Designer Times
Page 1 of 2

44. Michael Jackson - 1984 Victory Tour Animated Lighting EFX

During 1983 Animated Show Productions had changed it's name to Applied Entertainment Systems Incorporated (AES). The front office began to fill with suits associated with Animated Playhouses staff. I found myself elected Engineering Vice President on April Fools Day. We had quite a few ex-Disney designers and shop creative folks who filled the 63,000 SF factory in Sylmar California. A lot of projects came our way; Baltimore Power Plant, Autoworld, more RiverTowne Shows, even rock and roll stuff for Rod Stewart and Queen.

Michael Jackson toured our facility with an entourage of (13) including his brothers. Being a Disneyland fan, he wanted to see up close exactly how animated figures were built. His team spent several hours looking at everything, documenting all with a video crew pushing a miniature recording studio around on a big cart. This sure beat writing meeting minutes later.....you get everything exactly as it was seen and heard. I was very impressed. Disney legends Al Bertino and Marc Davis were along for the tour and remarked "nice boys, very polite".

Michael would walk very close to me and quietly ask endless questions about how Walt did things.....very curious guy. After two hours as they all were ready to leave, Michael asks if we can build a custom lighting effect for his upcoming Victory Tour. Not knowing anything about R&R Tours, I jokingly said "dance a few bars and I'll try to figure out what you want". A very quick back and forth between Michael and myself drew a gasp from his Tour Producer, Peyton Wilson. As the others left, Peyton said "we gotta talk".

Peyton then related how Michael has been looking for something very different, and had gotten no response from the known Music Tour shops. Michael thought maybe I might have a different idea since I'm not part of his industry. In a matter of two days, AES and Jackson Entertainment had a working agreement, and I had the shop build a quick model of an animated lighting gag which we gave to Michael to fiddle with. Turned out that if you hand someone a "3D play sketch", their ideas will take off.....mine did too.

After some quick tests of my first design, which wasn't going to work accurately, I came up with a better wild scheme which AES priced out. Dave Schweninger, AES President, and I presented Michael with a new model and a firm proposal about two weeks later at a recording studio in West Hollywood. Since most touring show lighting equipment uses leased instruments, the Jackson suits were upset at buying a custom rig from industry unknowns. When they asked Michael what he was going to do with this monstrosity after the tour, he said "It'll be my new patio cover". Dave told them we'd need $50,000 to start the project. Next morning we had Michael Jackson's autograph on a $50,000 check. We all admired it for about ten minutes, then rushed it off to the bank.

Peyton sent me off to a Scorpions Concert at the Forum since I needed an immediate Rock and Roll technical education. With an all-area backstage pass, I was blown away by all the lighting and sound equipment that I was seeing for the first time. And I do mean blown away when I stood right in front of a bank of woofers. A drummer whacked a Spencer drum and my chest caved in a quarter of an inch! Band groupies bribed me with every promise to get my pass....not fair to them for a guy over 50 to get a backstage pass. The lighting guy had me stand right next to him on the mid-house riser so I could learn everything from him......neat dude, orange hair and all. When introduced to the crew, I was pointed out as the guy doing the Jackson Secret Job. My oh my, I was learning all about the music industry buzz. The Scorpion fans stand on their chairs and hold lighted matchs when the guys play.

Back at AES, I began making sketches for our draftmen to make fabrication drawings for the shop to start manufacture of the Jackson Light EFX. Our electrical and show control guys were hard at work developing all the lights and controls to go with the animated mechanical rig. I found a fast way to document every part and detail so as to have production control of 100% of every part required on the job. I could break the job down into major assemblys, then assign part numbers any which way out of sequence. We published this data on a word processor and furnished copies every to everyone each morning.

During the day, everyone would red-mark their progress on every detail, and I would revise and reprint "the daily news" that night. Most folks fail to understand that nothing is completed until you control 100% of every single part 100%. That means identification, purchase, fabrication, inspection, assembly, and test. Every step is assigned to a specific individual, and I would sort each line item by date. This meant that if your due date was RIGHT NOW, your name was on top of the list. We'd do everything do get our name off the top.....like get it done! This was the start of a system I used on most all future projects. With some editing I could produce a maintenance manual when the job was finished.

Anyway, the whole Jackson job was ready for first stage test in only (9) weeks. Everything was detailed and identified on the weekly invoices. Michael had to sign all checks over $250. This job was fast and tight....lessons I never forgot. But things were in a mad rush daily. One day I had to deliver the drummers chrome band stand parts myself. Since we were out of trucks, I picked up the pieces from the plating company myself, jammed them in my Porche, and drove right to the Zoetrope Studio Sound Stage door. The drummer said "These new guys even have Porche trucks".

I felt badly that we had not finished all the electrical connections before shipment of the rig. But I found the stage to be filled with other sub-contractors wildly finishing their stuff. I learned to stay late at night serving out multi-conductor cabling, wearing my fingers to a frazzle along with our other crew members . But when time came for the first band rehearsal, our stuff worked first. "Who are you guys?" Michael would only smile as his choice of unknowns paid off for him. I found the whole situation to be the best learning experience. All the various crafts had the best guys I ever worked with.....they were delighted to show me all their tricks, even though I was twice their ages, and just on my first touring gig.