#310 - Benoit Richard - Life Choices: Balancing Career and Family - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You know when you climb the mountaintop, right?
All my career was about being the guy that I would tour with a
big band or a big artist in stadiums worldwide.
Well, I did that. I was able to finally accomplish
that with Metallica and George. And I wasn't the boss on on
Metallica, but I technically wasthe boss on on George.
But it But then then I had the realization of two things.

(00:23):
I don't have a kid yet. I'm over 40 and if I don't get
off the bus, I'll be 60 with no kid and probably no wife.
So I had to make a decision and it was the best decision I took
because I also decided I have the chops to switch to movies
and and and it was amazing. It was the right call.

(01:13):
So thanks again for joining me today on the podcast.
I appreciate it. So couple things I wanted to
mention before we get into this.Bob Shackerel from, well, High
End Systems is where I'm always going to remember Bob from.
But Bob went on from High End. He was one of the founders, one
of the owners of High End. If you want to hear about his

(01:35):
story, by the way, you can go toGeysers of Gear episode #32
where myself and my then Co hosthad a great, probably 2 hour
conversation with Bob. But sadly Bob passed away the
other day and you know, again, Bob was one of the founders, one
of the partners and owners at High End.
They sold the company to Barco. He went on to work for Verilite

(01:58):
and then ultimately for Robbie and he left Robbie in 2019 due
to an illness. At the time he didn't say that.
He said he was retiring to go run his ranch.
But not that long after, I thinksometime in 2020, he he checked
into a a dementia hospital and sadly, just a few days ago he
passed away from said disease. And so he will be missed.

(02:22):
He's a great man and really, really super nice guy and just
another figure in our industry that that did great things and
will be missed. And you know, prior I worked for
him at high end. I, he was my boss basically at
high end. And so I got to know him really,

(02:43):
really well. But even prior to that, when I
worked for his, one of his biggest competitors, Martin and
I was a thorn in his side. He was always a gentleman.
He was always nice to me. We'd always talk at trade shows
and whenever we saw each other at a show or something.
And he was always kind. He was always, he was never a
jerk just because I happened to be a competitor.
And since that time, even when I've seen him when he was at

(03:05):
Roby or anything, it was always,hey, Marcel, you'd run across
the hallway to see me or the from three booths down and he'd
be like running over to give me a hug or something.
And so, you know, I mean, just great guy, another, another
wonderful person in our industry.
It's becoming way too common that we're losing people and we
just lost another one. And so I'm getting ready for my

(03:29):
trek N up to Canada. Every time people call me now,
they always say where are you? And 'cause I spend, I'm
generally, I'm basically a, a, what do you call them?
What do you call people who go back and forth from cold to
warm? You call them snowbird.
I'm a snowbird now. So, you know, I've always had a

(03:50):
place in Canada, but I've only gone there for a couple weeks
here and there, maybe a couple weeks skiing in the winter, a
couple weeks hiking or hanging out in the summer.
Now I've just gone, why am I doing this?
Why don't I just go up there forthe whole summer?
My company's remote, it doesn't matter where I am.
So now I go in May or June and Istay till September, October

(04:11):
normally. And so I'm just getting ready
for that. Probably about exactly a month
from now. I'll be leaving at the end of
May and going up to Canada. So future podcasts, you'll be
seeing wood in the background instead of white in the
background. That'll be from my house in
Canada. And so I can't wait.
Looking forward to that. Just trying to figure out all

(04:32):
the logistics on that right now.And so Speaking of Canada,
today's guest lighting legend Benoit Richard returns for a
long overdue follow up to our original podcast, which was
recorded just before this crazy little pandemic changed the
world so much. And so in the that previous

(04:56):
episode. But Benoit spent a lot of time
talking about how his career evolved since 2020, shifting
further into motion picture and television work while continuing
to apply his concert touring experience behind the scenes.
From massive Marvel blockbusterslike Avengers and Iron Man to
high profile commercial shoots and reshoots, Benoit reflects on

(05:19):
what's changed, what's remained the same, and what still excites
him most about work. He also opens up about life
after 50 in this business and whether it's time for live
touring crews to push for betterwages, healthcare and long term
support. With his trademark honesty and
humility, Benoit shares practical insights on previz,

(05:41):
his love for L8 software and theenduring motto that's guided his
decades long journey in lightingworld.
Early is on time, on time is late, so please join me in
Welcome Benoit, Richard. I'll get to chat with you again.
It is and happy birthday to you,Mr. Well.
Thank you so much. Yes, today is 56.

(06:07):
I'm I'm not going to lie. It's, I don't even talk about
mine because let's just say I'm four years older than you.
So I don't like to talk about it.
I don't even like to say the number because.
You made it to an exclusive club.
But you know what though? Like when I was 20 or 30 or
4060, seemed like those people are old, like they must be in

(06:29):
wheelchairs and they don't do any.
They don't go to rock concerts anymore.
They don't listen to, they listen to Lawrence Welk and
stuff. They don't listen to, you know,
Dream Theater and Led Zeppelin and whatever.
And by the way, I'm sure you know that Portnoy is back in
Dream Theater, right? And I'm so bummed because they
were here in LA at the YouTube theater a few months ago when I

(06:52):
was working. Oh yeah, So you still try to go
out and see them? When?
When? Yes, I I saw them in.
If I remember correctly, it was the prior tour.
Yeah, in 2019 and I was working at Paramount Studios and they
were playing at the Wiltern and I somehow wrapped right on time.
Wow, perfect and. I was on the phone with their

(07:15):
tour manager saying I'm coming. Yeah, yeah, Got.
A chance to see them. I hadn't seen them in 15 years.
They were so surprised when I walked.
In That's cool, that's really nice.
Yeah, I mean they're obviously aband that that I've followed
since Images and Words. You know, their their first real
album, I guess, because the one prior was a EP and you know just

(07:40):
I'm a musician and I'm part of most of the people that's in
those crowds. It's generally all men and 75%
of them are musicians. And it's because the level of
musicianship is so freaking highin that band.
It's just like like every. One of them, yeah, when Jordan
Rudis came into. The Yeah bringing.

(08:01):
Juilliard experience in the classical training that he had.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean, just all of them.
You know, it, I didn't realize how much I missed Portnoy in the
band 'cause, you know, Mike Mangini did a an admirable job.
He's he's a phenomenal drummer. But there's just something
about, you know, Portnoy style that just fits that band better.

(08:24):
For sure. It just fits the.
Band people in in Dream Theater,which is John Petrucci, John
Young, and Mike Portnoy, the three caballeros who went to
Berkeley, Boston and also campedout at the Nassau Coliseum.

(08:44):
Every time they wanted to see like Rush or Yes or Iron Maiden
or Metallica that three of them would camp out with their
sleeping. Bags.
True fans of of all this cool music and my time with them will
always be cherished, but it's a special shout out to the one and
only Steve Baird, our our fellowCanadian who was their LD

(09:06):
before. A few.
Tours that I did with them and then since I left, he's been
with them since. Oh, I didn't realize that, that
he went back to them. Yeah, yeah, 'cause their current
design is really nice. It's obviously they're playing
larger venues now and, and doingquite successfully and which is
great 'cause I mean, they alwayssort of chugged it out in, in,

(09:28):
you know, theaters and, and, youknow, smaller sheds and stuff
like that. But now they're, they're doing
proper arenas and stuff too. So it's great to see 'cause
they're such a great band and Labrie's struggling a little
bit. Which you're gonna, I mean, when
you write those songs in your 30s and and you're singing them
in your 50s or 60s, shit happens.

(09:50):
You know, that's. Right.
Well, guess what? I went to see John Anderson a
few weeks. Ago my.
Daughter with me. We had to go see John in Anaheim
and it was a school night and itwas so sad because at
intermission I didn't catch John's wife in time to find a
way to to say hello to. John.

(10:10):
But it's OK, we were there in spirit and physically for most
of the show. And then on top of it, my one of
my good friends, Matt Beck, who was the musical director for Rob
Thomas, who played with Matchbox20 since 2003.
He's he's in band geeks right now freaking out playing all
Steve House parts for. John, that's so cool.

(10:31):
That's really cool. Great little.
So how did John sound? Amazing.
He's 80 years old. And he's still singing this
stuff, OK. Yes, he ran on stage.
His pitch was perfect, his tone was incredible.
Really it? Was it was just surreal.
It was crazy to yeah, I'm so happy I was there.
See, I somebody, I think he camethrough here and someone said,

(10:54):
hey, do you want to go? One of my friends who gets
tickets to everything because he's a first responder and and
they just get, you know, thrown at him constantly and he's like,
hey, you want to go see it? And I'm like, you know, I'd have
to drive 40 minutes. I don't feel like it, you know,
Yes, yes. In their 80s traffic.
Yeah, yes, in their 80s. I don't know, you know, but so

(11:17):
now I'm sad that I didn't go because Van.
Geeks is a great, great cover band that that was touring and
then John spotted them on YouTube or something and he gave
the bass player a call and he goes, can we go on tour?
I'll sing and imagine. So he just inserted himself into
a Yes tribute band, basically. That's hilarious.
It's awesome. Oh, my God, is that cool?

(11:39):
That's, like, the opposite of how that story normally goes,
right? Yeah.
Like like Boston, you know, theyfound the singer who was a Home
Depot accountant or whatever. They found him on on YouTube.
Yeah, and Journey and and yes, of course.
The the real, the the. The Judas Priest.
Judas Priest found What was his name?

(11:59):
Oh, really? They had to.
Spike or something like that. Like I can't remember his name.
The singer from Priest. Somewhere out there right now,
there's somebody yelling at me. No, no.
But the other guy that replaced Rob when he left.
Yeah. But anyways, yeah, you know,
that's, it's always such a greatstory, but I'd never heard it in
total reverse where it was. Imagine.

(12:20):
The the phone call the guy didn't.
Believe Oh my God, yeah. I mean, they're playing like
bars and little local festivals and stuff like, you know, the
the Peach festival in in you know, Timbuktu, Nowheresville,
right. And and suddenly they're touring
as yes. And it was crazy.
They started with close to the edge.

(12:41):
Wow. Perpetual change.
Oh my goodness. Awaken.
I was freaking. And they were good.
They were like, Oh my. Gosh, they were so good.
Yeah, like they fooled you. I closed my eyes and it was yes.
Wow. Oh yeah, yeah.
I really miss Chris Squire. Like I I don't remember.
I also miss Alan White. My my.

(13:02):
Oh, yeah, Alan, yeah. But but Chris Squire just had
that sound. He had that thing that he did
with the pick on the Rickenbacker and stuff.
I know. Well, he told me how that all
came about. Because he told me too, Fan.
Of The Who? Yeah, and yeah, he told me too.
He took Pete and he took John and Whistle Pete, Pete Townsend
and he smashed them together andthen he found this ridged pick

(13:25):
that has ridges on them and he plays it.
He played it sideways to scratchthe strings.
Oh, I didn't know that part. Yes, he.
Showed me his technique. It was like, Oh my gosh, you
made it even more difficult. It's crazy.
Yeah, I, you know, he, he did that whole thing with me too.
It was in the Greek theatre and,and you know, I think a nice

(13:47):
looking girl walked in and she had weed or something and it was
like, OK, I'll see you later. I was out.
We used to call that club, yes. Yeah, the end of the.
Show Chris would open the door. Club, yes.
That's hilarious. Yeah, He was a neat guy, man.
He was a neat and very talented guy.
Like to me, like every band I think has sort of the guys that

(14:09):
you can't do without. And and to me it was sort of
like him and and John, you know,it was like to me they were yes,
like to you. Maybe it was Steve Howe or
whoever, but it. Was the combination of all of
them. Especially.
My last tour with them, Rick Wakeman came back, so I had the
the classic five Yes Men lineup.Which tour was that?

(14:32):
That was their 35th anniversary tour in O3.
OK, so that was after like cuz the last one I think that I even
saw them was the one that Smeaton did and I had all
Martin's stuff on it. It was 9 O 21 live or whatever
or nine O2, whatever that was called 9 O 21.
OI think it was the album, but or nine O2, whatever the hell it

(14:56):
was that one. The one with owner of a lonely
heart that one. So.
So I don't know if you heard, Have you heard about Bob?
I know. Yeah, Bob.
Chakra. Oh my goodness, that hit me like
a ton of bricks this morning. Yeah.
It's so. Sad, I think it was Sunday,
wasn't it, that he passed? Oh.

(15:17):
I I just saw the news this morning.
Oh yeah, that's how. I found out.
And yeah, yeah. Bob was was unbelievable as as
the President of high end systems in in our time there.
Yeah. I'll always remember his his
approach to fine wine at a dinner.

(15:37):
Hell yeah. The first bottle was the only
one that would make that was expensive.
After that your taste buds are ruined and the cheap wine came
out and. It was totally fine.
I understood that it was. It wasn't always like that,
because I was, I was at some dinners with him where it flowed
pretty well. But his own cellar, like at his
house, you know, I went to some parties at his house where there

(16:00):
were some pretty spectacular bottles of wine collection.
Yeah, Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. We cried on the phone when I
gave him a call in May of 2000 to tell him that unfortunately
it was time for me to spread my wings and leave my hand.
And so it was sad, but at the same time it made sense.

(16:24):
Yeah, well, certainly for your career trajectory.
I mean you can only stay doing that for so long and and then
you're just really causing your career damage at some point,
right. Nothing against high end.
It's just, you know, to be that captive guy working for the
factory is a nice cushy job, butit's not making the most of your

(16:45):
opportunities, perhaps. That's right.
The road kept calling me back. And at the time, John, John
Broderick and I had, you know. Yeah.
Started a really amazing relationship with with Metallica
and yes. Yeah.
It just made sense. Yeah, you know.
Hello and thanks for joining me again today for Geezers of Gear.

(17:07):
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(18:40):
So yesterday or day before yesterday, when I heard I had
to, I had to go back cuz, and this isn't a plug, but I had him
on the podcast episode 32. And so I went back and listened
to it and it was recorded in I think July of 2019.
And I think very early 2020, like January or February is when

(19:03):
he went into a home. And so it might have even been
before that. It might have been end of 2019.
So I listened back because at the time I knew later like that
that's what had happened, that he left Roby because he, he was,
you know, fairly starting to discover pretty significant
dementia. But but when I recorded it, I

(19:27):
didn't know. But after the recording, because
Henry was still working with me and after the recording, I said
to Henry, something was wrong, like, you know, Bob was
forgetting way more than usual and like struggling with some
really simple people's names and, and just things that you'd
think he'd know. And it just something was off
and I could tell, right. And listening back to it, it's,

(19:50):
it's first of all, I, I had forgotten some of the stories
and, and stuff, but it was greatto hear his voice and, and, you
know, certainly sad. He was a pivotal part of high
end success in the 90s. When?
Yeah. When?
I was there, you couldn't put a a team of 3/3 ownership you.

