#306 - Steve Terry - Be someone people want to work with.

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Be someone that people want to
work with.

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Like when you go to be an
assistant to a Broadway lighting

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designer, it's kind of assumed
that you know the technical

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aspects of the job.
And I'm not talking about adopt

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an obsequious approach here.
I'm saying be somebody that

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people enjoy working with.
And at the end of the day, on

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the meal break, you get invited
to come and have dinner with us.

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Right.
That, yeah, I love that that.

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Is the connections that is going
to make your career, the network

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that you're going to build.
If you're the greatest genius in

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in in some aspect of, for
instance, video mapping, but

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you're a real asshole, no one's
going to want to work with you.

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So, so don't be don't be too far
out there in terms of self

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promotion.
It'll come to you.

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You don't have to make it happen
in that way, right?

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Hello, and thanks again for
joining me today.

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And so I don't really want to do
a long intro here because I just

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want to get straight to Mr.
Steve Terry, who I remember in

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the early 90s, I made an
appointment to visit one of the

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biggest names in lighting, which
was a company called Production

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Arts.
And at the time I was with

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Martin and probably had nothing
at all if if maybe a little bit

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to offer Production Arts, but I
wanted to try.

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And I was actually a bit
intimidated, but welcomed by

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both John McGraw and Steve
Terry, who I went on to meet

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with following a quick tour of
their shop later on working with

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High End.
I worked closely with Steve on a

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lot of projects and I was also
there during the sale to PRG.

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And so I've always had a high
degree of respect for this man

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and also for Production Arts.
And so I'm thrilled to have him

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on the on the show today.
So although a bio probably isn't

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necessary, I'll share one
anyways.

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With more than 50 years in the
industry, Steve Terry has been a

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driving force in entertainment,
lighting, technology and also

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standards.
As Director of Standards and

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Industry Relations at ETC, he's
helped shape global protocols

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like DMX 512, RDM, and ACN and
contributed to the National

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Electrical Code NEC panel since
1994.

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Previously, Steve LED production
arts lighting engineering major

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project projects on Broadway,
NBC Studios, Disney, and top Las

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Vegas resorts.
USITT Fellow and ETCP Certified

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Electrician Steve continues to
innovate and influence the

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future of lighting.
So let's welcome Steve Terry to

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the podcast.
Hi Marcel.

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Thanks for inviting me.
Thank you for coming.

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It's it's certainly an honour to
have you on here.

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You're, you know, as I was
saying in the intro, I started

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sort of late compared to you, I
guess in the industry.

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I kind of started in 1991, fell
into Martin with no real

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background other than I had been
working for a dealer in Canada

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selling lighting and sound
systems into installs.

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But I certainly wasn't a very
technical guy.

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I was just a sales guy, guitar
player kind of guy who who fell

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into the lighting business
somehow.

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And so when I eventually got an
opportunity to go into

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production arts, it was like,
you know, you know, the heavens.

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And it was like this music
played and stuff in my head

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anyway.
And and, you know, and I walk

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and I, I meet you and, and I
think John at the same time.

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And honestly, the experience was
as great as I expected.

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You know, just a beautiful shop,
you know, the cleanest shop I

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think to this day I've ever been
in.

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Still systems like crazy.
Everything had a process and a

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system.
Everything was very regimented

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and which shocked me when you
sold to PRG and you know, just a

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really, really super smooth,
well run company that had a

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great reputation for a reason.
Like you guys were the gold

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standard.
Hello and thanks for joining me

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again today for Geezers of Gear.
Two Days Podcast is proudly

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brought to you by ETC.
For 50 years, ETC has made a

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name for itself in much more
than the theatre world.

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ETC.
Lighting, rigging and control

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technology has scaled not only
across the entire globe, but

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also to nearly any building size
and type you could.

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Possibly imagine.
Broadway shows, rock concerts,

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sports stadiums, outdoor parks,
TV studios, convention centers,

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you name it have all trusted
ETC.

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To make their design beautiful
and their spaces safe.

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A big part of that trust comes
from ET CS renowned customer

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support.
The global 24/7 tech support

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team stands behind every ETC
product, whether you're in the

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middle of tech on a high school
theater production or scheduling

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a light show on the facade of an
iconic building.

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ET CS Support has always been
incredibly responsive and

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helpful.
But now employees have even more

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of a personal stake in
maintaining that reputation.

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Company has become 100% employee
owned.

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Each person building the
fixtures, developing the control

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software and picking up support
calls is an owner at ETC.

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Outstanding support, reliable
products, innovative technology.

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This is the foundation of
excellence that ETC.

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Has built over the past. 50
years.

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Yeah.
I mean, I think, you know, it

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was important to us to both John
and myself to you know, have a

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few basic tenants about running
the company, which was, you

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know, provide the, the, the
right gear at a fair price,

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treat our employees well and
support our customers of where

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we need to.
And, and that kind of was the

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foundation of the company.
Yeah, you know, and it well, it

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just seemed like especially in
integration at the time, I'm

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sure rentals was the same, but
but I was more I guess involved

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in the early days with, with
high end and stuff in on the

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integration side.
And the way you guys ran a job

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was just it seemed so much
better than how everybody else

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was doing it.
It was so organized and

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everything had the right color
of Thai wrap and everything had

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the perfect this or perfect
that.

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It just didn't seem like many
mistakes happened because it was

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so well planned, you know?
We tried to do that, but you

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know, I mean, one of the, the
things that let us do that was

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that in the systems installation
business, we weren't in the

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rough and tumble of public
bidding in general.

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Most of the work that we did was
negotiated contracts, right,

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where people wanted our
particular level of expertise.

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Let's not forget back in those
early days, you know, DMX 512

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was black magic, right?
That was new stuff.

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So it, it offered us the
opportunity and we had a good

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team doing it to, to, you know,
to apply some real good project

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management, some innovative
technology, build enough money

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into the job that we could
afford to do it the correct way

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and we wouldn't have to take
shortcuts.

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And that let us work on some,
you know, leading edge projects

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that were indeed very difficult
and high risk, you know, The

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Mirage volcano in Las Vegas.
Being remember it Well, yeah,

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yeah.
So, so, so we were not, we were

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not duking it out for the last
2% of margin in the job and and

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that that that kind of helped
create our reputation as a

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company that that could get it
done in a timely fashion.

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And let's make memories happen.
You know, over the years,

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there's been so many companies
who have forgotten that really

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important thing that you just
said, you know, that the margin

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that you were managed to hold on
to in those jobs enabled you to

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provide that level level of
service.

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And it's, it's so easy to give
away margin and, and you know,

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there've been some notorious
people in our industry who've

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done it so well.
And, but at the end of the day,

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who suffers is the person who's
buying it cheaper really,

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because you're not able to spend
more than you made on the job to

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support the job.
I mean, and some of us, some of

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us have done it for a short
period of time, but you don't

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typically survive if you're
doing that right.

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Yeah.
And that's especially the case

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where you could call the job a
science experiment to begin

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with, right?
You know, when you're doing

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stuff that's never been done
before, you can try to plan it

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as well as you can, but
inevitably there's going to be

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the unexpected.
I mean, that, you know, that

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was.
That's a great story actually

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about The Mirage volcano, which
I'll share with you.

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Guys, please.
Yeah.

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You know that had that had 1000
more than 1000 circuits of

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outdoor dimmed GFCI protected
circuits to to the lighting on

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the volcano, some of it in water
zones, but all of it GFCI

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protected.
We turned that on and not one,

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not one of those thousand
circuits stayed on.

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What?
Why?

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Yeah, First of all, why?
Well, the average run between

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the dimmer rack and the load was
about 800 feet.

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And what happened was that the,
the the capacitance of those

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circuits, those dim circuits
over those 800 foot runs was

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enough to cause the GFC is which
were in the dimmer rack to start

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out with to trip.
And so now you can imagine this

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conversation between myself and
the owner, which was, you know,

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the Steve Wynn organization
saying, guys, I have bad news

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and bad news.
We just turned on the system and

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not one of the circuits is
functional.

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And, you know, this was a moment
at which production arts could

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easily been out of business the
next day.

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Jesus.
Right.

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If they had said, OK, it's your
fault, fix it and it's going,

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it's on you to make it happen.
You know they said, OK, what do

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we have to do to fix it?
And the answer was take every

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one of those 1000 GFCI Breakers
and move them to within 50 feet

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of the load in outdoor
enclosures on the volcano, out

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of the gym.
Exactly.

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And it was in the days when they
were, you know, they realized

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that they were developing new
stuff and that there was risk

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involved.
Yeah.

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OK.
You know, they hired the best

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people they could.
Thankfully, we were one of them.

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I'm glad we were, but you know
when it went upside down, we

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were all learning something and
they didn't turn around and say

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this is your fault and you're
going to pay.

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Yeah, You know, this was our
science experiment and we're

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going to together make it right.
That's that's an unheard of

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situation.
It really is Never happened, you

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know?
Yeah.

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So, I mean, did that cause an
intense couple of days, though,

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where you and John sat in an
office and went, what are we

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going to do if they come back to
us and blame us for this?

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We're screwed.
To be honest with you, it never

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came up.
It was so they were so focused

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on getting the thing done and
not they were not focused on

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retribution to the vendors.
That was secondary to we have a

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lot of money on the line, we got
to make this thing work.

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What do we have to do?
Did that Did that delay the

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opening or anything though?
No, it no, I mean, you know,

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they're just fantastic
electrical contracting resources

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on the job.
It just happened, you know, and,

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and, and you know another thing,
you know, when that project was

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constructed, you know, there was
no show control system on the

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project.
So at one point in a, in a, in a

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meeting, I said, guys, let me
understand something.

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How's this thing going to work?
We're going to do a show like

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twice an hour.
What's going to start the show,

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What's going to tell the
lighting to go?

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What's going to put the steam
online and what's going to

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handle the fireworks?
And everybody kind of looks at

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their shoes and said, well, we
don't know.

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So we sat in the room.
I, I remember standing in front

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00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:01,480
of a whiteboard and drawing out
the elements of the show control

227
00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:06,800
system and saying, OK, the
lighting console can do these 12

228
00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:09,960
functions, so we'll take those
on.

229
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,280
Well, you know, we'll runtime
code at the lighting system and

230
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,600
we'll decide when these things
are going to happen.

231
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:23,840
But you know, this was before,
you know, a show control vendor

232
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:27,000
would have been a sort of a
standard part of the project.

233
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:30,720
The project just kind of
randomly came together and it's

234
00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:33,920
just amazing that it was as
successful.

235
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:36,200
But you were.
It sounds like you were building

236
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,280
the plane in the air too, You
know, You absolutely were.

237
00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:42,680
That's wild.
And you know, the, and I guess

238
00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:49,120
1, you know, one of the reasons
that that we maintained a very

239
00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:53,680
long and very good relationship
with the Wynn organization

240
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:59,280
subsequent to that project was
that, you know, we were kind of

241
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:03,040
the people that stood up in the
room and said, hey, guys, we got

242
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,320
a problem here, this and this
and this are missing.

243
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:09,280
And I think we can solve it.
Let's sit in the room and work

244
00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:11,160
it out.
And here's how we can make it

245
00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:16,320
happen.
And that led to a lot of other

246
00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:27,320
projects starting after, after
the, the volcano moving on to

247
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:30,480
the Fremont Street Experience.
Yeah.

248
00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:36,160
And, and to Bellagio.
And you know, so this is was

249
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:39,320
many, many years and millions of
dollars worth you guys.

250
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:40,880
Opened an office in Vegas,
didn't you?

251
00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:43,360
We never did.
Oh, OK, we did.

252
00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:44,600
We had.
An office.

253
00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:50,120
We had an office in California
and never and in London but

254
00:16:50,120 --> 00:16:53,480
never in Las.
Vegas, right, Right. 2020

255
00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:55,560
Hindsight probably we should
have.

256
00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:56,920
Done that, yeah.
It might have been easier.

257
00:16:57,560 --> 00:16:59,480
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah.

258
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,600
Well, I mean, people, you know,
now with remote companies and

259
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,520
stuff, people don't really think
that, you know, we need an

260
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:08,920
office in Vegas or whatever.
But when you're doing jobs of

261
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:11,680
that size and like you said,
you're designing them while

262
00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:16,280
while they're happening, you
know, it's funny because what

263
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,079
the story you just told me and
stuff reminds me of the of the

264
00:17:19,079 --> 00:17:22,400
Tyson quote where he said, yeah,
everybody's got a plan until you

265
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:25,599
get punched in the face.
And it's true.

266
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,480
It's so true.
And, and to be honest with you,

267
00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:34,680
a lot of the success of the
projects and the the fact that

268
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:38,680
the, the reason we got
subsequent projects was I spent

269
00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:41,200
a lot of time out there
developing relationships with

270
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:45,000
the people, you know, Yeah, in
the contracting world and in the

271
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:47,440
owner world.
Yeah, yeah, it.

272
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:52,760
Was a very it was a very, very
good time for production arts.

273
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:55,840
Yeah, No, I remember it just
seemed like every job you did

274
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,160
was enormous, and then the next
one was even bigger.

275
00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,040
You know, it was just like these
crazy projects, one after the

276
00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:02,840
other.
Yeah.

277
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:04,520
And.
And again, all of them getting

278
00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:08,040
done beautifully and, and I'm
sure there were problems behind

279
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:11,280
the scenes because as you said,
things were complicated back

280
00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:12,600
then, you know?
Absolutely.

281
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:17,800
I mean, and, and you know what
it it, it was solving problems

282
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:20,800
that you never thought you would
have to do.

283
00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:27,520
For instance, you know, we did a
project in Anaheim, you can

284
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:33,280
guess where and, and oh by the
way, we need a submersible DMX

285
00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:37,720
512 data cable.
It's going to go underwater and

286
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:41,600
it's going to work for 10 years
where we're going to get that.

287
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:47,880
So those kinds of, you know,
discovery and then solution

288
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:54,520
providing along the way kind of
what we did as a company.

289
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:58,920
But some of those things, would
they be solved by software that

290
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:02,720
has still or that has since come
about, like for example the

291
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:08,200
electrical problem at Mirage.
Would that not be an issue today

292
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,240
based on design software that we
have now?

