Showlight 2021 Postponed due to Coronavirus
Julie Harper • May 4, 2020
Showlight 2021 Postponed due to Coronavirus
It is with great disappointment that we announce the postponement of Showlight 2021, scheduled for May 2021 in Fontainebleau, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been an extremely difficult decision, which has been made in view of both the immediate effects and anticipated recovery period that will be needed by companies and individuals across the industry in the coming months.
The state of the lighting industry, the probable extension of restrictions on gatherings and the effect that this is having on theatres, cinemas, events and concerts worldwide where audiences are involved, are immediate and catastrophic, and the resulting effect to employment and income within all aspects of performance and the technical support of entertainment at all levels, are equally devastating.
While we sincerely hope that, by May 2021, the situation will have improved, we cannot tell to what extent events and social interaction will have returned to ‘normal’. While last month we were confident enough to continue preparing for the original dates, the ongoing feedback from the industry makes it evident that the after-effects will take longer to subside. The industry will need time to recover, and companies and individuals will need to prioritise their own financial recovery.
So, while we acknowledge that Showlight is a much-loved event, the well-being of everyone in our industry comes first. We need to be sensitive to the financial situation that many of our sponsors, exhibitors and delegates may find themselves in, through no fault of their own, after the worst of the pandemic has passed. We understand the cost of exhibiting, travel and accommodation for Showlight would be an added strain on company and individual finances at a time when income and wages are severely reduced, so we feel that postponing Showlight until these have had a chance to recover is the most sensible thing to do.
In addition, Showlight is a voluntary organisation entirely dependent upon the support of its sponsors, and exhibitors. Without sponsorship from many companies and the goodwill and attendance of lighting industry exhibitors, the economics of Showlight would be severely impacted. We also have to consider our delegates, many of whom will spend a large proportion of the next few months either unemployed or furloughed, in which case attendance at Showlight, so soon after the crisis, may not be possible for a variety of reasons.
So for now we, like everyone, urge you to stay at home, be safe and keep connected (via the website (www.showlight.org), the Showlight mailing list, Twitter and Facebook) for updates on a revised date for Showlight, and we look forward to meeting you in happier, healthier times.
Take care, be safe.
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Showlight is excited to release the next two Speaker Videos from its Class of 2025 who graced the stage in Dijon, France. Showlight prides itself on the diversity of its speaker topics, which cover aspects of lighting from a broad spectrum of different disciplines. This month we focus on cinematography, a genre that was well represented in 2025 with presentations from the highest number of film and television LDs to date, including Thierry Goron, Thierry Arbogast AFC, and M. David Mullen ASC, who was recently awarded the ASC Career Achievement in Television Award. Today we feature Roger Simonsz and Peter Macdonald: Roger Simonsz BSC: Schrödinger’s dimmer; controlling the uncontrollable A graduate, and now fellow, of Rose Bruford college, Roger has been part of Showlight since 2005. In a career that has taken him to 30 different countries - sometimes working in languages he didn’t understand, his award-winning work as a lighting designer, cinematographer, writer and director in many different genres has been seen on stage and screens across the world. Of his presentation on working with light outdoors, he says “It’s very difficult in film to do the kind of slow lighting changes we do so easily in theatre. Using examples from Engrenages/Spiral as well as Piper we will explore how to achieve control on location, in daylight, while cueing the sun, with the help of Schrödinger’s dimmer.” Born in the Netherlands, Roger began his career in the UK and now resides in France. He has recently finished working on a new feature film in the south of France, Les Voix Colorées. Peter Macdonald BSC, DGA, DGGB: A Life in Cinema with Peter Macdonald We were privileged to host multi award-winning industry veteran, Peter Macdonald, who brought Showlight 2025 to a close with an informal chat in which he shared memories and anecdotes from his life in cinema spanning more than 70 years. Peter Macdonald worked with director Sir Laurence Olivier on four films as camera operator and got his break on the 1958 film “A Night to Remember” with cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, with whom he collaborated for the next 25 years as his camera operator (Cabaret, Superman I & II, A Bridge Too Far, Cromwell, Excalibur, Murder on the Orient Express) and with David Watkin (Yentl). Macdonald evolved into a second unit director, (Batman 1 & 4, Empire Strikes Back, the first four Harry Potters, Guardians of the Galaxy, Wolverine, The Bourne Ultimatum), and then cinematographer, director and producer. Today, Macdonald reads a lot of scripts, works as Advisor and Consultant, Producer and Executive Producer in the U.S., participates on film festival juries in Europe where he mentors young filmmakers. He is President of Le Rex, his local cinema in Veules les Roses, Normandy. Peter and his wife Madelyn Most have continued to attend numerous international film, photography and photojournalism festivals, including the BUFF Film Festival where Madelyn worked on the Fipresci Jury. They have visited Roger Simonsz in France and David Mullen in the Czech Republic and the UK on the sets of their respective new films. They work with the Art Without Limit Film Festival (https://artwithoutlimit-ks.org) for children and young adults with special needs, physical and mental disabilities/ handicaps and autism, and will head to Vienna in April to work on the First edition - a new edition – of this event. These videos are part of a series of periodic releases, with more Speaker presentation videos going live as we move towards the next Showlight. You too can get a taste of this perennial lighting networking event by viewing our showreel and some of the Speaker presentation videos from 2025 on the Showlight website: https://www.showlight.org/videos Want to know what you missed in 2025? Ever wondered what Showlight is about? Well, here’s what some of the industry’s leading publications say about Showlight 2025 – just pop over to https://www.showlight.org/press to read their reviews and reports.