(20:11):
Know yeah partners. Like like Bob Low.
So different, but they got alongso well and they did such a
great job building an incrediblecompany.
Yeah, yeah, no, I actually. So I spoke with Dave, his son,
and Dave listened to the podcastand sent me a message thanking
me. He said it was just great to
hear his voice because, you know, for the last 18 months

(20:35):
he's basically been non, whatever you call it, non, he
couldn't speak. And so, so, yeah, he said it was
great to hear his voice. And then I talked with Bellevue,
I talked with Lowell. And, you know, it's just
swapping some old stories and just talking about, you know,
this was inevitable. Like when you're in the hospital

(20:57):
for a period of time with dementia, you know, that it's a
it's a downhill slope. It's just how quickly you're
moving downhill. And I have unfortunately, first
hand experience. My mom has been in a home for a
little over 10 years, and she's moving much more slowly than Bob
did, obviously, but still, like,every time.

(21:18):
And she's in her 90s now, so she's lived a long life.
And, you know, would I prefer that I could have conversations
with her that, you know, she knows what she's saying and
stuff? Yes.
But she's happy. She still talks, She still has
fun, you know, she still enjoys life somehow, even though she
has no idea what planet she's on.

(21:38):
But, but yeah, but I, you know, I noticed little bits of
different things because I have my house there and I go there
for the summers. She's up in Canada and then I
come back to Florida in the winter.
So every summer I see her 5 or 6times throughout the summer.
And you know, every time there'sjust little nuanced changes that
you see, you know, and it's, it's a terrible thing.

(22:00):
It's a terrible disease. To my mother, every morning
she's in Montreal. She's 93.
My mom's 93. She's all there and and like I
like you just said, every day I just want to.
Yeah, make sure you have to. You have to.
You never know. Like now, you know, I
practically am in tears every time I leave Calgary to come
back to Florida because I I always think, is this the last

(22:23):
one? Was that the last visit?
Did I say everything I needed tosay?
You know, and you know, there's nothing you can do about it,
unfortunately. You know, I fortunately, AI is
going, that's one of the diseases that I believe AI will
solve in the next five years. And I'm no doctor, so I don't

(22:43):
know anything special, but I believe that AI is moving so
quickly now that that most of the major diseases are going to
be solved, cured in in the next,call it 5 to 10 years.
I won't digress into politics, but sadly healthy population is
not good for medical and pharmaceutical purposes.

(23:04):
But anyway. Well, that's not really
politics. That's just common sense, you
know what I mean? And and it sucks, you know, it
really does suck. And, you know, insurance
companies are evil and, and pharmaceutical companies are
evil and they all have maliciousintent and unfortunately.
We're the witness doesn't help either.
Yeah. The lobbying is terrible.
Yeah, lobbying. I would be all for having

(23:26):
lobbying completely removed fromgovernment, making it illegal to
have lobbyists, you know, because again, it's it just
plays into the whole he with themost wins and that's what.
Seems to be happening right now around.
It is, but it's, it's always been the case.
It's just now it's so accentuated and you know,

(23:48):
example like I, I had a three-year battle against
Google. They stole from me.
I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to say the name against a very
large corporation in the United States and they stole a
trademark from me. And I just first kind of went,
hey, guys, you're stealing my trademark remark.
Can you please just stop using it?
And they flipped me the bird andand so I sent him a letter

(24:11):
saying you need to stop using mytrademark or I'm going to have
to do something and they flippedme the bird.
And so I had to sue them. I had no choice really because
they stole it from me. The.
Sad part is their their contingency of lawyers must be
way. Larger.
You have no idea. Like it.
They had people carrying briefcases for their lawyers

(24:32):
that were paid double what my lawyer was paid.
You know, they had like every mediation, they'd have 4 lawyers
with four assistants and, and the lawyers were in $10,000
suits and the assistants were in$5000 suits.
And I mean, it was incredible. It was just like I was, I called
my lawyer Erin Brockovich, because that's sort of what we

(24:54):
were at that time. We were like the little tiny bug
on their ass, you know? And at the end of the day, what
did I get? I got basically a judgement that
says, Yep, they were wrong. They stole your trademark.
You own the trademark, but they don't have to pay you anything.
Oh my God. So, you know, I got back my

(25:15):
trademark, but and they stopped using it because they just
replaced the name with somethingelse And and you know, the
damages were massive, but they, they didn't have to pay
anything. And why?
Because, you know, the fatal error that I made was suing them
in Silicon Valley. And this was the result of a

(25:38):
consultation I had that said this would be the best thing to
do because if you sue them in Florida, where your company is
based, they won't, the lawyers and, and judges won't understand
the technology as much. So you need to go to the hub of
technology and sue them there. Well, I didn't think all the way
through this because every judge, every lawyer in Silicon

(25:59):
Valley wants to work for the biggest companies at some point,
right? And they're all getting paid
somehow from those companies. So, you know, let's just say I
lost and well, I didn't lose. I just, I won, but I didn't get
anything. So except that, you know,
$1,000,000 in legal fees and, and three years of stress and

(26:20):
everything else, right. So that's.
Behind you, sadly, but. No, but you know, it does leave
a better taste. And I'm not one of the ones who
says, you know, it's the corporations because I'm a
corporation, but it's the evil corporations.
It's the corporations who don't care who they kill along the way
or don't care which grandmother,you know, is not going to be

(26:42):
able to afford those meds anymore because you're charging
so much money for them or whatever, you know, So.
Yeah. Corporations run like a
dictatorship. Yeah, kind of, yeah, kind of 1.
And again, I mean, I don't care how they're run.
I don't care what their what their structure is or who's
making money or whatever, as long as there's some scruples

(27:04):
involved. Ethics.
Yeah. And in so many cases there's
not, Sadly so. But anyways, yeah, Bob.
Bob is gone. And I don't know if you've heard
about his wife Carol, as well. Oh my goodness, the explosion
next door. Is that crazy?
Like all in a week too, you know?
Like, what a bad week, you know?Yeah, I know life challenges
sometimes can. Holy Rail.

(27:27):
Your, your well-being. So I I, I feel.
It is just nuts, you know, and Iwas talking to Dave about this,
the son and and he's like, yeah,you know, we're getting through
it somehow. But you know, she's out of she
was in intensive care and, and on a on a machine.
And so she's now off life support and, and breathing on

(27:48):
her own and stuff and expected to fully recover hopefully.
But yeah, just crazy. Like the house next door to you
blows up and her house just caved in on her and she was
buried under rubble for like a day.
You know, crazy I. Just can't think about.
It wow, it's crazy. And now, you know, he's dealing

(28:09):
with making sure his mom stays alive, plus scheduling a funeral
for his dad. You know, I mean, it's just a
terrible week. It's like, I can't imagine a
worse week. So God bless them.
Good with the shark. Real family.
Oh, heck yeah. Heck yeah.
Yeah. And you know, I had a long talk
with Carol at at another friend Craig's funeral last year.

(28:32):
And I sat with Carol, Bob's wifefor, I don't know, 45 minutes
talking about dementia and talking about what she was going
through and just offering support.
And, you know, I have 15 years of experience dealing with my
mom and just telling her some ofthe things we did.
Like one of the examples, every time I visit my mom, I stop at

(28:54):
Tim horton's and I get a certaintype of muffin that she loves.
And my girlfriend and I go in and we sing happy birthday to
her every time we go there. And she's like, oh, it's my
birthday today. Yes, it is, mom, it's your
birthday. And at first I got a little shit
from the from the home. They said you're being
deceptive. And we don't agree with that,

(29:15):
that methodology. And, you know, we think it's
wrong. And I basically said fuck you
and and then eventually they said we're really sorry we said
anything because we love what you're doing.
It's so amazing. It makes her so happy.
Joy bringing joy. She forgets it 3 minutes later.
It doesn't make. I could sing her happy birthday

(29:36):
again in 1/2 hour and she'd be like oh, it's my birthday.
You know, it's, there's just no memory there whatsoever.
So, you know, it's, it's, it's agood thing that makes her smile
and it makes other people sing along and they get happy in the
home and stuff. So, so yeah, we love to do that.
And I told her that and she's like, Oh my God, I'm going to do

(29:56):
it. And so I don't know if she did
it, I'd love to talk to her about it at some point.
But but yeah. So if you have a parent in a
home with dementia and and theirshort term memory is gone, go
ahead and sing them happy birthday.
They love it. Yeah, they love it.
It's. A great tip.
So I've never even said it, but thanks for coming back.

(30:18):
It is your birthday today and I'm sure there's better things
you could be doing. I will do tons of stuff this
afternoon when my daughter comesout of school.
Yeah. She's begging me to use my free
race at the electric go karts so.
Oh, that's so funny. That's so funny, Yeah.
Yeah, well, it's Miami week, so let's go.
Will you let her win or will you?

(30:39):
Well, we can't race against eachother at K1 because it's juniors
and adults. OK, they.
They step down the tower of the junior.
Yeah, versus the adults. So she's a little, she's a
little pissed off and worried about the boys because the boys
just, you know. Push her around.
Push her around? Yeah, exactly.
And she wants to go fast, but itdepends on the car they give

(31:03):
her, so we'll see. Yeah, it's, it's funny you say
this because my son called me first thing this morning and
he's like, you know, he's my son's a driver, right?
So he says to me, dad, I forgot to tell you about something and
I said what? And he said ESPN contacted me
and they want to do a segment inMiami.

(31:23):
They're booking K1 exclusively. So it's closed and they've got
full camera crews there and stuff.
And I'm cool. Is that?
And he said, I'm racing against some big ESPN announcer from the
races. And so we're racing against each
other. And he's he's he's talking shit
to me, saying how badly he's going to beat me and all this

(31:45):
stuff. And I said, Jeremy, lay him out,
just crush him, make him embarrassed on TV.
And he said sure. And I said, yeah, why not?
Like, what do you want to make friends with the guy?
Beat him and he was like OK, that's what I was thinking too
so. So yeah, he's doing that today.
He's actually probably right in the middle of it right now.

(32:06):
So I wish I could go, but my. One day on my birthday, Yeah,
there we go. It's cool.
That's very cool. That's a good idea.
I love that. Yeah, I'll.
Be sore as hell tomorrow, but itdoesn't matter.
I raced against my kid once and not only did he beat me, but he
put me into a wall and I was so sore for days, both, you know,

(32:27):
mentally and physically, you know, and so he's tried to get
me to race him again. I won't put you in the wall, I
promise. And I'm like, no, I'm good.
I'm good. Thank you.
Thank you though, I appreciate it.
He even tries to get me to race on his SIM and I won't do it
because he just wants to make fun of me and laugh at me.
So I put all of my racing dollars into you kids.
So don't make fun of me, you know, don't make fun of me.

(32:50):
I I gave you this life. So he's.
He's he's really coming up the ranks.
Yeah, You know, he's kind of paused because the next rank is
so expensive and I can either run my company or I can go out
chasing sponsorship for him. And it's really, it's a full

(33:11):
time gig. Like you have to have basically
a sponsorship person who's constantly working on that until
you get to like an Andretti or something who is willing to pay
for the whole thing. And it's just so rare now.
Like everyone shows up with a driver plus a huge stack of cash
these days so you pay. To drive, yeah, it's.

(33:33):
Crazy. We know of someone in IndyCar
right now who's a good friend ofours who we grew up racing karts
with, who paid $40 million to get into IndyCar.
Yes Sir. Yes, Sir, they did so.
But you know I can't compete at that level.

(33:53):
No, exactly. Not quite.
No, no. But that'll be fun for you.
Good. Yes, that's gonna be our little
event. And then some kind of sushi on a
conveyor. Bill finish the night.
It's a school night. You're in LA still, right?
Yes, yeah, sushi in LA is so good.
It's it's just some of my favorite.

(34:16):
Well, Austin too, like Austin has some incredible sushi now,
but Austin and LA, those are probably two of my favorite
sushi places right now that I'vefound anyways.
But did you ever hear the one where the Eric Loader podcast
that he did on his 50th birthday?
No, actually that was on my listto check out as well.

(34:37):
He he decided that he couldn't come on my podcast till he was
50 because that's that's geezer dump, you know, yeah, geezers
are 50. Even though I just had sooner on
for like the third time last week.
And she's I don't think she's 40yet.
But anyway, so we recorded a beautiful podcast, an hour and a

(34:58):
half long and it was just amazing.
And he was getting ready to go play golf after the podcast and
I finished and I look at my screen and I go no.
And 'cause I had just hit stop recording, it started recording.
And I'm like, why did that just happen?
And I, I'm thinking, I'm like, that could only be because it
was stopped. It wasn't recording.

(35:20):
So when I hit stop recording, I actually, so I go back and look
and I hadn't recorded anything from it, right.
So I I tell him and he goes, oh,well, let me just grab another
coffee and go pee and let's justdo it again.
And I went. You got to be kidding me.
Like, you know, a trooper betterthan you.
Yeah, what a trooper. So I was like, at least let me

(35:43):
pay for the round of golf or something, you know?
Can you imagine? That our our first chat on this
wonderful podcast was five yearsago.
Wasn't it almost 6? Was it in 99 or 2020?
No, no, it was. It was the week before the COVID
shutdown. Oh, so it's your fault?

(36:04):
Absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
It was in 2020. Yeah.
So five years ago. I know it's disgusting how fast
time is going right now. Like, gosh, I think of things
and I go, Oh yeah, I saw them one time.
It was probably five years ago. And I'm like, it was 20 years
ago. Like what, 20 years ago?

(36:26):
It's crazy. Like when I start thinking of
things that happened 35 years ago and I remember it like it
was yesterday. And I'm like, this is crazy.
Yeah. It's I.
Was lucky though, because I knowthat the touring industry was
pretty much halted for almost 2 years.
Yeah, yeah, it was brutal. Months, right?

(36:46):
It was brutal. I know so many LDS who had to
take like second mortgages on their house, had to borrow
money, had to take bank loans, had to do whatever they could to
survive, sell gear, sell their MA console or whatever.
But you were smart. You had already transitioned.
Well, yeah, I was still, I was still on the fence.

