, I know it was funny. We had so many things that
didn't work. Yeah, on that.
You know, it was tough. It was tough, but there was one
cool moment. So I, I, I think for one of the
nights where you guys were programming or something, maybe
the night before the Super Bowl or two nights before, I was
there just checking on my guys and I was taking my
father-in-law and my ex-wife out for dinner.
And so they were with me. I think my ex-wife might have
stayed in the car, but my father-in-law wanted to come in
with me and just see what it looked like.
He's a big Super Bowl guy. And so he's like for sale.
Marcel, he's pulling on my shirt.
And I think I'm talking to one of your guys or something and
he's pulling on my shirt. Marcel, Marcel, Marcel.
And I go, yes, Tom. What?
And he goes, that's, that's Tony Bennett over there.
And he was sitting in a golf cart just by himself, nobody
around him or anything. Right.
Yeah. And I go, we'll go say hello.
He's like, no, no, no, I can't do that.
And he's old school Chicago, my, my father-in-law, right?
Old school, like he, he grew up seeing Tony Bennett in bars in
Chicago and stuff, right? And I can't, I'm like, he's
sitting there by himself. Go say hi.
He ends up talking to him for like 30 minutes.
I swear. I could have, I could have
murdered his wife at or his daughter at that point and he
wouldn't have cared. You know, he would have been
like, oh, I'll look away, you know, because he was just in
heaven. He'd never met somebody like
that before. So it's just such a moment for
him. Pretty cool.
About the only cool moment for me the whole week.
Yeah, it was stressful for everybody.
Yeah, it was a stressful week. Sorry to sorry to remind you of
that one. No, no, not at all.
It's all part of it. So of course we lost Mr. Moody,
I think last year or 2023 maybe. It it was in 2024.
Oh no. Excuse me, 2023.
Yeah, well, they all blur ever since COVID.
It's like this one BLOB of time since COVID, truly.
But yeah, it's obviously sad losing anybody right now and
we're losing way too many people, but.
Jim Moody was a big one, So Moody Rabbits ended in 9796.
While it really just, you know, extended itself into Moody
Rabbit Hollingsworth right. So we, we felt that adding the
architectural component to our practice was going to be
something that would round us out, get, you know, fill in a
whole sector that we weren't really taking advantage of.
I was really interested in it. I had gone, yeah, go and taking
a bunch of classes in architectural lighting and I was
hot to do it. And some of my clients were
hiring me to do, you know, houses or restaurants that they
owned. And so I, I thought I knew what
I was doing. But I had a friend from my
Chicago days that was who is now living in LA, Dawn
Hollingsworth, who was a bona fide architectural lighting
designer. And so we managed to get her to
join us and did that for a few years, really trying to grow the
architectural side of things, which.
It was an interesting period of time too, because it was sort of
when like this arc attainment thing started when so many like
especially corporate things we're we're adding automated
lighting or color change technology or whatever into
their retail environments or into their sometimes even
conference rooms and offices and stuff like that.
Exactly. Exactly.
But bridges were starting to be lit and and all kinds of things.
So that's. Right, that's right.
LE DS were just beginning to, you know, rear their heads so
that there was, you know, color changing possible without a
whole lot of external technology on them.
Yeah. So yeah, it was a good time to
be getting into that. We had one client, Gameworks,
which was, you know, it like a big nightclub, restaurant gaming
chain that was really good for us.
And it was exactly what you just described.
So we did that. And then moving along, we we saw
a friend of ours, Lisa Passamante Green, who was, you
know, kind of a competitor in the architectural lighting side,
but she also had a firm grip on the theme park.
And, and she was suddenly left without her staff who had gone
off and began working with somebody else.
And we were lending her staff. At this point.
We had, you know, 15 or 20 people in our office and we
thought, Lisa, why don't you just join us and then you can
have, you know, a little bit of safety in the entertainment side
and so forth, you know, kind of protecting the overall
enterprise. And so she did.
And so that was, that was when we, we decided we couldn't add
another name to the list. So we we called it Visual
Terrain. Yeah.
I remember that change. So was that set up like like a
collective or or like a partnership or what was sort of
the company structure? It it, it was a partnership and
you know, we were all kind of in charge of our own little sector,
but we spilled over. I could do architectural work.
Anybody could do anything they wanted to, but that partners
brought in the work and our compensation was more or less
tied to the the clients and the income that we were able to
bring in. But the as a collective, we were
paying the salaries of everyone and the any, any, anything else
that we needed in order to run business.
Yeah, that makes sense. So I did that for, you know,
between 91 when I started with, with Jim and 2010 when I left.
