LightSoundJournal.com: Where does one go after working for U2 at age 14? For this Irish-born, and now Florida-based, designer, the answer is onto a storied career that as seen him light shows by stars like The Who, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Taylor Swift and Elton John, along with an array of major awards ceremonies, TV programs, and films.
2 comments:
Tom Kenny’s approach to lighting is collaboration and music driven. He creates great designs out of a love for the performers he works with and a love for his job. One of my favorite things about this article is the lack of emphasis on the specific instruments being used. Concert lighting especially can easily become too much about the technology and effects, rather than the artistry and the effect on the audience. Kenny says it best with “Every beat does not have to be accented by light. The music can do fine on its own sometimes, unless your client is not that good of a rock star!” I also love Kenny’s humility and appreciation for the people around him. In the article, he thanks his gaffer, rigger, programmers, and the artists he designs for. He acknowledges that any piece of live entertainment is not a one man process. This approach is a refreshingly passionate and masterful perspective on an art form too often reduced to who has the most universes.
I really love and appreciate Tom Kenny’s style that he describes in this interview. It is so easy to get lost in the complexity and scale of the rig and lose sight of what is really important. Kenny centers the artist in all of his work. I also thought it was interesting to see how he admittedly uses less cues than other designers. With all of the legendary artists he works with, his way of doing things really accentuates their artistic visions for their shows and he drives his ideas and innovations through the songs and words of the artists. It sounds like he has a pretty close relationship with these artists and tries his best to do their work justice with lighting. The part that was talking about songs he didn’t like was particularly funny. This isn’t something I really considered as a person that wants to go into concert lighting. You won’t always like the music that you are working on and he says bad music just needs more cues.
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