293
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:13,360
No, it still would when.
You're dealing with power and

294
00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:18,080
capacitance and circuit length.
You still got to have the GFCI

295
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:20,600
be close to the load.
Yeah, right.

296
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:24,160
There are certain kind of laws
of physics, right?

297
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:29,280
It would be easier now because
we don't have dimmers driving

298
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:30,120
the.
Load we have.

299
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:32,160
Dimmers in.
The fixtures, right?

300
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:35,920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So why was it designed with the

301
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:40,200
the so far away?
Well.

302
00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,720
Because we never thought, you
know, nobody ever nobody, nobody

303
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:49,640
had a GFCI dimmer.
So phase control dimmer with the

304
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:52,160
GFCI built into it was a new
thing.

305
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:55,280
We turned to.
Our friends at Lighting Methods

306
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,520
and said we'd like you to build
this a GFCI dimmer and they said

307
00:19:59,520 --> 00:20:03,800
well OK we'll just put it a GFCI
breaker in the dimmer and off we

308
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,440
go.
Yeah, yeah.

309
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:12,800
Then it got complicated, yeah.
Then evolution of that problem

310
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,600
when we when we when we did
Bellagio, same thing occurred

311
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,320
because not the same failure,
but the same requirement.

312
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:27,440
And the consultant on the job,
Bob Barbagallo designed a very

313
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:33,520
beautiful solution to this GFCI
circuit length problem using

314
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:38,800
shielded twisted pair cable on
the branch circuit wiring to

315
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:43,560
reduce leakage current.
So these things evolved, but at

316
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:47,480
the time of the Volcano project,
nobody had ever done a GFCI

317
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:49,960
dimmer.
Interesting.

318
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,600
So, you know, you've been doing
this a while.

319
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:59,560
How what, what inspired you?
How did you get started in this

320
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:01,600
business?
I believe it was back in

321
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,160
probably the 70s, right?
Early 70s.

322
00:21:04,360 --> 00:21:10,120
Well, my first job was as the
production electrician for the

323
00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:14,800
Dance Theatre of Harlem.
And interestingly enough, Gary

324
00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,880
fails and I, who was, oh wow, my
oldest colleague in this

325
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:22,120
business, we've worked together
for 54 years, right?

326
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:25,800
And Gary's retired now, right?
Because I know he's sold.

327
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:27,440
I know he's sold City
Theatrical.

328
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:30,160
Sold.
Yeah, about a year ago, sold

329
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:36,040
City Theatrical.
And I was happy to, at USITT

330
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:39,440
this year present him with the
ESTA Lifetime technical.

331
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,400
Oh, that's awesome.
That's great.

332
00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:42,800
Fantastic.
Yeah.

333
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,760
Well deserved.
Well deserved.

334
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:46,440
That guy.
Brilliant guy.

335
00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:51,040
Yeah.
So we, you know, in 1971, you

336
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:54,840
know, we were on tour together,
doing everything, driving the

337
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,440
truck, building the Power
Distribution.

338
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,400
Oh, we need a projection
dissolve system.

339
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:04,480
Let's build 1 because we were
too inexperienced to know that

340
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,360
you didn't do certain things
right.

341
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:09,680
Yeah.
We were effectively young kids.

342
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,240
You know, we were in our teens
at that point.

343
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:13,440
You.
Know had you gone to school

344
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:17,480
though for this?
No, I, I, I, I, I had, I had

345
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:23,440
been involved with it, with
electronics since my father at

346
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,760
five years old said to me, I bet
you'd like to learn how to use a

347
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:30,160
soldering iron.
So there was kind of a, you

348
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,560
know, a long, a long background
of.

349
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:37,040
Of.
Of working with electronic

350
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:42,160
systems but now we were touring
you know around the world and

351
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:52,320
that that went on from for me
from 1971 to 1970 five.

352
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:59,720
And then I, I went to my first
and only semester of college at

353
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:05,720
City University in New York and
met Peter Forward, my professor.

354
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,640
I, I said, oh, look, a
stagecraft class.

355
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:11,080
I bet I could get 3 easy credits
for that.

356
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:17,720
And, and the professor, it was
Peter Forward and John Mcgraw's

357
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,160
partner in production arts
lighting.

358
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:28,920
So I went, I left Dance Theater
of Harlem in 1975 and went to

359
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,520
work for Production arts.
And we were just moving into

360
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:39,200
electronic dimming and control.
And that, that was kind of my,

361
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:42,600
my, my next step into the
business.

362
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:48,600
And I, I, I kind of got my first
job on Broadway in a strange

363
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:54,040
way, because I had a, an
acquaintance named Gary

364
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:59,000
Chevette, who was a local 1
electrician and he had been

365
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,520
working on a, a season that the
Dance Theatre of Harlem did on

366
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,880
Broadway at the amphitheater as
a local stagehand.

367
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,400
And he was a production
electrician on this wonderful

368
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,960
new show called a chorus line at
the Schubert Theatre.

369
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,360
And so I heard kind of through
the Grapevine, wow, there's a,

370
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,360
there's a new lighting system,
new computer controlled lighting

371
00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:28,760
system on a chorus line.
And I said, well, I got to go

372
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:33,680
take a look at this, right?
So I, I went to the theater to

373
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,320
see Gary's, find him and find
out what was going on with this

374
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:44,960
thing, which was the first ever
computer controlled system on

375
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,040
Broadway.
And this was a product called

376
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:56,240
the LS 8 designed by Gordon
Pearlman and manufactured by

377
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:06,520
Electronics Diversified.
So the day I go to visit Gary at

378
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,800
the theater to look at this
system, a big problem has

379
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,760
occurred.
Someone servicing the system

380
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:20,480
applied 110 Volt circuit to the
control common between the

381
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:25,920
dimmer and the dimmer rack and
the and the console and blew up

382
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,680
most of the console and there
was only one.

383
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,360
There was only one God anywhere.
Not just in the not just in the

384
00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:36,520
theater, right?
There was just only one.

385
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:41,560
I mean the the the the
incredible audacity of putting

386
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,680
on a Broadway show with a
prototype level product.

387
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,400
With no backup whatsoever.
Yeah, I mean, that's incredible.

388
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,320
When?
You think about this, a 2 scene

389
00:25:54,320 --> 00:26:04,000
preset for 96 shimmers.
And so it was so the night I was

390
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:11,000
there looking at the at, at this
system, they actually ran the

391
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,800
show for the first time on the
backup system.

392
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,680
And I remember sitting outside
the control booth at the

393
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,720
Schubert Theatre watching A
Chorus Line for the first time.

394
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:27,000
And then they said, oh, now what
are we going to do to fix this?

395
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,480
And I said, well, maybe I can
help because I have some

396
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,600
equipment that we might be
needing like a vacuum powered

397
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:40,200
solder sucker to get all those
blown up ICS out of the out of

398
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:46,640
the the the system and to repair
next couple of weeks.

399
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:53,000
I was on the team fixing that
product, which led to my getting

400
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,720
a job on the show as an
assistant electrician and making

401
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:03,320
that system be happy for the
next, you know, 5 or 6 years.

402
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,400
Wow.
I subsequently and I met Baron

403
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,520
Musser, the designer of the
show, as a result of that.

404
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:15,920
I've only I've never met her but
I've only heard like pretty wild

405
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:17,760
past humans.
By the way.

406
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:19,760
She yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.

407
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:21,760
I would say not.
I would say.

408
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,800
Not wild, but tough or
something.

409
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:26,520
I don't know what you would.
Yeah, that.

410
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:32,840
Two things, right?
One of the most competent people

411
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:37,760
you've ever seen in, in terms of
making art in the theater.

412
00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:43,280
Yeah, just brilliant.
And also, you know, took nothing

413
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,000
from anybody that she couldn't
deliver herself in terms of

414
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:53,320
protecting her, her position.
But incredibly loyal, incredibly

415
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,640
loyal.
Many years later, not well, I

416
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:03,760
would say five years later, when
the bus and truck tour of A

417
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,760
Chorus Line was going on the
road and it was produced by Tom

418
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,880
Mallow, who was a big customer
of production arts.

419
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:17,320
We had done many, many tours for
for him.

420
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:22,640
And we had developed a sort of a
quick deployment system of pre

421
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,280
hung electric pipes, multi
cable, all kinds of stuff that

422
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:31,160
was totally unheard of in the
theater industry, becoming

423
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,200
common in the concert lighting
industry.

424
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,600
And so I, I remember going to a
meeting with Michael Bennett,

425
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,640
the the general manager of the
show, Aaron Musser, a bunch of

426
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:49,520
other people and presenting this
system, fully expecting to have

427
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,680
them say, well, thank you.
Now we're going to have our

428
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,360
lighting company, which of
course was four-star stage

429
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:57,360
lighting in new.
York.

430
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,320
We're going to have them do that
same thing.

431
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:06,480
And I remember Theron Musser
turned to Michael Bennett and

432
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,800
said, what do you think we
should do here, Michael?

433
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,240
And and then Michael said, well,
Faron, what do you think we

434
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,240
should do?
And Faron said we should give

435
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,440
this show to production arts,
which was completely unheard of

436
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,160
because we were a non union
shop, you know, so this.

437
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,640
Was.
You know, just a a complete

438
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,680
departure.
And this was the loyalty of

439
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,960
Faron Moser in full view.
Wow.

440
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,520
You know, we, we had a
friendship that lasted from the

441
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:40,400
day I took, you know, my Sodom
and iron to fix the LS 8 at at

442
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,400
at the Hubert Theater till she
passed away many, many years.

443
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,640
I didn't hear that part.
You actually got the console

444
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:48,200
working.
Yes, we did.

445
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:49,600
Yeah.
Oh, wow.

446
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:50,480
Yeah.
Interesting.

447
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,760
Gordon Pearlman and Steve
Carlson flew in.

448
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:57,800
And we, we spent, you know, a
long time.

449
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,560
Rebuilding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, Theron,

450
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,440
didn't she?
She ended up with Alzheimer's or

451
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,280
something, right?
I think late in her life.

452
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:13,560
Yeah, some, you know, dementia,
yeah, but she was pretty much

453
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,360
going strong till very, very
near the end.

454
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,840
I did AI did a session as part
of the Broadway lighting master

455
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,800
classes at Fordham University
one, one year.

456
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,640
I think it was the last public
presentation or that Theron did

457
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:35,360
put together the original team
of A Chorus Line, Gary Chevette,

458
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:42,400
the Abe Jacob, the sound
designer by Orc Lee, the the

459
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,200
dance captain and choreographer.
And, you know, we, we talked

460
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:52,000
about how that show came
together and it was a, it was a

461
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,600
special.
That's very cool, Very cool.

462
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,200
Incidentally or not so
incidentally, I'm my wife was in

463
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,560
the show if we met on the show.
And oh, wow, I didn't know that.

464
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:05,200
That's very cool.
Yeah.

465
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,320
Huh.
Interesting.

466
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:14,440
And so you went straight from
working chorus line to to

467
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:17,320
production arts?
No, no, it was I was double

468
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:18,880
dipping.
I had two jobs.

469
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,800
I was working at production arts
and working on a chorus.

470
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:24,200
Line.
Oh, very good.

471
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:29,240
Days and evenings.
And I did that for maybe three

472
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:34,920
years and then production arts
was just on a rocket ride in

473
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,160
terms of expansion.
And I, I then, you know, said,

474
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,280
OK, this, this Broadway
adventure has been fun, but I

475
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:47,920
got to go, you know, by by this
point, I've become a partner in

476
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:52,360
production arts.
And then I did two other

477
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,080
Broadway shows as a, as a
replacement.

478
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:05,880
They're playing I song and then
forget the name of the show.

479
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:11,520
Another insignificant show.
Although playing somewhere

480
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,160
there's somewhere there's a
producer right now saying

481
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:17,160
insignificant.
What do you mean 1940s Radio

482
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,040
Hour was the show?
Oh OK.

483
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:20,520
And I worked in I.
Worked.

484
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,200
By this point I had moved into
the sound engineer position on A

485
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,080
Chorus Line and then the other
shows I did on Broadway, whereas

486
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,240
the sound engineer.
So I worked for Odd Smunderlo,

487
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:35,160
who for a number of years in
that position.

488
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:41,000
And then, of course, production
arts became We were riding the

489
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:42,240
rocket.
Yeah.

490
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,160
You know and.
So a couple minutes ago you said

491
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,120
you became a partner and I don't
know how much you can or or wish

492
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,240
to share, but how did that come
about?

493
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,560
Like, was it just obvious one
day that, hey, you know, I need

494
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:58,080
help in the front office here
and you look like the right guy

495
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,840
or?
No, to the contrary, it was John

496
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,800
and Peter recognizing that we
were on the technology, a

497
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:11,200
technology rocket ship launching
and that I had skills that were

498
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:12,840
gonna be necessary.
Right.

499
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:17,440
OK, interesting.
It my early days of production

500
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:23,840
arts were as the chief engineer,
basically, and so we designed a

501
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:25,640
lot of products there.
Yeah.

502
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,880
Related to touring, yeah.
And so.

503
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:31,880
Yeah.
I mean, you guys were getting

504
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:36,120
into projection and all kinds of
things way before anybody else

505
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:37,280
was, it seemed.
Yeah, yeah.

506
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,840
We, we had the exclusive
distribution rights to.

507
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:44,760
The Pawnee projection.
System.

508
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:51,440
Film projection system from
Vienna, Austria and we designed

509
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:56,920
and and produced a number of
automated slide changers.

510
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:02,760
For those projectors which were
7 by 7 inch film slides, Yeah, I

511
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,520
remember you giving me a demo of
one of those.

512
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:08,719
Maybe it wasn't even a demo,
just kind of showing me the

513
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:12,320
inside of one and stuff.
And it's so funny when you're

514
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,880
sitting here in 2025 looking at
the technology we have for

515
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:21,040
projection mapping and stuff.
And, and you think that back

516
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:25,400
then that was state-of-the-art,
cutting edge visual projection,

517
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:26,480
right?
Yes, It was.

518
00:34:26,639 --> 00:34:27,400
Yeah.
Crazy.

519
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:29,159
Yeah, Yeah.
Crazy.

