reFRACTion Blog

We have moved!

2009-05-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

It has been about 2 weeks since we moved into our new office and shop. We are still located in Oakland. The building has had a modern redevelopment from what was the old Oakland Towel Factory, Inc . It is only 8 blocks from our last location. We love the charm which includes a vault upstairs! What is amazing, is all of the bits and pieces of stuff we hold onto. "We might need that someday" was heard a lot over the years. We'll post some photos when we get a little more organized here! Have a good start to your summer!

Cheers!
Ben & Marcel

Flaming Lotus Girls

2009-03-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

We were asked to light a large scale art sculpture made by the Flaming Lotus Girls last weekend. We have such a great time when we light this piece. It normally has fire lit on each vertebrae as well as the mouth. There are also various controls that the audience has access to when it is on fire. It is interactive fire art. The egg unfolds and there are various fire effects built into that. They asked us to light it because they couldn't do fire effects in this space. This was an event held on Treasure Island in San Francisco and was produced by the Opulent Temple which had Carl Cox as the headlining DJ. The Serpent Mother is such an amazing work of art and the party was a great setting to display it! Here is a link to a Flickr set by Jess Hobbs that shows off the lighting and the Serpent beautifully.

Mexico

2009-03-08T10:36:00.001-07:00

The MX Beat Festival last night in Monterrey was a huge success. I mixed In-Ears and wedges on a Yamaha PM1D, which is basically just like a PM5D. We knocked out load-in and soundcheck in less than one and a half hours and were off to dinner for some tacos camarones. The band travels fairly stripped-down and straightforward which make them perfect for festivals.

We have two more shows, in Guadalajara and Mexico City next weekend. The band will enjoy a few days off and I will be traveling to Decemberists rehearsals in Portland tomorrow. I will meet back w/ Vampire Weekend next Friday for their last two Mexican shows.

The Serpent Mother

2009-03-02T21:06:00.000-08:00

We are working again with The Flaming Lotus Girls to light The Serpent Mother this weekend at the Opulent Temple fund raiser at Treasure Island. We've worked with the FLG's on various past projects including lighting their piece, the Angel of the Apocalypse, at the Space Cowboys GhostShip Halloween party.

The Serpent is going up right now. Here's a nice time lapse of load-in, day 2.

Flaming Lotus Girls, Serpent Mother, Installation Day 2 from jason chinn on Vimeo.

There's also a post on LaughingSquid. Unfortunately I cannot be there since I will be in Mexico with Vampire Weekend. Have fun, safety third!

52nd SFIFF

2009-02-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

We are proud to announce our sponsorship for the 52nd Annual San Francisco International Film Festival. This will be our 4th year as a festival sponsor, providing lighting, audio and technical support for the awards and music events held at the Castro Theater and other San Francisco venues. We're really looking forward to working with Jeremy Stevermer and his crew once again.

Touring Season Preview

2009-02-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well the 2009 Touring Season is beginning to shape up quite nicely. I'm gearing up for another jaunt to Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW), this time with my good friends, The Decemberists. I'm excited to be mixing In-Ear-Monitors with them again - there's a new record, The Hazards of Love, that drops March 24th and this tour will showcase the album in it's entirety. The band will perform the album for the first time in Austin, headlining the NPR Music Showcase at Stubb's and kicking off this year's festival. Joining the band on stage will be Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, two great performers that have been on previous Decemberists tours with their respective bands. It will be a delight to work with them again. The Stubbs concert will be webcasted live and broadcast on NPR stations.

Rich Hipp, our Front of House Engineer, and I have been working on the pre-production, fleshing out the technical bones behind the tour. We've decided to take out 2 Digidesign Profile consoles. We'll also be carrying a production package to complement our stage setup. We're using Horne Audio in Portland, OR for all of our audio production needs. The band is still on the Sensaphonics 2X-S series In Ears matched with Sennheiser G2 Evolution wireless transmitters/receivers, a good combo that has kept us all happy for the last 2 years. Hopefully the digital console can step up to the plate [sonically] - fingers crossed.

