Meet the contributors
LSi is fortunate to benefit from the contributions of a wide range of experienced individuals from various avenues of the entertainment technology industry. The following worship of writers* is as broad an assortment of engineers, technicians, musicians, designers, journos and general knob-twiddlers as you will ever meet . . . read on to find out more.
*That is, apparently the correct collective noun for writers. Don't laugh.
Ian Dow
Ian Dow retired as an Engineering Manager with BBC TV Outside Broadcasts where he tended to light unusual shows. Triumphs include the Eclipse from Cornwall "without spoiling the effect", covering the movement of a lighthouse back from the cliff edge for Tomorrow's World - "the first time I have had to light a building before it arrived", and covering live to Beijing the attempt of the first Chinaman to swim across the English Channel. Ian has organised live Outside Broadcasts from a cross-channel ferry, a catamaran in the Solent, a steam train, a big dipper, a moving dustcart, an airship, and from the middle of the Channel Tunnel. Ian lit early episodes of Dr. Who, appearing both as a press-ganged extra, and by accident. Working on Grange Hill was little different to his weekends spent helping run a local Youth Theatre. In his spare time he is a Signalman on the Kent and East Sussex Steam Railway where he marvels at the tiny flame in the ancient signal lamp which through the thick pebble lens can be seen a mile away, and runs for a week on one filling of paraffin.
James Eade
James Eade is a qualified electrical engineer and an experienced lighting, sound and AV systems and standards consultant and installer. His decision to take up the part-time post of technical editor of Lighting&Sound International magazine in 2000 was LSi's gain and the Diplomatic Corps' loss. James drives a Land Rover and lives in the country with wife Jo, sons Rory and Rafferty, and a black Labrador called Bazz, which James built with his own hands from discarded radio parts and which now barks the BBC Radio 4 theme tune.
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Rob Halliday
Rob has been travelling the world working on theatre productions for more than 15 years, as lighting designer (Daddy Cool, the award-winning My Fair Lady and others), lighting programmer (Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Ragtime, Equus, and others) or visiting tutor at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and other drama schools. Along the way he’s written about those shows and any other interesting ones he stumbled across, for LSi, LSA and others. The best of those articles can now be found in the books Entertainment In Production vols 1 and 2. He is currently working to become the 'old duffer' of technology writing through his regular 'Classic Gear' feature for LSi . . .
www.robhalliday.com
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Julie Harper
Julie simultaneously discovered the attractions of theatre lighting and a potential for AD/HD when the coloured lights of the lighting grid proved more attractive than being spat at in the eye by an over-enthusiastic Othello on stage at the RSC. The revelation led her to seek the security of high (out of spittle-reach), dark corners where she lurked for 10 years as a West End followspot operator, before being lured down to work for lighting designer and gobo-guru, David Hersey. 12 years were spent happily selling holes across the globe followed by another equally happy couple of years selling (very) solid objects for White Light, whilst staring gloomily at her now-redundant frequent flyer card. Nowadays she can't believe her luck that she can legitimately earn a living ferreting about backstage again, finding out how things work, taking photos, generally being nosey and writing about the incredible people, technology and shows across the industry.
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Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller - no, not that Jonathan Miller - is a British freelance writer, specialising in the 'ancient art' of the hi-tech music interview, with over 100 features and articles published in leading audio technology titles around the globe. He has also branched out into the more expansive world of rock biographies, with Stripped: Depeche Mode now in its third updated English edition alongside several foreign translations. Displaying similar such '80s-leaning musical roots, more recently he's completed a commission to score the music soundtrack to an upcoming Depeche Mode documentary film (for which he was also interviewed alongside the likes of OMD's Andy McCluskey, Gary Numan and Thomas Dolby). Married with two children, Jonathan's ambitions include building a project recording studio within a 'grand design' somewhere countrified, but since he’s not a high-flying lawyer, that’s looking increasingly unlikely. Still, there’s always the National Lottery.
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Steve Moles
Seventeen wonderful years on the road saw Steve work for artists as varied as Tina Turner, Springsteen, Sinatra, Queen, and all those little rinky-dink bands we've forgotten: Jane Aire and the Belvederes, anyone? He now makes a living as journalist, writing reviews on rock shows, opera houses, museums - or anything that uses sound, lights or video.
Steve began his career with sound, but never managed to elicit more than a howl from WEM Audiomasters, so quickly switched to back-line. Finding this to be a dead-end job with alcoholism looming on the horizon (too many free hours and good pay) he switched again to lighting, where he spent the last 10 years of his road career. "It had the longest hours and kept me furthest from the bar," he says. Curious really, he now writes about sound more than any other subject. Steve and his other half adopted three fabulous children in 1999, and he now has 90,000 more, having taken up bee-keeping. "It's the new rock and roll," he says.