(37:07):
I was still, it's, it's crazy because I was designing
Matchbox's 2020 tour. It would have been Matchbox
20/20/20. 20/20/20. We were just about to to bid it
to vendors and and then all of asudden everything shut down.
And so I was kind of keeping 1 foot in the touring industry by

(37:29):
joining the wonderful meetings that that we.
Were. Having online every week and I
was also checking with the the movie industry to see what they
were talking about. And, and the fact that, you
know, organization has some benefits when you have union
leaders that can really sit withthe employer and figure out a

(37:50):
protocol to make sure that we could get back to work as fast
as possible. And it's incredible that in
August we all started to go backto work.
So only a 5 month pause in entertainment in the movie side
of the world. Which is shocking cause like for
years, like until just recently,all you got was foreign stuff on

(38:13):
Netflix or whatever, right? So it seemed like we didn't come
back to work. Well, I guess then we had the
long strike too. Oh, well, that's yeah, that's
that's Wolf. Another slap in the face.
After. That, but I'm still, I'm still
pretty proud of, of the leadership and the employer,
how, how they all got together and just made sure that they

(38:36):
could create this COVID supervisor concept and the
testing that was involved. Because in August, there was no
vaccines yet. People were still on ventilators
in the emergency room. And the biggest wave hadn't hit
Los Angeles yet because we always get it later.
And so my first gig back from the COVID break was for a a

(39:01):
fruit company. Not allowed.
To just like earlier you yeah, afruit computer company, yeah.
And, and you know how they do their product launches, it's
always with an audience and a. Theater.
Yeah, it's a big theatrical to do.
They had to give it and they hadto make it more like a pre

(39:24):
recorded video. OK, you.
Know so they started to bring like top cinematographers up in
Cupertino. Yeah.
To the fruit company. Headquarters, Yeah.
And I was part of the second round because I think they they
had already had tried one of those product launches in July.

(39:46):
And so I went there in August. Imagine my first job after being
sequestered for five months. I've got to put gear in a van,
drive myself from LA to Cupertino.
Oh my goodness. And live in a hotel for three
weeks and and then testing everyday.
And masks and all, it was kind of wild.
But guess what? At least you were working man.

(40:07):
Well, I was working and it was Yanosh Kaminski, RDP, our
cinematographer, the famous Spielberg cinematographer and.
It was great for. Me to reconnect with him 'cause
I. I'd worked with him on Call of
the Wild so and he's such a character he's wild so funny on
set so. So, yeah, that was the first
thing that I did and, and it wasa whirlwind of, of, of work

(40:30):
after that because the studios were like, hey, we've been off
for five months and we've got toget some, some.
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(41:37):
So I remember going to Sony after that job in September
because we had to do the Ghostbusters afterlife.
Reshoots. Yeah, I remember.
Yeah, they'd. Been holding that movie because
we shot it in in 2019 in Calgary, in Calgary.
That's right. And then and then.
So imagine we didn't do the reshoots until September 2020

(41:58):
and then finally it came out. Was that in Calgary too?
No, actually, we did it in Culver City.
I was going to say, you bastard,you got to go to Calgary and I
couldn't. And I own a house up there, you
know? Yeah.
My time in Calgary for the the main, the principal photography
was awesome. Yeah, because I'd, I'd always
gone there with bands on a day like show day and then leave or

(42:21):
day off and leave. Yeah.
And it was the same thing. Like do I know Calgary?
No, I don't. But by the time I was there for
4 1/2 months and travelled across Alberta and Drumheller
and. Oh my gosh, it was amazing.
Yeah, they had. Such a great time and then and
then that that that movie was socool because of the tribute that
they did to Igor and Spengler. And the.

(42:43):
Actor who passed away and yeah, so so that was cool.
And and then all of a sudden I didn't even have to worry about
my next job because I took my gear from the stages at Sony for
Ghostbusters Afterlife reshoots.And then I pushed them to other
stages to do bullet train with Brad Pitt.
Jesus and. Bullet train.

(43:04):
I don't know if you saw that one, That was pretty fun.
I didn't. That's that's the crazy bunch of
assassins that end up on the same bullet train with a, a
briefcase that has $10 million in it and then everybody wants
to kill each other on the train.It's pretty.
It was Pretty Goofy Movie, but that was nuts too, because now.

(43:25):
I think I did see it. Thinking back, I think I did see
it because that rings too many bells.
And and plus I wouldn't like normally the massive actors.
I'm shallow enough that I'll watch all their movies and I
don't go looking for the, you know, the more off the beat and
pass stuff. I just go for the A listers so I
think I did see it. It's crazy that we they barely

(43:46):
went to Japan to shoot exteriors.
We shot the whole movie at Sony in Culver City.
Really. On location in Los Angeles,
Yeah. And it says trying to reconnect.
OK, we're good. And that was nuts because the
big wave of COVID came over the holidays 2020-2021.

(44:07):
And we actually got shut down for a week because one member
got COVID and other people on the crew, they were all like
stuck in, in these tight train situations, you know, so they,
they gave us a, a week off afterNew Year's and then off we went.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, those early days were

(44:29):
tough because nobody really knewwhat we were dealing with, you
know? Like most of us hadn't had it
yet, you know? And most of us, you know, But I
think has it got a little later on and you kind of started
going, wait a SEC, it's kind of like a bad cold, right?
And and if you're, if you've gotcomorbidities or if you're
really old or your immune, immune system is, is weak, yes,

(44:52):
it might do much more harm to you.
But otherwise, guess what, it's a cold.
You're you're gonna get over it pretty quickly.
Now, yeah, for. Sure.
Yeah. But it took a while to get.
It took a couple years to get tothat point.
Plus the the battling politics on all sides of, you know, what
should we call it? What should we make it look
like? How bad is it?
How bad isn't it? You know, we were all worried.

(45:14):
That that any of our crew members that that were affected
by by the strain that they got. Yeah.
We're asking every day, is everybody OK or are they on
ventilators or something? Yeah, there was no vaccines yet.
You know, yeah. And but it was a crazy.
Shoot, if you want to talk aboutgear on that one, that was wild.
Because the train one stage. Stage 27 at Sony is the famous

(45:37):
Wizard of Oz stage it it has A2 tier ceiling.
The low part if I remember correctly is around 57 feet and
then the high parts at 80 terms in that stage.
And what they did is they put 22static trains, one that was
economy and the other one was business class.

(45:58):
And they had 140 feet of video screen on both sides that were
on tracks that could go from onetrain to the other.
Then we had sky panels, S 60s ontrusses to do over the window
effects that we're also able to track between business class and
and and and economy. And then we had colour blazes on

(46:23):
the ground to up light the windows that we had movers, we
had Roby BMFLS on one side and solar frames on the other.
It was crazy. That's wild.
And all LEDs inside like LED strips everywhere to light the
actors and and it was really nuts.
And then the wildest part is on the other side of the same stage
they had another set of 2 1/2 cars on airbags with giant

(46:49):
winches at both ends that could pull it in and out of a station.
And in that movie there's 8 stations.
If I'm not mistaken. It's the same 1:00 every single
time dressed. Really.
So tell me this, 'cause I, I have no idea how it all works.
And I had, I had, I don't know if you heard that one, but I had
Chalky on recently and he talkedabout you like you're some kind

(47:13):
of a demigod rock star of some sort.
You know, you're like up here ona up here on a throne somewhere
sitting, looking down at all theminions, which is probably a
very deserved accolade. But so when you're doing a show
like this and you got solo spotson one side or solo frames, I

(47:34):
don't remember what you said already, but and BMFLS on the
other side. Are you designing all of that or
is that ADP or? In this situation, that
particular job was was Ross Dunkerley A phenomenal gaffer.
Who? OK.
Probably has about 17 Clint Eastwood movies in his.
House Jesus, Yeah. And, and Ross and I have done

(47:55):
some good stuff. I did Jersey Boys with him.
Clint shook my hand after the show.
Oh. That's cool, really good.
I like the lights. I know.
So Ross asked me to do bullet train with him.
And Jonathan Sela was the cinematographer, great
cinematographer. And he works a lot with David
Leach, the director. He used to be a stunt

(48:17):
coordinator. And David Leach is is is pretty
crazy about bringing stunts intohis his movies since he started
directing and. So when you say crazy, you mean
he just likes wild stunts? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. Again, probably connected to his

(48:37):
past, right? Like, yeah.
So Jonathan Sella, the the the cinematographer designed the the
way that he wanted to do this because like I said, video
screens on both sides. When you, when you watch bullet
train, if you look out the window, it was it was custom
made videos of the landscape of,of Japan, mostly at night.

(48:58):
So it was because it was all these video screens and LED
buildings passing by or when they're in the countryside, you
just see a little bit of. So it was LED screens showing
LED screens. Yep.
They were capturing that live with the camera.
And then what we needed to do isI needed to animate the the

(49:20):
direction of travel with the color blazes and the sky panels
and the movers. So every shot in bullet train,
when they're moving, it's not only the the visual foolery of
the video screens that you're watching, but it's also
lighting. Yeah, passing to sell it, yeah.
Yeah. And it had to be perfectly

(49:41):
choreographed with the colors that he wanted to come on all
sides. And we tried to sync it with
video but it was really tough topixel map.
So the let let me just again, I'm a I'm an idiot when it comes
to this stuff and many things, but no, but I don't know
anything about how movies are orTV is lit.
But so the cinematographer basically sits in a meeting and

(50:05):
says this is the look, I'm afterthese things.
He's the. He's the lighting.
Looks on the side, right? And so then is it the gaffer who
says, OK, I'm going to turn thatinto some fixtures and he starts
deciding what fixtures will makethat look?
Then he asks me to draw it in scale to the sets that we get
from our department. OK.

(50:25):
And so Vectorworks comes into play really quickly.
And because I knew that I would never operate from anywhere
inside these trains because theywere too small and everybody was
masked up and it was only a minimal crew that had to go
inside these confined spaces, I decided to create the models in

(50:48):
Light Converse LA and have that live next to me so that I could
see what I was doing. Virtually.
And then I would look on my MY2 monitors that I get from from
the, the camera crew and I wouldjust make sure that what I'm
seeing in L8 makes sense in reallife and.

(51:09):
How close is it usually? It's pretty close.
Close. Yeah, it's really cool.
So, so we were able to to do some fun stuff on that show.
I I they were long 14 hour days where it was constantly
programming for the next shot but then also operating during
the shots to make all these livepasses.

(51:31):
And in in the previz you can youcan simulate the the movement of
the train and stuff too like get.
Well, the train's not moving at.All so, so right.
That's true. Yeah, the lights are.
I didn't have the video. Screens in light converse, but I
just have the lighting because we had lighting everywhere.
So it's. Really important for me to have
a representation to make sure that I was doing the right thing
because it's so tough on camera because you don't see the

(51:54):
lights. Cinematographers and gaffers,
They're in my opinion their bestsecret tool that they have in
their arsenal is to make every single light invisible.
Unless it's a desk clamp. That you.
See the the other 17 lights are just completely out of shot so I
can never see them on my screens.

(52:15):
So that's why having light converse next to me showing my
my rig, I was able especially because this shot now we're
looking this way and the direction of travel is West.
So it was like constantly flipping our chases.
Yeah, I had so many pages and the playback wing and it was, it
was a ballet of I felt like RickWakeman it.

(52:38):
Was so is is there any collaboration though, like
between between you, the gaffer and and the cinematographer as
far as choosing fixtures and things or fixture types at
least? Like we need a wash here, we
need a spot here. Yeah, they always ask me.
My opinion? On, on what we should get.
And then of course by the time we get into discussions with the
the studio vendor and, and theirSubs, then they tell us what

(53:01):
they can get right. But so it's always a good
compromise. But yeah, at the end of the day,
it's what what's in the shop, you know, what have we got?
Yeah, and they always go to fourwall or.
Or PRG? Yeah.
Because the studio vendors, theyhave movie lights that we use
constantly, but they don't have the the technology of of movers.

(53:24):
Yeah. And LED strips.
So they, they, yeah, then they, then they sub that out.
You're still all hog, right? I will.
I will. Always be.
And so are you one of the peopleresponsible for Hog having such
a a stronghold of the movie game?
Well, it's not just me. I mean in in Local 728, which is

(53:47):
the set lighting Nazi local in Hollywood.
Yeah, you have to. You have to attribute the the
success of Hogg on Scott Barnes.Yeah, that name came up on the
on the chalky thing, too. Josh Thatcher.
Yeah. Brian Booth, John Crimmins,

(54:09):
those are all the programmers that that championed Hogg in the
well, Scott actually brought HOG3 to lemony snickets in O3
because they had they had prettymuch acquired every possible
dimmer in North America for the show.

(54:30):
You could not get a dimmer rack to save your life that year
because they were all on a soundstage here in LA and and
control at that time was wild inO3 because hog was the first
system that could expand with with more processors, right.

(54:51):
So that's when Scott brought it up to his gaffer and he said, I
know how to control that many channels without having six
lighting consoles. What was the?
6 operators and yeah, exactly so.
So it's all on Scott and and it's wild because he he's been
consulting and and working at high end ETC now.

(55:11):
With. Oh really?
Yeah, that's cool. Scott and I went to the ETC Home
Office a few years ago to to brainstorm the next evolution,
so it was kind of cool to be invited to be a part of it.
Have you used them yet like the Tour Hog and the new?
Stuff. No, I'm, I'm, I'm.
I can't wait to. Put my yeah, yeah, they look

(55:34):
good. I mean, I don't know anything
about it, but they they look nice.
It's a it's a well designed sortof cross section of the
different control types you should have for different users.
Like not everyone needs a grand MA three, you know, like there
are different applications, different consoles needed,

(55:56):
different sizes and prices needed for those different
things. And you know, so it's it's
interesting. Like I had to learn a little bit
about it because I did a we do this.
We started a new podcast podcastcalled Future Tech, which is
100% AI. So the logo's AI, the, the music

(56:17):
at the beginning is AI, the, andthe entire podcast and the two
hosts are AI. And so we have to feed a bunch
of information to train the AI on what are we talking about?
And today we're talking about this new line of hogs that are
out. And so, yeah, we did we did this
podcast just a few weeks ago because ET CS one of our

(56:40):
sponsors and and yeah, so I learned a bunch about it just
from that. So I'm.
Excited. I think it's cool that they are
transitioning the the four software into the five software
seamlessly where right now five and four can talk to each other.
Yeah, it doesn't matter what youhave on the network.

(57:01):
So yeah, there's there's some really cool tips and tricks that
they picked up from that brainstorming session 'cause I
told them I said 64 universes would be really cool and then
when the HPU came out with 64 universes, that was like,
alright, thanks. So now that the new line of hogs
have 64 as well, that makes me feel good on a movie set because

(57:24):
I have, let's say 7 stages with 7.
HPU is running independently butstill connected.
So I can turn on anything I wantfrom any stage.
It's all networked but I always have a little fear because if
the HPU croaks then I got to bring out the spare, but now
that the new consoles have 64 universes as well on board if

(57:46):
the HPU would have a problem. Yeah, everything just goes
straight to the console. Yeah, Yeah, that makes a lot of
sense. And yeah, I mean, you just
mentioned sort of the compatibility thing.
That's huge. Like I, I, I can't believe we're
still so arrogant in this industry that we think people
are going to just buy US $80,000new piece of gear or 50,000 or

(58:09):
whatever, depends which brand, but and not make it either
backwards compatible or at leastallow you to use other
peripherals or whatever, like you know, accessories or things.
The old software, because the new one's not quite there yet,
yeah. You know, it's weird because in
consumer electronics companies get sued for that stuff.

