Ravinia Music Box

In the fall of 2016 long time client, BRC Imagination Arts asked Manny to join the team designing the new Music Box Experience Center at Ravinia Festival. Beginnings are always exciting and this project was no different. The Music Box project, led by Creative Directors Brad Shelton and Edward Hodge, contained elements of exterior building lighting, hospitality spaces, general circulation lighting that needed to connect to the pre-show experience and at the center of it all, a theatrical design for an immersive experience celebrating music and legacy of Leonard Bernstein. 

The jewel in the crown of the project is Bernstein’s Answer, a 10 minute immersive experience that asks the question of music’s impact and meaning. It explores the question by using music, projection, lighting and Bernstein’s own words & thoughts. Everything in the theater reacts to music and emotion. Manny explored ways in which the environmental and scenic lighting could lift and transform moments and the audience’s perception of the those moments. 

As the experience explores the topic of music’s power to transform and move people’s emotions, so too does the physical space of the theater itself transform. Projection and light both begin the show being very focused within the theater’s proscenium. As the show opens up with Bernstein’s music, so does the theatrical fabric of the show with projection and light expanding to surrounding the audience. It was a delight to design Bernstein’s Answer, a show that has such powerful music at its core, with all the team members at BRC. Lighting and music are two artistic expressions meant to dance with each other and on this project that dance helped build the emotional core of the show’s message. 

For the exterior of the building there is a bar space that sits on top of the lobby and pre-show spaces. Manny and BRC Creative Director Edward Hodge began by considering how the building would be seen from the lawn of the festival where so many of the guests experience the concerts from. The bar was always conceived as an island of color floating on top of the building. For the bar there were two major criteria. First, that the color all came from concealed sources. Manny wanted the impact to be from the color environment and not the point source of the light itself. The second major gesture was the ceiling of randomly laid out tiny aperture downlights that created the low level circulation lighting. Manny carefully considered both the location of each fixture but also their random circuiting combination to allow a carried intensity level from the point sources without a perceived pattern.

Rounding out the project was the gallery and circulation lighting. The BRC design concept for the whole building was centered around a design language of asymmetrical lines and shapes, and in the gallery and pre-show spaces Manny designed a track system that echoed that language.

The joy of the Music Box Experience Center for NYX was that is a complete project that encompasses the entire theater building, requiring many design skills and disciplines to come together to make for an impactful experience for the guests. It was a joy to be on this team.

Power Of Rock Experience

After over a year of design development The Power of Rock Experience opened to the public at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this past July.   Manny Treeson was invited to design the lighting for the whole experience, created, designed, and produced by BRC Imagination Arts.   We were thrilled to be on the team for such an exciting project.

From the beginning of the process, BRC's Creative Director Christian Lachel desired to take the guests on a journey immersing them in the music.  Christian knew everyone has memories and emotions triggered by one song or another.  From a lighting point of view, we wanted to have the whole experience be active and fluid; that all the lighting would be an extension of the music bathing the guest in an immersive environment driven by both beat and mood.   

The theater was created to embody all of these ideas.   We started with the film, directed by Jonathan Demme, that celebrated the legendary performances at the induction ceremony and concert.  

The film utilizes tracking screens with dynamic media locked to them.    Scenic lines made up of video strips outline the space.  We approached these video strips from a generative point of view.   The content is generated in Touch Designer  in real time and manipulated by the lighting console.  This afforded us the ability to treat this scenery dynamically and manipulate it along with the entire lighting rig.

Once the the film concludes, the guests walk out through a curved ramp that rises from the 3rd floor to the 4th around the outside of the theater.   To make this exit more dynamic we created a tunnel of volumetric video that was cued to While My Guitar Gently Weeps.   A rotating vortex of light and pattern pulls the guests  down the hallway.  We wanted the guests to feel that the entire space was directly connected to the music and that they were completely immersed within it.

Upon exiting the hallway, the guests are treated to an exhibit of artifacts from the performances that were featured in the film.  

Nordstrom Light Weave Installations

Abigail worked with Co-Designer Bob Bonniol, of MODE architectural, to design volumetric light sculptures for the flagships store escalator cores of luxury retailer, Nordstrom.  Working for the architectural firm Callison, and for Nordstrom; they designed and implemented four elegant LED Light Weave installations which have been installed in the Vancouver, Chicago, and Toronto stores.

The Light Weaves are comprised of breathtakingly light weight custom copper strands which drop 20’ to 60' from the ceiling.  Individually controlled custom LED nodes are arrayed in a regular grid allowing for a dimensional and volumetric display of programmed patterns.

Abbey and Bob created a suite of evolving and varied ambient programming, which modulates with time of day to reflect the energy levels of the store environment.  Additional programs were created for holidays and special events.

The custom Light Weave LED sculptures were manufactured by Tait Towers, and installed by systems integrator 4Wall.

Ford Rouge Factory Tour wins THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement

Manny was  thrilled when the folks at BRC Imagination Arts asked us to design the lighting for the  Manufacturing Innovation a 360 degree theater that is part of the Ford Rouge Factory Tour.  We were even more thrilled when we learned it won a THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement.   

The show was conceived to celebrate the launch of the new Ford 150 truck which is built at the Rouge Plant, Dearborn MI.   The audience experiences how the truck was designed and built through six screens that immerse the audience in a 360 degree experience.   The show uses projection mapping on the 150 to illustrate the journey the truck takes through the manufacturing process.   

We designed the lighting throughout the theater to wrap around the audience and immerse them in the experience of the show.   We lit the walls behind the screens as wrap around cyc and we embeded small puck lights in the floor in a grid.   We were then able to extend the canvas of the theater by using the floor and walls together in pixel map.   The effect is a fluid radiating wash of color across the theater in sync with the music and narrative beats of the show.   

A real highlight for us was conceiving the lighting for the manufacturing robots that are central to the show.   It seemed natural that instead of lighting the robots from above or below, the robots themselves should emit and glow with light.  This way no mater where in space their arms move they always are alive with light.