520
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,960
And you could already see video
emerging, you know, you could

521
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:37,280
see sort of the doubling of
alumin output on on video

522
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:39,800
projectors on a pretty regular
basis.

523
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,040
Yeah.
So you could say, well, this

524
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,239
film stuff isn't going to be
with us forever.

525
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,840
And it sure wasn't.
Right.

526
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,120
Yeah, Yeah.
Well, and those were big

527
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:54,440
expensive machines, those those
pony projectors, Yeah, they were

528
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,720
beautiful.
But it's amazing that now like a

529
00:34:57,720 --> 00:35:01,280
little tiny, you know, laser
projector or whatever can can do

530
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,360
the same thing and but a heck of
a lot better.

531
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,480
Absolutely.
So, yeah, although a heck of a

532
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,760
lot better I think is open to
interpretation.

533
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,680
That's true.
Some of the projection

534
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,600
designers, the great projection
designers of that period, like

535
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:16,840
Wendell Harrington will tell
you.

536
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,320
Well, yeah, video's fine, but it
doesn't touch film for, you

537
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,360
know, some of the things that we
we did back then.

538
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:26,880
Yeah.
Were you doing any kind of pixel

539
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:32,120
mapping stuff back then or no?
Was that due to capabilities or

540
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:33,400
people just didn't come up with
that?

541
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:35,480
Yeah.
No demand yet.

542
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,320
That stuff's so cool.
Some of the I I get lost in.

543
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,320
I go down these rabbit holes of
projection mapping every once in

544
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,840
a while where you have like, you
know, there's one that was

545
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:48,440
probably 20 years or 15 years
ago now, the H&M store thing in

546
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,680
somewhere in Europe where, you
know, the building is like

547
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,640
melting and doing different
things and eating itself and

548
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,240
like just crazy stuff,
definitely.

549
00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:04,800
There were distortion maps
produced to allow incredible

550
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:11,000
projections on buildings from
Pawnee film projectors and, and

551
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:16,320
you know, a guy in London whose
name you may or may not have

552
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,440
heard named Wyatt Hanover.
He worked for David Hersey for a

553
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,400
long time.
He was the past master at

554
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:26,640
creating these distortion maps.
And basically you would you

555
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,120
would take the projection lens
from the projector and use it as

556
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:34,080
a film camera and take a picture
of the building you were going

557
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,360
to project on using the
projection lens.

558
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:40,400
Interesting.
That would build the distortion

559
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:44,680
needed into the slides.
There was a lot of very

560
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:49,280
interesting technology, but was
much more laborious and

561
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:53,480
difficult and not instant when
you wanted an image changed.

562
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,040
You know what?
It didn't happen overnight

563
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,720
because you had to make the
slide, get it, send it to the

564
00:36:59,720 --> 00:37:03,600
lab, get it back you.
Know yeah, yeah and those were

565
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:05,640
never IP rated either, were
they?

566
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:07,880
Like, didn't you have to?
You had to build a building

567
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,440
around the things to use them on
an outdoor projection?

568
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,600
That is right.
Yeah, wild.

569
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:18,200
You know, you mentioned earlier
and I love the the way you

570
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,640
define some of these jobs in
Vegas as being science projects.

571
00:37:22,240 --> 00:37:26,600
And but again, when you use the
sort of Wayback Machine and pull

572
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:29,040
it forward and you look at
projects like the sphere, for

573
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:35,440
example, you know, it's just,
it's, it's crazy, you know how

574
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:37,520
far that's come.
You know I have.

575
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:39,880
I have only I haven't been to
the sphere yet.

576
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:41,960
Me neither, I've only seen
pictures and videos.

577
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,200
But I've, I've seen Anne
Militello went to the sphere and

578
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:52,080
was using her iPhone to shoot
what was going on and then gave

579
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,520
a bunch of us a little narration
and I, I've never seen anything

580
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,320
like it.
I mean it's insane even seeing a

581
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,200
video of it is.
Yeah, Incredible.

582
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,120
Yeah.
Now it's insane.

583
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,200
It's.
And, you know, again, like I

584
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,720
know so much about it because
I've had so many people on my

585
00:38:06,720 --> 00:38:09,320
podcast that were either
involved in the installation,

586
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:13,400
involved in the design, involved
in, you know, Jake Berry doing

587
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,320
the first show in there with you
too.

588
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,520
And.
Yeah, yeah, and on and on and on

589
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:24,520
and, you know, audio just crazy.
Yeah, audio and and of course,

590
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,960
you know, video on, on steroids
and just nutty things that you

591
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,640
can and think about the risk
involved in building that

592
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,480
facility.
I mean, you know that that

593
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,200
person $2 billion.
Yeah, exactly.

594
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,440
And and how's it going to work
and how are we going to make

595
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,000
content?
For it, I mean, when you look at

596
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,000
what Willie Williams did for
you.

597
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:48,560
Too in the 1st.
Show I mean.

598
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:52,920
It's just, and then you look at
some of the more obvious ones,

599
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,480
you know, like dad and company
and fish and you know, those

600
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:01,560
crazy like you're in the middle
of a an acid trip cartoon or

601
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,640
something.
You know, not that I've ever

602
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,920
been in an acid trip cartoon,
but you know, I've seen a lot of

603
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,520
cartoons.
But yeah, I mean, just

604
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,640
incredible things and and a
whole new sort of invention

605
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,720
going on in your head on how to
create visuals and what to

606
00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:19,920
create on those.
But some of the other ones are

607
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,320
even to me more interesting,
like UFC going in there, for

608
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:31,000
example, or the NHL draft.
The NHL draft went in there, you

609
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,760
know, and, and just the ways
that they're using this 360

610
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:40,720
massive video screen to project
like player statistics all over

611
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:44,360
the place and stuff, you know,
just really, really unique and

612
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:45,520
interesting.
Yeah.

613
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,160
I mean, just a math project
though, from a standpoint of

614
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,480
trying to make the thing work
financially, economically, you

615
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,760
know, like, I don't know how you
do that on a look, technically,

616
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:59,960
I mean, yeah, you know.
Both from an audio and a visual

617
00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:01,960
point of view.
Just an incredible challenge.

618
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,920
I, I was having a conversation,
I think it was with Wiseman or

619
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:10,760
somebody about this just on a
long term from a financial sort

620
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:15,320
of, you know, mapping out or
projection standpoint like what,

621
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,520
how is it all going to work?
Because again, there's only so

622
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,960
many shows that can really
afford to pay top dollar to be

623
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,480
in there.
There's only so many advertisers

624
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,640
outside who want their image
projected on that, that, you

625
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:32,360
know, enormous ball.
And then also like what happens

626
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:33,920
when those screens start
failing?

627
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,800
I was just going to.
Ask the question, what do we

628
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:41,680
think the shelf life of that of
that sphere device is?

629
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,240
The outside especially, you
know, because Las Vegas is not

630
00:40:45,240 --> 00:40:48,760
pleasant on gear, you know I.
Mean, you know, so there's going

631
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:54,280
to be an ongoing, I would, you
know, say millions of dollars of

632
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,240
annual expense.
To keep it working, right.

633
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,040
Yeah.
So, well, and that's the Seiko

634
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,840
relationship I think has changed
a little bit, you know, So I

635
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,040
don't know, like, I just wonder
what that's going to look like.

636
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,320
I don't know, like long term, it
just feels like you're going to

637
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,400
have to reskin the entire thing.
And I don't know if that's

638
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,120
already built into the budgets
or whatever, but it just, it

639
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,760
feels like it's going to have to
be reskinned with the latest

640
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:22,680
greatest, you know?
Just because the advances in

641
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:26,160
technology will be demand, you
know, there'll be a demand to

642
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,440
the next resolution and the next
refresh rate and all that sort.

643
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,560
Of Right well and failures, you
know so as it starts failing and

644
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,480
that demand for the new
technology and stuff like they

645
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:41,440
must have planned for something
in five years or something where

646
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:43,840
you just completely reskin in
and out.

647
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,160
I would imagine.
Yeah, I don't even know what

648
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,400
that cost would be.
I mean, it's got to be, you

649
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,160
know, a half a billion dollars
or some crazy number.

650
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:52,680
Yeah.
Yeah.

651
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:57,280
So anyways, it it's cool that we
got to witness it.

652
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,280
It's cool that the technology
has come to that point.

653
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,240
It obviously wouldn't make sense
in a lot of cities and for a lot

654
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:07,960
of owners who don't have pockets
quite that deep as it's MGM.

655
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:14,480
But but I'm I'm glad it exists.
You know, I love when someone in

656
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,800
our industry just goes, Oh yeah,
hold my beer, you know, watch

657
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,040
this.
And you know, I don't know if

658
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,520
you've seen the ABBA experience
in London.

659
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,560
Only video and pictures and
stuff you.

660
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:32,800
Know it's the first show I've
ever gone to where I looked at

661
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,400
this, what was happening in the
visuals on stage, and I said,

662
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:38,920
how did they do this?
Really.

663
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:43,960
Yeah.
I mean, it is if you I, I highly

664
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,520
recommend.
Going, Yeah, I want to go.

665
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,080
I I was actually just my
girlfriend's British and we were

666
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:51,080
talking about it just recently
that, you know, next time we're

667
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:52,600
in London, let's go see that
thing, yeah.

668
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:55,760
It's just incredible.
Yeah, yeah, I have some friends

669
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,000
and I don't even know if I'm
allowed to mention the name of

670
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,880
the band, but it's a, it's a
Canadian rock band who this year

671
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:07,040
is their 50th anniversary and
they don't tour anymore.

672
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,800
They've pretty much retired, you
know, they Can't Sing the songs

673
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,040
quite as high as they used to
and they have no desire.

674
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,960
They're all successful business
people now, but they're doing a

675
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:21,840
50th anniversary tour and
they're using all really great

676
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:25,600
big name musicians in the band.
But the band's going to be

677
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,720
behind a screen and then there's
going to be basically, you know,

678
00:43:29,720 --> 00:43:33,520
some form of hologram technology
in front of the screen with the

679
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:38,000
original members playing along
to the music that is coming from

680
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,800
behind the screen.
And, you know, it's very

681
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:42,440
ambitious.
It's really cool.

682
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:46,480
The drummer is is a friend of
mine and owns a production

683
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,840
company.
And, you know, we've talked

684
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,400
about it extensively.
And the designer is a guy who's

685
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,600
done this stuff before for other
acts.

686
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:57,440
And so it's going to be
interesting.

687
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:00,120
Like, I hope to get to see one
of the shows because I love that

688
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:01,760
kind of stuff.
And I think it's coming.

689
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,760
Like, I think we're going to see
Michael Jackson touring for

690
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,720
years, and we're going to see
Frank Sinatra and all of those

691
00:44:08,720 --> 00:44:11,480
people.
Madonna, if she ever gets old,

692
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:17,480
you know.
If I had not seen this this ABBA

693
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,520
ABBA in London, I would be
arguing with you, but having

694
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,280
seen it, I could see that exact
thing that you're talking about.

695
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:26,880
Yeah, it's going to happen.
Yeah, it's going to happen.

696
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:31,000
And and the crazy thing is it
feels like there's a an appetite

697
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,160
out there for it.
Like I've I thought that by now

698
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:37,920
there would be a new version of
Kiss touring as KISS, but

699
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:41,360
apparently KISS is unretiring
again and doing another.

700
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:43,480
I don't know.
They're doing at least one show.

701
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,320
I don't know if they're doing
another tour or what.

702
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:51,200
But you know, the 70s is the new
40s, I guess for musicians, they

703
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:55,080
just don't stop.
So, so you're at production

704
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:56,680
arts.
Production arts is growing like

705
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:02,720
crazy.
Fast forwarding into the 90s Was

706
00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:04,480
it?
And again, you don't have to

707
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,200
share.
You can say shut up, Marcel, I

708
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,480
can't talk about this.
But when PRG came knocking, was

709
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:14,240
it time where?
Because I know as the industry

710
00:45:14,240 --> 00:45:17,040
has progressed and, and I'm, I
digress here, but I know as the

711
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:22,000
industry has progressed, there's
been a greater need and pressure

712
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,080
to utilize outside capital, you
know, whether it's private

713
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:27,960
equity or, or public.
Yeah.

714
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:34,520
I mean, frankly, that was sort
of an integral part of the

715
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:36,920
decision in 98.
Yeah.

716
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:44,760
To because we found ourselves
with now competitors with really

717
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:46,280
deep pockets.
Yeah.

718
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:54,920
And simultaneously, we found the
value of lighting systems in

719
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:59,280
rental making a step change
upwards as automated lighting

720
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:00,840
became part of the picture.
Right.

721
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:02,320
What was actually worse than
that?

722
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,560
Because rental prices were
dropping and purchase prices

723
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,280
were climbing.
Like a Cyberlite was 5 grand and

724
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:15,120
rented for 300 bucks a week.
A Mac whatever was 10 grand and

725
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:17,880
rented for 175 a week.
I mean, it's like you.

726
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:22,480
Know it it it it was bad math
yeah, it it was and, you know

727
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:29,520
and then so that you know then
it it became time to to.

728
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:32,520
Make a move.
Make a move and.

729
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,840
We did it with PRG.
I, I stayed on at PRG for three

730
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:45,120
years and then it was that
resulted in Terry's first law of

731
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:47,760
business acquisition.
Would you like to hear that?

732
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:49,440
I'd love to hear it, I can't
wait.

733
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:54,360
There ought to be a law in
written in law, not just a an

734
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,640
idea of a good thing to do.
There ought to be a business law

735
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:05,800
that says when a closely held
company is acquired, the

736
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:09,240
previous owners must leave
within six months.

737
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:17,720
That's a fantastic friggin law
because you know what it it, you

738
00:47:17,720 --> 00:47:21,440
know, it, it, it was, it was the
right thing to do.

739
00:47:21,720 --> 00:47:25,280
But you know, I'm not second
guessing the move, but it is

740
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,000
extremely not just production
arts.

741
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:33,120
Any situation where a closely
held business, the principals

742
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,800
are still in running the
business or working at the

743
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:41,720
business after an acquisition,
it's extraordinarily difficult

744
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:47,040
because their interests and and
the the purchases interests are

745
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:51,280
not always in alignment.
One, it's a battle of egos and

746
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,760
it's all kinds of things like I,
I got to sit on the sidelines

747
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:59,280
for, I would say production arts
being probably the biggest

748
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:04,680
example of, of, you know, a PRG
acquisition that you could see

749
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:09,800
some cracks forming.
And, but I watched them all and

750
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,040
really learned a valuable
lesson.

