This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Susan Blackwell: The SparkFile podcast may contain profanity and other adult content. Please use your discretion.

[0:10] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark spa.

[0:18] Susan Blackwell: Spark five to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Laura Camien: I pump it in my spark star.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: Spark!

[0:26] Laura Camien: I jump into my sparks.

[0:32] Susan Blackwell: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome, friend. But you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file? Where do I get one? What do I file in it? These are such good questions, and we actually do have answers.

[0:57] Laura Camien: We certainly do. A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations. And if you're like us and making stuff all the time, you know that sometimes the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry. We're here to refill it.

[1:13] Susan Blackwell: We are on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity. Things that inspire us to get up off of our asses and make things like this podcast. Or holistic, dynamic designs that illuminate a story and light up an audience. Or bold, no holds barred lighting that transforms comedians into rock stars. Or bold, no holds barred lighting that transforms rock stars into gods.

[1:47] Laura Camien: On today's Makersode, we're gonna talk with someone who we're not joking about this. Truly sparks us. Truly fucking sparks us. And that someone is Marc Janowitz.

[1:59] Susan Blackwell: Marc! Welcome to the Spark.

[2:23] Marc Janowitz: Thank you for having me. I feel sparked. I feel so inspired just hearing you guys do the inspiration. I thought, who's this person they're talking about?

[2:23] Marc Janowitz: It's you, you son of a bitch. It's Marc fucking Janowitz.

[2:23] Susan Blackwell: We're so excited to get this chance to reconnect and to talk with you, Marc. Thank you so much.

[2:23] Marc Janowitz: Thank you for having me. We've been working on trying to get a date for a long time now.

[2:27] Laura Camien: You're the busiest man in show business, Marc Janowitz.

[2:29] Marc Janowitz: We really, really are. And we should probably say fair warning to everyone. Like this is probably gonna be part interview and part friend reunion because we have so much to catch up on. We're very excited.

[2:43] Susan Blackwell: So for those who don't know, Marc, can we just say he is an extraordinary lighting designer? He is also a fantastic human being, and we're both very proud to call him friend.

[2:53] Marc Janowitz: All of this is true.

[2:54] Susan Blackwell: Marc, we're gonna start with the basics. Where are you right now? And how are you right now for reals?

[3:02] Marc Janowitz: I am in my design studio in Pleasantville, New York, which is in Westchester County.

[3:07] Laura Camien: Fancy.

[3:08] Marc Janowitz: It's also kind of like an office, but I like calling it a design studio. It makes it feel a little bit more inspiring.

[3:13] Susan Blackwell: Very creative. And um, how am I? I'm feeling pretty good at this moment, I have to say. I um I had a great um hike in the woods today in Ram Park.

[3:27] Laura Camien: Whoa.

[3:28] Marc Janowitz: Which is a county park kind of not far from where my office is. It was, I tried some new trails and um felt like it was um it's what I needed to do to get ready for this podcast. Clear my mind and be inspired.

[3:42] Susan Blackwell: I'm very sparked by that because you are no joke, you are incredibly busy, very sought after professionally. I feel like you are always on the go on planes, lighting things, shooting things, designing things. And I'm very impressed that you carved out that time to go for that hike. Well done.

[4:02] Marc Janowitz: Carving out time is a big, uh I mean, wherever you can find it, you need it. And it's something I've heard you both speak about on this podcast. And um, and it really rang true to something that had already been sort of changing in my life and in my world, where I realized that if you're just busy, busy go, go, go, go, go all the time, uh, and you don't take any time you can, even if it's just a few minutes, uh, to refill, so to speak, then you um you run out of fuel.

[4:36] Laura Camien: Yes. Can can I ask you about that?

[4:38] Susan Blackwell: Go on rogue, Laura Camien.

[4:41] Marc Janowitz: You are a lighting designer.

[4:43] Laura Camien: Lighting and production designer, but lighting and production designer.

[4:46] Marc Janowitz: Let's get it straight.

[4:48] Marc Janowitz: Yes, I do production design when it's incorporated into lighting, but sorry, I didn't mean to uh get into your stream of thought.