(58:31):
You know, like Apple gets sued when they have a connector that
doesn't fit their new phone. But so now they got to get all
new, you know, accessories and chargers and things like that.
Or, you know, like they get theyget class action lawsuits over
that stuff. But we do it all the time in our
industry. We make your stuff completely,
you know, no longer useful. So I'm excited.

(58:57):
We'll see. It's it's it's June or July that
we're going to finally you're. Going to see where are.
These. Yeah, well, I'm putting an order
in. Yeah, yeah.
You know, I think I've heard both sides.
Like I've heard it's an incredible evolution of, of, you

(59:20):
know, the four and it's so amazing and stuff.
And then I've heard some people downplay it a little bit, like
people who saw it working at LDIor whatever, who kind of said
like, 'cause they had a secret room at LDI and some people said
to me, yeah, you know, it's basically more of the same.
And C of the next and we'll see where it goes.
I mean, yeah, you know what I mean.

(59:41):
For how long did people run MA Three's with two software?
You know, I know a lot of peoplewho still do today, you know.
So you just bought new hardware and you're running the same old
software on it. Why?
Yeah, exactly. The best part is the alpha
program's been on for anybody who was able to approach high

(01:00:02):
end and ETC and say I'd like to test.
Really. So you could try the five
software on A4. And it's finally in beta now.
So it's we're getting close to afirst release of five.
They're timing it so that when the purchases are delivered in
June, July, that five will be solid.
So. It's great.

(01:00:22):
You know, the other thing you said, which I think is really
interesting and important is like, if I left any mark on this
industry at all that that wasn'tnasty and dirty and disgusting
and miserable. One of the things when I went to
Martin, they said, why can't we get into the concert touring
business or why aren't we succeeding in that business?

(01:00:45):
And I said, because you haven't listened to enough people yet
like you. You first of all, you got to get
to know people and then you got to listen to what they want and
then give them something they want.
Like they're not just going to want something because you made
it. And so I started this whole
thing with bringing designers tothe factory and bringing
designers to cool places. Bring designers to Italy, bring

(01:01:09):
designers to wherever, bring lighting company owners and, and
managers and stuff to to different places.
So I'd bring all these people toDenmark and they'd sit right
there with the main engineers and say, these are the things we
want. And now it wasn't me screaming
for things because nobody wantedto listen to me, but it was, you
know, the, the Peter Morse's andPatrick Woodruff's of the world

(01:01:33):
and, and they listen to them. So, you know, guess what?
Suddenly, boom. Now we're a concert lighting
company because we're building things that people actually
want, you know, and I'll tell you somebody else who's really
great at that is the guys at, atICD.
And I'm not promoting them because they won't sponsor me
yet. But you know, they Gary and Noel

(01:01:56):
and Nick in the past before he retired to become a fisherman,
he, they, they listen to people and you know, oh, you want a
light that does this and this and this and weighs about this
much and looks kind of like this.
And sure. So they build it and guess what?
The, the people who asked for it, either spec or buy hundreds

(01:02:17):
of them and it becomes successful.
So, you know, it's, it's not that, that crazy of an idea
really. And Sarah did the same thing,
Sarah Klaus in the Yeah see highend.
She's championing the the new Hog project.
And she put these brainstorming sessions here in in the US and
in Europe with programmers that are are have a good reputation

(01:02:41):
in, in the touring world and movie world.
And it was really cool that theylistened to us.
And yeah. Now we have a compromise because
it's always a compromise from our crazy ideas that we had.
We wanted to be. Super futuristic and by the time
you try to sell something you just got to come up with a a
decent price otherwise people will laugh at you.

(01:03:04):
Well, yeah, first you got to be able to build it and then you
got to be able to sell it for whatever it is that you built it
for, plus whatever profit marginyou're trying to make.
And, and you know, one of the problems that I understand and I
think a lot of people who buy this stuff don't understand is,
well, if I look at this thing like, you know, a big example
has happened and I'm not pickingon MA, but they just happened to

(01:03:24):
be the, the victim of this particular situation.
So there's been a couple of Chinese manufacturers who have
been showing fake MA 2 consoles at and they actually had one on
display at LDI at LDI this past year.
And I think, I don't know if it was if lawyers made them take it
off the booth or something. I heard something like that, but

(01:03:46):
you know, so, so they people will say to me, you know, why is
MA charging, you know, X thousands of dollars when a
Chinese company can put the samething out for 20% of the cost,
like 1/5 of the cost these days?Well, no, but The thing is
engineering is very expensive. Not these days.

(01:04:07):
I finally got what you were justsaying.
Yeah. So it's that times 145% or
whatever. There you go.
But you know, engineering is very, very expensive.
So building something, designingsomething is where most of the
cost goes. Like it's like a drug when, when
a drug comes out on the market, sure, a pill only costs about

(01:04:28):
two cents to produce with whatever medicines in it, right?
But it cost them millions and possibly even a billion dollars
to to design that drug and to doyears and years of testing and,
and all of the different things they had to do.
So they gotta recoup that the cost.
Now yes, you and I could talk about they're a little over
recouping on some of these. Things, right?

(01:04:51):
But the cool thing I'm gonna say, the advantage now that I
feel high end ETC have is because of the ETC manufacturing
capabilities where they build their own motherboards.
Yeah, Yeah. That's very helpful.
So, so I, I'd like to, I forgot to ask Sarah, but I have a
feeling that these these this new line of hog will be at a

(01:05:14):
very high percentage of of American made.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, well, it'd be a good time
to come out with an American made product right now, I'll
tell you that. Absolutely.
But you know, the other thing issupporting these consoles, like
everyone wants all the new software versions to be free.
Of course, right. So every time there's a new
version, I want it for free. Well, guess what, If it's gonna

(01:05:34):
be for free, those costs have tocome from somewhere because now
initial purchase, yeah, not onlydo we have to develop the the
initial software that goes with the product, but for years and
years and years, we have to keepcoming out with new versions.
New versions. Yeah.
And we're paying a room full of engineers to do that.
And everybody just wants it for free.

(01:05:56):
OK, great. Then we're going to have to make
instead of making 30% margins onthose consoles, we got to make
80% margins on the consoles. And it might sound crazy, but
it's not, you know, because it. Costs a lot of money, keep the
life of. Of course, yeah, of course.
And, and you know, it's going tokeep great features coming out.
You know, you don't want to choke the company to death

(01:06:18):
financially and then they can't afford to produce new features
or, or they charge you $10,000 for every new release or
something, right. So you're going to I have.
To give props I have to give props to high end and ETC on the
fact that because of COVID and the death of Fred which was so
so sad as well. Of course, they had to pivot

(01:06:40):
because the whole project was put on hold for so many reasons,
but Sarah just championed that HPU idea.
To. Set the the foundation for what
was going to come. And it couldn't have happened at
a better time when the HPU came out because in the movie
business, I saw it coming from when I started in 2010 and here

(01:07:07):
we were in 2021. Right after bullet train I got a
call to be the programmer, the key programmer on Obi Wan
Kenobi. Yeah.
So pinch me, right? Yeah, like.
OK, let's do it. Yeah, let me think about that.
When I saw the gear lists I was like my rack hogs won't cut it

(01:07:29):
because it's only 16 universes. So I started to to figure out a
way to move some rack hogs and then invest in some HP us
because we had two stages where I wasn't using 64 universes, but
it was in the high 40s. So it was starting to be a
little stressful, you know, and,and then of course, I was

(01:07:52):
getting lighting control requests from so many
departments. It's just not main unit that has
a rig. It's the rigors are setting up
these massive rigs on every stages.
I was getting the costume department delivered me 5 Darth
Vader suits one. Morning.
And they said you're going to becontrolling the the chess piece

(01:08:13):
and the belt. But they had five of them that
we had to, you know, sort out the wireless starting address.
And there's another pinch me moment.
I'm going to be lighting Vader. And then, of course, then the
prop department shows up with their versions of lightsabers.
It was the first time. Obi Wan Kenobi was the first
show where lightsabers were going to emanate light because

(01:08:36):
in the old days of Star Wars, itwas a green stick that could
sustain big blows when they're fighting, right?
But there was no light lighting the actors.
So it was all done in post and it had no bearing on what a
lightsaber does. Now, if you look at Obi Wan
Kenobi, our cinematographer, Chung Hoon Chung from South

(01:08:59):
Korea, phenomenal guy. Yeah, he lit some of these
scenes just with the sabers. It's just phenomenal.
So what is it? What's the technology in the
Saber? So yes, the prop master and his
name escapes me right now, but we because it's deep in my
memory bank. But he was great because he had

(01:09:20):
his own guy that took the guts of a Skynote wireless receiver.
So he opened up the casing and just took the chip and that was
going to fit in the hilt of a ofa lightsaber.
Then he took an Arduino chip andhe programmed it to give us

(01:09:40):
basic controls of intensity and pixel control.
And then what they did is they put two strips of pixel LED on
the on the lightsaber hard shaftand then they covered it with a
plexi that had frost built in soyou wouldn't see the pixels.
So from the console, I was able to ignite and extinguish A

(01:10:04):
lightsaber, and the color control was already determined
so that I didn't have to choose the color because it's very
precise in Star Wars World of who gets what color of Saber.
But what we discovered though, during that production is that
sending all this information, sometimes with interference from

(01:10:26):
camera or other wireless deviceson stage, you could see it
ignite, but then all of a suddenit would stop and then continue.
So there was a little bit of timing thing that I had to worry
about and reposition my transmitters.
No, no pressure, right? Yeah, just.
I have to turn on Ewan McGregor's lightsaber right on

(01:10:49):
the money. Yeah, for a swipe and then turn
it off right after anything like.
Oh God. It was wild and it was fun.
It was a phenomenal. It's wild how much technology
you have, but still, there's some guy somewhere in a room
hitting a button to turn the thing on and off, right?
That's funny. That's hilarious.
And. But he got improved later on

(01:11:12):
another adventure that I did recently.
So that's funny. It's been, it's been.
That was pretty awesome. And then like I said, the HP us
were there at the right time. Yeah.
To give me enough control without going crazy with DPA
thousands, you know? Yeah.
Just to stack the the network. Yeah, like.

(01:11:33):
That so that was that was a goodshow to to to start moving
towards the new, the new hog. World.
Yeah, it sounds like it. No, that sounds incredible.
That's had to be quite an experience for you.
Yes, well, the the fun part was Deborah Chow, our director, who
is Canadian. One day she summoned me on set.

(01:11:56):
So I was like, oh, the principal's calling me to set,
but she was giddy when I got there.
And then I look next to her and there's this tall drink of water
that's right next to her, and it's Hayden Christensen.
Who? Who plays Anakin Skywalker And
he's grinning from ear to ear because he it was his first day
on set, reprising his role for the first time in over 20 years.

(01:12:19):
Jesus. So happy to be there with Ewan
McGregor, you know, reunited from episode 3, their their last
movie together. And Deborah's like, look,
Hayden, this is Benoit. He's he's our programmer, he's
Canadian. And then Hayden's like, oh, this
is so cool. So the three of us are just
Canadian? Geeks just geeking out over.
Star Wars fun set. We're just that was pretty.

(01:12:42):
Cool, you were a big fan of StarWars prior to doing this.
My God the. Only reason it was a highlighted
reason. Why I'm in entertainment
lighting is because of my shock of watching Star Wars in 1977.
I was 8 years old and I. Walked out of the.
Theater. And I said I want to do movies.
I want to work on movies. I walked out of the theater and

(01:13:04):
went, you know, I want more popcorn.
You know, I never thought anything like.
That I was just like, are you kidding me?
This is incredible. You know what's funny?
I saw that movie with my cousins.
I lived in Calgary and it was the first and only time my mom
took us to meet all my cousins in Burlington, ON and and I went

(01:13:26):
to see the movie in some strip mall movie theater in
Burlington, ON with my cousins and I'll never forget it.
It was it was such a highlight. It was such a great movie and
stuff, but I've just never been a a sci-fi person, you know,
like it's just like I was. I liked Star Wars.
I liked pretty much every Star Wars movie I saw.

(01:13:47):
I saw I saw the the Obi Wan Kenobi because I knew you were
doing it. So I had to watch it and, and
that's about it. Like I, I didn't do a lot of the
other stuff, you know, like any of the little offshoots of it.
I I didn't really get involved. So, but yeah, that's cool.

(01:14:07):
What a great story. Yeah, that was nuts.
And when we wrapped that, that was with a different gaffer,
Jared Waldron. We had done Iron Man 3 together
in in 2012. So it's kind of cool that it
took a little while for us to reunite, but we did Obi Wan
together. And then I remember towards the
end of that year, Ross from Bullet Train called me.

(01:14:31):
He goes, I got another little show.
You want to do it with me? It's with Eddie Murphy and Jonah
Hill. And I was like, OK, let's do it,
you people. For Netflix, which was such a
wild subject matter of trying tosee if two people from two
different cultures can really fall in love.
It was fun to have Julia, Louis Dreyfus and David Duchovny and

(01:14:53):
the cast and and and so it was an interesting shoot to see, to
wait, ready to show up every daywith his contingency of three
vans. Jesus sing the Elvis theme when
he arrived on set. So who who who do you think are

(01:15:14):
bigger like prima donnas movie people and or TV people or rock
stars, pop stars? He's more needy.
I, I haven't seen the, the, the prima Donna on either side.

(01:15:35):
They're so professional. Risk actors are, Oh yeah, oh,
super professional and they knowit's a job and they have to be
on the money when they get there.
So they're actors are so inside their head to try to make sure
they don't flip lines. Yeah, and they're.
They're thinking of every possible wink and paws and

(01:15:57):
breath and they're, they're so busy.
Yeah, I guess musicians, the thewhole sort of theme of live
music is it can be a little bit different every time you do it
and it doesn't really matter, you know, Although now with
everyone, with iPhone. Want it to be like exactly the
same once they build their show,yeah.
Yeah. But but I told you the story of

(01:16:20):
George Michael in the last podcast where he didn't want me
to meet him at the show because he was the pop pop star.
Yeah, he wanted me to meet him at home when he was.
Just the regular guy. Yeah, exactly.
So I thought that was really cool.
That's interesting. I've met some quirky musicians
and actors, I guess, in my life and I don't know.