751
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,440
Several lessons, many, many
lessons.

752
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,880
You know, one the first biggest
lesson I think I learned was I

753
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:23,480
think it was whether it was via
Marty at Vanco or maybe it was

754
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:25,960
Don Stern talk to me from Bash
or something.

755
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:30,320
But the infrastructure, the
downplaying of infrastructure,

756
00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:33,640
you know, the fact that that as
these companies were being

757
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,280
acquired, nobody was thinking of
the fact that you needed to

758
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:41,640
somehow match cabling and flight
cases and, you know, really

759
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,960
simple, inexpensive things until
you got to go buy 1000 of them,

760
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,920
you know?
My favorite example of that is

761
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,640
dimmer racks.
What is the sex of the Cam locks

762
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,480
on the panel mounted in?
Wow, yeah, meter in.

763
00:48:55,840 --> 00:49:00,120
That's a big one if your Van Co.
It was one if your production

764
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:01,760
arts.
It was another, right?

765
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,360
Yeah.
And so that is definitely right

766
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:10,840
the the integration of multiple
rental inventories into a

767
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,880
cohesive package lot, lot of
work.

768
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,720
Well, another example, like I
was working for High End at the

769
00:49:17,720 --> 00:49:25,560
time when Bash and Van Co were
both acquired and I did a show

770
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,600
and I can't remember who was the
designer, but it was a

771
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,080
television show that was being
filmed at one of the, I think it

772
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:36,240
was at Universal in Orlando.
It might have been Rosie

773
00:49:36,240 --> 00:49:40,800
O'Donnell or something like
that, but they brought in 200

774
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:45,760
Studio Colors and they were
different colour temperatures,

775
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,200
you know, like very different
colour temperatures.

776
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,720
And the designer looked at me
and he goes, what's wrong with

777
00:49:51,720 --> 00:49:55,000
your fucking lights?
And I just said me, what are you

778
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:56,640
talking about?
I'm not the rental company.

779
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,920
I'm just here to buy you dinner,
you know.

780
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:04,200
And so I had to call the factory
and Bellevue did what Bellevue

781
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:06,480
does.
He put, you know, 200 lamps on

782
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:08,480
an airplane and got them to me
instantly.

783
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:12,360
And and the next morning all the
lamps were changed and they

784
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:15,880
matched.
But good lesson, you know,

785
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:17,840
great.
Lesson And I think that extends

786
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:21,680
to almost every aspect of, you
know, rolling up a bunch of

787
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:23,880
different companies into the
same business.

788
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:28,920
Right, Yeah, I, I helped AI,
helped a group roll up during

789
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:33,640
COVID and some of those lessons
I brought forward and I said

790
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:38,040
don't forget infrastructure, you
know, cabling in cases and, you

791
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:42,200
know, even just stock gobos in
fixtures, you know, like if

792
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,760
you're using, you know, four
different companies fixtures and

793
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:48,560
everyone's gone to their own
stock patterns in those

794
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:52,040
fixtures, you can have a
problem, you know, so.

795
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:55,800
And and by the way, you know, we
talked about this or we touched

796
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:02,520
on this a little earlier, but
the momentum that a large

797
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:06,760
inventory owned by a rental
company has is tremendous.

798
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:09,360
Let's so let's let's play a game
here.

799
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:15,480
I'm, I, I decide we're going to
be in the control business.

800
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:19,680
You were talking about this and
we wrote it down Cluster.

801
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:23,920
Yeah, Yeah.
So we'll dream up a new protocol

802
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,280
and we'll go out and see if we
can sell it to some rental

803
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:31,680
companies.
Well, that's what, you know,

804
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:37,000
unless there's clear innovation
or we're going to guarantee the

805
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:41,640
rental company is going to get
more business, the weight and

806
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:47,280
the momentum of an existing pile
of gear which uses Ethernet and

807
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:51,600
DMX 512, it's hard to minimize
that.

808
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:55,080
Yeah, you can't turn that ship
too easily.

809
00:51:55,240 --> 00:51:55,800
Right.
Yeah.

810
00:51:57,360 --> 00:51:59,560
You might want to take a look at
that cluster thing, though.

811
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:02,000
And I'm not smart enough to sit
here and talk to you about it.

812
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:06,160
But yeah, I can connect you to
the to the CEO of the company

813
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:08,160
who's a very, very smart, really
nice guy.

814
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,920
I met him during COVID.
I'll connect you in an e-mail.

815
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:16,480
But it like, as I recall, and
again, this is an idiot's

816
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,160
version of what it does, but it
basically is a universal

817
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:21,800
language that kind of takes into
consideration all the other

818
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:25,960
languages and then takes control
a little bit using, you know,

819
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:31,880
all sorts of cool stuff, RDM and
everything else where, you know,

820
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,680
it just it, it seemed like it
had some legs when he explained

821
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,720
it to me.
But, and I know that Ayrton's

822
00:52:38,720 --> 00:52:42,520
just made a move on it.
I saw an ad that I think was a

823
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,160
combined cluster Ayrton ad
saying, you know, now available

824
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:49,120
or whatever.
So I hope he makes it because

825
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:51,720
he's a smart guy and it seemed
like a good solution when he

826
00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:53,360
explained it to me.
Yeah.

827
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:58,800
I mean, certainly look the idea
of a simpler to configure

828
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:04,400
discoverable system, that's
where you have all this

829
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,320
equipment.
You can plug it all together, it

830
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:11,160
discovers itself and it then
presents you with choices for

831
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,080
configuration.
It's really.

832
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,360
A good idea.
And that's what this does, yeah.

833
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:19,840
You know, you look at look at a
large rental system right now

834
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:23,840
for a Broadway show or for a
concert tour, there's a lot of

835
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:27,400
Labor and energy involved in
getting it all to come together

836
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:31,600
and work right.
And it's because, in a way,

837
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,560
we're using protocols that have
outstayed their welcome.

838
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:40,640
Yeah.
Why is DMX 512 still with us?

839
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:42,640
I was going to ask you that.
Yeah.

840
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:50,440
No, no, no.
Very simple #1 easy for any

841
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:55,880
manufacturer pretty much to make
equipment that that'll that'll

842
00:53:55,880 --> 00:54:01,000
work on DMX 512.
That's also inexpensive, right?

843
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:03,160
It's, it's open source.
It's it's.

844
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:08,760
Yeah, yeah, the topology is
exactly what the doctor ordered.

845
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:14,640
Daisy, take a line, Daisy chain
it to 32 fixtures, up to 32

846
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:20,600
fixtures and you're done.
Doesn't require a home run for

847
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:28,960
to to every fixture.
So why you know then then RDM

848
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:34,840
got layered on DMX 512 and
provided a back channel and a

849
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,800
configuration method.
But it's pretty primitive,

850
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:41,680
right?
Yeah, I mean, when you think

851
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:47,960
about if every fixture was
network connected and you, you,

852
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:51,600
you know, you could just plug it
all together, it would discover

853
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:54,320
and it would, and, and it would
connect.

854
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:57,920
There's a lot of room for
improvement there.

855
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:01,000
Yeah.
So we'll see.

856
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:10,520
I, I, I certainly when we made
DMX 512 happen in 1986, there's

857
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:14,920
no way I could have predicted
what it would turn into.

858
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:17,080
Yeah.
Where we're dealing with

859
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:23,200
thousands of universes of the
driving video, you know, it's,

860
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:26,760
it's kind of the wrong protocol
for that work, right?

861
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,760
But it was so ubiquitous in
terms of people's familiarity

862
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:36,760
with it, the hardware that was
available, that it's been pushed

863
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:41,600
pretty far beyond its original,
original intent.

864
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:49,000
I actually remember back in, you
know, 1986, maybe 87, John

865
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,320
Offord, who is the publisher of,
of Lighting and Sound

866
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:57,560
International, the, the, The
Plaza magazine in the UK, called

867
00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:01,200
me up and said, listen, I, I
want to publish a copy of DMX

868
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:04,720
512 in the centerfold of the
magazine.

869
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,520
I said, well, really why?
He said.

870
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:14,440
Because automated lighting
manufacturers are deciding that

871
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:16,920
it's going to be the protocol
that they're going to use.

872
00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:21,920
You know, so you had you had
what it whether it was Clay

873
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:29,360
Packy or Colmar Colmar or, you
know, a wide variety of

874
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:33,800
manufacturers needed a protocol
and they looked at DMX 512 and

875
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:37,360
they said that's untyped data,
512 bytes.

876
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:42,440
We can use that, right?
So all of a sudden it got sucked

877
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:47,920
into something that it was never
intended to do, you know, and it

878
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:52,160
was intended to talk between
consoles and dimmers, period,

879
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:53,440
right?
That was it.

880
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,640
So was that was that short
sightedness from the from the

881
00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:02,000
protocol, from the console
people, from the moving light

882
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:05,880
people like listen, listen it it
served its purpose.

883
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:10,680
It was you could dissect the
MX512.

884
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:15,520
You can find out 12 reasons that
it's a shitty protocol.

885
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:20,760
It doesn't have error checking,
it doesn't go fast enough,

886
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:25,120
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
There's a list in it's.

887
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,960
It's like here in the evaluate a
network protocol.

888
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:32,240
It fails all the tests.
Yeah, we've been using it for 40

889
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:33,360
years.
OK.

890
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:41,520
And why one reason, just one.
One reason, Interoperability.

891
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:48,120
All of a sudden you could take
console from manufacturer A,

892
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:52,320
dimmer from manufacturer B and
moving light from manufacturer C

893
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,880
plug them all together and they
would work.

894
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:58,760
Yeah, it's completely agnostic.
And this and this is what

895
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,880
created DMX 512.
The fact that in the New York

896
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:09,880
rental market, we were grappling
with CD80 protocol, zero to 10

897
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:16,040
Volt analog, various flavors of
digital protocol, none of which

898
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:18,920
talked to each other.
We had these involved and

899
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:23,680
complicated black boxes with
microprocessors in them to

900
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:27,920
translate 1 protocol to another.
And this is how we created the

901
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:34,080
MX. 512 basically said guys,
this game is overlook at one

902
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:36,840
fixture, the Intelibeam.
Like, would the Intelibeam

903
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:41,000
become the runaway success that
it did if you had to keep using

904
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:43,800
those silly?
Rack mount controllers, you

905
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:46,320
know, Yeah, exactly right.
I mean, they were great for

906
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:50,040
eight lights, but they weren't
good for 80, you know, and, and,

907
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:55,400
and the fact that manufacturers
when when the when the New York

908
00:58:55,400 --> 00:59:02,400
rental community said the game
is up, guys go off in a room and

909
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:05,360
figure this out.
And here's we're going to

910
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:09,640
propose a protocol.
And so we're, I remember this

911
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:18,400
happened in 1986 at a USITT
convention and a bunch of

912
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:23,000
manufacturers, bunch of rental
companies met and we said, OK,

913
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:26,160
what do you think about this?
And everybody said, sounds like

914
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:31,400
a good idea, Steve Terry, you do
it, you chair the committee.

915
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:37,360
So we got a bunch of people
together, myself, Mitch Hefter,

916
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:41,600
Bill Florak from LMI, Fred
Foster from ETC.

917
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:45,400
Not a big group.
I called it the gorilla

918
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:50,680
standards team.
And not GORILLA, but gorilla as

919
00:59:50,680 --> 00:59:53,080
in gorillas who fight in the
jungle, right?

920
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:55,120
Yeah.
This was like, OK, we're going

921
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:59,720
to make a standard and it might
not be perfect, which it

922
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,480
certainly wasn't because we had
to revise it four years later to

923
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:05,400
fix some of the things we did
wrong.

924
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:12,000
But instantly we had consoles
and dimmers talking and we had

925
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:16,680
now slide changers on Pawnee
projectors on the same protocol.

926
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:21,280
We had moving lights in Europe
from, you know, all kinds of

927
01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:26,240
different small manufacturers.
Interoperability was king.

928
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:30,440
It didn't matter at all about
the technical deficiencies of

929
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:34,720
the standard.
Now that's coming around to bite

930
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:38,880
us in the ass.
Yeah, because over the years

931
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:47,280
we've had to warp and bend and
alter the way we use DMX 512 in

932
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:49,840
ways that it should never have
been.

933
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:52,960
Yeah, yeah.
And so, well, if you knew then

934
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:57,000
what you know now, obviously, I
mean you know, but you got to be

935
01:00:57,000 --> 01:00:59,960
you got to be fairly proud still
that, you know, you were in the

936
01:00:59,960 --> 01:01:03,240
room and and that for anything
in our industry, the last four

937
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:07,560
years is pretty incredible.
Well, billions of billions of

938
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:11,320
dollars of revenue created by
that the by the fact that that

939
01:01:11,320 --> 01:01:15,160
standard worked, right, Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, I think the.

940
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:18,640
Group that was involved, you
know, and I didn't do it by my

941
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:23,280
itself like I say there were
others involved and that that we

942
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,920
all look at it and say yeah,
good move it worked out, you

943
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:30,320
know, yeah.
The problem is the industry as a

944
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:33,000
whole has just embraced it for
too long.

945
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:36,880
They helped, they have held on
to it far beyond its useful

946
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:42,280
application because of all the
complexity that we're now

947
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:46,760
dealing with.
And, and you know, So what do we

948
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:48,320
need?
We need a new protocol.

949
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:52,040
So the ESTA control protocols
working group is working on

950
01:01:52,040 --> 01:01:54,200
what's the next protocol going
to look like.

951
01:01:54,840 --> 01:02:01,280
We tried that with ACN with ANSI
E 1.17 and it, it just, it

952
01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:03,960
didn't go anywhere.
And why didn't it go anywhere?

953
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:13,080
Because one of the big things
about DMX 512 interoperability

954
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:17,320
was you got 512 bytes of data in
each frame.

955
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:19,320
Here's how it gets down the
line.