[4:53] Laura Camien: This is actually very relevant to this question. So carving out this time that we're talking about is partially about sort of rest, but it's also about refilling your tank, refilling your kindling box with images and inspiration, as we talk about in the intro to this podcast. And I'm wondering, as you take that walk in the woods, as you do those things to refill, are you looking at things for real? Like consciously looking at things as pot like when you see the light filtering through the trees when you see the tree? Are you thinking about how that might play in your work?

[5:32] Marc Janowitz: Um yes, yes, yes, and more.

[5:36] Marc Janowitz: Well, so uh the first part, so lighting through the trees. I mean, that's I mean, I feel like that inspiration, I you don't even need to really look for that, right? That to me, um, it's I I feel like that that's already internalized to me in how I think about lighting and form and drama and stories and pictures. Um and and I that does, you know, I'll still stop for any sunset and I'll still be just completely in awe of seeing a you know streaming light. Um what you know, today's a gray cloudy day. Um, and uh like what I was finding myself drawn to for no particular reason, but maybe a reason is um today was all about trees, and and it was about not sort of the beautiful green leafy spring trees because they're not there yet.

This particular trail I was on went through some highlands, and so many trees are like fallen over and knocked over and find them their way into these amazing sort of geometric patterns, but fall just completely chaotically. That was one thing that I was noticing today and stopping to take pictures of.

[6:45] Marc Janowitz: But then another one, and like I don't want to get to kind of too metaphysical here, but hey, you know, I mean we're up for it. If not here, then where? This it it and and maybe because I was also thinking kind of about you know, speaking with you ladies and and about creativity and about sort of this imperfect existence we all have, and how you have to accept your imperfections and your flaws in order to um really be able to create in a way that where you can let yourself out of your own boundaries and where you you're not as harsh a critic on yourself when you can allow yourself the freedom to be imperfect. And I'll send you some of these pictures. It was today was all about the way in which these giant, beautiful tree structures were just full of flaws.

I mean, giant holes that you can see through in their lower trunks, and these like hacks out the side where you look and just say, How could something so strong and beautiful and inspiring be able to actually come out of a foundation that's just full of holes and cracks and like it just shouldn't be?

[7:47] Marc Janowitz: And so and so not just sort of the symbolic part of okay, so there's imperfections in everything that's beautiful, and but also just seeing how these like the different cracks and growths and weirdness that created these imperfections were in and of themselves these beautiful, like organic works of nature in and of themselves. Once I got that into my head, what should have been probably a one-hour uh walk turned into two because I was stopping everywhere along the way taking pictures, got myself a little bit lost. Um, blue trail, white trail, pink trail kind of got a little bit mixed up. Um I mean, even even knowing that that's the eventual demise of everything, you know. I mean, some of the trees have fallen over, and you look to say, wow, you've been rotting for 30 years, you've been gone for that long. Yet there's still beauty to it. And and and even in the way in which it's decaying is has beauty.

[8:40] Laura Camien: What's left of you?

[8:41] Marc Janowitz: Yeah. And it made me think I did the survey that precedes this interview, yeah. Did my homework.

[8:45] Laura Camien: Yes, thank you. There's a lot of questions in there. And towards the end, there's the one where you have to pick like the one of five types.

[8:51] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, you're Meta Wagner's five creative types, yeah.

[8:54] Marc Janowitz: And I mean, I kind of felt like I wanted to pick all of them, but it wouldn't let me.

[8:57] Laura Camien: Oh, interesting. So, what did you what did you go for?

[9:00] Marc Janowitz: Yeah. Well, I picked the first one, but it was really a combination with the third one. The first one was ego-driven parentheses, not a bad thing.

[9:08] Marc Janowitz: Um A-lister.

[9:11] Laura Camien: You're an A-lister, baby.

[9:18] Marc Janowitz: And I feel like this is something that particularly creatives who um are working not on stage, but creating the stage, so to speak, yeah. Run into is I don't want to be seen at all. I don't ever want to be seen. I don't want to be at the forefront, but I want my work, I want my work to be seen.