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Sarah Rushton-Read
Since graduating with a BA Hons degree in English Literature and Theatre, Sarah has largely been involved with the entertainment sector – primarily theatre and opera. Beginning as a community artworker in Haringey, where young offenders locked her in cupboards, she soon moved to the London fringe circuit, then to a stint as DSM at the Shaw Theatre, quickly followed by technical stage manager at Holland Park Open Air Theatre. After a short break to have a baby and complete a HND in Electronic Engineering, Theatre Lighting and Sound – she joined the Royal Opera House as a production electrician, and was the first female technician to tour internationally with the ROH ('And I can see why' she says). She moved on to work as a lighting designer and toured with various small and mid-scale opera and theatre companies, taught at Guildhall School of Music and Drama for a spell, and then took a job as senior lighting tech and then deputy lighting manager at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. After a short stint at VLPS (now PRG) she and her husband ran their own lighting and power distribution company, Studio 23 Ltd. She lit a Silver Gilt Medal-winning garden at Chelsea Flower Show, worked for a brief but extremely spiritually rewarding time as assistant editor at Lighting&Sound International magazine, and now works as a freelance journalist and photographer. She is currently studying an MSc in Architecture: Advance Energy and Environment Studies - and pursuing numerous projects in the entertainment sector . . .
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The Shend
Born enormous on the same day Laika the dog was orbiting the Earth in Sputnik 2, Shend became steadily more enormous and later formed punk band The Cravats (Crass), becoming a favourite of DJ John Peel and reaching the heady heights of No. 55 in the Charts with 'Rub Me Out' in “the halogen days of Ponk” as he recalls. Later still, he became a nasty thug actor in TV and in films (Revolver, Hogfather, Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly to name but a few). Also a Disc Jockey, writer of smut for the Paul Raymond Organisation, columnist for Bizarre magazine, club impressario (The Kroon Kat Lounge), bass-playing legend, rider of motorcycles and man about town, Shend spends as many hours doing exactly what he wants to do as he possibly can. He lives in a towered folly on the cliffs overlooking the sea with his family and his dog, Laika.
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Rob Speight
Rob has spent the last 22 years developing his sound engineering and production skills across a wide range of media. Beginning his career as a lighting designer in 1987, he quickly "realised the error of his ways" and re-trained as a sound engineer. Over the coming years he engineered live acts including Billy Bragg, CJ Bolland, Sixth, The Zutons, Serafin, Eat Static and Mari Wilson. He also worked in various capacities for Van Halen, Pulp, U2, Royksopp and Muse as well as the Gabby Roslin Show, Big Mouth and TFI Friday. In 2006 Rob set about building out post sound ltd, a post audio facility in Brighton, and trained in Post Production Sound Techniques and Pro Tools at Alchemea. The company has gone from strength to strength and sports clients including BBC One, Channel Five, CNBC and is currently working on its third feature film.
www.outpostsound.co.uk
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Phil Ward
Phil Ward was educated at Warwick University and the process continues, even though that was nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps if he paid that outstanding library fine life would begin to make more sense. After notching up just one less Top 40 hit than Lipps Inc, he turned a simple 8-track home studio into a hugely successful Miss Factory, culminating in a key position within the recording industry driving a delivery van. Later he abandoned a career in journalism and joined International Musician & Recording World magazine, eventually using the apt combination of his experience with word processors, MIDI technology and avoiding daily assault by psychotic White Van Drivers to become an Editor - firstly of Pro Sound News Europe, then Music Trade News. He lives near Cambridge with difficulty.
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Mike Wood
Mike Wood was born and raised in Liverpool and was heading for a sensible life before being bitten by the theatrical bug while studying Engineering at Cambridge in the 1970s. Since then he's been involved with entertainment technology for all his working life. He started out in the UK, first as a theatre electrician and freelance theatrical lighting designer before working with companies such as CCT Theatre Lighting, the BBC, Coemar/DeSisti and JEM. In 1995 he and his family moved to the United States where he joined High End Systems at their facility in Austin, Texas. Mike was at HES for nearly 10 years in a number of roles, finally becoming head of R&D and the Chief Technology Officer. Since 2004 he has run his own company where, as well as penning articles for LSi and LSA, he provides technology consultancy services to the entertainment industry.
Mike has the singular honour of having been elected, at different times, both Chairman of PLASA in the UK and President of ESTA in the US. Mike and his wife Sue now have dual nationality and still live in Austin; In fact they have now lived there longer than they have lived in any one place during their nearly 30 years of marriage. They like the warm weather . . .
www.mikewoodconsulting.com
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If you would like the chance to write for LSi, please send a sample article of 500 words or less, on a relevant subject of your choice, to the editor at lee@plasa.org.