956
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:24,640
Here's what you do with it.
Now ACN came along and we, we,

957
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:30,480
we did this involved network
standard, which ETC was driving

958
01:02:30,480 --> 01:02:34,400
force behind.
Spent 10s of thousands of hours

959
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:38,400
and a lot of money behind it.
It became part of our our

960
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:45,080
portfolio of network protocols.
But what did the industry miss?

961
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:50,440
If somebody raised their hand
and said I need to use ACN to

962
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:55,000
drive a remote video display
from the console, how shall I do

963
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,720
that?
Answer from ACN.

964
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,600
Well, here are the 17 ways that
you could do it.

965
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:06,200
It's a structured protocol.
We don't want to too clear,

966
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:09,280
closely define how you would do
that function.

967
01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:14,760
Game over.
What the industry wanted is if I

968
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:19,960
have a function and it's using
ACNI don't care about the fact

969
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:23,000
that it's a structured protocol
and I can do it 12 ways.

970
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:27,720
Tell me the one way we should do
it because I'm a manufacturer X

971
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:31,320
who wants to talk to an
automated light.

972
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:33,320
Why?
I don't want to have to figure

973
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,520
out which way they use the
protocol.

974
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:37,560
Yeah, tell me which way.
Right.

975
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:39,880
Yeah, so.
That makes so much sense A.

976
01:03:39,880 --> 01:03:43,080
Lesson learned.
And you know, when you look at

977
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:49,200
SACN or streaming ACN, which was
an outcome, a much simpler

978
01:03:49,200 --> 01:03:54,280
outcome of the ACN project, it's
basically a network version of

979
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:58,560
DMX 512.
And it can can have carry a lot

980
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:04,200
more data and you know, it, it,
it, it, it, it uses all the

981
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:10,640
advantage of of Ethernet, you
know, infrastructure, but it's

982
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:18,200
the same repeated every, every
frame approach to control

983
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:22,760
protocol.
So we need the next level of

984
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:23,880
intelligence.
Yeah.

985
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:26,400
I was going to ask you, does
that sound like it's good enough

986
01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:28,840
or or you know, we need to go a
lot further than that?

987
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,480
Another interim, another interim
thing.

988
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:37,360
We need we, we and I am now far
outside this protocol

989
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:41,120
development, but really, really
smart people.

990
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:46,720
Are working on that, predicting
and designing what the next

991
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:48,840
suite of protocols is going to
be.

992
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,640
And I think, yeah, but I think
it's probably, you know, it's a

993
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:56,320
huge advantage for them to have
you available to the team

994
01:04:56,320 --> 01:04:59,200
because, you know, so history
doesn't repeat itself.

995
01:04:59,200 --> 01:05:00,920
Like, you don't want to build
something.

996
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:05,000
Obviously, if you helped create
something that lasted 40 years,

997
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:08,360
if they could create something
today that lasts the next 40

998
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:10,480
years, that would be incredible.
Yeah.

999
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:16,080
You know, a lot of the people
who are working on that, on that

1000
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:20,840
next level protocol were in the
room where ACN failed.

1001
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:22,600
Yeah.
To be.

1002
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:23,320
That's good.
The.

1003
01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:27,000
Next protocol, yeah, they've
learned a lot of lessons from

1004
01:05:27,000 --> 01:05:31,080
that and I don't think we'll see
a repeat of that particular

1005
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:34,320
mistake.
Yeah, so.

1006
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:37,800
What about, you know, I know
you've also been involved with

1007
01:05:38,360 --> 01:05:44,680
like the NEC code and so are you
still involved there like?

1008
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:49,840
I'm, I'm, I'm first of all, I
represent the USITT on two

1009
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:54,400
National electrical code panels,
Code panel 15, which deals with

1010
01:05:54,880 --> 01:06:00,120
theaters and similar locations,
you know, and, and extends into

1011
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:03,480
outdoor use of theater equipment
and all that kind of thing.

1012
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:10,560
And then Code Panel 13, which I
really joined to represent the

1013
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:15,640
USITT on issues of emergency
lighting control because the

1014
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:20,000
code was falling far behind in
its ability to deal with that.

1015
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:24,200
And so I did a lot of work, I
have done a lot of work on, on

1016
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:27,040
updates to the code for that
purpose.

1017
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:32,720
And we're and there is a lot of
code activity happening in

1018
01:06:32,720 --> 01:06:40,040
combination with ESTA.
Even now in the 2026 National

1019
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:47,320
Electrical Code, you'll see a
new requirement appearing, which

1020
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:56,680
is that when you have a 19 pin
soccer PEX outlet female, that

1021
01:06:56,680 --> 01:07:01,240
outlet needs to be marked with
its pin out configuration type.

1022
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:06,760
That means what pin has what
signal on it because as we know

1023
01:07:06,760 --> 01:07:12,920
we use them differently in North
America, we use 208 Volt and 120

1024
01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:17,040
Volt on the same cable.
So we have not only violations

1025
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:21,520
of the NEC, we have potential
safety issues.

1026
01:07:22,240 --> 01:07:28,760
So now the pin out configuration
type will need to be marked and

1027
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:32,080
where will it come from?
From a standard developed by

1028
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:38,680
ESTA in record time took less
than a year called pin out

1029
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:45,560
configuration types and the E
1.80 and that's going to be that

1030
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:51,000
is published now, but you will
need to mark your on a piece of

1031
01:07:51,000 --> 01:07:54,920
equipment or any place you're
going to plug in a 19 pin

1032
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:58,400
connector, you're going to need
to mark that configuration type.

1033
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:00,560
That makes way too much sense,
Steve.

1034
01:08:00,840 --> 01:08:03,680
Well, it's a it's a serious
safety problem, Yeah.

1035
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:07,520
Where, where, where do we have a
similar safety problem which

1036
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:12,560
we're working on right now?
When you take a power con

1037
01:08:12,560 --> 01:08:18,040
connector or a power con true 1
connector and you walk up to it

1038
01:08:18,160 --> 01:08:20,279
and you're going to plug
something into it, you're in

1039
01:08:20,279 --> 01:08:24,160
North America.
What voltage is on that female?

1040
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,560
Yeah, good question.
It could be 120.

1041
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:31,200
Or it could.
BE 208 Yeah.

1042
01:08:32,000 --> 01:08:39,439
So Esther is working on a a new
standard in conjunction with

1043
01:08:39,439 --> 01:08:43,960
Nytrick the the the inventors of
the power Con connector.

1044
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:51,080
And Nytrick has just placed the
mechanical configuration

1045
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:55,880
drawings of the Powercon True
one connector into the public

1046
01:08:55,880 --> 01:08:58,720
domain to be part of this
standard.

1047
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:03,240
And Fiesta Standards Group, The
task group is working on

1048
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:09,640
developing this right now and
this aims to change the whole

1049
01:09:09,640 --> 01:09:15,080
way that we mark and use true 1
connectors.

1050
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:17,399
But it's just going to be a
marking thing though, right?

1051
01:09:17,399 --> 01:09:20,520
Like you're not going to have
different connectors for two O 8

1052
01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:22,920
then OK because that would be
scary.

1053
01:09:23,160 --> 01:09:26,160
No, it'll be the same connector,
but it but it'll be a

1054
01:09:26,319 --> 01:09:30,520
requirement that mark, that
marking occurs in much the same

1055
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:36,240
way that it occurs with the 19
pin connector after the 2026 NEC

1056
01:09:36,279 --> 01:09:38,000
is in force, right?
Yeah.

1057
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:41,040
And it's also going to resolve a
problem.

1058
01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:52,800
Right now these power con 21
connectors are UL recognized as

1059
01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:57,120
appliance couplers, not general
purpose connectors.

1060
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:03,760
And right now it requires that
those connectors have phase,

1061
01:10:03,760 --> 01:10:07,280
neutral and ground.
Well, that doesn't work when

1062
01:10:07,280 --> 01:10:11,320
you're using them at two O 8
volts in North America because

1063
01:10:11,480 --> 01:10:14,440
it's phase, phase and ground.
So there are all.

1064
01:10:14,440 --> 01:10:17,720
These things that are going to
be resolved with marking the

1065
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:22,000
connector itself and marking it
in the equipment application.

1066
01:10:22,000 --> 01:10:23,280
I've got the answer for you,
Steve.

1067
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:26,760
Patent this and you'll be 100
error I'm telling you right now.

1068
01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:29,840
No, I mean.
I've got the answer I'm telling

1069
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:31,720
you.
All you got to do is on that

1070
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:34,360
connector.
When it's connected to power,

1071
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:38,240
before it gets connected to the
fixture, it's glowing in a color

1072
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:40,280
based on the voltage that's
going to it.

1073
01:10:40,960 --> 01:10:42,880
There's LEDs built into the
connector.

1074
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:45,800
If it's red it's it's 2O8, if
it's green it's 110.

1075
01:10:45,800 --> 01:10:47,960
Whatever, right?
You, you may indeed see the

1076
01:10:47,960 --> 01:10:50,480
market have those solutions or
so.

1077
01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:55,320
But here's the thing, this is
another interoperability problem

1078
01:10:55,320 --> 01:10:59,200
where standards come to save the
day.

1079
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:03,200
Because when you're plugging
together a big rig and somebody

1080
01:11:03,200 --> 01:11:05,520
makes a mistake, what do you
hear?

1081
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:09,840
You hear a lot of cursing and a
big bright flash right as you

1082
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:14,440
connect 120 Volt equipment.
It's a 2O8 fold equipment.

1083
01:11:14,440 --> 01:11:17,560
Now, granted, it's less of a
problem with universal power

1084
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:22,600
supply, but this is still a
place where the standards

1085
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:28,440
community, led by ESTA in this
case, is stepping into the

1086
01:11:28,440 --> 01:11:30,920
breach to solve an industry
problem.

1087
01:11:31,520 --> 01:11:37,480
And when anybody asks me, Steve,
what's a big deal with the ESTA

1088
01:11:37,480 --> 01:11:42,280
technical standards program, you
know, why should I support it?

1089
01:11:43,320 --> 01:11:47,400
And my answer is for instances
like this, because where are you

1090
01:11:47,400 --> 01:11:49,280
going to get standards like
this?

1091
01:11:50,040 --> 01:11:52,880
Someone else is going to make
them for you, and then you can't

1092
01:11:52,880 --> 01:11:55,240
live with them.
If someone with incentives,

1093
01:11:55,320 --> 01:11:58,080
yeah, yeah.
If some if the industry makes

1094
01:11:58,080 --> 01:12:01,160
standards for ourselves, then we
can live with them.

1095
01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:05,640
So.
It is critical and I and I will

1096
01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:12,240
unabashedly say support the ESTA
technical Standards program in

1097
01:12:12,240 --> 01:12:19,520
terms of contributions and, and,
and putting your people involved

1098
01:12:19,520 --> 01:12:24,400
in the standards making process.
It can't live without outside

1099
01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:27,400
contributions and it has to have
that right.

1100
01:12:27,880 --> 01:12:30,200
And there are some big
contributors that are, you know,

1101
01:12:30,600 --> 01:12:33,720
ETC.
For many years contributed a

1102
01:12:33,720 --> 01:12:37,880
really large amount of money
annually to the S to TSP.

1103
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:43,480
Those kinds of big long term
contributions, you know, they

1104
01:12:43,480 --> 01:12:46,720
don't last forever.
So new contributors need to come

1105
01:12:46,720 --> 01:12:52,280
into the mix, right?
So I I strongly implore you in

1106
01:12:52,280 --> 01:12:56,040
the industry to get behind
supporting these programs

1107
01:12:56,400 --> 01:13:01,400
because that's how useful
standards that that save money

1108
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:06,520
and get rid of safety problems.
This is not altruistic

1109
01:13:06,920 --> 01:13:10,160
practical.
I, I agree with you and, and you

1110
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:14,280
know, I, I am careful to admit
that I'm a Republican, so I

1111
01:13:14,280 --> 01:13:19,120
don't love mandates, but to me,
a mandate here might even be the

1112
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:23,400
answer where, you know, you got
to pay to play basically, and

1113
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:27,640
nobody loves that.
But when everything's donation

1114
01:13:27,640 --> 01:13:30,440
based, as you know, it's very,
very difficult.

1115
01:13:30,440 --> 01:13:34,080
You know, it's, well, no, I mean
the IT, you know, an ANSI

1116
01:13:34,080 --> 01:13:38,160
standards program has its own
safeguards built into it for

1117
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:41,480
that kind of.
Misuse of of.

1118
01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:45,200
I mean, every standard undergoes
public review.

1119
01:13:45,360 --> 01:13:48,000
Not once, not multiple times,
right?

1120
01:13:48,560 --> 01:13:52,960
So in order to, ANSI doesn't
tell ESTA what to put in the

1121
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:58,920
standards, it just administrates
and the requirements as to how

1122
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:01,400
the standards come into being.
I see.

1123
01:14:01,560 --> 01:14:03,600
Yeah, so.
Believe me, for the National

1124
01:14:03,600 --> 01:14:08,920
Electrical Code to say you must
mark this piece of equipment

1125
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:12,400
with the pin out configuration
and if you want to see where

1126
01:14:12,400 --> 01:14:19,400
what that is go to ESTA and ZE
1.80 that doesn't get in there

1127
01:14:19,400 --> 01:14:20,560
just.
Without, yeah, that's a big

1128
01:14:20,560 --> 01:14:23,040
deal.
That's a big deal, really big

1129
01:14:23,040 --> 01:14:25,000
deal.
So yeah, that's cool.

1130
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:28,600
So and, and this other, you
know, I think, I think the 19

1131
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:35,120
pin issue and the the power con
through 1 issue are really the

1132
01:14:35,120 --> 01:14:38,440
same issue in two different
guises.

1133
01:14:38,800 --> 01:14:43,040
It's a little worse with the 19
pin now because everybody, all

1134
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:47,920
the video guys have all decided,
oh, we're going to use 19 pin

1135
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:52,920
Sockapex style cables to do all
these functions that they were

1136
01:14:52,920 --> 01:14:56,600
never intended to do and we'll
make up a new pin out right.

1137
01:14:56,720 --> 01:15:00,880
Yeah.
So what about like, I guess you

1138
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:05,160
could call it an emerging
emerging technology wireless

1139
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:09,480
control, like it seems to be
another bit of a wild, Wild West

1140
01:15:09,480 --> 01:15:12,560
right now and.
Well, yeah, it is.