(01:16:42):
I just think anybody who thinks that they're incredibly special
and should be treated different than anybody else annoys me, you
know? Well.
I'll tell you what, right after you people, we're looking at the
the the winter of 2022, I got the call from my gaffer Jared

(01:17:03):
Waldron from Obi Wan and Iron Man 3 and he goes, this is your
show. I couldn't think of anybody else
to do this show because it's 80 for Brady.
Oh, really? My love of the Patriots and.
Oh, I didn't know you were a Patriots fan.
Oh yes? Well, that's because in my youth

(01:17:26):
in Montreal, you get American channels from Burlington, Vt.
Oh, Plattsburgh, NY, of course. Yeah, yeah, I got Spokane when I
was a kid. Well, in Burlington.
Vermont. There's only one team.
They. Yeah, yeah.
So. From a very young age in the
70s, I was watching the Patriotsevery weekend.
I'm sorry for that. Well, that's OK, because it got

(01:17:48):
good Recently we sucked and thenin the 80s we sucked and then
the 90s. You still sucked.
You still sucked. Yeah, we did, yeah.
And then and then all of a sudden this 20 year amazing
thing. So yeah, when I got the call to
do 80 for Brady, I was like, notonly is this, like, retelling
the story of one of the best Super Bowl comeback ever, but

(01:18:11):
it's also Hollywood royalty withJane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and
Rita Moreno and Sally Fields. I was working.
I was wondering how that vibe was going to be.
You're asking about prima donnas.
And once again, Rita Moreno at 90, Jane at 81.
I mean, Sally Fields with 76. Professional.

(01:18:35):
Ready. To go.
Interesting. And they had so much fun
hamming. It up, yeah.
And then towards the end of the shoot, we got the e-mail.
We're going to have Tom for two days.
No pictures, no autographs, don't do anything, don't say
anything. And of course, I'm a rebel.

(01:18:59):
So I took my daughter's little Patriot shirt and I took her
little Buccaneers shirt and I put them on hangers on my cart
and then I printed 4 pictures, 81/2 by 11 of the two of us
cheering for Tom as Patriots fans and Buccaneer fans.
And I remember the the first night he was with us, he was in

(01:19:21):
full game mode because he was wearing his Patriots outfit from
that Super Bowl against Atlanta.He had the I the I stuff, right?
And they had to recreate sideline moments from that game.
So he was in full game mode. And the second AD saw my cart,
but he's he didn't point anything out and he comes and

(01:19:44):
sees me goes. This is great because you should
see there's some crew guys walking around with Philadelphia
Eagles shirts just to piss him off.
You're a real fan. I'm going to tell him.
So the next morning it was a completely different vibe
because they were shooting the the post credits scene where the
four ladies are on. Lawn chairs, enjoying drinks at

(01:20:06):
the beach and they're all talking to each other, but
really they're all talking to Tom.
So he was in shorts and T-shirt,really chill.
And then the second AD goes, hey, Tom, you got a real fan
over there. And sure enough, he's coming
towards me with a giant smile. And I had a 92nd chat with him
and his own tour hours was rightbehind him.

(01:20:26):
Production was right behind him looking at me going, you
bastard, You didn't listen to the memo.
But Tom. Was he came to you?
Hey, I wasn't going after him. He came to me.
I just that was a. Tribute.
What was I going to do, Say no? Yeah, And he looks at this and
he goes, oh, my God, how old is your daughter?
And I said, well, she's 7 and she already has four Super Bowls

(01:20:47):
with you, buddy. And.
And I said, as you can tell, we would go to the moon and back
for you, man, because we've cheered, you know, for you as a
pass. And then, yeah, Buccaneers.
And he goes, do you want me to sign one of her shirts?
And I was like, only if it's OK with you, right?
So that I was playing it right. And then he did.
He took her Patriots shirt and he signed it for Anya.

(01:21:09):
And it's in a glass. Case now.
Good for her, man. Well, and guess what?
It's not something that got signed by, like, you know, one
of these sports selling places that sells memorabilia and
stuff. You got a story behind it.
Like I was recording this film. Like I'd put a little thing of
the film in there or whatever too, you know, into the frame.

(01:21:31):
But that's amazing, yeah. That was a great story.
And then when the movie came out, we I took my daughter to
the cast and crew premiere on the Paramount lot.
She was so excited. Your daughter's kind of like
Elon's kid, like, gets taken everywhere.
Yeah. Oh, yes.
Which is so cool. Like, that's how I always was
with my kid, too. Like if I can go there, he can

(01:21:53):
go there, you know? Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely. That's that's really.
Great. But like what?
Like I said, the the Hollywood royalty, they were so
professional. I mean, Rita Moreno fell at one
point, knocked her head and medics came to see her and she
goes, I'm OK, let's do, let's continue.
That's wild. 90 years old, don'ttreat me like an old woman.

(01:22:14):
Yeah, nailed her scene. Yeah.
You know what though? I mean, at the same time, people
that are in their 70s and 80s and 90s in acting should really
be very kind because the fact that you can still get a
paycheck for doing that in a very young person industry,
that's true. You know, be grateful, you know,

(01:22:36):
just behave nicely and be grateful because like I pinched
myself that I can still work in this industry because this is
now a young people industry, right?
And I'm not young anymore, so I I don't take anything for
granted. Like I, I realized that at some
point somebody's going to outsmart me and knock me off my
pedestal and, and off I go. But yeah, that's a cool story.

(01:23:00):
We had fun. I'm kicking myself because on
that last day after I met Tom, people were telling me that they
were at base camp. They were all throwing the
football with Gronk, Edelman, Danny Amendola and Tom, and I
was just waiting for my moment that day and I'm an idiot.
I should have just gone to base camp.

(01:23:20):
And play the. Football with them, but I did
not. I was a respectful crew.
Member Yeah, while you were doing your attention.
To the memo. Doing your job, but.
Here's here's the cool thing. Right after that, a new gaffer
that I've known for a while calls me and he goes, hey,
you've been on on Star Wars before.
Do you want to go back? We've got this cool show that

(01:23:44):
that that two of two DPS are going to do 2 cinematographers
are going to do. One of them is my good friend
Shawn Porter. So Scott Todd, the The Gaffer
and Shawn Porter did the Green Book together, if you remember.
That yeah, I do. That was a great movie.
Oh. Man, phenomenal.
And yeah, Viggo Mortensen is amazing and, and I can't

(01:24:05):
pronounce his name the the African American actor was.
Yeah, he was great. He was so good in that movie.
Yeah, that was a fantastic. One, so the two of them invite
me to go back to Star Wars for Skeleton Crew, which is Goonies
in Space. It's literally a tribute to
Goonies. So I was so excited to to go

(01:24:27):
back there. But not only that, we were
making this show for our own kids.
Yeah. It's really geared towards, you
know, 9:00 to 12:00, maybe a little older, of course, because
Star Wars has always been for anybody from 7 to 77.
Yeah, yeah. So that was that was our our

(01:24:47):
summer into fall of 20. What was it again summer 2022
until January 2023. And then the best part is the
lightsabers have been modified to even be a way better.
So the pixel control had been taken away from me and it was
all in the Arduino chip and all I had to do was say ignite and

(01:25:09):
then the whole thing would wouldlight up properly.
So we didn't have any wireless into.
I. Could change color now I had a
scene to control 6 lightsabers in the opening scene of of of
skeleton crew. When when?
Actually wait a second that's I'm mixing the two now.
That's not true. That's the opening scene of Obi
Wan where I controlled 6 lightsabers.

(01:25:29):
No pressure there. But in Skeleton Crew was, it was
different. It was less of a lightsaber
situation, more like the usual Star Wars buttons on every door
and console. And so that was another
phenomenal return to that world.But the thing about the six
lightsabers, like so I guess in a live show, if you screw up,

(01:25:52):
it's recorded in history, that'sit, you screwed up.
That's it. Obviously in a movie they're
gonna redo the shoot if it's badenough or or fix it in post or
whatever. Normally we do as many takes as
it takes to make the director happy for a particular shot.
But you don't want to be the onecausing another take, right?
Like if you're ruining a good actor performances because

(01:26:14):
that's what. Happens though, do you get
something through the headset orsomething?
Like Dick head? What did you do there or
something? Most of the time, most of the
time it's like that was a bit late or that was a bit early,
you know? Yeah, so.
But luckily I pride myself on mylegendary timing so.
Luckily I don't screw up very often.

(01:26:35):
Yeah, exactly. I.
Have that one moment on Obi Wan where Ewan McGregor was like,
you're the one. How, how are you able to figure
all this out where it turns on and turns off exactly when I
when I think it should, I said horses flowing through US.
My friend, I said. That's hilarious.

(01:26:56):
To say it right. Perfect answer.
I know it was like perfect answer.
I said it kind of helps that I've, I've, you know, done some
wacky time signatures with a fewbands over the years.
Yeah, yeah, try lighting Dream Theater.
This stuff's easy. I know it's, Yeah, well, that I
didn't want to make it sound like this is only one or two
cues per shot when I've got songs that had 140 cues, you

(01:27:19):
know? Missed 1 and 15 time changes
and. I kicked myself if I missed one.
So yeah. It was a, it was a good, it was
a good symbiotic relationship there so.
So it sounds like everything hasjust flowed like 1 to the next
to the next to the next, like you haven't been out of work at
all. That was crazy.

(01:27:40):
I'm going to page 2 now where the the road bumps started to
happen because we knew that the strike was coming.
Of the strike, of course. Yeah, Because I was going to say
like COVID really didn't seem tocost you much work maybe what, a
month or two? Well, it was five months, five
months. It was from March to August
there. Was.
Which sounds like a lot until you talk to touring LDS who were

(01:28:01):
two years, you know. Yes, exactly.
Yeah, I felt so guilty, but at the same time I felt relieved
that I had made the. Of course.
Transition at the right time. Yeah, of course.
But there was a lot of family bonding during the COVID part.
Which was cool. Yeah, I was always.
Gone, you know. Yeah.
I got into excellent physical shape during COVID.

(01:28:21):
Good for you, I. Bought the mirror, did you
screen in it? And I was doing yoga every day
and. Stretching.
Good for you. Because people went both
directions on that. Like, I know a lot of people who
put on 75 lbs and I know, I knowpeople like you and me who
really focused on their, their, you know, health.

(01:28:42):
It's crazy because after being in such great shape during the
COVID break, what I just described, when you go from
bullet train to Obi Wan to you people to 80 for Brady to
skeleton crew, my God, I was a mess By that time, physically, I
had neck and shoulder issues that were just like radiating
pain everywhere. Yeah, from multiple directions.

(01:29:05):
So I had to figure out at some point I got to take care of
myself, you know? Yeah.
Is catering on on sets. Is it better than more healthy
than catering on on tours? Yes, yes, they they have.
They have a. Good.
You would think so. They have a good combo of of
catering that takes care of the morning, breakfast before you
start work and lunch six hours later.

(01:29:27):
And then they also have crafty that keeps you filled up with
snacks and at the three hour mark in the morning you get a
sandwiches or something special.And then you will have lunch 3
hours later and then you have another snack 3 hours later.
And then if you go deep, there'sa second meal that comes in.

(01:29:49):
But usually it's healthier though, right?
Like it's not hamburgers and pizza.
I'll. Just call it the same as I
always do. There's always some kind of
swimming chicken. Yeah, Kind of some kind of cow
and some kind of fish, yeah. But no, it's cool.
Yeah. You just have to be a lot of
self. Control.

(01:30:09):
Disciplined. Yeah.
Yeah, discipline. Don't just eat pizza because it
tastes good. Less and less every day, yeah,
as the day progresses. So my.
Yeah. My main meal is the morning
meal. Well, I always struggled with
races when I was at races because Jeremy was racing on
teams and the teams had catering.
Plus they'd always have snacks out, right?
So every time I'd walk by a bowl, I'd grab one of those

(01:30:32):
things that things that it, it basically fakes being healthy,
you know, the little protein bars or whatever they are in the
little package. So I'd eat four of those in a
day. And then lunch, you'd take two
portions because why not? It tasted pretty good.
And I might, I might not have dinner.
And then you go out for a big dinner with the team.
And so, yeah, I mean, I put on weight when I was at races

(01:30:57):
because I was just eating crap all day, plus the stress, plus
the lack of sleep, you know, pace yourself, plus a few few
beers or something at some pointof the day.
Like if you win anything, everybody cracks out a beer or
something. So.
So yeah, yeah, you got to watch your health.
I. Know, but I've I've been lucky
because recently I've discoveredthat if I have a a really

(01:31:19):
awesome Asahi bowl with fruit inthe morning, that sets the day.
Yeah, Yeah. It's really healthy.
Yeah, we're the same. My girlfriend and I, we're we're
either a smoothie or, you know, like a couple of poached eggs or
something, but always like some fruit and always spinach or
something. You know, it's like just trying

(01:31:40):
to trying to do be better. You don't have to be perfect,
just be better. Yeah.
But anyway, right after, right after Skeleton, you're right.
I just kept going because there there was a a phenomenal invite
from Chris Culleton, another gaffer that I worked with before
on Call of the Wild with Yanush Kaminsky.
But this was a different cinematographer, Paula Hui

(01:32:02):
Dobro, and they invited us. They invited me to control
everything in the White House for a beautiful murder mystery
featuring Detective Cordelia Cupin the recently released show
called The Residents on Netflix.I.
Don't know. Oh really?
No, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, so that one is fun because

(01:32:23):
it's kind of a Knives Out approach, kind of a tongue in
cheek comedy. Interesting.
Same time, it's pretty serious because the head usher of the
White House gets murdered on thenight of an Australian straight
state dinner. And so there's a running joke
that Hugh Jackman keeps the guests entertained by giving

(01:32:45):
them dance lessons and. Oh God.
Kylie Minogue is there singing the same song 7 fucking times.
Oh my God. But it's just so funny and, and
we, we, we shot the 1st 4 episodes in the early part of
2023, clearly knowing that therewas a freight train smashing

(01:33:05):
into a strike wall at some pointin the early summer.
So they had it figured out in, in blocks.
Block 1 was going to be episodesone through 4 and and then they
knew there would be a pause during the strike and then
hopefully we'd be coming back and and shooting episode 5
through 8 right after that was wild.

(01:33:25):
We had 7 stages at MBS Raleigh, which is across the street from
Paramount Studios on Melrose, and our gaffer Chris Coleton
designed the rig on every stage with 16 foot walls.
So we had to have green beds built which are basically

(01:33:46):
walkways right above the set walls and then lights would be
anchored off the green beds. We had 17150 smart lights, we're
talking sky panels, vortexes from Cream Source Pro lights,
knock off of of a sky panel, lights everywhere.

