Live Design International (LDI) 2024

This session will explore the creative and technical elements of incorporating creative stage lighting into small-scale creative video and film productions. The presenation will break down several productions, including musical performance captures and promotional hype films produced by Joshua and the GMedia team. While the content of the presentation is within a university context, it can be applied across the industry to small creative teams working to produce high-quality multimedia within logistical and financial constraints.

Key takeaways:
1) It’s possible, even on a small-scale, to combine stage & film lighting techniques to create dynamic, impactful visuals for screen. The session will explore how GMedia produces engaging content with a small crew and minimal budget.

2) Videographers and cinematographers can walk away from the session with specific examples and lighting equipment information to expand their creative and technical skillset. Lighting & stage designers can walk away from the session with an expanded understanding of film/video directors' creative process for capturing visuals involving practical intelligent lighting.

3) The session will explore the interaction between video directors, lighting designers, programmers/board operators, camera operators, stakeholders, and talent on-set, and the importance of pre-production to sucessfully realize a creative vision.

A behind-the-scenes look at the life-cycles of international productions (War Horse, Back to the Future, Angels in America, Dorian Gray) the experience of touring major technically complex productions, the mechanisms of transferring between the West End and Broadway, and introducing new protocols for production management and technical excellence as a foundation for a hybrid studio. For Back to The Future, a look at building bespoke DeLorean’s for each international show and what we’ve learnt about fabricating Special FX projects in a cost-competitive industry, and the wider challenges of transfers and touring massive shows. And a segue to the opportunities available to a new generation of practitioners within the production arts and help answer the question of how and where to start and how to increase chances of personal success by making the right choices at the right time and the career ladder that can be expected as a novice or recently graduated technical designer.