[9:35] Susan Blackwell: But your work what is world class. Your work is A-list.

[9:40] Marc Janowitz: Yeah. Well, that's I appreciate it.

[9:42] Susan Blackwell: No, I'm telling you. Your work is A-list.

[9:48] Marc Janowitz: So you were a combo platter of the A-list, which truly is not is truly it's not a bad thing. It's so interesting, too, because your work creates A-listers of other people as well. I think I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be that bold.

[10:02] Laura Camien: That's pretty bold.

[10:03] Marc Janowitz: And and um, and again, you know, I'll I'll blush here. I guess radio can't see me blushing, so I can blush all I want. Um, but uh if I'm designing a performance, I'm lighting a show. If the performer, the performance, the material, the music isn't already there, yeah. There's nothing I can do to get it there. There's nothing you can do when it is there, there's hopefully a lot that I can do to elevate it, augment it, um help to portray the story, you know, maybe give it a more visceral impact in ways. Um, but if the material is not there, you know, there's no we've seen beautiful movies that are not actually good stories, and it doesn't make it a good movie.

[10:41] Laura Camien: Yeah, that's correct.

[10:42] Susan Blackwell: But wait, before we go too far, you were up to partially an A lister, and what was the other the third one, which I it was something about the vibe.

[10:52] Marc Janowitz: What's the vibe?

[10:54] Marc Janowitz: Um you're a game changer.

[10:55] Laura Camien: This this may this tracks.

[10:57] Marc Janowitz: This is this show that tracks you are a game changing A lister.

[11:03] Laura Camien: I I would have bet money on that.

[11:05] Marc Janowitz: You're living your truth.

[11:06] Laura Camien: You're living your truth.

[11:07] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, this totally tracks.

[11:09] Laura Camien: So back to the walk in the woods for a moment. So it's not always walks in the woods. Sometimes I'll go for a run. I am slightly injured right now, so I'm not running as much, so I'm hiking more. It's basically the moments that I'm allowing myself to not be sort of bogged down in a task. I'll kind of take with me whatever various design problems there might be or inspiration I'm looking for. And in its in its brewing, it sort of um automatically infuses flavor the flavor into whatever it is I might be doing.

[11:34] Marc Janowitz: And so sometimes if I'm if I find that I'm working on a design project where I'm trying to, you know, come up with a s with um kind of structural aesthetic piece, all of a sudden everywhere I go, all I'm seeing is structural aesthetic pieces in nature and in bricks and seeing trees that are, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Seeing trees that are at funny right angles, organic and and and that's appealing to me.

[11:57] Marc Janowitz: Um one one place I find where this is kind of um a sort of interesting inspiration that isn't necessarily something that's you know, you know, feeling spiritual and connected with nature. Um wandering through hotels, hotel lobbies, airports, there's the architecture of things is is very inspiring into um any sort of live or visual design I'm doing and the lighting portion of things and how um light is allowed into buildings or through structures, all of that just it like finds its way into whatever inspiration I'm needing and on some level like either at the surface of consciousness or even if it's running sort of back in the background.

[12:08] Laura Camien: You have made a practice of that sort of seeking it sounds like.

[12:08] Marc Janowitz: Yes, yes and I have this um I have this tarot so you know going all over the place but we you know I know that's you know some of the conversations that happen here and I think that creatives in general go through this is like you have different fears of course in the process in your creative processes and one of my biggest ones is forgetting whatever it is that I'm seeing and feeling at the moment.

[12:08] Marc Janowitz: That's why you gotta have a spark file.

[13:08] Laura Camien: That's why I gotta have a spark file.

[13:09] Marc Janowitz: I mean a spark file can be any container right like absolutely it's yeah so I absolutely you know what do you always have with you is pretty much your phone.

[13:17] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[13:17] Marc Janowitz: So pictures of things and so I'll just you know I'll randomly snap it because I know that at some later point I'm gonna be going through and I'll say oh I took that because I felt like it might be inspiring for something. And so then I move photos that are specifically geared towards that into a f into an album on my phone called Inspirational Images.