(01:34:09):
But once again, because the Hog is such a great system with port
numbers, where the HP us are in every stage, they're they're
feeding their own streaming ACN for that stage.
But Hognet is interconnected. So that way, no matter where I
am on the lot, I can turn on a light on stage 11, I can turn on

(01:34:31):
a light on stage 7, doesn't matter.
And of course my cart moves withcompany.
So when we shoot, I'm I'm stuck on the same stage that we're
shooting. And then my rigging programmer
who was chalky is able to to deal with all the other stages
at the same time. So it was great because we had a

(01:34:52):
lot of tours. Our UPM Mary D Howard was so
proud of showing her sets to a lot of shows to possibly buy
them at the end. What's the UPM?
Unit production manager. Oh, OK.
And Mary D Howard is a legend inmy book because when I was

(01:35:12):
growing up, right before I started, well actually as I was
starting to tour in the late 80s, early 90s, my favorite show
was Star Trek The Next Generation.
And she was the first AD first assistant director on Season 1.
And she finished as the unit production manager by the end of

(01:35:33):
the series seven years later. And then she also became the
unit production manager for Voyager and Enterprise.
So her legacy in the Star War, Star Trek.
World Star Trek, Yeah, Careful there, Mr. Yeah.
Is 17 years and then after that she became an independent

(01:35:55):
producer and landed with Shondaland Productions.
Shonda Rhimes and then eventually she was spearheading
The Residence for Netflix. You're pretty good at
remembering some complicated names.
I am names like some of the names are very foreign and stuff
and you're just remembering all these really long names and

(01:36:17):
stuff. Just.
To make sure that I didn't look like a complete goof.
But it was really cool to meet Mary and she is one of the good
ones. Where there's.
There's no lying. There's no stretching the truth.
She cares about the crew and shewas falling apart when the
writers went on strike first. And we were told by the studio
to keep shooting without our ourshowrunner who wrote the show.

(01:36:40):
And it was towards the end of episode 4.
So we were kind of chugging along as much as possible,
knowing that the actors would goout at the end of the month.
And then at at one point she hadto tell the crew and the cast
that Netflix it pulled the plug and we had to go on a hiatus.
And she cried. And at first you're wondering,

(01:37:01):
is she she's just putting on a chauffeur?
No, it was completely legit and heartfelt.
You know, we could tell that shereally cared and and.
So she was crying because she had to send everyone home or
because she was going to be out of work or all of the above?
No. No, no, it was, it was, it was
the sad part of like we did everything we could to keep

(01:37:21):
shooting because the scripts were stamped as completed.
So we were able to shoot episode4 without our head writer
because he was home. Right.
And which is weird because showrunners also wear a producer
hat. So Netflix was in the conflict

(01:37:43):
where they were like, we need your producer input, but because
you're the creator and you wroteit.
Yeah, interesting. I can't.
So is that because everyone's indifferent unions and stuff or
yeah. Or is it just politics?
Or well, the, the showrunner is definitely in the Writers Guild,

(01:38:04):
yeah. And then he's also a PGA member,
Producers Guild member because as a showrunner you get you get
2 titles, you're writing it and you're also producing it.
So it's kind of weird towards the end there, we could tell
that the machine was kind of like missing his input because
it's his baby, right? Yeah.
And so. So, yeah.

(01:38:24):
So we went, we went home end of May 2023.
And pretty much June to October gave me a chance to fix my body
because like I said, I was I waspretty rough.
Yeah. And it's good because I found a
chiropractor who was also a licensed acupuncturist.

(01:38:48):
And by seeing him regularly, I was able to just finally, it
took a good eight weeks to take away a spasm that was lodged
between my shoulder blade and myheart.
Really good place to have a spasm.
Yuck. Yeah.
Just that feels. Just like a heart attack.
I know burning sensation. You're wondering, is this going

(01:39:10):
to spike at some? Point Yeah.
Is this it? So, so that's what I did during
the strike is really take care of myself.
So because I knew that when it would end.
Yeah, it. Would be gangbusters, but it's
so strange how it really wasn't that gangbusters because that's
when we realized that the industry had left LA again.

(01:39:30):
Yeah. For better tax credits
worldwide. So really, the industry thinned
out in LAA bit, yeah. By by the time the strikes ended
and, and, and we went back to work well, I was lucky because I
had residence episode 5 through 8 to shoot right away.
So we brought our gear back in our control equipment back into

(01:39:51):
Raleigh MBS in November. And then we we did a few days of
shooting before and then the sadpart, Oh my God, right before we
started shooting, we found out that one of our actors passed
away. Andre Brauer.
Jesus. Phenomenal actor, everybody
loved him so much and he was ourEd head usher who gets murdered.

(01:40:16):
Oh my God. So all the flashbacks.
Did you have to reshoot a bunch of stuff?
Yeah. Yeah.
So what they did is they they, they asked one of the top actors
in the business, Giancarlo Esposito, to take over the role
of AB Winter. And he knew Andre Brauer.

(01:40:37):
And so it's big, big thing for him to pick up the legacy of
Andre. And So what he did, what we shot
Episode 5 through 8 with him andat the end we had an extra 3
weeks to reshoot his parts. For every one through 4.
Wow. So that carried us till May of
2020. 4 And then the strike ended.

(01:41:03):
Well, the strike ended. Oh no, the strike was over in
November. So.
So then other things happened. Or.
Well then, then it was. Really.
Los Angeles was a ghost town andI'm proactive.
I reach out to people, and I reached out to a gaffer that I'd
met seven years before on at theend of Captain Marvel.

(01:41:26):
His name is Walter Bethel. Thank you, Walter.
I knew Walter was about to startSeason 4 of The Morning Show
with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon at Sony.
I seem to spend a lot of time inSony in Culver City.
So I reached out to Walter and Isaid, Hey, Walter.
I'm available. We've wanted to work together
since Captain Marvel. I'm available.

(01:41:47):
Can I potentially be your programmer on on the morning
show? And he answered me.
I would walk on broken glass if you could do this show with me.
Because it turns out that that it's been a little tough for
morning show crews over the years, but it's a wonderful
experience once you're on set with, with the cast and
everything. We, we, we, we, you know, we

(01:42:09):
have fun and it was a great experience.
So I'm lucky. I count my lucky stars every
day. Because.
In June of 2024, I had a job. Yeah.
December. Yeah, wow.
So that was most of my year lastyear.
And then and then you know how it goes, right?
Once you're with a new crew and a new gaffer, then he wants to

(01:42:31):
keep going. So as soon as we wrap that his
other DP Yo Williams, who was famous for see, I knew I would
forget something at some point. Jennifer.
The world where you're the the hunger.
Games. There we go.

(01:42:52):
OK, yeah, yeah. I never saw any of it so I
wouldn't know. But anyway, Yo Williams and and
Walt Bithell were were The Hunger Games crew in in the day
of that show. So he calls, Walt goes right
after the morning show last year.
He goes, Yo has a small project that's going to shoot right

(01:43:13):
before and after the holidays, and it's a remake of the hand
that rocks the crate. You know, I was like great
movie, great movie. How are?
They going to approach. Scared the living shit out of
me, but great movie. Yeah.
Imagine being a nanny, applying for gigs after that movie.
Like our nanny, we put her through the ringer, you know, it

(01:43:35):
was like. Weight of about 64 questions.
Yeah, right. And then we need you to live
with us for a month before we actually hire you.
Yeah, well, Walt surprised me. He goes, this is a small movie,
independent movie. We're going to have to work for
less than scale. I hope it's OK, but it keeps us
busy over the holidays. And Mary Elizabeth Winstead is

(01:43:55):
the actress. And I was like, Oh my God, Ewan
McGregor's wife. Oh really?
I'm going. To work with Harrison Doula from
Ahsoka, that's the reason she's in Star Wars as well, and she's
a great actress. And.
And so, yeah, so we we rolled right on to that.
And it was in LA, mind you, I had to drive to Pomona for the

(01:44:17):
first few weeks. That was almost an hour both
ways. Oh no, I know it's.
Not fun in traffic LA. Traffic, yeah.
But eventually we parked at thishouse in Studio City for like 3
1/2 weeks, almost 4 weeks, and now it's 20 minutes from my
house. Cool.
Yeah, that was. Pretty cool.
And then that wrapped. And then Walt was like, hey,

(01:44:38):
we're going back with David Lanzenberg from the morning
show. He's got reshoots for another
slasher called I know What You Did last Summer.
Oh my goodness. So we just did that briefly, was
like a 3 1/2 week reshoot and then and then all of a sudden
the show's ended and now I've been picking up commercials and

(01:45:03):
a few things here and there. Is that the hardest part of your
gig? Just the hustle in between stuff
like making sure your calendar is full.
Yeah, well, luckily my Rolodex exploded.
Rolodex. Yeah.
But my my phone contacts exploded when I joined the the
Hollywood local set Lighting in 2010.

(01:45:25):
Yeah, and the idea is that as a programmer, it'd be great if I
could stay with only one crew. Yeah.
But then there's these pauses inbetween, right?
Where? Yeah.
I just got to keep it going so some.
Yeah, well, it's like touring for one band, you know, unless
it's Coldplay, who tours all year, every year.
But, you know, other than that, like touring with one band,
you'd starve to death. Oh.

(01:45:46):
My gosh, that's why I was so lucky in in those touring days
where I was juggling at least two every year.
Yeah, well, look at that. You know, one of the miracles of
modern life is Cosmo, because itwas like he had, he had
Aerosmith, ACDC, Judas Priest, and I think there was one other
one in there and they always, the tours never overlapped.

(01:46:08):
It was always like one end. Feeling that.
Two weeks later, the next one starts.
You know I. Had a sneaky feeling that
management somehow talked to each other to make sure it.
Caused. I don't know, it just seemed to
always work out and and. This one for me.
Didn't I tell you this on the last podcast that we did?
The wildest one was when MichaelLipman organized Rob Thomas solo

(01:46:29):
tour and the George Michael Australian dates around my
schedule so that I could do both.
Wow, that's amazing. That's big.
You know, you know, you've kind of done some things right when
when people are willing to do that.
I was, I was freaking out because I was never a part of 1
camp. Yeah, because I was always

(01:46:50):
flying to the next one. So I was on my own going am I
going to the right place today? Yeah.
Wild. Let me ask you this is so is
there like a ladder in in your world, like where you know, when
you're a lighting programmer on tour, you want to eventually
become the lighting director andthen you want to become the

(01:47:11):
lighting designer. And then, you know, you might
want to become the lighting designer who doesn't direct, who
gets to go home right after it is done and and you just come
out every once in a while like arock star and just make sure the
rig still looks good or whatever, right?
So is there like can, is your next step to become a gaffer or
something or? Oh well, I think my time has has

(01:47:33):
passed on on taking big responsibilities in the motion
picture industry even though as a key lighting programmer on big
shows. Yeah.
I have sometimes about 25 peoplethat are directly.
Oh wow. Under my supervision to make
sure that by the time I show up on and the new set of the day

(01:47:54):
that everything is ready. And I, I, that's why I, I make
these long Facebook posts sometimes to show that I can't
do what I can do without so manydifferent people.
And it starts with the rigging programmer most of the time.
Because if I didn't have a rigging programmer, there's no
way I'm allowed to work more than 12 to 14 hours a day.

(01:48:17):
So how can the other stuff get done for tomorrow's work, Right.
So it starts with a good riggingprogrammer.
And then after that it's it's what we call lighting control
network utility technicians who understand data management of
the 21st century. Because in the old days they

(01:48:38):
just had a few universes and they used Opti splitters and
five pin cable. Well, try to do that with 36
universes. I have got a photo somewhere of
a data table that has 36 Optis that are receiving 5 pin from
DPA, thousands I guess. And then it's just a spider web

(01:48:58):
of freaking 5 pins going everywhere in the perms.
What if you have a problem? How do you troubleshoot that?
So I want to say that around thetime that we did Captain Marvel,
which was in 2018 is when we alldecided, wait a second, let's
just use the, the, the art net port of a, of a, of an HPU or,

(01:49:20):
or rack hog or whatever. And then we eventually switched
ACN and then just run single lines of CAT6 everywhere nodes
and then transform it at the last possible moment to 5 pin
before the light. But that takes what we call
skilled labor. And that's people who take the

(01:49:42):
time to take our classes that are local teachers every month
or every couple months because we have a phenomenal director of
safety training, Alan Rowe at Local 728.
And he always makes sure that hegives basic console classes,
basic networking classes, and then the advanced classes so

(01:50:03):
that crew members have the opportunity to learn these high
skills of networking of why do we do static IP versus the HCP?
Why do we? What's the difference between
Hognet and Fixture net? What's, you know, all that kind
of stuff that the old school technician that was used to
taking 100 amp, plugging it intoa distro and flicking the light

(01:50:27):
on, that's not that anymore because now all our lights have
computers in them. Well, yeah, we've gone from,
we've gone from sort of a generalist to a specialist sort
of thing on, on shows at at least, you know, you have a lot
more people who are specialists now as opposed to, hey, you
know, go over there and grab that thing, you know, and like,

(01:50:49):
I mean, everyone kind of knew everything.
Like one day you were a lightingguy, the next day you were front
of house audio, the next day youwere the production manager.
Yeah, yeah, in. Hollywood, that's the only place
in North America where we have specific unions for every trade,
whereas everybody everywhere else in North America it's multi
trade, single locals so. You know, I was asking you like,

(01:51:14):
can you move sort of up the ladder?
But you know, you've obviously sort of risen to the top of the
food chain as far as lighting programmers are concerned.
Like you get very, very good stuff thrown at you and you're
trusted to do those shows and stuff.
So how do you expand in that role?
Like, can you demand more money or does the union dictate how

(01:51:37):
much money you're allowed to make?
Well. Scale is always.
Scale is always the minimum thatyou should be paid.
OK, for. Your your position and then it's
up to you to see if you can negotiate above scale.
On the. Scope of work.
So when I, when I'm going to have lighting components thrown

(01:51:58):
at me from, you know, main unit rigging costumes, prop and
fixtures as well, because there's an, there's a small sub
department of lighting called fixtures.
And those guys on a Star Wars show they're in, they're,
they're in charge of wiring every single button you see on a
door or on a console. And every single one has to have

(01:52:19):
a number. Because if.
The director goes that blue one,that's the one he's going to
push, and when he pushes it, it's got to go off.
So. So all those buttons have to
have a number, which means at that point I need to have plot
views in my consoles of every button.
Right. So it's a little complicated.
It gets really complicated, and if I didn't have that support

(01:52:42):
from the rigging programmer and all the lighting control utility
technicians, I would show up in deep shit every morning.
Yeah, yeah. So it's great to be in charge
because I'm the one who lays down the Bible of do this this
way, do this, this way, but don't do that.
But don't do. That I've got like 100 things.

(01:53:02):
So you can command more money, you know, basically like
somebody who is just breaking into this from being a nightclub
light jockey or something and hehappens to know how to run a hog
really well. But he could get in and and join
the union and and eventually getput on to some B show or
something and work his way up a little bit.

(01:53:23):
But he's going to make a lot less money than you are.
So I was hopeful that you would say that because I just thought
you were going out, you know, with your lunch box and making
the exact same wage that some schmuck was making.
You could kind. Of I don't.
Know how unions work? Really.
So you. Could just ask for a percentage
above scale. But then there's also the fact
that I rent my equipment. Yeah.