After SXSW we hit the pavement in North America for a short, 3 week tour ending at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and also includes a stop at NY's Radio City Music Hall.

I'm also working with the band, Vampire Weekend, doing a couple of one-offs in March. I'll be flying to Mexico a couple of times in between Decemberists rehearsals and SXSW. I'm looking forward to hanging w/ my buddy Myk Guanci, who doubles as Tour Manager and Front of House Engineer for the band. The band will be playing in Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City - you can find more info on their website.

There's some other tours on the deck, waiting for confirmation, and once those are signed in blood I'll send out more updates. This could be a very exciting touring season indeed!

Yoshi's Residency

2009-02-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to be working with Marco Benevento this month at Yoshi's jazz club in Oakland, California. Each Tuesday night I'll be mixing and recording a different lineup - come check it out!

Here's a snipped announcement from Marco's Myspace:

MARCO BENEVENTO Announces February Residency at Yoshi's Oakland
Plus Additional West Coast Tour Dates

Special guests including Scott Amendola (Nels Cline Singers), Andrew Barr (LandOf Talk), Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin & Wood), Reed Mathis, JeffParker (Tortoise), Joe Russo (The Duo), Skerik and more.

Brooklyn,NY -- Marco Benevento will call Northern California home in Februarywhen he hosts a four week residency at Yoshi's in Oakland. Supporting his new release, Me Not Me (available February 3 from The Royal Potato Family), Benevento is set to appear every Tuesday of the month at the prestigious east bay jazz venue with a different set of special guests. He'll launch the run on February 3 with an album release party featuring his core trio comprised of bassist Reed Mathis and drummer Andrew Barr. They'll also perform a handful of shows later that week in the northwest. The following Tuesday, Benevento revisits the "two drummers and a saxophone" band from his storied 2008 Sullivan Hall residency with drummers Billy Martin and G. Calvin Weston and tenor saxophonist Skerik. The following night the same lineup heads south for an appearance at Largo in Los Angeles. On February 17, weekthree, guitarist Jeff Parker of Tortoise joins Benevento along with the Nels Cline Singers' rhythm section, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola. Rounding out Benevento's four consecutive Tuesdays at Yoshi's will be "Quartet The Killer," performing the music of Neil Young, for which Benevento will be joined by his partner in The Duo, drummer Joe Russo, along with tenor saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum andtrombonist Josh Roseman.

The Los Angeles Times recently selected Marco Benevento as a "2009 Artist To Watch" in anticipation of Me Not Me.The ten track collection finds Benevento interpreting the work of artists such as Deerhoof, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison and My Morning Jacket among others. Benevento also contributes three originalcompositions, including "Now They're Writing Music," which was firstperformed as a rough sketch last spring when the Brooklyn-based pianistappeared on "The World Cafe With David Dye." In addition to Benevento,the album features the aforementioned Mathis and Barr along with drummer Matt Chamberlain. The set was recorded in Seattle at ChromaSound and mixed in Brooklyn by Bryce Goggin.

Upcoming tour dates are:

January 10 / Winter Jazzfest at Sullivan Hall / New York, NY (w/ Marc Friedman & Andrew Barr)
February 2 / Don Quixote's International Music Hall / Felton, CA (w/ Reed Mathis & Andrew Barr)
February 3 / Yoshi's / Oakland, CA (w/ Reed Mathis & Andrew Barr)
February 5 / The Triple Door / Seattle, WA (w/ Reed Mathis & Andrew Barr)
February 6 / Axe & Fiddle / Cottage Grove, OR (w/ Reed Mathis & Andrew Barr)
February 7 / The Goodfoot / Portland, OR (w/ Reed Mathis & Andrew Barr)
February 10 / Yoshi's / Oakland, CA (w/ Skerik, Billy Martin & G. Calvin Weston)
February 11 / Largo / Los Angeles, CA (w/ Skerik, Billy Martin & G. Calvin Weston)
February 17 / Yoshi's / Oakland, CA (w/ Jeff Parker, Devin Hoff & Scott Amendola)
February 24 / Yoshi's / Oakland, CA (Quartet the Killer w/ Joe Russo, Peter Apfelbaum & Josh Roseman)
March 7 / The Bell House / Brooklyn, NY (w/ Dave Dreiwitz & Andrew Barr)