[13:37] Laura Camien: Yes so you have a photo spark file.

[13:40] Marc Janowitz: I do yeah and then there's another I have like you know various Pinterest pages but usually what'll happen is since the more sort of different sites I have to go to the more I forget where stuff is so I'll start screenshotting stuff from Pinterest or from the web wherever it is and I move it into that it lives in your phone.

[13:57] Susan Blackwell: So smart.

[13:57] Laura Camien: That's great.

[13:58] Marc Janowitz: Well but it also lives on the cloud which is a good thing because you know I also have that fear that because you will drop your phone in the toilet.

[14:04] Susan Blackwell: It could happen.

[14:04] Marc Janowitz: That's right.

[14:05] Marc Janowitz: It'll happen.

[14:06] Marc Janowitz: But having it all in one place, we're big advocates of that because we've all had those like 17 files of notes and photos and articles and whatnot.

[14:15] Laura Camien: And then you make yourself crazy because you know that there was something that you saw three weeks ago.

[14:19] Marc Janowitz: And you put your hands on it and you can't put your hands on it.

[14:22] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[14:23] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[14:24] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[14:25] Susan Blackwell: Marc, before we go any further, we do have to request the SparkFile price of admission from you, which you know is please share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[14:38] Marc Janowitz: This is really tough because I know I gave you a little bit of a heads up that I had one.

[14:42] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:43] Marc Janowitz: But I need to preface by saying I feel like every single creative endeavor, every design I work on, yeah, starts out as a risk.

[14:52] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[14:52] Marc Janowitz: And sometimes it's a risk all the way to the end.

[14:54] Marc Janowitz: But they're all risks.

[14:56] Marc Janowitz: Some of them feel risky for longer.

[14:58] Marc Janowitz: Some of them I can overcome the fear quicker.

[15:01] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:02] Marc Janowitz: Some of them are smaller risks.

[15:03] Marc Janowitz: It's a little more and yeah, I don't want to like, you know, sort of create the impression here that I only work on projects that are really, you know, um groundbreaking, because they're not sometimes uh a lot of them aren't.

[15:14] Laura Camien: But you are a game changer.

[15:16] Marc Janowitz: But sometimes I just play the game as it is.

[15:18] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[15:19] Marc Janowitz: Yeah.

[15:19] Marc Janowitz: You're like, don't reinvent the wheel here.

[15:22] Laura Camien: Right, right.

[15:22] Marc Janowitz: Well, and there's and there's you know, and I've I've said this to um, you know, some of the producers that I work with on like different comedy specials, which it's what's sort of one of the main or main genres I'm in these days, that and concert production.

[15:34] Marc Janowitz: You can hire me to light something that has a blue curtain, and if I've if it fits in my schedule, great, let's do it.

[15:40] Marc Janowitz: It'll be great to work with you on that.

[15:41] Marc Janowitz: But there's a lot of people who can do a blue curtain and a spotlight.

[15:45] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:46] Marc Janowitz: So I don't necessarily gravitate into those projects.

[15:48] Marc Janowitz: When they come along, I will play the game and I and I feel like I light a blue curtain very well.

[15:53] Marc Janowitz: Um, as as do the people who hire me to do that.

[15:56] Marc Janowitz: But the ones that I really want, the ones that I gravitate towards are the ones that, you know, I feel like I'm pushing towards the edge of a cliff and kicking some stuff over and seeing who I could bring with me.

[16:05] Laura Camien: And those are the scariest ones because it doesn't always work.

[16:09] Susan Blackwell: I'm so curious if the things that m uh have given you the the riskiest, maybe even extended feelings of creative risk are the things that I've seen your work, not known that's your work, and it has blown my butt off my body.

[16:27] Susan Blackwell: And I have to I rewatch, I rewatch, I rewatch.

[16:31] Susan Blackwell: I just wonder if those things coincide that the things that felt like the biggest risks from the inside are the things that um have captivated our imagination and our attention.

[16:42] Marc Janowitz: Oh boy.