(01:53:44):
What was the other thing I was going to ask here?
Are the consoles that you use yours?
Oh yes, I've invested in in seven HP US and my current full
bore 4. Yeah.
And then I have a smaller rig when when it's time to go in a
car process situation just to make it smaller.
Yeah. But then I get to rent that back

(01:54:05):
to production as a business entity.
They always try to say, oh, that's a box rental on your
paycheck. No.
Yeah. I'm not the only one touching
it. There's going to be.
Other crew members that are going to touch it, so you're
going to ensure it. And you're.
Oh, is that how that works? Oh.
Yeah. So if if you're just using it as

(01:54:25):
a tool, a box rental or whateverit's called, then it's your
problem. That's right.
Ah, I see. Nice little snag.
Good find on that one. That's right.
So do you have No, it's it's been it's been great that I know
that I can. I've found my my place.

(01:54:46):
I mean, many years ago, if I hadn't taken a left turn and
toured for 27 years, maybe I would be a cinematographer.
If I want to be a cinematographer at 55, No.
Because or. 56 Damn it, I had tocorrect you.
Yeah. The.
Director of photography, Cinematographer.
That's the same position, right?DPS that's a tough life because

(01:55:10):
they have six months of prep fora project where they just
constantly talk about the look of the show, motivation as to
why the lighting is going to be like this in this particular
scene versus that scene. Is it day, is it night, blah,
blah, blah. But then they then they shoot
for four months and then they'resupposed to go into the, the,
the post production session to color time every scene so that

(01:55:34):
they all have a stylistic look. Most DPS have no life.
They just constantly are workingon, on that stuff and it's, it
affects their, their, their family life a little bit.
It's a tough job. It's a tough job to be a
cinematographer. I get it.
You're also, you're thinking of lighting, you're also thinking
of camera placement and, and camera moves and, and, and

(01:56:00):
composition and all that stuff. So I'd love to do that, but
maybe 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to think
about like big, big career changes like that when you're
although, you know, you keep hearing stories about people who
made most of their their money after 60 or after 70.
That's true. Like some of these guys, you

(01:56:21):
know, it's. Experience, if you bring
experience and you also bring a guarantee that you're going to
deliver. Yeah, yeah.
In the old days. Imagine the old days of movie
making when it was on film, right?
And film cost a fair amount of money to to.
And you couldn't shoot for hoursbecause it's.
The producer told you how many reels you had, and then you had

(01:56:43):
to shoot within those reels. There were probably 10 DPS
worldwide that would guarantee you a movie.
Yeah. Now, because it's digital and
then the cards record like an hour and a half of material
before you switch the card. There's thousands of of DPS out
there because they, yeah, they see it right away.

(01:57:07):
They have a vision in their mindand it's a it's a tough world,
especially now that there's so many, so many crew members that
can deliver a movie, but they'reall being shot elsewhere.
Yeah, do do you lose any sleep over AI?
I, I try not to, I try not to worry about it because I feel

(01:57:29):
like until I can see a soul in those eyes, I'm not worried
because right now everything I see is wonderful eye candy.
There's no soul in those people that are generated by AI.
How much have you watched though?
Because some of it's getting pretty damn good.

(01:57:51):
Oh, I'm sure it's. Going to be it's going to be.
Yeah. Well, that's why the the strikes
were important for the writers and the actors to make sure that
they wouldn't get replaced by AI.
Yeah. And so I think they probably
will just like every other role in the world is not necessarily

(01:58:13):
gonna be replaced right away, but certainly augmented, you
know, maybe maybe like the main actors will still be the main
actors, but the secondary ones will be AI or, you know, maybe.
The actor relate relate to to somebody that's not there.
You know, there's that whole relationship thing about.

(01:58:34):
The it's the whole metaverse, myfriend.
You know, it's it's you make them there, Yeah.
I it wasn't AI, but here's you've seen all the the the the
shows recently where they DH actors.
Yeah, yeah. So they did a great job on
Harrison Ford in the last Indiana Jones.
They did great on Samuel L Jackson and kept.

(01:58:56):
Yeah. That's cool.
Yeah. If it's if it's if they're using
AI for that kind of stuff, that's cool because it's still
the real performance. And then the face is de aged.
Yeah. But to tell me that I'm going to
like Robert Downey Junior is ready to sue anybody into
oblivion for using his likeness after he dies.

(01:59:19):
He's got it all in place. Yeah, Nobody's going to be able
to use his likeness after he's. Gone.
Yeah, but what if, what if that were to flip where somebody
comes and makes a deal with him and says we'll pay your family X
amount of money for allowing us to keep doing Iron Man movies,
you know, for the next 50 years.And most people will.

(01:59:39):
Most people will. Why wouldn't you?
Why wouldn't you license, you know, your future likelihood?
Yeah. But The thing is, they're like
the end of the day. It's not them, it's a new
version of them. That's not, but that's the whole
world right now. You and I are old, so we don't
necessarily get it, but kids do,you know, like Kiss is going to
go on for 100 years and and a lot of things are going to go

(02:00:00):
on. There's going to be a new
Godfather with, you know, the original actors in it, you know?
I mean, it's going to happen. It's bound to happen.
This is the new unit. I'm not advocating for it.
I'm just saying you know you cannay it away.
It isn't going. You know this is happening.
It's all happening right now. Like have you been in a car
without a steering wheel yet? A Waymo without a steering

(02:00:24):
wheel. Well, the steering wheel is
there. Well, no, there's they have them
now. Without them, they have Teslas
now without steering wheels in them.
No steering wheels, nothing, youknow.
Yeah, I like Waymo. Waymo's cool because I there is
a museum here in LA called the Peterson.
Yeah, it's phenomenal. And on the 2nd floor they have
the all the future technology and the concept cars and all

(02:00:47):
that stuff. And recently they did three
massive booths to explain Waymo.Oh, really?
And it's so well done because itshows you what Waymo sees as far
as LIDAR and infrared night vision.
It sees so much compared to the the joke.

(02:01:10):
Yeah, well and people still wantto trust like an old lady with,
you know, 2 martinis in her over, you know, some AI computer
created by Elon's team or whatever, you know, like it.
I think self driving is going tosave a lot of human lives.
I'll tell you when that does. It will when all the cars talk
to each other. If it's just true, the Waymos

(02:01:32):
and the Teslas, no, it's not going to work every car.
Has. True.
The same network, True. And at that point, nobody's
going to own cars anymore. They're going to be on the
street parked. Well, that's that's the future.
I want to go here. Yeah, no, that's the future.
That's absolutely the future. Kasimov saw it.
Philip K Dick saw it. Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, Uber was originally sort of designed without

(02:01:56):
drivers, or at least that was part of the thought was that we
won't have drivers. This is just going to connect
sort of these point to point vehicles.
And but yeah, you know, some of it really excites me.
Some of it scares the hell out of me.
You know, it's, it's well, you know.
Where because we're careening towards all the scenarios that
we've seen, whether it's Terminator.

(02:02:18):
Or, of course, yeah, it's all the shows.
The Jetsons. James Cameron himself right now
said it in a documentary, I can't remember which one, but he
said it's really getting hard towrite science fiction because
we're here. Yeah, it's science real.
It's science non fiction now. We're here now.
Yeah. Isn't it wild though how fast it
happened? I know the kids these days will

(02:02:40):
watch all kinds of scrolling nonsense and all that stuff, but
God damn it, I hope. I hope they see right through a
soulless AI character. They won't, they won't, you know
they won't. They already spend all day
scrolling AI you know posts on on TikTok.

(02:03:00):
You know, that's on us. That's on us then, to keep
bringing our kids to the movie. Theater.
Well, good for you for doing that No good for you for doing
that. I do the same with my kid like
real music, real stuff, real whatever, right?
Like, you know, it's why some ofthese changes that are happening
in the world bother me a little bit because like, you know, for

(02:03:21):
example, Canada, Canadian culture is dead.
Like, you know, I spend 6 monthsa year in Canada and I don't
recognize it. And it's, it's only an hour away
from where I grew up, but I don't recognize it.
I live in Canmore when I'm up there and and, you know, I just
don't even recognize Canmore is the same because it's a little

(02:03:43):
town, but Calgary, forget it. Like I don't recognize Calgary
and it's because, yeah, I don't want to get into it, but it's
because of a lot of things. It's because of primarily one
big thing. But you know, so that's kind of.
I I can't tell you how much I enjoyed living in.
Calgary, It's a fantastic city that's sadly changing a little

(02:04:04):
too rapidly right now. Food was.
So good. Yeah, there's.
So much. You know what Canmore is a tiny
little town, but the food's incredible.
Banff has great food too. Yeah, more expensive because
Banff is another notch up on thetourism stuff, but.
If you go to Lake Louise, even. Lake Louise, There's a small
hotel in Lake Louise. If you go back there, there's a

(02:04:26):
hotel called The Post in Lake Louise.
That's. Where we stayed, the family
came. During the the wine list in the
restaurant, it's, I can't remember exactly, I think it's
the second largest wine list in Canada.
That little restaurant is the second I so I toured that cellar
a couple times, the wine cellar.It's remarkable.

(02:04:49):
I never. Seen anything like it?
I missed that. But you can ask them to show it
to you and. I'll show You came in in August
2019 when we were shooting Ghostbusters and we rented well,
we, we booked a room at the Postthat was not cheap and.
Way worse now. But yeah, we had such a great
day because when we woke up it was raining.
So my, my wife and daughter goes, oh, our day is ruined.

(02:05:10):
I said, we're going to Lake Louise.
That's above the clouds. Yeah.
And so we just went up there, and it was just breaking in the
morning. Yeah.
And my daughter didn't have gloves, so we waited until the
gift shop opened. And all they had were socks.
So in all the pictures she's wearing socks.
That's hilarious. That's so funny.
I was. I was first in line and I rented

(02:05:32):
the damn canoe when the two of us went.
Good for you on lake. Well, the other thing you can,
you can do horseback around the the trails on the side of it.
You can do all kinds of things. I've done sleigh rides in the
summer across the lake. It's a beautiful place.
It's amazing. You know, again, all of those
places are changing and it's it's just because of, you know,

(02:05:53):
the way the population is shaping up.
And like now you have to pay forparking at Lake Louise.
I never had to pay for parking my whole life, you know, but the
last few years you got to pay for parking and you can only go
certain places. It's insane.
It's wild now it is wild how howcrazy.
Well, even in Canmore, like someof the popular little trails

(02:06:16):
that when people come up to visit and they're not like avid
hikers, you know, I'll take themon the popular beautiful, like
with the big win at the end, thebig moment at the end, you know,
and you can't even get in the parking lots like they're so
full. Fortunately, there's some that
you can walk to from my house orride a bike to.
But yeah, it's, it's wild. It's so crowded.

(02:06:39):
I had a oh touring Never again or never know or I'll.
Tell you what happened, like I said, I was designing matchboxes
next to or right before COVID shut us down.
And I don't want to get into some nasty politics, but I

(02:07:02):
already had a bad taste in my mouth about where everything was
in the touring world since I started right at right at the
tail end of of the 80s where when you toured, you would have
local promoters in every town that cared about their town,
cared about their venue and cared about the artists that

(02:07:24):
they booked into those venues. So if you went to the River Port
Amphitheatre in Saint Louis, youknew that SUNY would be there.
Amazing, amazing guy. And I saw it in the mid to late
90s when Clear Channel appeared out of nowhere, started scooping

(02:07:46):
venues, turned into Live Nation.I'm sorry, but that's everything
changed and then and you have tounderstand I had, I had a plan
to transition during my George Michael experience from O 6 to
2012. You know, if I just clipped that

(02:08:08):
little, little segment and put it out as a short on the
Internet, I had a chance to transition while I was with
George Michael from people wouldread that completely
differently. I know it's because you know
when you climb the mountaintop, right?
Right. All my career was about being
the guy that that would that would tour with a big band or a

(02:08:32):
big artist in stadiums worldwide.
Well, I did that. I was able to finally accomplish
that with Metallica and George. Yeah.
And I wasn't the boss on, on Metallica, but I technically was
the boss on on George. He was the boss and he was the
best boss I've ever had. But it.
But then, then I had the realization of two things.

(02:08:53):
I don't have a kid yet, I'm over40 and if I don't get off the
bus I'll be 60 with no kid and probably no. 1.
So I have to make a decision andit was the best decision I took
because I also decided I have the chops to switch to movies
and and then the union, the bestmedical package in the, in the

(02:09:17):
US as far as I'm concerned. And it helped us with, with,
with the pregnancy and, and, andit was amazing.
It was the right call. It was the right call because I
made it to the mountaintop in the touring world.
And if I had a transporter, justlike Star Trek, that would beam

(02:09:38):
me to the venue before I call house lights, do the show, call
house lights, beam back to my living room, I'd be I'd I'd keep
touring. It's pretty much what I say
every time someone invites me toa show.
I'm like, send a helicopter to my house, pick me up, take me to
front of house, I'll watch the show, give you a big hug, and

(02:09:58):
then they take me back home again.
I don't have to deal with parking.
I don't have to deal with politics or bullshit or people
spilling beer on me or anything.And.
There was a 5. There was a five year break
between the last George Michael tour and my last tour with with
Matchbox in 2017 and then I designed Rob's solo tour in
2019, but for financial reasons it was better to have someone

(02:10:22):
else. Yeah.
Go out. I could tell that that kind of
vibe was coming to a close. Yeah.
Especially because after COVID, Matchbox kept rescheduling
every. Year.
Every year. For different reasons that I
don't want to get into. And eventually I was, I mean, we

(02:10:44):
went through what I've done since COVID.
I was. Knee deep in so many massive
projects at some point. Why would you even think of it?
Yeah. And to be honest, Michael
Hittman, great manager, I love him.
He gave me a 20 year run with with Matchbox, Rob and George.
His time was also coming to an end because of his age and his

(02:11:06):
health. And so at some point it made
made sense for Matchbox to look somewhere else because I can see
how the those guys felt not forced to use me.
But Michael was the one saying Benoit's available, he's going
to do, he's going to do something.
So I was so happy when the schedules didn't make sense and

(02:11:29):
I was sad that my time with themwas over.
And then all of a sudden I heardsooner was doing it and I was
like. Yeah, they're set.
They're going to be great, so. So at that point it was it was
the door on touring closed. And guess what?
During the strikes of the union,I felt like an ass because I was

(02:11:49):
like, do I really go back on theroad during the strike?
No, I'm I'm physically not in a good place right now.
I better take this time. To to get better and.
Plus, I don't know anybody anymore on the touring world.
All my my old contacts are retired or or not in the game

(02:12:13):
anymore or whatever. And So what am I going to do?
Sell myself on something that I did 10 years ago?
I'm not current. Yeah, it's.
Over and I don't care. It's it's it's it's.
So if you got a call though, if you got a call, come design for
us and and you know, we want youout.
Yes, that's. That's a different thing.