1141
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:15,600
Are there standards being
created there as well or?

1142
01:15:15,720 --> 01:15:19,840
Because you had basically at
least two, probably 3

1143
01:15:19,840 --> 01:15:23,480
manufacturers trying to kill
each other for $0.50 worth of

1144
01:15:23,480 --> 01:15:29,920
business, right?
I mean, I'm being, you know,

1145
01:15:29,920 --> 01:15:33,640
I'm, I'm making a joke about it,
but the wireless data

1146
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:37,440
transmission method in the
entertainment industry, you

1147
01:15:37,440 --> 01:15:41,120
know, it's not huge, right?
And yeah, we don't have a common

1148
01:15:41,120 --> 01:15:47,680
standard, right.
So, you know, where whereas DMX,

1149
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:52,160
the common standard created
business, the wireless guys feel

1150
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:57,320
that, you know, if you said to
the three wireless manufacturers

1151
01:15:57,560 --> 01:16:01,720
get on one standard, they'd all,
you know, tell you, you were

1152
01:16:01,720 --> 01:16:05,640
crazy.
Yeah, but you do have, you do

1153
01:16:05,640 --> 01:16:08,520
have competing standards that
don't talk to each other.

1154
01:16:09,440 --> 01:16:12,360
Well, what it could potentially
end up being is, is similar to

1155
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:18,360
the car manufacturers with the
the in car entertainment system

1156
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:22,000
being either Google Play or
Apple Play or whatever play.

1157
01:16:23,840 --> 01:16:27,440
Most car manufacturers have
basically just caved in and said

1158
01:16:27,440 --> 01:16:29,240
screw it, we'll just include
them all.

1159
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:32,080
You know, because we don't want
to lose a car sale because

1160
01:16:32,080 --> 01:16:33,760
somebody really wants Apple
Play.

1161
01:16:34,120 --> 01:16:39,240
You know, I mean, certainly ETC
is facing some of that right now

1162
01:16:40,560 --> 01:16:44,560
because we include in a large
number of our fixtures

1163
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:49,080
multiverse, which is the the
city theatrical wireless system.

1164
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:53,800
And then we have people around
the industry saying I don't, we

1165
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:57,920
don't like that we want this
other wireless, you know, a

1166
01:16:57,920 --> 01:17:01,000
protocol.
So, you know, we're kind of

1167
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:02,640
grappling with that at the
moment.

1168
01:17:03,560 --> 01:17:05,840
Yeah, it's a tough one.
It's a tough one because you

1169
01:17:05,840 --> 01:17:08,920
know, you could obviously move
it outside the fixture where

1170
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:11,960
it's an add on thing, but nobody
wants that.

1171
01:17:13,320 --> 01:17:17,840
So I I do believe it is
screaming for standard.

1172
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:21,720
Sure seems to be and.
And it would be wonderful if

1173
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:27,880
there could be a rational, you
know, this is kind of how we got

1174
01:17:27,960 --> 01:17:30,800
DMX 512 through through the
door, right?

1175
01:17:31,240 --> 01:17:35,360
Because we dressed it up as a
harmless protocol.

1176
01:17:37,040 --> 01:17:39,480
Like we said to the
manufacturers, you want to use

1177
01:17:39,480 --> 01:17:44,840
your protocol, great, keep using
your protocol, but put DMX 512

1178
01:17:44,840 --> 01:17:48,760
in there as an additional
connector.

1179
01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:54,480
And what happened?
Well, the whole world ran

1180
01:17:54,480 --> 01:17:58,600
towards DMX 512 because it was
so attractive, right?

1181
01:17:58,600 --> 01:18:02,320
But a similar thing.
I think it would be wonderful if

1182
01:18:02,320 --> 01:18:04,080
it happened in the in the
wireless.

1183
01:18:04,080 --> 01:18:05,720
Protocol.
Do you see it coming or no?

1184
01:18:06,320 --> 01:18:12,400
You know, I just, I see a lot of
historical friction between the

1185
01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:15,920
wireless manufacturers, you
know, so.

1186
01:18:18,200 --> 01:18:21,920
And I'm not directly involved
with those, with those guys.

1187
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:25,760
You know, I think it would be
wonderful if they all got in

1188
01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:31,360
their room and said, OK, let's
have a switch that says our

1189
01:18:31,360 --> 01:18:36,640
protocol and the common protocol
and every piece of equipment

1190
01:18:36,640 --> 01:18:40,440
will, will, will do both.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

1191
01:18:40,720 --> 01:18:45,280
And then we'll see what happens
with the proprietary part.

1192
01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:47,280
Yeah, eventually you can just
get rid of the switch because

1193
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:51,360
everybody's going to use the the
standard, you know, maybe unless

1194
01:18:51,360 --> 01:18:55,600
there's some huge benefit to
using your proprietary 1 and,

1195
01:18:55,680 --> 01:18:58,480
and, and that remains open to
judgment.

1196
01:18:58,880 --> 01:19:02,560
Yeah, each manufacturer
obviously says mine is best and

1197
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:05,040
here's why.
Yeah, wireless.

1198
01:19:05,040 --> 01:19:09,920
Wireless controls and remote
follow spots to me are two of

1199
01:19:09,920 --> 01:19:14,360
the most annoying things because
they everyone's got a better

1200
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:17,040
mousetrap, so they think they're
all good.

1201
01:19:17,320 --> 01:19:21,880
But you know, the industry would
benefit by having things that

1202
01:19:21,880 --> 01:19:24,400
are, like you've said, 20 times,
interoperable.

1203
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:27,160
So why?
So what does that take?

1204
01:19:27,840 --> 01:19:32,960
Well, let's rewind to 1986.
Yeah, because what it took was

1205
01:19:32,960 --> 01:19:36,800
the New York rental shop saying
we're not buying any more of

1206
01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:40,080
your stuff until you put this
common protocol in it.

1207
01:19:40,760 --> 01:19:43,920
You ain't going to get an order
from us until you do this.

1208
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:51,400
There's no purchasing mite that
is demanding this common

1209
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:54,880
protocol in wireless.
You know it.

1210
01:19:55,680 --> 01:19:59,160
And it wouldn't take too many
people together to get together

1211
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:04,120
and say, OK, you take this.
Theme park company and this, you

1212
01:20:04,120 --> 01:20:07,160
know this these four big rental
companies.

1213
01:20:07,160 --> 01:20:11,960
And they all say this, they can
make some demands, but even the

1214
01:20:11,960 --> 01:20:15,920
four of them getting them to
agree now because they are so

1215
01:20:15,920 --> 01:20:19,000
big now, you know, you've got
these massive companies out

1216
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:21,040
there and it's a constant
battle.

1217
01:20:21,040 --> 01:20:23,240
Who's bigger, the manufacturers
or the dealers?

1218
01:20:23,240 --> 01:20:27,800
I think we're back to the
dealers now and, you know,

1219
01:20:27,840 --> 01:20:31,480
they've got their own sort of
alliances or whatever and

1220
01:20:31,480 --> 01:20:34,000
they're going to push for
whatever they own or whatever,

1221
01:20:34,360 --> 01:20:37,240
you know, they control.
There we have the momentum of

1222
01:20:37,240 --> 01:20:41,600
the pile of equipment.
If the equipment that I own, if

1223
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:45,640
it costs me a nickel to change
it back.

1224
01:20:45,640 --> 01:20:49,120
To give you one more example,
that is a particular bee in my

1225
01:20:49,120 --> 01:20:53,680
bonnet this week.
Chain hoist control cables.

1226
01:20:54,160 --> 01:20:58,200
Yeah, 7 pin chain hoist control
cables.

1227
01:20:58,960 --> 01:21:06,080
Do you realize that there are
like 5 separate pin outs?

1228
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:10,200
Out in the market, Sadly I do
because I have a used equipment

1229
01:21:10,200 --> 01:21:13,520
platform, remember.
And let's go one step further.

1230
01:21:15,800 --> 01:21:18,080
You would say, wow, is there a
safety problem?

1231
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:21,920
Because surely the ground pin
would be the same on all of the

1232
01:21:21,920 --> 01:21:26,040
five different pin outs, right?
Yeah, no, not so much.

1233
01:21:26,480 --> 01:21:31,040
So here we are and we're there's
an effort right now to try to

1234
01:21:31,040 --> 01:21:37,640
solve this within ESTA, but it's
going to require some portion of

1235
01:21:37,640 --> 01:21:40,920
the chain hoist rental market to
alter the.

1236
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:46,160
Pound That's going to be hard.
I know, I know I've had this

1237
01:21:46,160 --> 01:21:49,120
problem so many times.
You have no idea, you know, you

1238
01:21:49,120 --> 01:21:52,880
know, and I mean you, you
actually have, you have a shock

1239
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:56,600
hazard problem.
You know, you, you have a a a

1240
01:21:56,600 --> 01:22:01,440
production company that realized
that that that ended up changing

1241
01:22:01,440 --> 01:22:06,080
their pin out on all their
equipment because they realized

1242
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:11,520
because of this grounding pin
problem when a, when a employee

1243
01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:16,160
got shocked, yeah, thankfully
didn't get hurt, but got shot,

1244
01:22:16,760 --> 01:22:20,240
right.
So this idea of competing pin

1245
01:22:20,240 --> 01:22:25,120
outs and inter inurbatable
cables that are not compatible

1246
01:22:25,120 --> 01:22:29,040
and not safe it you know it's a
disaster.

1247
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:34,000
Yeah, well, what about and you
know, I, I'm guessing this

1248
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:36,840
probably hasn't even been
addressed in ESTO yet, but what

1249
01:22:36,840 --> 01:22:42,680
about AI?
You know, AI assisted lighting

1250
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:48,000
design, AI controls AI.
Like are there going to be any

1251
01:22:48,000 --> 01:22:49,760
standards or anything do you
think?

1252
01:22:49,760 --> 01:22:52,400
I have no knowledge.
Of that center, yeah, yeah.

1253
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:57,880
I mean, it is so far outside my
area of expertise or even what's

1254
01:22:57,880 --> 01:22:59,920
on my radar at this point.
Yeah.

1255
01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:05,640
Now, you know, will there be a
console that listens to it, you

1256
01:23:05,640 --> 01:23:09,400
know, to to a user?
And so make me a make me a

1257
01:23:09,400 --> 01:23:12,080
backlight watch that looks
friendly.

1258
01:23:12,240 --> 01:23:17,440
You know, maybe I don't, you
know, certainly it's not a very

1259
01:23:17,440 --> 01:23:22,400
big leap, right?
So who knows what's going to

1260
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:24,600
happen?
Well, or how about replicate

1261
01:23:24,600 --> 01:23:29,920
that audience look from Taylor
Swift's era's tour stop in

1262
01:23:30,040 --> 01:23:32,600
Belgium, you know, or whatever,
Right.

1263
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:35,000
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I mean, I think you can go

1264
01:23:35,000 --> 01:23:39,000
a heck of a lot further into
even literally, you know,

1265
01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:43,640
stealing people's work.
But again, there's there's no

1266
01:23:43,640 --> 01:23:46,520
protection, there's no IP there
necessarily.

1267
01:23:46,960 --> 01:23:49,480
So I think it's going to have to
be addressed at some point, just

1268
01:23:49,480 --> 01:23:52,120
like it is in every other
business, in movies and music,

1269
01:23:52,120 --> 01:23:56,960
in anything where there's
creatives involved are all

1270
01:23:56,960 --> 01:24:00,600
scrambling to protect, to
protect their material right

1271
01:24:00,600 --> 01:24:02,400
now.
And lighting designers should be

1272
01:24:02,400 --> 01:24:04,800
no different.
I, I I.

1273
01:24:05,080 --> 01:24:09,120
Agree with you and I simply say
that is going to be someone

1274
01:24:09,120 --> 01:24:11,520
else's problem to solve.
Right.

1275
01:24:12,000 --> 01:24:13,600
Come on, take that one on, Steve
I.

1276
01:24:14,160 --> 01:24:17,240
Don't think so, no.
So one of the things I've been,

1277
01:24:17,520 --> 01:24:20,560
you know, I guess it happens
when you reach a certain age.

1278
01:24:20,560 --> 01:24:25,640
I've been called upon to help
share more mentoring, help

1279
01:24:25,640 --> 01:24:28,920
share, you know, with through
this podcast as well, sharing

1280
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:32,320
stories and, and just
introducing like there's

1281
01:24:32,320 --> 01:24:34,680
probably a whole bunch of young
people out there, believe it or

1282
01:24:34,680 --> 01:24:36,880
not, Steve, who don't know who
you are.

1283
01:24:37,040 --> 01:24:40,320
And I know this comes as a shock
to you and to me as well, but,

1284
01:24:41,920 --> 01:24:44,760
but you know, I've, I've been
doing this geezers of gear thing

1285
01:24:44,760 --> 01:24:47,480
and now at LDI, we've started
something called Dining with

1286
01:24:47,480 --> 01:24:49,240
Dinosaurs.
And there's actually going to be

1287
01:24:49,240 --> 01:24:53,480
1/3 wrinkle to that that is
going to be announced by LDI for

1288
01:24:53,480 --> 01:24:57,760
this year.
So, you know, I know you've

1289
01:24:57,760 --> 01:25:01,320
mentored so many people in this
industry, like hundreds,

1290
01:25:01,320 --> 01:25:04,920
thousands of people probably.
Is that something that you still

1291
01:25:04,920 --> 01:25:06,560
try to get heavily involved in?
Well.

1292
01:25:06,800 --> 01:25:08,640
Yeah.
I mean, the way I get involved

1293
01:25:08,640 --> 01:25:12,880
in it now is, you know, we, we
have the Fred Foster mentorship

1294
01:25:12,880 --> 01:25:20,200
program at ACC, you know, where
we, where we, we connect young

1295
01:25:20,360 --> 01:25:26,120
aspiring young student designers
to professionals and we create

1296
01:25:26,120 --> 01:25:30,640
mentorship links, you know, for
10 or 11 students per year, you

1297
01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:31,600
know?
Yeah.