Panorama - La Jolla

2008-11-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

We just wanted to post a panorama shot taken by our Lighting Designer - Mark Jones. This event was produced by Sillapere Events from San Francisco. We were asked to provide all audio & lighting services for a private event in La Jolla, CA. that they produced. We used local lighting & audio companies Peterson Lighting who provided us with the Micro W LED fixtures, low voltage lighting, and Martin Entour moving lights & Special Event Audio Services who provided superior sound for the entertainment and a Nexo system for dinner. I would recommend Larry Peterson and Mitch Grant to ANYONE!

Mid Summers Night Dream

2008-08-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we designed the lighting and audio for a wedding in Guerneville at a place called Dawn Ranch Resort. The property is fairly large so there was a lot of area to cover. The wedding was produced by Alison Events of San Francisco. Zephyr Tenting provided amazing custom tents. The pictures here are of the orchard.

Steampunk Treehouse

2008-06-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

Our friends who built the Steampunk Treehouse were at the Coachella Music Festival this year and we helped them come up with a lighting concept and loaned them the fixtures to light the treehouse. They put about 2 dozen PAR 20 fixtures in the branches and lit the inside of the trunk. I love the Syncrolites in the background. I just had to post the picture. Nice job guys! Go Sean & David!!

The Crucible - Fire Ballet [Firebird]

2008-04-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight is closing night to this year's Fire Ballet of Stravinsky's Firebird. Crucible Style. We've had good press and sold out shows almost every night. The lighting was about 1/2 conventional fixtures and about 1/2 LEDs. The photo is from my cell phone. More images can be found on Flickr. Here & Here.

Emma Mae Jacob

2008-04-03T15:21:00.001-07:00

I recently returned from Nashville, TN, mixing front of house for rising country singer, Emma Mae Jacob , as part of the 39th Country Radio Seminar . Emma Mae performed her single, "Say A Prayer" for the opening ceremonies of CRS39 and burned down the house...... literally.

We had the luxury of a relaxed soundcheck the day before. Emma Mae was only peforming one song so it was critical that we nail it right out of the gates. The PA system was provided by Sound Image and was honored to have Earl Neal as my System Tech. Earl owns In-Ear Systems and develops Live Wires
which I'm really excited to try and possibly get The Decemberists on them as spare sets to their Sensaphonics 2X-S in-ear monitors. Earl provided me with a Digico D5 digital console which I prefer over the Yamaha PM5D-RH anyday of the week. The D5 is intuitive, quick and sounds incredible.... more than I can say for the PM5D. The D5 was such a pleasure to mix on sans one isssue: the recall functions did not save my mix completely, which forced me to scramble during the song, to say the least.

So, during the song I noticed a little smoke in the audience as Emma jumped off stage to work the crowd. I thought it was a feeble and attempt at producing haze or fog in the audience, shaking my head at the Spinal Tap moment. Earl ran over to the house-right stack to see what was going on..... it definitely was not a fog/haze machine. By this time the crowd and the band kicked it up a few notches bringing the climax to rock and roll proportions. Come to find out, as I ran backstage, that the sound system had caught on fire due to a DC overload and that the crew blasted it with fire extinguishers during the song! I couldn't believe it, I finally burned down a sound system. Check that one off the list. Sorry Earl.

It turned out to be a great piece of publicity for Emma Mae, making the evening news that night and the news that Emma had burned down the house spread around CRS39 like wildfire. I wish her the best of luck, she really is a pleasure to work with as well as everyone involved: Paula Kay, her band and her family. Keep an eye out for this rising star!

