Mazda National Dealer Meeting 2004
For Mazda’s 2004 North American dealer meeting, held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in 2004, UVLD’s Gregory Cohen, Cameron Yeary and David Rees combined video and lighting to fulfill a unique vision.
UVLD’s responsibilities for the 2004 Mazda event were to light the pre-function room, the general session and the car salon that showed off the latest Mazda models. Working with the project’s creative directors, Jim Kirk and Steven Dahlem, the UVLD team decided to separate out the design responsibilities for the three rooms. Yeary would light and program the pre-function room, Rees would light and program the car salon and Cohen would light the main room, with Yeary programming. Cohen was also in charge of liaising with the client as well as fine tuning all three rooms.
The creative director for the pre-function room, Steven Dahlem, was keen to use video as a key element for a ‘year in review’ montage that set the stage for the entire event. Yeary and Cohen used their experience of working with digital lighting products to implement a turnkey solution -- rather than settle for an off-the-shelf package.
Dallas-based Alford Media supplied the UVLD team with three Barco R12 projectors, complete with pan and tilt mirror adaptors, to display the client-supplied stills, logos and short video clips. To manage and manipulate the media content, a High End Systems Catalyst Media Server was used in conjunction with 24 Vari*Lite fixtures and 18 Martin fixtures. Due to the level of complexity and volume of media content, Yeary worked exclusively with Dahlem. With Yeary solely engaged with the complex video portion of the show, it was left to Cohen to light and program the main room’s 100 plus moving lights on his own.
“We all went into this project thinking that it would be a collaborative effort,” commented Cohen. “The idea was that Dave and Cameron would lay the groundwork in each room and then I would be able to work with them to finalize the show. In reality, the pre-function room was so complicated that Cameron had to work step-by-step with the creative director for almost the entire production period. Cameron and Steven worked for hours programming, and in the end, it looked great. Catalyst was absolutely the right tool for the job, especially since the creative director was totally onboard with what it could and couldn't do.”
With Cohen and Yeary completely engaged with the other portions of the event, Rees had to deal with lighting a room full of cars, without any cars, on his own. “The car salon looked great,” remarked Cohen. “Dave didn't get cars until right before the show, so he really had to hustle. All round, this was a very difficult show. In the beginning we had planned to collaborate and pool our resources. As it happened, the event was more complex than anyone had realized, and both David and Cameron ended up working independently.”
Each member of the UVLD team brought a certain set of skills and experience to the 2004 Mazda event. The collaborative approach to lighting design is a key UVLD strength. But, as this event shows, so is the inherent ability of each designer to produce lighting design of exceptional quality, on their own, under difficult circumstances.
UVLD’s responsibilities for the 2004 Mazda event were to light the pre-function room, the general session and the car salon that showed off the latest Mazda models. Working with the project’s creative directors, Jim Kirk and Steven Dahlem, the UVLD team decided to separate out the design responsibilities for the three rooms. Yeary would light and program the pre-function room, Rees would light and program the car salon and Cohen would light the main room, with Yeary programming. Cohen was also in charge of liaising with the client as well as fine tuning all three rooms.
The creative director for the pre-function room, Steven Dahlem, was keen to use video as a key element for a ‘year in review’ montage that set the stage for the entire event. Yeary and Cohen used their experience of working with digital lighting products to implement a turnkey solution -- rather than settle for an off-the-shelf package.
Dallas-based Alford Media supplied the UVLD team with three Barco R12 projectors, complete with pan and tilt mirror adaptors, to display the client-supplied stills, logos and short video clips. To manage and manipulate the media content, a High End Systems Catalyst Media Server was used in conjunction with 24 Vari*Lite fixtures and 18 Martin fixtures. Due to the level of complexity and volume of media content, Yeary worked exclusively with Dahlem. With Yeary solely engaged with the complex video portion of the show, it was left to Cohen to light and program the main room’s 100 plus moving lights on his own.
“We all went into this project thinking that it would be a collaborative effort,” commented Cohen. “The idea was that Dave and Cameron would lay the groundwork in each room and then I would be able to work with them to finalize the show. In reality, the pre-function room was so complicated that Cameron had to work step-by-step with the creative director for almost the entire production period. Cameron and Steven worked for hours programming, and in the end, it looked great. Catalyst was absolutely the right tool for the job, especially since the creative director was totally onboard with what it could and couldn't do.”
With Cohen and Yeary completely engaged with the other portions of the event, Rees had to deal with lighting a room full of cars, without any cars, on his own. “The car salon looked great,” remarked Cohen. “Dave didn't get cars until right before the show, so he really had to hustle. All round, this was a very difficult show. In the beginning we had planned to collaborate and pool our resources. As it happened, the event was more complex than anyone had realized, and both David and Cameron ended up working independently.”
Each member of the UVLD team brought a certain set of skills and experience to the 2004 Mazda event. The collaborative approach to lighting design is a key UVLD strength. But, as this event shows, so is the inherent ability of each designer to produce lighting design of exceptional quality, on their own, under difficult circumstances.