1298
01:25:31,600 --> 01:25:36,720
And I'm involved in in in the
the logistics of that program.

1299
01:25:36,920 --> 01:25:39,360
And that's got to be fine,
making those connections.

1300
01:25:39,560 --> 01:25:41,120
Yeah, it is.
It definitely is.

1301
01:25:41,400 --> 01:25:43,280
Yeah.
And I think it's something we we

1302
01:25:43,280 --> 01:25:46,440
need to do, you know, as an
industry, we definitely need to

1303
01:25:46,440 --> 01:25:49,320
do it more.
Yeah, I, I completely agree.

1304
01:25:49,320 --> 01:25:52,560
And and honestly, it it's a
great source of pride.

1305
01:25:52,560 --> 01:25:54,880
Unfortunately, it's not a very
good source of income, but it's

1306
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:59,680
a great source of pride for me
when you know, this podcast will

1307
01:25:59,680 --> 01:26:04,840
go out and you know, absolutely
I will get messages in e-mail or

1308
01:26:04,840 --> 01:26:07,880
whatever from people who are
like, you know, I just got out

1309
01:26:07,880 --> 01:26:09,960
of college.
I've just started my first job

1310
01:26:09,960 --> 01:26:13,000
in such and such rental company
or theater or whatever.

1311
01:26:13,800 --> 01:26:15,640
I listen to your Steve Terry
podcast.

1312
01:26:15,640 --> 01:26:19,400
I learned so much, you know, can
you tell me more about this or

1313
01:26:19,400 --> 01:26:22,720
that or whatever, right.
And constantly connecting people

1314
01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:26,160
outside a podcast, constantly
looking for better opportunities

1315
01:26:26,160 --> 01:26:30,640
to provide coaching and training
and mentoring to people.

1316
01:26:31,000 --> 01:26:35,720
And so obviously Fred Foster was
one of the greatest whoever did

1317
01:26:35,720 --> 01:26:42,040
it and really created such great
programs back well before he

1318
01:26:42,040 --> 01:26:46,360
passed on.
And so, yeah, it's it's great

1319
01:26:46,360 --> 01:26:47,880
that you can continue to be a
part of that.

1320
01:26:47,880 --> 01:26:50,840
I think it's such an important
part of our industry, especially

1321
01:26:50,840 --> 01:26:53,760
the short shortages too, like
there's everybody's looking for

1322
01:26:53,760 --> 01:26:56,160
people.
Absolutely, I agree with that.

1323
01:26:56,320 --> 01:27:00,320
So mentoring is important.
Are there any any incredible

1324
01:27:00,320 --> 01:27:03,920
lessons you've learned in your
career that either still guide

1325
01:27:03,920 --> 01:27:07,320
you today or that you tend to
share most often like?

1326
01:27:08,080 --> 01:27:11,440
Actually that, you know, as part
of the, as part of this

1327
01:27:11,440 --> 01:27:17,960
mentoring program, I often say,
you know, to people who are, who

1328
01:27:17,960 --> 01:27:24,160
are mentees in the program, you
know, what are the things you

1329
01:27:24,160 --> 01:27:26,680
need to do in your career to be
successful?

1330
01:27:27,840 --> 01:27:33,400
First is just show up.
Don't don't be too picky about

1331
01:27:33,960 --> 01:27:37,800
the, the, the, the kind of job
you're going to take next,

1332
01:27:37,800 --> 01:27:40,040
right?
Don't say, well, it doesn't meet

1333
01:27:40,040 --> 01:27:43,000
my long term career goals.
Why?

1334
01:27:43,720 --> 01:27:46,640
Why shouldn't you be picky?
Because every career in the

1335
01:27:46,640 --> 01:27:52,680
lighting industry, every
successful career at its bottom

1336
01:27:52,680 --> 01:27:57,400
end, is the result of the
confluence of a bunch of

1337
01:27:57,400 --> 01:28:02,320
completely unlikely,
unpredictable events.

1338
01:28:03,280 --> 01:28:08,080
My personal example, How did
Steve Terry get connected to the

1339
01:28:08,080 --> 01:28:10,680
first computerized lighting
system on Broadway?

1340
01:28:12,360 --> 01:28:16,400
He went to the theater and the
system blew up and there he was

1341
01:28:16,400 --> 01:28:21,960
to help fix it, right?
So, so just say yes in,

1342
01:28:22,000 --> 01:28:25,920
especially if you're early in
your career, don't say, well, I,

1343
01:28:25,960 --> 01:28:29,080
you know, it's a theme park job,
but I really want to do concert

1344
01:28:29,080 --> 01:28:31,760
lighting.
You got a lot of stuff to learn

1345
01:28:31,760 --> 01:28:36,520
in every aspect of the business.
So when something comes along,

1346
01:28:37,920 --> 01:28:39,960
don't be too picky.
You'll learn something.

1347
01:28:39,960 --> 01:28:41,240
Great.
Great point.

1348
01:28:41,440 --> 01:28:47,200
Great point.
Second point, be someone that

1349
01:28:47,200 --> 01:28:53,200
people want to work with.
Like when you go to be an

1350
01:28:53,200 --> 01:28:57,720
assistant to a Broadway lighting
designer, it's kind of assumed

1351
01:28:57,920 --> 01:29:01,280
that you know the technical
aspects of the job.

1352
01:29:02,160 --> 01:29:07,280
But, and I'm not talking about
adopt an obsequious approach

1353
01:29:07,280 --> 01:29:10,280
here.
I'm saying be somebody that

1354
01:29:11,160 --> 01:29:15,560
people enjoy working with.
And at the end of the day, on

1355
01:29:15,560 --> 01:29:20,080
the meal break, you get invited
to come and and have dinner with

1356
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:21,320
us.
I love that.

1357
01:29:21,400 --> 01:29:25,200
Yeah, I love that.
That is the connections that is

1358
01:29:25,200 --> 01:29:28,440
going to make your career, the
network that you're going to

1359
01:29:28,440 --> 01:29:31,760
build.
If you're the greatest genius

1360
01:29:32,480 --> 01:29:37,480
in, in, in some aspect of, for
instance, video mapping, but

1361
01:29:37,480 --> 01:29:41,520
you're a real asshole and
you're, you're and you're,

1362
01:29:41,560 --> 01:29:45,760
you're, you're kind of arrogant
and you know, you, you, you

1363
01:29:45,760 --> 01:29:47,840
think you're the greatest thing
since sliced bread.

1364
01:29:48,000 --> 01:29:51,400
You might be the greatest thing
since sliced bread, but no one's

1365
01:29:51,400 --> 01:29:56,840
going to want to work with you.
So, so don't be, don't be too

1366
01:29:56,840 --> 01:29:59,400
far out there in terms of self
promotion.

1367
01:30:00,640 --> 01:30:03,320
It'll come to you.
You don't have to make it happen

1368
01:30:03,320 --> 01:30:04,800
in that way, right.
Yeah.

1369
01:30:05,360 --> 01:30:07,320
So.
Those are both amazing.

1370
01:30:07,320 --> 01:30:11,160
And it's so funny because I ask
concert guys all the time though

1371
01:30:11,160 --> 01:30:14,920
that question and they'll come
back with those same exact two

1372
01:30:14,920 --> 01:30:16,640
points worded slightly
different.

1373
01:30:16,640 --> 01:30:20,320
Like one would be say yes and
then figure it out.

1374
01:30:20,640 --> 01:30:23,360
You know, just say yes, keep
saying yes as much as you

1375
01:30:23,360 --> 01:30:26,080
possibly can.
And, you know, showing up on

1376
01:30:26,080 --> 01:30:30,240
time and all of those things
that seem to have been lost with

1377
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:33,280
some generations.
You know where because I'm early

1378
01:30:33,280 --> 01:30:36,640
for everything.
My my, my partner girlfriend,

1379
01:30:36,640 --> 01:30:40,640
she's she's also early for for
everything.

1380
01:30:40,640 --> 01:30:43,000
You know, we just come from a
different place, I guess.

1381
01:30:44,080 --> 01:30:49,000
But then the second one, again,
same thing, which is they've

1382
01:30:49,000 --> 01:30:51,320
shortened sort of the
description to don't be an

1383
01:30:51,320 --> 01:30:54,320
asshole, you know?
You know, there's another,

1384
01:30:54,360 --> 01:30:58,520
there's like a corollary to that
too, which is where in a, in a

1385
01:30:58,520 --> 01:31:01,920
given point in my career, where
in the universe do I fit?

1386
01:31:02,720 --> 01:31:06,040
I'm going to give you an example
of this from Mr. Fred Foster.

1387
01:31:07,920 --> 01:31:13,520
So Gil Helmsley is teaching at
UW, and he's working on a show

1388
01:31:13,640 --> 01:31:18,160
at the Metropolitan Opera.
And he invites a couple of his

1389
01:31:18,160 --> 01:31:22,640
students to come and participate
in the process.

1390
01:31:23,760 --> 01:31:28,400
And there's a production meeting
at some point.

1391
01:31:29,440 --> 01:31:36,880
And it's like Fred and Gil and
75 great designers and producers

1392
01:31:36,880 --> 01:31:39,440
and the whole, you know, the
whole upper echelon of the Met.

1393
01:31:40,920 --> 01:31:43,480
And they're serving drinks at
this production meeting.

1394
01:31:43,480 --> 01:31:45,320
It was in those days.
Yeah.

1395
01:31:47,440 --> 01:31:54,000
And so they, they have a drink.
Fred gets up and goes to the bar

1396
01:31:54,440 --> 01:31:56,680
and pours himself a second
drink.

1397
01:31:58,160 --> 01:32:03,560
Gil Helmsley says to him, Fred
afterwards, Fred, you're not at

1398
01:32:03,560 --> 01:32:06,200
the point in your career where
you get to do that.

1399
01:32:08,120 --> 01:32:12,840
You, you, you're not in the, in
the I get the second drink mode

1400
01:32:13,560 --> 01:32:21,400
really meaning, meaning
recognize that when you're new

1401
01:32:21,520 --> 01:32:25,440
in the in the community and
you're, you know, the, the

1402
01:32:25,440 --> 01:32:28,920
second assistant, whatever, you
don't get to make demands.

1403
01:32:29,400 --> 01:32:32,960
You don't get to you.
You have to figure out where do

1404
01:32:32,960 --> 01:32:35,640
I, where am I?
Where do I fit in the universe

1405
01:32:35,640 --> 01:32:39,520
of hierarchy here?
Let me ease into the next

1406
01:32:39,520 --> 01:32:42,000
hierarchy, not force my way into
it.

1407
01:32:42,040 --> 01:32:45,120
Yeah, yeah.
So you know.

1408
01:32:45,200 --> 01:32:47,720
And I liked it a lot.
Maybe I didn't tell the Gil

1409
01:32:47,720 --> 01:32:51,040
Helmsley story that well, but
it's it, it sort of says it all,

1410
01:32:51,080 --> 01:32:53,680
you know?
Yeah, I what was Fred's

1411
01:32:53,680 --> 01:32:57,840
background like, how did how did
he, where did he, what was his

1412
01:32:57,840 --> 01:33:00,360
story before, ETC.
Since he can't tell me

1413
01:33:00,360 --> 01:33:03,640
obviously.
You know, he was in, he was at

1414
01:33:03,640 --> 01:33:09,880
UW, you know, and thought he was
going to be a lighting designer

1415
01:33:09,880 --> 01:33:13,440
and he was in Gil helmet Gil's
program.

1416
01:33:14,080 --> 01:33:24,520
And the, the, the theater got a
new Thorn Q file system, you

1417
01:33:24,520 --> 01:33:27,520
know, control system.
And he and his brother went and

1418
01:33:27,520 --> 01:33:30,360
looked at this and said, wow.
And it, and it cost, you know,

1419
01:33:30,360 --> 01:33:33,600
like $500,000.
That was in the that was in the

1420
01:33:33,600 --> 01:33:37,000
days of really high-priced
control console.

1421
01:33:37,880 --> 01:33:41,520
And Fred and his brother looked
at it and said this is

1422
01:33:41,520 --> 01:33:44,000
unbelievable.
This thing is a real piece of

1423
01:33:44,000 --> 01:33:45,720
shit.
We could build this for about

1424
01:33:45,720 --> 01:33:49,880
$100.00.
So what did he and his brother

1425
01:33:49,880 --> 01:33:54,200
do?
They went off and went to

1426
01:33:54,200 --> 01:33:56,680
Gilhelmsley and said we're going
to form a company and we're

1427
01:33:56,680 --> 01:33:59,640
going to build this console.
And they did.

1428
01:33:59,920 --> 01:34:04,040
And that was the genesis of the
channel Track console eventually

1429
01:34:04,480 --> 01:34:07,800
was produced for color trend,
right.

1430
01:34:08,280 --> 01:34:13,280
So you know this.
That's wild.

1431
01:34:13,360 --> 01:34:15,200
Yeah, it is.
It's totally wild.

1432
01:34:15,200 --> 01:34:18,920
And he and he realized that he
wasn't cut out for being a

1433
01:34:18,920 --> 01:34:23,560
lighting designer.
And then that that it became,

1434
01:34:23,640 --> 01:34:24,480
ETC.
And here.

1435
01:34:24,480 --> 01:34:26,800
We are, thank God.
Yeah, 50 year, 50 year

1436
01:34:26,800 --> 01:34:29,240
anniversary.
Yeah, I know, I know of ETC.

1437
01:34:29,240 --> 01:34:31,960
I don't know if you know this,
but ETC actually just became a

1438
01:34:31,960 --> 01:34:34,960
sponsor of this podcast just a
couple weeks ago.

1439
01:34:35,120 --> 01:34:36,760
Yeah.
So it was great time e-mail.

1440
01:34:37,240 --> 01:34:39,640
It said oh ETC wanted to be a
sponsor.

1441
01:34:39,640 --> 01:34:42,120
So would you?
Would you go on the podcast or

1442
01:34:42,120 --> 01:34:43,720
something?
Oh, that's what finally got you

1443
01:34:43,720 --> 01:34:44,800
on here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1444
01:34:45,280 --> 01:34:48,560
I should have done that earlier.
I I know you sent that or.

1445
01:34:48,880 --> 01:34:51,240
But no, no, it wasn't me.
It wasn't me.