So there was like 20 years, yeah, of doing that.
And I just decided I wanted to concentrate on the TV side.
I didn't really want any of the other corporate responsibilities
that, you know, that I had and, you know, sharing expenses with
all the other sectors as well. I just really wanted a few
years, you know, that kind of the fourth quarter of my career
to run things on a slightly simpler level.
So I did that. I brought one employee with me
and and just kept it, you know, lean and mean.
Yeah. And that's you today still.
So you're. You're today that one employee
left for for Disney about five years into the process.
And so right now I'm, I'm doing it entirely on my own.
If I need to support help, I just hire people in buy the job,
which is a much simpler way for me to operate.
Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm happy
doing it the way I well. You're not in a, you're not in a
growth mode, like you're not out there trying to fight everybody
to bring in every account you can and stuff.
So you don't need a bunch of employees, right?
You know, So it makes a lot of sense what what you've done and
what you're doing. And, and I like it.
I like it a lot. So, you know, one of the one of
the things that you would know better than so many people is
just the general evolution of lighting for TV, for music on
TV, for live events on TV. And I mean, obviously cameras,
obviously going from, you know, stationary lights to moving
lights and going from moving lights to better moving lights
and, and better moving lights to LEDs.
But aside from that, like as far as the style of lighting and and
the the skill set involved and all of that, has that evolved as
well? Well, AB absolutely.
I, you know, I think that since the 90s when this really began
till the, the present day, I think that the lighting has
gotten a lot more cinematic. I think that, you know, the
lighting designers and the and, and the lighting consultants,
the TV lighting consultants are much more tied into a cinematic
kind kind of look. And the cameras allow us to do
that in order to make things look a lot more interesting and
not quite so not quite so bland as they might have been in the
90s when the cameras needed that much more light.
And I think the style was, you know, a lot of the lot of the
directors of photography that would work on.
Rock. Videos were from the commercial
world where everything is, you know, or in those days fairly
flat, fairly even to, you know, these days when everybody is
looking at the most interesting cinematography and wanting to
transfer that to to a rock show when when it's appropriate.
So I think in in that respect. And that's something that, you
know, kind of speaks to me as well.
So when I speak to students, I try to, you know, help them
understand it's not about a traditional look anymore.
Somebody, I was just attending a webinar the other day with a
cinematographer and somebody posed a question about soft
light and what is soft light? An ineffective way, an
uninteresting way to light people in in today's day and
age. And the, the DP said, and I
totally agreed with him. It's all about where the light
comes from, how you control the light, how you control the
shadows. I talk an awful lot about shadow
management, you know, when I, when I teach students and, and
so I think understanding that developing your eye, I think
that's really what's come a long way since since the early days.
It's no longer just a matter of is there enough light, but how
do you use? Light, yeah, what about what
about AI? Is, is AI having any impact yet
on lighting for television? Like is AI doing any of the
analysis on how much light, how little light you know, how
things are going to need to be done, or is that all still done
by the lighting designer and you?
Well, I'd be curious to know if anybody else is using it that
way. I'm not.
I haven't really seen the tools yet.
I know Vectorworks has some tools that will allow a set
designer to, to say, OK, do do this set in a modern, modern
way, do this in an Italian, you know, Renaissance way and, and
the AI will simply just change it all and suddenly it's a it's,
it's a new look. I haven't seen anything like
that. I mean, there's certainly a lot
of computerization when you think of what we can do with
previz these days, but I haven't really seen anything that does
either calculations or design itself.
Yeah. Are you using AI at all yet?
Like for any kind of even just fixture mapping or writing or.
Anything. I've begun using AI for a little
bit for writing, you know, I try not to rely on it, but sometimes
I just want to think of something, you know, a different
way and I'll see what I And I've just really started doing this,
yeah, You know, playing around with it for a little while and
trying to understand what it can do.
So I've. I'm fascinated by it.
I'm going to get more into it. I am completely in favor of it.
I don't want it to replace people, but I think if it's used
properly it won't. It'll just make us all better.
Yeah, I think there's certainly an aspect of that where it does
make us all better. But I do think that ultimately
it's going to replace many, many, many things.
And how that happens and how eloquent it is and or how rough
it is when that happens, we'll see.
I just think it's another as big as it is because I think this is
probably the biggest technological shift that that
man has has witnessed in in since the beginning of time.
Maybe fire would be the other one, but but I think that that
this is that impactful and it's going to be a wait and see kind
of thing. It depends on so many people
doing the right things, you know, all these, you know,
trillion dollar companies thinking in our best interests
and stuff. And that doesn't always work.
