The Source
Concert lighting and digital media showcase ‚Retina Burn‘ returns to Edison Theatre April 24
It’s 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning. Music rattles the Mallinckrodt Center floors.
“Hit the lights,” Sean M. Savoie yells happily over the din. “Can everybody see? Great! Now hopefully my computer doesn’t melt.”
Welcome to “Digital Media for the Stage.” Over the last semester, Savoie, a teaching professor of design and technical theater in WashU’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, has introduced a dozen students to the intricacies of DaVinci, Audacity, QLab and Capture, some of the most widely used media control systems in live entertainment.
Today, those students are presenting concert-style animations set to music by St. Louis blues band Uncle Albert. Led by friends-of-the-department Tim Albert and Lisa Campbell Albert, the veteran group will perform live Thursday, April 24, in WashU’s Edison Theatre as part of “Retina Burn,” the PAD’s 15th annual lighting showcase.
“We got the set list in February,” Savoie explained. “Tim came in and talked about these songs, what they mean to him. Now we’re interpreting that music.”
Each animation unfolds as a triptych that will be projected onto the stage as the band performs. Some deploy recognizable imagery; others are more abstract. Figures run and jump, colors bubble and blur, shapes twist and dissolve and coalesce again.
Joining today’s rehearsal are students from Savoie’s advanced concert lighting technology class. Huddled around a control board in the PAD’s Casper Lighting Lab, the two groups are integrating lights and animations for the first time, accompanied by recorded versions of the songs.
“This is where it all comes together,” Savoie told the assembled. “All the stuff we’ve been working on, all the things we’ve been building — it culminates now.”
Xinyuan Yu, a junior studying economics and computer science, lit Uncle Albert’s cover of “Love Letter,” the bluesy Bonnie Hayes number made famous by Bonnie Raitt. “The color palette is based on red, pink and purple,” Yu said. “I feel that matches the title of the song and the content of the lyrics. I also use a lot of color changes. As a lighting designer, the most important thing is movement.”
Sam Finer, a junior majoring in political science and in Chinese, lit “The River,” an original number from the band’s 2021 album “Slip in Time.” Through the title might suggest cool tones, “the song feels warm,” Finer explained. “It feels like you’re in the countryside with a river going through. So you’re seeing a lot of amber, with some blue elements on the back side.”
Nick Cochran, a master’s candidate in computer science, pairs the acoustic melancholy of “No More Roses” with muted purples and flashes of white. Drama major Matthew Kalmans matches the Cajun-flavored “Hot Gumbo” with iconic New Orleans gold, purple and green.
For “Who Knows / Them Changes,” sociology major Margaret Fecko made a conscious effort to complement the psychedelic animations by T.J. Cannistrano, of the digital media class. “For some of my other songs, I chose to stay within a certain palette,” Fecko said. “But here, it’s literally every color. I just tried to have a good time.”
Cochran noted that, for professional lighting designers, the rule of thumb is that one minute of music takes about an hour to program. And yet sometimes such formulations go out the window. Last month, Tim Albert, who also serves as technical director for St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall, recruited Cochran to light a performance by beloved folk singer Suzanne Vega.
“It was really interesting,” Cochran said. “Coming into the space, I had an idea of what the music would be like, but I didn’t have an exact set list. Figuring it out on the fly, as things are happening — that’s part of the fun.”
“It’s a great working environment,” Finer added. In February, he lit a Sheldon performance by vocalist Martha Redbone, who blends soul, blues and Native American music.
“As soon as you walk in the door, you’re starting to program,” Finer added. “You might not have heard the music before, but you’re setting your basic looks, just getting a few things down.
“You want the patrons to have an enjoyable experience.”
“Retina Burn” will take place in WashU’s Edison Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24. Admission is free. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6465 Forsyth Blvd. For information, call 314-935-6543 or visit pad.wustl.edu.
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