1446
01:34:51,360 --> 01:34:53,880
No, I I wouldn't been wanting to
get you on forever.

1447
01:34:53,880 --> 01:34:56,520
But you know, I was having a
conversation recently with

1448
01:34:56,520 --> 01:35:00,600
someone and we were talking
about LDI and you know, I've

1449
01:35:00,600 --> 01:35:02,920
been to everyone except
Nashville.

1450
01:35:02,920 --> 01:35:06,800
The very first one I think, and
we were talking about was the

1451
01:35:06,800 --> 01:35:11,400
first one by the OK, so I was at
Nashville then I missed Dallas,

1452
01:35:11,440 --> 01:35:15,880
the first Dallas.
So I was talking with someone

1453
01:35:15,880 --> 01:35:18,800
recently just about, you know,
how we've lost a lot of friends

1454
01:35:18,800 --> 01:35:21,480
and people you miss seeing at
LDI now.

1455
01:35:22,120 --> 01:35:24,520
And for me, Fred Foster is one
of them.

1456
01:35:24,520 --> 01:35:27,920
Like, first of all, I always had
a really great conversation with

1457
01:35:27,920 --> 01:35:31,960
Fred about just where things are
going in the world and, you

1458
01:35:31,960 --> 01:35:35,600
know, just him in, in those
sandals and, and always smiling

1459
01:35:35,600 --> 01:35:37,720
and bouncing through the aisle
ways and stuff.

1460
01:35:37,720 --> 01:35:42,160
And, you know, like, I didn't
have direct involvement with him

1461
01:35:42,160 --> 01:35:45,280
very much other than just to say
hello and, and have a meeting

1462
01:35:45,280 --> 01:35:47,840
occasionally to talk about the
business or something.

1463
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:52,520
But yeah, I I definitely miss
seeing Fred at at the trade

1464
01:35:52,520 --> 01:35:54,200
shows.
Yeah, he was one of my best

1465
01:35:54,280 --> 01:35:57,280
friends for many years before I
came to work for ETC.

1466
01:35:57,280 --> 01:35:59,440
Yeah.
And John Resnick, Jonathan

1467
01:35:59,440 --> 01:36:03,320
Resnick is another one that that
I was, I was always, he was one

1468
01:36:03,320 --> 01:36:07,520
of I had, I keep this circle of
people that no matter what

1469
01:36:07,520 --> 01:36:10,320
happens in the world, we
communicate like at least once a

1470
01:36:10,320 --> 01:36:12,720
month and it's usually an hour
or two.

1471
01:36:13,200 --> 01:36:15,840
And it's just like what's going
on with this company?

1472
01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:17,960
What's going on in this world?
What's going?

1473
01:36:18,440 --> 01:36:22,760
And Jonathan and I entirely
opposite on football, opposite

1474
01:36:22,760 --> 01:36:25,120
on politics, opposite on lots of
things.

1475
01:36:26,160 --> 01:36:29,320
It was the easiest 2 hour
conversation I had every single

1476
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:32,160
month.
And I loved Jonathan Resnick,

1477
01:36:32,160 --> 01:36:34,480
great guy.
But there's obviously way too

1478
01:36:34,480 --> 01:36:36,280
many of those at this point in
our lives.

1479
01:36:36,800 --> 01:36:41,040
And an.
Increasing number as as we we as

1480
01:36:41,040 --> 01:36:43,640
we reach a certain age.
Yeah, Yeah, we don't.

1481
01:36:43,640 --> 01:36:47,800
Think about all of a sudden all
my friends are gonna be

1482
01:36:48,240 --> 01:36:50,760
disappearing.
You know a lot of them are and

1483
01:36:51,200 --> 01:36:52,640
the reality is there.
That's.

1484
01:36:52,760 --> 01:36:54,760
Well, my girlfriend and I have
really gotten into this

1485
01:36:54,760 --> 01:36:57,800
longevity stuff, you know, just
health stuff basically in

1486
01:36:57,800 --> 01:37:01,040
general.
And then you start thinking,

1487
01:37:01,400 --> 01:37:04,360
because it's happening actually
with my girlfriend's mother, you

1488
01:37:04,360 --> 01:37:08,680
know, she's in her late 80s now
and all of her sisters and

1489
01:37:08,680 --> 01:37:11,600
brothers and friends and
everybody's dying.

1490
01:37:12,000 --> 01:37:14,960
And at some point you just
become old and lonely because

1491
01:37:14,960 --> 01:37:17,520
you survived longer than
everybody else, right?

1492
01:37:18,280 --> 01:37:20,080
Absolutely.
So it's, you know, the moral of

1493
01:37:20,080 --> 01:37:23,840
the story is get a really young
wife, really young friends, you

1494
01:37:23,840 --> 01:37:26,320
know, just hang out people
younger than you and, and you're

1495
01:37:26,320 --> 01:37:28,520
good.
Although, you know, one of my

1496
01:37:28,960 --> 01:37:32,240
very good friends just passed
away in the last couple of

1497
01:37:32,240 --> 01:37:33,760
years, and that's Richard
Pilbro.

1498
01:37:33,760 --> 01:37:39,000
And yeah, and you know, Richard
was a perfect example of

1499
01:37:41,440 --> 01:37:46,080
somebody who everyone wanted to
be with, and he basically

1500
01:37:46,080 --> 01:37:50,240
created a new generation of
friends as as new generations

1501
01:37:50,240 --> 01:37:51,240
came along.
Right.

1502
01:37:51,240 --> 01:37:54,080
Yeah, so it was.
Yeah.

1503
01:37:54,320 --> 01:38:00,000
No, I, I mean, the thing about
our industry, I love having

1504
01:38:00,000 --> 01:38:03,440
these relationships with people
in our industry who are at that

1505
01:38:03,440 --> 01:38:06,360
level, you know, call it 60 and
above or whatever.

1506
01:38:06,880 --> 01:38:11,680
And because, you know, knowing
how things were done back then

1507
01:38:11,680 --> 01:38:13,640
and then knowing this and
knowing this.

1508
01:38:13,640 --> 01:38:16,840
And like, just the fact that I
was there when moving lights

1509
01:38:17,040 --> 01:38:21,320
became a thing and and then when
LED became a thing and, and when

1510
01:38:21,320 --> 01:38:23,880
digital consoles became a thing
and all of those things, you

1511
01:38:23,880 --> 01:38:27,360
know, so many people in our
industry today don't know what

1512
01:38:27,360 --> 01:38:31,800
it was like before you had multi
universe digital grand MA

1513
01:38:31,800 --> 01:38:34,400
consoles or whatever, right,
Absolutely right.

1514
01:38:34,400 --> 01:38:38,640
And, and it's it's great
sometimes to tell those stories

1515
01:38:38,640 --> 01:38:40,880
and they look at you like you're
nuts, Like why would you do

1516
01:38:40,880 --> 01:38:42,720
that?
You know, because that's what we

1517
01:38:42,720 --> 01:38:46,480
had.
But did did we miss anything?

1518
01:38:48,200 --> 01:38:51,240
Charities I know you're involved
in, obviously the ESTA stuff,

1519
01:38:51,240 --> 01:38:51,600
right?
Yeah.

1520
01:38:51,920 --> 01:38:54,840
You know, I mean, I think I
mean, there's, there's charities

1521
01:38:54,840 --> 01:38:58,960
and then there's good causes.
So charities are things that are

1522
01:38:59,480 --> 01:39:05,240
5 O 1C3 tax deductible.
And certainly the ESTA behind

1523
01:39:05,240 --> 01:39:09,200
the scenes program, which, you
know, takes care of people in

1524
01:39:09,200 --> 01:39:13,600
need in our industry.
Yeah, in a wide variety of ways

1525
01:39:14,080 --> 01:39:17,160
is a terrific, Yeah, terrific
thing to do.

1526
01:39:17,920 --> 01:39:24,000
And I'll beat the drum again,
leaving aside the tax deduction,

1527
01:39:24,000 --> 01:39:29,720
because it's not a. 501C3 but
there's bang for the buck in

1528
01:39:29,720 --> 01:39:32,640
supporting the ESTA technical
standards program.

1529
01:39:32,800 --> 01:39:37,840
Yeah, yeah, well, and I was, I
think I've talked to somebody

1530
01:39:37,840 --> 01:39:39,560
about this.
It might have even been Lori or

1531
01:39:39,560 --> 01:39:43,640
something, but I was involved in
the early days because I was an

1532
01:39:43,640 --> 01:39:47,680
executive at Martin and we had a
smoke machine company.

1533
01:39:47,680 --> 01:39:50,320
And one of the earliest things
that was taken on by the

1534
01:39:50,320 --> 01:39:54,200
technical standards was fog and
smoke and smoke.

1535
01:39:54,600 --> 01:39:59,240
And I, I thought I was involved,
but really I was too dumb to be

1536
01:39:59,240 --> 01:40:01,960
involved in that.
And all I was was a check.

1537
01:40:02,240 --> 01:40:05,800
And so I was happy to be that
because that was probably the

1538
01:40:05,800 --> 01:40:07,880
biggest thing that that was
needed at the time.

1539
01:40:08,200 --> 01:40:11,160
There weren't enough smart
people to figure out what needed

1540
01:40:11,160 --> 01:40:16,040
to be looked at in fog and smoke
certainly didn't need me, but I

1541
01:40:16,040 --> 01:40:19,280
was able to convince, you know,
the little short Dane to, to

1542
01:40:19,280 --> 01:40:21,080
write a check to support it.
So and.

1543
01:40:21,560 --> 01:40:26,480
By the way, you know to this day
the representative from Actors

1544
01:40:26,480 --> 01:40:31,600
Equity who first joined the the
ESTA program to to work on that

1545
01:40:31,600 --> 01:40:35,880
bog and smoke standard is still
involved.

1546
01:40:36,040 --> 01:40:38,440
Right, Yeah.
Or as they call it with a with a

1547
01:40:38,440 --> 01:40:41,480
New York accident accent.
You know, fog and smoke.

1548
01:40:41,960 --> 01:40:45,280
Fog and smoke.
Yeah, yeah.

1549
01:40:45,880 --> 01:40:48,280
You know, those people used to
drive me crazy back in the day

1550
01:40:48,280 --> 01:40:51,640
when I had a, a smoke company
within Martin.

1551
01:40:52,400 --> 01:40:55,680
We were just constantly getting
these letters saying I can't

1552
01:40:55,920 --> 01:40:59,440
dance when there's smoke in the
room or I Can't Sing when

1553
01:40:59,440 --> 01:41:03,680
there's smoke in the room.
And and you know, I think there

1554
01:41:03,680 --> 01:41:06,960
was a bit of a placebo thing
going on there too though, but.

1555
01:41:07,760 --> 01:41:12,080
Could be, but the fact that now
there is a standard, of course

1556
01:41:12,080 --> 01:41:17,240
it's the one standard that gets
enforced the actors and had

1557
01:41:17,240 --> 01:41:20,200
input into it, Yeah, I mean
that's an important.

1558
01:41:20,200 --> 01:41:22,120
Thing.
Yeah, yeah, it really is handed.

1559
01:41:22,120 --> 01:41:25,840
Down like the tablets?
Yeah, Created with a wide

1560
01:41:26,160 --> 01:41:31,080
variety of interests.
Yeah, weighing in well and, and

1561
01:41:31,240 --> 01:41:34,280
I will tell you that obviously
with a race to the bottom on

1562
01:41:34,280 --> 01:41:38,360
some of these technologies,
whether it's fog machines or or

1563
01:41:38,640 --> 01:41:41,960
you know, which you can now buy
at Spencer Gifts and Costco

1564
01:41:41,960 --> 01:41:46,600
probably and moving lights that
you can buy on Amazon.

1565
01:41:46,600 --> 01:41:52,080
Now it's a good thing that there
are standards and it's a good

1566
01:41:52,080 --> 01:41:55,240
thing that that those standards
matter to most companies.

1567
01:41:55,600 --> 01:41:59,680
So yeah, well, I'll tell you
what, Steve, I really appreciate

1568
01:41:59,680 --> 01:42:01,480
you doing this, taking your time
to enjoy.

1569
01:42:01,760 --> 01:42:04,600
Myself here and thanks again for
inviting me.

1570
01:42:05,000 --> 01:42:08,080
Oh geez, I I.
Memory lane a little bit.

1571
01:42:08,320 --> 01:42:11,280
So I'm so honored that you would
come and do it again.

1572
01:42:11,280 --> 01:42:15,520
You know, I, I, you sit at a
very high place in, in my

1573
01:42:15,520 --> 01:42:19,080
regard.
And will you be at LDI?

1574
01:42:19,360 --> 01:42:24,200
This winter, I haven't typically
been going to LDI because the as

1575
01:42:24,240 --> 01:42:28,080
the standards meetings are no
longer right, you know,

1576
01:42:28,720 --> 01:42:32,000
concurrent with with it, but
could be we'll see.

1577
01:42:32,200 --> 01:42:35,000
I think there's a push to to
sort of move those things a

1578
01:42:35,000 --> 01:42:37,680
little closer together.
Again, I've talked to I've

1579
01:42:37,680 --> 01:42:40,600
talked to Todd about that.
So that would be good.

1580
01:42:40,600 --> 01:42:41,800
Yeah.
All right.

1581
01:42:41,800 --> 01:42:45,200
Well, you have an incredible
week and I do hope to see you

1582
01:42:45,200 --> 01:42:46,800
soon.
Unfortunately, the only place

1583
01:42:46,800 --> 01:42:48,800
I'll probably see you as that
trade shows.

1584
01:42:48,800 --> 01:42:52,080
So do you live in Wisconsin?
No, I live in New York.

1585
01:42:52,120 --> 01:42:54,480
I spent my.
Time between the Upper West Side

1586
01:42:54,480 --> 01:42:56,520
of Manhattan and the East End of
Long Island.

1587
01:42:57,000 --> 01:42:58,120
OK.
Good for you.

1588
01:42:58,120 --> 01:43:02,360
Good for you both good choices.
All right, Steve, thanks.

1589
01:43:02,680 --> 01:43:04,360
OK, thanks.
Have a good one.

1590
01:43:04,360 --> 01:43:05,360
Bye.
Bye.