And but I just, I see a lot of opportunities for it to simplify
and streamline a lot of jobs. You know, when, when I think of
the lines of code that you have to write to program an MA3
console these days, some of it is just not work that an LD
who's been being paid a lot of money should be sitting there
doing like, I mean, that stuff that AI can take.
And that's where I use it the most is like, sometimes somebody
will send me a document that's 10 pages of a lot of the same
fluff and I'll just feed it into something and say, you know,
explain this to me like I'm like, I'm a 6th grader.
Not just summarize it, but sometimes it's explain this to
me like I'm I'm an idiot. And because I am and, and you
get really great results from stuff like that, you know, like
it does a very, very good job with stuff like that.
Sometimes I just say, Hey, take all this information and put it
into a, an 8 by 4 table with this and this and this and, and
boom, all of the information is laid out exactly how you want
it. And it's just like, I'm very
visual. So a lot of those types of tools
help me a lot. But I agree, I've done that too.
I've I've recently had to read some legal documents and some of
it was just, you know, gibberish to me.
And it's amazing how AI can just, you know, break it down,
give you examples. So, you know, as as long as you
can trust it, you know, you don't want AI to say I think we
should launch the nuclear missile.
Yeah, Yeah. That's a great example because
you know it will at some point, you know, it would like at some
point, I think we'll all be guided by AI to a certain extent
in, in our decision making process, whether that's driving
or whether that's flying an airplane or whether that's, you
know, the guy in charge of the nuclear button or you know,
whatever it is. Or medical analysis.
That's a big one. Well, but that's one that I'm
super in favor of. Like, you know, I've had friends
who have done these robotic surgeries for for like
pancreatic cancer and stuff like that very successfully.
And so if you ask me, do I want surgery performed by a robot or
by a human, I'll pick a robot every time because humans make
mistakes. Robots don't, you know, as long
as they're programmed properly. And you would think that they
are by now. I think medical AI is going to
be probably one of the most exciting and incredible areas of
AI in the next 5 or 6 years. Like I, I predict, you know, a
cure to cancer, Alzheimer's, all kinds of really, really big
things that have been plaguing us for many, many years and with
no real success as far as cures or, or even, you know, pathways
to cures. So because of the ability to
research, like that's where AI comes in so effectively and
efficiently, as in research, it can like let's say you have to
go research a project because you're lighting a, you know, a
15th century act or something, whatever it is, and you need to
do research on that period. You know, AI can do in 10
minutes what you could do in in two weeks.
So that's the incredible thing. That's what I love about it so
much. But yeah, I mean, it's common.
It's just going to be interesting.
Like I think for now, there are commercial roadblocks that are
keeping companies like MA Lighting from from putting AI in
consoles. I think that there's going to
going to be, you know, sort of a slow move into that.
And then all of a sudden everybody all at once, because
once somebody sort of cracks the seal open and says, hey, look,
you know, because right now designers are going to fight it,
especially people who are in their living programming
consoles are going to fight it. And, and so they should, I mean,
you know, you don't want to, you don't want your rates to go down
or to lose days or anything because AI is doing it instead
of you, right, Right. Exactly, exactly.
But I mean, can you, can you then just say to the MA, give me
a stone's cue? Yeah, yeah.
That's the other thing is, is the whole copyright and who owns
the the IP of all of the stuff. But that's the other problem.
And you can, you can like I use the music one quite often or one
of the music ones called Suno. And in SUNO, you can say, you
know, I want something kind of jazzy, but a little bit Earth,
wind, fire and and, you know, a little bit of this and a little
bit of that boom, you get that style now.
They're not copying songs, but they're certainly, they're
certainly pulling some of that styling into it, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, Suno, the music
one, their new the iPhone app anyways, I don't know if it does
it on the Android one, but the iPhone app, you can hum a few
notes into it or a few bars into it and then say, now create a
reggae song around that, that little melody that I just gave
you and make it in, you know, whatever beats per minute and in
this style with this type of a singer and you've got the song.
I mean, it's just incredible how.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, as much fun as that is,
and I guess it gives us, you know, gives the world more
variety of music, Does it take something away from it does now?
We don't need humans to do that. Yeah, I know.
Of course it does. Of course it does.
Like it's. Yeah.
So that's some of the stuff where I wonder where it's all
gonna go because, you know, of course musicians are gonna push
back on all of that stuff. But our audiences, like, I don't
know. I don't know where it all goes.
And then if, if audiences accept AI music, well, what happens to
live music now? Because there's such a massive
need for and and passion and desire for live music right now
and market for it. You know, if music is suddenly
AI robots, you know you're not going to have unless it's just a
big video screen with cool visuals and and you're listening
to music in a crowd with a video screen like that sounds awfully
boring to me so. Well, I'll tell you, in 100
years, they're going to be listening to this podcast and
probably laughing at us for knowing so little about.
