Five questions with Chris Lisle
Production designer for Miranda Lambert CMT Revolution Tour 2010-2011

1. What was the overall vision, theme, or message of your lighting design?
The main goal of the design was to give Miranda’s show a look that complemented her musical style, but also conformed to two major criteria: budget and truck space. It definitely made me slow down and take a hard look at what elements I actually NEEDED versus those that I just WANTED. In the case of this project, I chose fixtures that I knew would give me the looks that I was going for, and were also affordable. Miranda definitely had the final say in which of the three designs that I submitted, but she is not a micro-manager – she wants those that are around her to do what they are paid to do. So once she chose the design, the rest was in mine and Aaron’s hands. She definitely had some input at rehearsals in terms of some looks that she wanted to do, but also let us be creative as we saw fit.

2. Why did you choose the products you did?
There are different things I like I about each of the fixtures that I chose, but in the end I look at what is going to do what we need it to do within our budget. I also like to choose fixtures that are road worthy and wont end up being a repair/technical nightmare for the techs.

3. What special challenges did you run into in this design?
The biggest issue we was time. We had 28 songs to get into the console in less than a week. There were a lot of long nights and coffee involved, but we pulled it off!

4. Do you have a favorite fixture (and why)?
I became a huge fan of Legend 300E Beam fixtures on this tour. We use them on the floor to create aerial looks that punch through the color washes coming from the fixtures in the air. We found these lights to have great optics that allows a good concentrated beam of light. The effects wheel in them is great as well and allows for some great looks. From a technical end, these fixtures are very light weight and easy to manage!

5. What was the most rewarding part of designing this tour?
The most rewarding part of this tour was definitely seeing almost six months of work come to life. You look at a design on paper for months and months, then one day you stop by the lighting company and they have truss laid out, then the next week the truss is hanging, then a week later you are in rehearsals programming, and then the first night of the tour. It is my favorite part of the process on that opening night when it all just comes together.

Read more about Miranda Lambert’s tour here.
And watch this interview.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubj8PD8XyxU]