Collaboration and Cooperation

Lenny Kravitz could be considered one of the most iconic rockstars of the past ten years. His personal style/choice of clothing and retro sound have set him apart from many of the musicians out there today. (for example: watch this video It is a few years old, but it still captures well some of Kravitz's persona) 

This article discusses not only the collaboration between artist and lighting designer but also between lighting designer and set designer. Steve Cohen( Billy Joel, John Mellencamp, Blake Shelton, and Reba) was the LD for this tour with Es Devlin(Kanye West/Jay-Z, Muse, Shakira, Take That) was in charge of set design. The two designers for this tour did not meet until rehearsals for the tour had begun, so all of their communication had to be done through email and phone calls. The job of these two designers was to create a melding of set pieces and lights that would capture Lenny Kravitz's persona and also help support the music that was being performed on a nightly basis. I would say they did a pretty great job.

Steve Cohen mentions that he usually designs both the sets and the lighting for the shows he is a part of, so I can imagine that it may have been difficult for him to give up control of this part of the show. But maybe not Cohen says, "It's one thing to say you're a collaborator, another thing altogether to actually collaborate, and I learned, once again, that the sum is greater than it's parts"

The set that was designed by Es Devlin is the triangle screen spanning across the stage. She designed it in such a way that it would look as if it was infinite and according to Cohen it is a simple trick, but thought it may be simple, it is a trick that he is not allowed to share. Es Devlin talked with Kravitz the most at the onset of the design. Kravitz talked to Devlin about a "black glass mountainous installation" he had seen in Paris. Over the course of three days of face to face communication Devlin tried to understand the vision and then was confined to emails and telephone calls as the design became full fleshed out. 

When Devlin's design was combined with Cohen's lights it created the perfect look of a mountain that was seemingly never ending. I would think that were the lights not placed the way they were, the illusion would not be as convincing, but, if the set were not designed in such a way to have an illusion available to be worked with, there would be no reason for specific light placement. 

The overall point that I'm gaining from this is how important vision and communication are. They go hand in hand. If someone has a grand vision, but no way to communicate with others it will fail. If someone is great at communicating but has no vision, they will have nothing to communicate. It is incredible to see what can happen when two creative minds pour their energy into a project and decide to put away personal opinions and instead decided "that the sum is greater than it's parts"

(As a side note, if you have not, I would highly suggest looking into Es Devlin's work. It has absolutely inspired me and made me think much more about set design.)