What you idiots? Going to be commonplace in a.
100 years. Well, by the way, it wouldn't be
the first time I screwed up a prediction because you know,
COVID I, I created a, a phrase called day 91.
I said this is going to be a nine 90 day problem and what do
you want your business to look like in day 91?
And, you know, people threw that at me for about the next 380
days or something. You know, it's like, yeah, day
91, huh? Yeah.
Well you just said it out loud. I think everyone else thought it
was just going to be a 90 day thing too.
Yeah, well, I say everything out loud that most people just think
and keep quietly because they're smart enough not to say it.
Yes, yes. So show light.
Tell me. Tell me about show light.
Show light, from what I understand is sort of get
together of of these really great minds of the lighting
business. Yes, I'm, it was started, you
know, maybe 25 years ago by some Brits and they, they do it once
every four years. It's kind of a convocation in a
different city. They've been to several cities
in Europe. They did one in New York but I
think they they much prefer doing it in Europe and they get
people sort of like a Ted talk. For lighting designers.
The format is 3/3. Lighting designers are on stage
each give a 20 minute presentation with or without
visual, but most have some sort of visual support.
Then those 3 speakers stay on stage and they take questions
for about 1/2 an hour and this happens and then there's a break
for food and there's some manufacturers that have tables
that you can visit and then you go back and you do it again.
So they bring lighting designers from all walks of lighting
design and try to get as many different, what they call them
presenting a paper. But you know, it's this
presentation on so many different things.
So it's been. Directors, directors of
photography, it's been theatrical lighting designers
that have done in, you know, big Broadway musicals, but in in a
diner, you know, rock'n'roll people, BBC lighting directors,
etcetera, etcetera. Less architectural, but there is
a little little bit of that. And somebody from the
architectural world wanted to propose a paper.
They very well could be accepted.
So it's three days of this at the end of every day.
The first day everybody's matched up with a manufacturer
and they take you out to a fabulous dinner somewhere in the
city that you're in. So far, the ones that I've been
to have been outside Prague in a little village about two hours
out in the Czech Republic mountains.
And I went and I went to one in Florence, Italy, which was
great. They took a long break because
of the pandemic. And so they're just doing a new
one this year in Dijon, France, couple hours out of Paris.
And so I'm going. And so, and then there one, one
of the three nights, there's a big gala reception where
everybody gets together and people give a few speeches and
you are encouraged to change your location from table to
table to speak to certain people.
Like if your napkin has a certain color sticker on the
bottom of it, you're the one who is chosen when they ring the
bell to go to another table. So everybody gets to talk to
everyone else. There are a lot of lighting
celebrities there, Broadway people, rock'n'roll people, TV,
etcetera, etcetera. So I think it's a learning
experience. It's fun.
You get to go to a really interesting city.
They haven't, they break early one day and take you on a tour
or the city. And so it's just really, and so
it who, who? Runs it.
Is it like a not-for-profit or something?
Yeah, there was a show light committee that was based in in
the UK and a few of the founders retired or passed on in the last
few years. So there's a new group of
people, but it's mostly a consortium of five or six
organizers that are based mostly in the Uka little bit in the US.
And people just put it all together from a finding the
venue standpoint to selecting all of the people that do the
presentations. And so you can imagine.
So you get selected every year. You're getting or not every
year, but you're getting selected.
You don't just raise your hand and say I want to come.
No, no, you, oh, you you have to buy a ticket.
You OK? Yeah, yeah.
So you can go to their website which is I think show light
hell, I'm not saying. You, I'm saying you, you Jeff
Rabbit. I was.
I was invited to to do a presentation last time.
This time I decided that I didn't have anything really new
to contribute more than I did last time, so.
You're going just as an audience.
I'm just going as an audience member, a punter.
Yeah, Exactly, exactly. Interesting and.
Is it mostly students and stuff who are in the audience or?
No, no. There are some students.
There are some students, but it really runs the full spectrum of
student to geezer. And how how many people are in
the audience? 3 or 400?
Oh wow. Yeah, interesting.
I'd say probably closer to 300. And yeah, I mean all the
manufacturers, all the kingpins of the manufacturing, you know,
companies, it's always sponsored by one of the big manufacturers.
So this year I believe it's being sponsored by Juliet
because they're they're in France.
And when we were in the, the Czech Republic, it was Roe Bay,
of course, you know, and, and then Clay Paki when we were in
Italy. So, so you know that they sort
of inject the flavor of their, you know, their own style and
their company into the the overall event, but all the
others are there as well. Interesting.