New Tour!

2008-04-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've been hired as the Front of House Engineer for The Breeders U. S. summer tour.

I will join the tour at The Coachella Music Festival in Indio, CA and continue until June 13th. I'm excited to be back at the FOH helm after spending the last 3 years doing In-Ear Monitors for The Decemberists . Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy working with The Decemberists and we have a great relationship but it will be great to get back to what I enjoy doing most: mixing front of house for rock bands

Coachella and the other summer U.S. festivals are great for catching up with old friends and seeing some great live performances. A homecoming, of sorts, for not only the production and musician scene but the artist community as well. Our friend Sean Orlando will be down there again with the Steampunk Treehouse . Truly an amazing work of art! I hope to catch up with my friends Autolux , Metric and catch their sets too.

Looks like an exciting summer is starting to take shape. Ben just loaded in at The Crucible for the benefit fire ballet but I'll let him tell you all about that.
We're also gearing up for the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival
Check back here for updates on the tour !

The Crucible

2008-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

We have been working a lot lately with an Industrial Arts School in Oakland, CA. called The Crucible. For the last couple of years we have done the Fire Arts Festival in July. We did a Fire Ballet in Jan. 07 and this April 9th. - 12th. & 16th. - 19th. The Crucible is producing Firebird “L'oiseau de feu”. This years ballet. We have been producing all the sound and lighting for their events since 2006. They are an awesome bunch of people. The creativity that comes from that place is unparelleled.

pic : Hot Couture Fashion Show

Happy New Year 2008!

2007-12-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year from everyone here at reFRACTion. Thank you for your support, interest, and checking out our blog. Lots of neat projects are already in the works for 2008. Stay Tuned.

the,
reFRACTion guys

SF MOMA - Olafur Eliasson Opening w/Halou

2007-09-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Last night was the SF MOMA Opening of Olafur Eliasson's : Take your time. reFRACTion provided audio, lighting, and video for Halou while they performed in the Schwab Room. We also provided simple ambient pattern washes and lit the tops of the bars in the Atrium. It was a nice place to be on a Wednesday night. There was this really cool fan they rigged up in the ceiling and it spun about 2' above people's heads on a tethered cord. There were times that it looked like it would come right at you. No picks of that though. These are off my cell phone so check back at some point and look at our portfolio. We took some photos with another camera. Much better quality!

Nearing Completion

2007-04-23T16:51:00.001-07:00

We are finally on the home stretch, completing the construction of our offices. I just finished installing the LED flexi strips and making the wiring dissapear on our staircase.

We have lots of great projects in the works for this year. I just finished posting new shows and projects to our portfolio. I also added a 'Press' link and a cut-sheet for our Mobil Light Studio to our website. You can click here for specs on the Mobil Light Studio.

Gorgeous & Green - Global Green USA

2006-12-20T01:05:00.000-08:00

On Dec. 12th., Global Green USA, along with various celebrities and green innovators we took part of the Gorgeous & Green Event at the Bently Reserve (Old Fed Building) in San Francisco, CA. Sillapere Events from San Francisco focuses on sustainable events. They use green friendly and sustainable solutions to their innovative design. Working with Sillapere and their staff in the past on various projects we were delighted to be asked to work with them again. We provided our various supply of LEDs with other energy efficient lighting and Eileen Reo from IO Lighting supplied (12) 3' x 5° LED strips from the 'line 2.0 series'. We used (10) white (3000° K) for cove backlighting and (2) Green line strips for wall washers. I thought I'd share a link from the footage that was shot for 'View from the Bay' on ABC 7. The site says the video footage will be available for about 90days. Pictures won't be available for a little while on our site, but there is some nice information out there about the event, the amazing fashion show, and Global Green on Google. We kept to a really simple design and used highlights to bring out various portions of the elements. The Tactile Zone featuring various living designs had a nice dim light glow. It wasn't so pleasing for somes cameras, (especially cell cameras) but for the eye, it was relaxing and we accomplished more by doing so. By working more LEDs into our design we hope to achieve a much more sustainable approach to green lighting design. We used conventional lighting, but again we kept it to a minimum and created a nice ambiance for a lounge, fashion show runway, vip lounge, silent auction, and even the new 'Tesla Car' out side. While any event is meaningful in its own way, sustainable events and projects, green building and energy. We're excited to be part in any capacity.