[16:42] Marc Janowitz: Well, I feel like that's I could totally answer that wrong.

[16:46] Marc Janowitz: I don't know, maybe.

[16:48] Marc Janowitz: You did ask for a specific one, and so and I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one.

[16:51] Marc Janowitz: Um and I don't know if you've seen this or not seen it.

[16:54] Marc Janowitz: It was it was a it was a live web stream.

[16:56] Marc Janowitz: So you can really only find it now if you go looking on YouTube or if you happen to be a fish fan and you have all of the different, you know, available fish streaming services.

[17:07] Marc Janowitz: Um this is the band Fish.

[17:08] Laura Camien: Yes, okay.

[17:09] Marc Janowitz: Okay.

[17:10] Marc Janowitz: So um I do not work for Fish.

[17:12] Marc Janowitz: Um Fish has a long standing lighting designer who has been with them for 30 years and is and has his own trademark for that band.

[17:18] Laura Camien: Wow.

[17:19] Marc Janowitz: And it's incredible and it's its own thing.

[17:21] Marc Janowitz: But Trey Anastasio, who is the front man and you know, one of the founders of that band, has brought me in on a lot of his side projects.

[17:28] Marc Janowitz: Yes, most of his solo and special projects since about 2012.

[17:33] Marc Janowitz: I've had the good fortune to be involved with.

[17:36] Marc Janowitz: During the pandemic closure, like the 2020, nothing's happening, no one's working, no one's doing shows, venues aren't open, you can't go out of your house.

[17:46] Marc Janowitz: The whole deep into the pandemic, those months.

[17:49] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[17:50] Marc Janowitz: And it was the this is so this is gonna be, this is about August when I hear from Trey.

[17:55] Marc Janowitz: And this is the point where I where I feel like um most of like for myself and most of my colleagues, and most, you know, people in performance, people in design, anyone involved with something that requires an audience, had finally just accepted that there was no work, there was no FOMO, there was you're not missing out on anything.

[18:13] Laura Camien: Right.

[18:14] Marc Janowitz: Take this as your um as your winter, so to speak, and just like do other things in your life because you'll never have this again.

[18:21] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[18:22] Marc Janowitz: So it's so during that period, like into the spring, Tre Trey had been working on something in his living room, which turned into an album.

[18:29] Marc Janowitz: And he was doing like, I think it was basically weekly drops of a new song that he would also video, he would also record and then um debut on Facebook.

[18:39] Marc Janowitz: And I thought it was really risky work on his part.

[18:43] Marc Janowitz: You know, he was working the camera by himself, and he was writing music and by himself, and maybe doing some collaborating, but it was all he was performing it all right there and recording it, and um, and it went pretty deep.

[18:54] Marc Janowitz: Some of it was, you know, I'd watch it, I was just like, I can't believe that that was something he was just doing, you know, it at his place in Manhattan.

[19:02] Marc Janowitz: And so we were keeping in touch throughout, you know, I would see something and I would just throw him a little hello text and tell him I thought it was great and keep going.

[19:09] Marc Janowitz: And and then I guess around July or so, June or July, I think, he did a um Jimmy Fallon performance of that material, and it was the first thing that they had had a musician come to their stage and do as opposed to what had become the norm at that point, which was remotes, living room performances, you know, things that were not happening with audiences.

[19:36] Laura Camien: That's right.

[19:45] Marc Janowitz: So I, you know, sent a message to Trey and said, So happy to see you on there.

[19:50] Marc Janowitz: That was great.

[19:51] Marc Janowitz: Um, you know, amazing.

[19:53] Marc Janowitz: Just you, a guitar, and an amp, which is you know, very minimalist for him.

[19:57] Marc Janowitz: And he wrote me back almost immediately and said, Where are you?

[20:00] Marc Janowitz: I need to call you.

[20:01] Marc Janowitz: And I was like, I'm in the same place I've been for a while.

[20:04] Marc Janowitz: And uh I'm in my sun room.

[20:07] Marc Janowitz: And uh and so he called and we start talking.