And then you know the, the little lobby manufacturing
tables, manufacturers tables are much more intimate than you
would get at LDI, which is so, so much busier.
So you have good one-on-one time, you're only out there for
about 20 minutes and then you're back inside the auditorium for
another set of presentations after they have applied you with
food and drink during the break. It sounds fun, I'm going to have
to check it out probably. Not in May.
Yeah, go to showlight.org and, you know, give it a try.
Yeah, it's a Dijon France, but wow, it's fun.
Sounds sounds amazing. And the other thing that I
wanted to get to before we leave because we're getting pretty
long in the tooth here, you and me talkers.
So I know that you've been big on, on helping people, not only
through education, where, where you've been extremely giving of
your time. You're, you're always involved
in these things where you're either speaking or you're, you
know, you're, you're teaching somewhere something.
So it doesn't shock me that you're going to show like,
because it's another one of those types of events.
But I know you also get involved in more structured charities and
things too, right? Yes, yes.
And there there are a couple that I really love.
Feeding America is a national organized food bank that has
contributed a lot to all of the the United States based
disasters over many, many years. They were very instrumental in
helping out along with, you know, World Central Kitchen and
so forth when we had the recent wildfires here in Los Angeles
that were so devastating. Food Bank, which does things on
a much more local level here in in Los Angeles for the many
homeless people that, you know, really benefit greatly from
their generosity and outreach. And then there's also on North
Hollywood, the North Hollywood Food Bank that I occasionally go
in and, and do some cooking for. Oh, wow, that's cool.
Good for you. Yeah, Yeah.
So I, you know, for a couple. Of years when my son was really
young, I used to take him and my business partner at the time and
his two kids and we'd throw them in the back of the pickup truck.
And we'd go to one of the churches, would make Turkey
dinners in a box. And we'd go load up with like,
you know, 2-3 hundred of these Turkey dinners in the back of
the truck. And the kids would just jump out
and go door to door and hand out all these Turkey dinners.
And we'd drive around, you know, I don't know what you call them,
but less advantage neighborhoods or whatever.
And you know, they just knock on the door and say, hey, do you
want Thanksgiving dinner? And they'd be like, Oh my God,
yes. And you know, they'd they'd.
And I loved it. I always said, I want to get way
more involved in this stuff. And then life grabs you and you
get busy and of course, but you know, I say if everybody does it
when they can, then then we've. Got it much more covered.
And, you know, food insecurity is just heartbreaking in this
country where so many have so much and so many don't that, you
know, I think we can even score a little bit.
Yeah. No, it's so true.
You know it's Tony. Robbins I think it's a bad rap
from a lot of people in our industry because supposedly he,
he walks away without fully paying the bill occasionally,
but but he's done so much for feeding, you know, people and
like he's, I can't remember what number he's at now, but
something like 100 million meals.
You know, he's got like this mission to to hand out a billion
meals and he's like over 100 million or something.
And I'm probably way off on all these numbers, but it's just an
enormous number that you're going like really that many.
And so, you know, he's constantly.
Collecting money from. His billionaire friends and
stuff to pay for this stuff. And, you know, it's hard to
believe, like you said in, you know, as much money as there is
flying around right now, it's hard to believe that people are
starving, you know, that people don't know where they're getting
their next meal from. So.
Yeah. And how awful is that?
Yeah, it's always an incredibly. Important thing so.
Thank you for being so charitable and taking care of
some of that stuff. Yeah, yeah.
And we're talking about it. We're at two hours, so I think
we got. To go, but I I appreciate you so
much, Jeff. I could sit and talk to you and
listen to you for hours on end. I, I think you're one of the
nicer people in our industry. I'm super glad to to have you as
a friend and to be able to talk to you occasionally and love
seeing you at trade shows and stuff.
And and I'm just glad you're still working and, you know,
you're not like we don't have to set up a GoFundMe for Jeff
Rabbits. You know, that would suck.
Yeah, well, thanks, Marcel. I mean, you're, you're great to
talk to as well. And, and a really great
interviewer. I.
Enjoyed this a lot, and yeah, I I, I've enjoyed all your other
podcasts as well. Oh well, thank you so much.
We're going to have to do it again though, because we didn't
even talk about Morpheus. And you've been the most loyal
Morpheus user of any Morpheus user, I think, ever.
And and so, you know, that's a whole story unto itself.
So we'll save it for the next one.
Cool. So thank you.
And and you have a great rest of your week.
You too. You too.
Thanks, friends. I'll be well.
All right. See ya.