The following is an opinion piece by Philip Gerda – a entertainment technology consultant for the entertainment industry:
As we rapidly approach the end of another year, it is time to reflect on the past months and look ahead to next year.
This year saw Gerda Kruger joining Philip Kruger Consulting full-time to extend our lighting expertise and this has lead us to also offer Lighting Design, Lighting Pre-programming and Visualisation as services.
The purchase of a grandMA2 onPC Command Wing enabled Gerda to pre-program shows and thereby cutting down on all night lighting sessions. It also meant more time to add finesse to the lighting, giving the client a better product. Our grandMA2 is also available for rental.
On the consulting front we completed installations of digital mixing consoles for The Playhouse Company and ArtsCape as well as new dimmers in the Theatre at Artscape. We were also involved with a number of other projects, two new digital mixing consoles for the Gig Rig (SAB), amongst others.
Shows this year were varied and included the musicals, Ons Vir Jou and Lied Van My Hart, the Mozart opera, Don Giovanni and corporate functions like MTN Y’ello Stars, Massmart’s Annual Citation Awards Banquet and the Windows 8 Africa Launch. Gerda also lit the Hair Show at the SA Fashion Week in Johannesburg.
We presented the first series of Follow Spotter Training Courses in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban. These were very well received and feedback has indicated that the trained Follow Spotters are doing an excellent job.
A highlight for Gerda this year was taking the one woman show, A Woman In Waiting, to Baku, Azerbaijan and Paris, France (please see our Web sites for a full account of this tour).
In September we attended PLASA 2012 in London, mainly to see all the new products first hand and to get an idea of the trends in our industry. Old friends were seen and new ones made and a lot of discussions centred around the state of training in the industry and the world wide problems it faces. One of the personal highlights of PLASA was meeting lighting legend, Richard Pilbrow and attending his seminar on Theatre Architecture.
Mr Pilbrow visited South Africa for the first time a few weeks later to be one of the speakers at the Stage Lighting Master Classes organized by Declan Randall. Mannie Manim, a legend in his own right, with Declan, completed the line-up of speakers at the Stage Lighting Master Classes.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all out clients and friends for their support during 2012 and we wish you a wonderful Festive Season and an amazing 2013!