Fire Arts Festival

2006-07-19T23:31:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was a very memorable event. reFRACTion provided lighting & audio for the main stage at the annual Fire Arts Festival for The Crucible. They are a non-profit educational facility in Oakland, CA. Focusing on a wide range of eccletic art. Welding, Kinetics, Neon, Forging, Jewelry Making, Glass, & Etc. We were asked to design the whole interior of the VIP tent. Lighting, Audio, & the Environment. We also unveiled our Mobil Light Studio using ESP Vision 2.0 and the newly released Hog III PC Software. Everything went without a glitch and worked seamlessly. (Other than the Tesla coils interrupting the DMX Signal.... However we were prepared for that and had a plan B that worked seamlessly). The shots are from the studio during pre-visualization and then the live performance.

LED & Techno Harlan

2006-05-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

So with Harlan's help, we figured out how to put 4ch. LED fixtures on the Hog. Pretty easy actually. Using a typical 3ch. LED profile with the remaining 4th. channel patched as a dimmer. I had a show with Artemis the next night in Santa Cruz so we tested everything by pre-visualizing the show. "Lighting Guy" the game is quite fun!!!

Watermark Tower

2006-04-06T22:26:00.001-07:00

I wanted to post a pic of the job we recently did for the Grand Opening of the Watermark Tower Building in San Francisco. This is the first building you see from the Bay Bridge as you enter SF on the left. The event was supposed to be on the 4th Floor Terrace in a clear topped tent, however due to downpour and high wind advisory we had to move the party into the parking garage. The guests were amazed!

Good things come in small packages!!!

2006-03-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

We received our delivery of wood today. 95% of our building plans should be framed out by the end of the month. Plywood for the loft/office floor and the 20' beam the structural engineer suggested we install. Plenty of other fixings to shape this place up. I think the beginning of the summer we'll have the open house and celebrate.

Sustainable Events

2006-02-20T13:46:00.000-08:00

reFRACTion was welcomed to participate in a morning event that explored creating "Sustainable Events". This was produced by Sillapere Events of San Francisco, Feb. 9th. at Big House Studios. Topics ranged from Decor Elements, Local Farmers, LED Lighting, Green Power, Green Certs., Re-Use & Bio-Degradable materials. We used a couple of LED fixtures to enhance an entry hallway to showcase emerging technologies. As we soon realized we all had a lot of common ideas on creating beautiful events and working with alternative energy sources and solutions. I was asked to speak for a few minutes on alternative energy ideas and concepts. Small solar-powered sound systems, bio-diesel generators, LED stage lighting. I thought it would be important to discuss what is right around the bend if there is interest for it. It was very inspiring nonetheless. Thanks to Sara & Nicole for putting it together!

SAG Awards 2006

2006-01-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

This is the 3rd. year reFRACTion has been asked to design the lighting for the SAG After Party. Held in numerous tents in the backstage lot of the Shrine Auditorium in LA. Believe it or not it is mostly a 'white' show. Even though it is white it is very impressive and quite beautiful. Hopefully we'll post some pics in the near future in our 'Portfollio' under the 'Tents' section of the website. 7 full days of setup and 1 day for strike. I will be ready for that hot tub appt. I made when I get home on Tuesday.

Round One

2006-01-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be cool to post a little rendering of the new space. We just installed the staircase and are now working in the upstairs office. There is plenty more work to do. More posings soon!