Awkward Phantom

When I think of Halloween, I imagine children dressed in a wide variety of costume and prancing eagerly from house to house in the neighborhood asking for candy.  This year, I was not able to witness that as I was working at YCPAC.  What could draw almost 200 people to the theatre on Halloween night?  How about The Phantom of the Opera?  This, however, was far from the Phantom that most people imagine.

Publicity photo of Jonathan Best

We showed the 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney.  It is a fantastic film that has such a wonderful believability to it even though it is black and white with nothing but a music soundtrack in it.  No wonder so many people came to see it on the big screen once again.

There is a large twist that I have not yet mentioned.  We turned off the soundtrack.  Not to make it a truly silent film though.  We placed our Steinway Grand Piano on the stage next to the screen and had a local piano professional play along with the film.  What a grand (no pun intended) idea!  Fun part was the pianist that we hired was Jonathan Best.  He is a very talented man and did a great job, but what came out was not quite what I would have anticipated.

Pic from the lighting booth of the show.

Along with the piano, he used a pair of what I assume were horse hooves, a small xylophone, and a few other things that I didn't recognize, not to mention his own voice at one point.  He was described to me before I met him as a very odd and unpredictable individual.  That was only too true as I witnessed a very strange cacophony of sounds that, while matching with the movie well, caught me by surprise.  At times they were comical when I don't think they were intended to be, but they were well executed and made it an experience to remember.  Like I said, it was very well performed and the audience really enjoyed it.  They laughed at times and gave him a standing ovation in the end.

'Til Next Time,


Matthew

The GMO!

My days are never boring.  It is true that I have days that are less than exciting, but, anymore, they are never boring.  A few of my less exciting days recently included running the lights for the YC Instrumental and Jazz concerts.  While I love running lights, those were a bit more on the dull side of lighting in a performance.

The Diamonds

October 27th brought The Glenn Miller Orchestra and The Diamonds to YCPAC.  That night, as often happens lately, I was the Lighting Director for both groups.  The Diamonds performed first that night and were honestly a bit more difficult, lighting wise, than the orchestra.  I should preface this by saying that most groups send an advance notice with information about their needs for stage set-up, lights, sound, and anything else they may need for the night.  We got two advances that night, one for each group, and they both had a one sentence description for lighting needs.  Very basic and easy stuff.  At sound check, both groups wanted lights to be as they would during the show so that they could let me know if anything needed to be tweeked.  Again, very basic.  During the Diamonds sound check I was handed a set list with their lighting needs which was made up mostly of information for spotlights.  Their was one addition that threw a wrench in the mix and that was a section of one song where they needed nothing but blue lights washing down on them.  Since that was not in  the advance, it wasn't set up and I had to run out to the catwalk to get it going.  It only takes three to five minutes to do so no big deal at all, except that as soon as I was handed the set list they were asking to run that specific lighting cue to make sure it worked smoothly.  Um, excuse me, its going to take a few.  Other than that, their portion of the show was smooth and looked wonderful.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra 2012

The Glenn Miller Orchestra had no sudden changes in their lighting needs and all went great.  Even though they were playing live with the Diamonds during the first half of the show, they were not the focus so lighting then was more of a background idea with just enough from the top so that they could read their music.  After intermission, it was their turn to play alone and I had a little more creative control.  Above the band, we had placed some colors to add some highlights depending on the songs mood.  I used ambers, reds, and blues alone or in a combination to change the view on the stage and really accent the song.

There were two things about The Glenn Miller Orchestra that made this a really special show for me.  I grew up listening to them along with a lot of the other swing bands of that era so I knew every song that was performed that night and could more easily plan appropriate color schemes.  That made it look incredible.  The second thing was a bit more personal.  Listening to these bands as a young kid was partially due to a bit of influence from my grandparents on my mothers side.  That was their golden age of music and my grandmother used to have in depth conversations with me about the history of almost every player in the bands.  She had this amazing way of hearing a recording and knowing who the sax or trumpet or whatever player's name was just by hearing a few seconds of their playing.  Then she would tell me some history of the player and it just amazed me.  I used to love sitting and talking with her about music.  So getting to hear the Glenn Miller Orchestra, even though all of those old players that she new so well are no longer with us, was such a treat that quite a few times it brought tears to my eyes.  I love you and miss you Grandma!

'Til next time!


Matthew