(02:12:34):
That's a different thing becauseI still have the chops and I
just proved it to myself a few weeks ago.
Yeah, because another friend of mine, Chuck Jose, is a really
cool DP who I did 4 Carrie Underwood Sunday Night Football
intros with. Oh, fun.
Yeah, as soon as Carrie began, it was the summer of 2013.

(02:12:57):
It was her first year for that season.
And Chuck had done a few music videos with Carrie and he was
hired to be the DP for the Sunday Night Football intro.
And so he called me and he goes,I have no idea what to do for
rock'n'roll design. Can you do it?
And I was like, absolutely. I'm in New York right now on
Amazing Spider Man 2. But I'll, I'll, I'll design it

(02:13:20):
and I'll come right on time to shoot it with you.
And so it turned into four out of five years.
Great, great partnership. But then, my gosh.
So that was 2018 maybe. Yeah, the last time we did it.
And then it took until this yearwhere he called me and he goes,
I've got something cool that I really need your help on.

(02:13:42):
It's AI. Can't say it's, it's for a mouse
entertainment company. I signed an NDA on that.
It'll come out next year so we'll have a chat on Podcast 3.
But the but the cool thing is I was so proud of Chuck because in
that time span since we did those Carrie Underwood intros,
he got an interest in designing rock'n'roll rigs and he actually

(02:14:06):
delivered a design to me for this little project we did 3
weeks ago. That's cool.
And, and all I had to do was wasbe the lighting director and
programmer for him. And I used L8 at home to put it
in previz. And then I did my usual thing,

(02:14:27):
first pass of every song, five hours.
That's if you want something that's going to be unique to
that song with specific lightinggags that you won't see again.
Yeah, you gotta take time. You gotta take the time.
Especially because we have magicpanels and and all and.
And so for now, until a until AIdoes it, and then it won't take

(02:14:50):
any time at all. That little box they sell?
There. I know, I know.
Yeah. Anyway.
So so I I spent 40 hours on 8 songs and.
I delivered. Them to a beautiful sound stage
in LA at La center and they had a volume, which is the new way

(02:15:11):
of shooting cool shows now or it's a curved video screen and A
and a ceiling of video and the cameras track their positions so
that when they when they move, the video kind of moves with it
so that the perspective doesn't change on the lens.
Interesting. And we shot 8 songs of of a cool

(02:15:34):
project that's going to come outsoon, and we made them look like
they were in eight different cities.
That's awesome. With a big rock show, so and
then everybody was giving me props for for the programming
that I did. And yes, so I still have it.
And if anybody wants to. Hire and you'd still enjoy it.

(02:15:55):
You'd still enjoy it other than all the bullshit.
You know you could probably do without the bullshit at this
point because you're gainfully employed doing other things
anyways, so. Yes.
Well, the weird one. The weird one to me in 2017 was
when the Live Nation Rep was on the tour bus with the tour
manager and the production manager and you could tell that

(02:16:15):
they had more power. Than actual production.
Yeah, I've heard horror stories now that that some production
managers get fired if they don'tfollow the.
Rules, Yeah. So it's not.
It's not the type of environmentthat I want to be in.
Well, you'd be surprised how many of my guests on this
podcast that I talked to off theoff the air after the recording

(02:16:37):
who say, you know, fuck this industry, I'm so done with it.
You know, I mean, just stuff like what you're talking about,
but a lot more honestly off the air obviously.
And, and, and I get it. I mean, I get it.
There's certainly a lot about the sort of corporatization of
the industry that's been very good and then there's a lot that
hasn't been so good and if. They own that much of it, yeah.

(02:17:02):
Why is there no organization against them?
You know, it's funny because I was having dinner with and I
won't say who it was, but let's say he was a pretty high up
person from, let's call it one of the largest, you know,
promoters out there. Perhaps, you know, a couple of
initials could, could let you figure out who they are and, and

(02:17:28):
they're in a little bit of trouble for a monopoly for, you
know, they're being accused of amonopoly.
And he goes, are selfish becauseI asked him, I said, Hey, how's,
how's that going? Is there a lot of heat on you
right now? And he goes, oh, no, man.
And I said, what do you mean no?And he goes, well, you know,
it's just a bunch of bullshit. It's just the government
throwing shit around. And it's it's the administration

(02:17:49):
change too. It's so far from being true.
And I said, well, let me get this straight.
So you own the venues, you own the tickets, you own the artist
contracts like you own every part of this and.
You manage some of them. And it's not a monopoly.
Seriously. And he's like, wow, you know,

(02:18:09):
you're oversimplifying it. And I'm like, OK, whatever, but
you know, hey, they got away with it for this long.
Let's see if they continue to. I don't know, like what do I
know? But it's.
Not the vibe that I grew up in. Because I.
Love that vibe of local promoters.
I told you that. Oh, yeah.
Well, I know a couple local promoters who are just getting
crushed right now between like down here in South Florida.

(02:18:31):
The other problem you have is, is the Indian tribe who owned
the Hard Rock down here, They'rebringing in every sort of B
level artist and overpaying themand they're blocking them from
playing any venue within a certain number of miles, which
kills Palm Beach, it kills Fort Lauderdale, it kills Miami.
And you know, so they're basically blocked from playing

(02:18:54):
anywhere else in South Florida. And, and they'll do like these
long term agreements where, you know, we'll lock in for three
years or five years or something.
And so these are these promoterswho have small venues or medium
sized venues. They're struggling to put
artists in them right now. It, it's crazy.

(02:19:14):
It really is crazy. So yeah, well, I mean, there's
no doubt that I would always entertain anybody who respects
the body of work that I was ableto accomplish over the.
Well, you're just a good dude, you know, you're not semi
retarded like a lot of the people that might be out there
working right now. I don't know.

(02:19:34):
Well, there's there's the other thing too, about the fact that
I've prided myself in, in playing live, we talked about
that. Yeah.
Podcast. So whenever time code is a is a
prerequisite. I see.
I mean, I, I go, I go to a fair amount of shows and there's
nothing that bothers me more than seeing the time code window

(02:19:59):
open on an entire screen of the Grand Ma or whatever console
they're using. Yeah.
And the guy is standing there, his arms crossed.
Yeah, or he's having a drink with the guests at front of
house, you know. It's OK, because that means that
the lighting designer's vision was captured, recorded.
Yeah, and it's being played backthe same way every night.

(02:20:20):
I understand that there's a value to that part, but what
about what about the the lighting artists like, you know,
old school lighting artists, John Broderick we talked about.
Jason Bullock, you know, doing all the rocking out at the desk,
you know? Mark Brickman in.

(02:20:41):
His heyday, Mark Brickman, Did you see the recent thing he did
with David Gilmour where he played the lights on the screen
with the stylist? Mark?
Mark said to me, I think on thispodcast, he said, you know what?
I decided that if this is going to be my last gig, I'm I'm
running the lights live, there will be zero time code.
I am controlling the lights during the show period.

(02:21:04):
I understand. Why they do that?
Because they don't want to hire a very expensive lighting
director or keep the designer onthe road because he's famous for
his manual operation. Just record it and then let's
get some younger, cheaper personto just babysit it.
Yeah, I think some of it's even,you know, the artist heard that

(02:21:26):
through the Grapevine that somebody was using timecode and
they're like, I want to use timecode because, you know,
Beyoncé's using timecode, I wantto use timecode.
And sometimes it's George. Asked me to George asked me in O
7 to use timecode but it's so funny how he brought it up.
He goes. Don't get me wrong Benoit, your
timing is really good. Yeah.

(02:21:51):
If you could record a few things, you would find that you
could layer a bunch of stuff andthen you could operate on top of
that. That's a good point.
I said great point, George. So sure enough, because I've
been working with timecode for years, I remember starting at
high end in 94 and Tim Grievous,the first thing he goes, he

(02:22:13):
goes, you got to learn Sam software time, code operation.
All our demos are automated. So he put me in that world like
back in 94. So in O 7, when George asked me,
he was like, yeah, no problem. So I had a Pro Tools mini rig.
And was able. To program all the the.
It was cool because I was able to program 4 on the floor

(02:22:35):
perfectly timed. But I did have a discussion with
him about distance because I said, as you know, sound travels
a lot less slower than lighting.So we have to time align the
light shows somewhere in the room.
If we time align it with you on stage, you're going to have the
best time of your life because it's going to be right on the
money. But by the time you get to front
of house, it's going to be so early.

(02:22:58):
And then at the back of the house, it's going to be almost a
3/4 of a second early. And I said, we're about to play
in stadiums next year. That's even going to be bigger.
So George was like, well, what do you propose?
And I said, well, why don't we time align everything at the
front of house, right? So we just.
Yeah, you're slicing it down themiddle, basically.
It'll be late on stage. Who cares about the front row?

(02:23:22):
They're watching you. Yeah.
Right. So the first, first bunch of
seats, it'll feel late, but at front of house, right on the
money and then in the back early.
And so we did that and he was sohappy, he loved it.
Everybody, all the VIPs are always at front of house, right?
So everything was timed perfectly right there.

(02:23:44):
And then we get to the stadium tour, push the delay even more
because we're 175 feet from the stage.
Now Jesus A. 120 or 110? The funny part was when we I
don't know if I said that in theprevious podcast, so I apologize
if it's a real. Good.
Wembley Stadium 2007 George is the first artist to open the

(02:24:09):
brand new Wembley Stadium 90,000people, two nights, first night.
The second-half of the show willbe broadcast live on ITV 4.
So I walk over to the sound guy and I asked him.
I said for today's performance, can you eliminate all delays?
So he was the one who was setting the delays on the time

(02:24:32):
code, the mix and the click track that we could we could
hear the 1234 at the beginning of song.
Because you sure? You sure you want me to kill
them all? I said yes, I have to be live to
the stage because the cameras are going to be capturing the
band live and so the audio and the lighting has to be right on

(02:24:52):
the money. OK, great.
So we start the show and I'm pushing my in ears so deep in in
my ear canals because I'm hearing I'm hearing the the,
the, the the late PA and the early mix in my.
Ears. It was awful, but then I start
to look at the crowd on the floor and everybody's like,

(02:25:16):
because their eyes are seeing. The light show.
Is completely not in time right.So we we make it through that
show but luckily on TV it lookedgreat.
It was on time the next day I goGary let's put all the delays
back in OK great. He puts all the lays back in and
then we do the second performance and the entire floor

(02:25:39):
of Wembley jumping, dancing. Oh really?
They were way more into it. That's when.
I saw that that my theory. It matters, Yeah.
So some of your some of your live timing.
Did you pick up from Broderick? Because he, he's like a master
of, of, you know. You definitely set me straight
on. Early is better than late.

(02:26:00):
Yeah. I was lucky because remember
when we when we talked about my early career?
Yeah, the first band ever was a Genesis tribute.
Yeah. So I sorted out timing.
Yeah, right there. And that's true when I was a
young. Kid Yeah.
And then April wine was not thateasy either.

(02:26:20):
Yeah, triple guitar solos and. You know, they're touring now
with, oh, I think they have one original member still.
Yeah, exactly have. To reach out to Brian.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw one of Miles last shows.
It was in Calgary. Was it last summer?
Summer before, I guess summer before and it was one of his
last shows. I think he played maybe 10 after

(02:26:43):
that or something and, and and then he was done and then he
died. Well, yeah, I always remember my
time with them. Yeah, it.
Was really cool, but it definitely set me straight on
timing so that by the time I ended up with JB, he knew I
could handle it. Yeah, he really did.
Yeah, I always, I always just thought of John as as someone

(02:27:06):
who like not everyone gave a shit about timing, but he really
did. And I remember I was at
upstaging one time and I it musthave been rehearsals for
Metallica or something. And he was trying out the hog,
maybe even the hog one, and and he made them bring in a an AVO

(02:27:30):
console and he was doing like some kind of DMX to analog to
DMX thing, you know, because it was too slow, like the latency
on the digital. Console system on digital means
delayed. That's the big line, Yeah.
What we did on the first tour I did with him with Metallica Load
Tour, I think I explained how wedid that.

(02:27:51):
He was on the QM500 AVO Light, Yeah.
And then what we had was a DMX merger that was able to give him
shutter control on my studio colors.
What year was that 96? Because that might have been the
one that I'm talking about. That might have been the same
tour. Yeah, prep.
Prep was in England though, because we we started in in

(02:28:15):
Birmingham so. Well, maybe this wasn't prep.
Maybe he was just in Chicago to be looking at the console or
something and and figuring it all out.
But I remember they had to put the AVO console there.
I don't remember why, but. That must have been a little
could have been after or early, early prep because I remember

(02:28:35):
what what we did for that tour was crazy because OB lighting
sent the entire lighting packageto England.
And then we had Step Down Transformers to power it up
because the European Tour, the way it was scheduled was, if I
remember correctly, it was almost 3 1/2 months in 96.

(02:28:57):
And then they were going to shipeverything on on the boat back
to New York, into the trucks in time to cross the country and do
the first show in San Jose. Oh God, and.
So there was no time for an American lighting company to
create a a new package. So that's why the Obi light
system went to Europe, did the whole 2 step down Transformers,

(02:29:21):
came back to the US, we took it out of the truck day one in San
Jose and off we went. Crazy.
That's just madness. Madness.
Yeah, well, that's fun though, because this timing was great
for opening the shutters on the studio colors.
So good. So good.
Yeah, I loved how this little box played the console.

(02:29:41):
This. Little box with the two buttons
for the strobes. Yeah, that's the other thing.
Yeah. Like he triggered strobes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he had one. And The thing is, you're
following Lars, so it ain't thateasy.
Because, you know, he's not yourregular drummer, you know?
His timing's special, you know. I got a chance to see Metallica

(02:30:03):
both nights at Sofi. Was it last year?
Yeah. Chucky and I went and I hadn't
seen them in 20. Years.
Oh wow, 60 I had one. I think I'm about the same.
I'm about the same. Like I I saw it last year in
Edmonton. They kicked the shit out of us.
I mean, they're, they're still unbelievable.
Yeah, really good. I was.

(02:30:24):
I've not really been a fan of Metallica my whole life, and I
loved it. Like I had a great time.
They were so powerful and Pantera opened for them.
Talking about powerful, holy shit.
You know it's just like you get that and I'm standing right in

(02:30:45):
front of the Subs going what's happening yeah.
I feel sick yeah. I Benoit, I gotta go and it's
really been fun catching up. We need to catch up more often
off the air, not just on podcast, but we should stay in
contact because I like talking with you.
So I. Appreciate it.

(02:31:06):
Same here, Marcel. It's been, it's been a crazy
time now in the last five years.With no kidding.
I can't even explain it. Like, imagine explaining the
last five years to your kids someday.
You know, it's going to be hard.Yeah.
All right, my friend. Have a good one make.
The best Absolutely and same to you have.
A great day, all right. You too.

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#310 - Benoit Richard - Life Choices: Balancing Career and Family

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#310 - Benoit Richard - Life Choices: Balancing Career and Family