Sunday, 22 May opened with Mark White, regional manager or ETC UK and Eire, chairing the opening sessions. First, Australian lighting designer Nick Schlieper presented 'Four Years on Wagner's Cycle', his epic tale of how the smallest opera company in Australia (official staff number: five) took on the first locally-created staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle. The result, a strikingly sleek, modernist approach, using plenty of fluorescent units, was eloquently documented in Schlieper's anecdote-filled account, accompanied by stunning visuals. Schlieper was followed by architectural lighting specialist Helmar Zangerl, on 'Natural Light and How to Avoid Depression'. Working from the concept that man evolved according to the dictates of natural light, he discussed strategies for creating workplace lighting that doesn't interfere with one's natural rhythms.
The next session, chaired by Andy Collier, founding director of Technical Marketing Ltd, began with DoP Sue Gibson, discussing 'Film-Style Lighting for High-Definition Video'. Gibson covered her use of ARRI's new high-definition camera on a short film about flamenco dancing, detailing the various adjustments she found herself making along the way. She was followed by Michael Hall, former head of Rosco Europe, heading a panel of representatives from Philips, Osram, Sylvania, and General Electric, who discussed the latest developments in lightbulbs. Interestingly, these experts had relatively little to say about the rise of LEDs, a topic that one suspects will be increasingly important by the time the next Showlight rolls around in 2009.
After lunch, lighting designer Jim Tetlow chaired a session that began with DoP Roger Simonsz on the topic of 'The Color Experience'. Simonsz offered a number of provocative ideas about colour (including the notion that green is inherently disturbing) and showed how different colour filters dramatically transformed a series of photos; he even made the astonishing admission that he suffers from red-green colour-blindness!
Simonsz was followed by James F. Franklin, head of the design program at the University of Connecticut, on 'Lighting Design and Training in the Post-Soviet Russian Federation'. He provided documentation of an emerging lighting curriculum, which seems hugely ambitious to American eyes - at one point, students are taking 40 hours of classes a week!
The day ended with Ivan Myles, late of Strand Lighting, chairing a session kicked off by Mike Le Fevre on 'Fightbox: Computers, Avatars, Delusions, and Videotape'. Le Fevre, a BBC lighting director, enumerated the complexities of virtual lighting design for the BBC series Fightbox, based on the popular video game. He was followed by lighting designer Martin Kuhn, who discussed 'Contemporary Lighting Design in Germany'. As he amusingly noted: "Germans love technology. There's more space on that truss? Let's fill it!"
After an evening in which attendees were dispersed to a series of dinners at local restaurants hosted by the companies exhibiting at Showlight, Monday 23 May began with Derek Gilbert of Henley Theatre Services Ltd chairing a session that began with David Taylor and Richard Pilbrow of Theatre Projects Consultants. Titled 'Were You Right?' it covered many aspects of Pilbrow's eventful career, including the not-very-promising start of Theatre Projects as a lighting rental service and its development into a major firm, Pilbrow's exploration of large-scale projections in