[20:09] Marc Janowitz: He's like, So I've been thinking about you and talking to Patrick, who's one of his managers, and and he had this, he you know, he had this idea, he wanted to do some kind of stream or show or performance or something, and it was pretty vague.

[20:24] Marc Janowitz: He knew he needed to get it out there.

[20:27] Marc Janowitz: We didn't know what the restrictions would be, where we can do something like this, anything like that.

[20:30] Marc Janowitz: But he said, you know, we collaborate well visually, and I know you do a lot of work in you know, concert films and in you know other TV, you know, comedy stuff, and and so I want, you know, I want you to collaborate with me and help figure out how this is what this can be.

[20:46] Marc Janowitz: Some of the caveats that went with that, he said to me, I can't do a couch performance.

[20:53] Marc Janowitz: I already did the thing in my living room, and it will break my heart if I have to play to an empty room.

[20:59] Marc Janowitz: Like I can't set up and just play to a bunch of seats and pretend like they're full of people.

[21:03] Marc Janowitz: I don't think the fans want that.

[21:05] Marc Janowitz: I think people are have had enough of that, and I need it to be different, and I need it to reach the people at home.

[21:10] Laura Camien: Change the game.

[21:11] Marc Janowitz: That was the beginning conversation.

[21:12] Marc Janowitz: You know, it would take me a few hours to go through every step of the way, and I and I and I don't want to, I'll forget details.

[21:17] Marc Janowitz: Um, but along the way, you know, it started out was gonna be very small.

[21:21] Marc Janowitz: We we thought we would do like a pre-record and maybe edit it together, something where we you know grab the black box.

[21:25] Marc Janowitz: In fact, I was looking into like MTS and was looking at, you know, because all these places were shuttered, right?

[21:30] Marc Janowitz: So it would be kind of easy to get a black box, put a couple of cameras in and some lighting and just kind of experiment.

[21:36] Marc Janowitz: And and it was, you know, this is by I think it was just about August by now we were having this conversation.

[21:42] Marc Janowitz: You know, there's a rather large team that kind of surrounds the fish camp and Trey.

[21:45] Marc Janowitz: We didn't know at that point with COVID if we'd be able to bring anybody from anywhere if it just had to be New York people.

[21:51] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[21:51] Marc Janowitz: Um so we just started kind of brainstorming on it a bit.

[21:54] Marc Janowitz: I ended up getting into a chat with his tour manager who became an executive producer on the project, Richard Glasgow, and he said, Look, what I I'm tasked with finding a space.

[22:04] Marc Janowitz: What do I need to find?

[22:05] Marc Janowitz: And I said, Look, we just need a room approximately this big.

[22:08] Marc Janowitz: Um, it doesn't need to have any sort of it just needs it needs a roof that we could rig some lighting from.

[22:14] Marc Janowitz: Um we need to be able to close it off.

[22:15] Marc Janowitz: It needs to, you know, have dimensions approximately like this.

[22:19] Marc Janowitz: And he started like throwing out some names of theaters, and I said, Look, if it's a theater, that's fine.

[22:23] Marc Janowitz: Let's just, you know, don't get one of those big new expensive New York places because that's you know, this is gonna um you know run over very quickly.

[22:32] Marc Janowitz: Um there was also I kind of forgot one of the one of the major pushes behind doing this was anything that Trey raised financially through the web streaming or through sponsorship, um, would go to a uh not for profit foundation called Divided Sky that he was founding um in order to build um uh adult treatment centers, uh drug treatment centers.

[22:53] Marc Janowitz: Uh he's he's recovering and he you know felt like that was an important contribution that he can make.

[22:58] Marc Janowitz: So, you know, going into a place that was gonna cost us tons of money wasn't really gonna make sense.

[23:02] Laura Camien: That's right.

[23:02] Marc Janowitz: Just take from that.

[23:03] Marc Janowitz: And so I explained a few different things to Richard.

[23:06] Marc Janowitz: I said, you know, if you get a state, you can get a theater, but just we're only gonna use the stage.

[23:10] Marc Janowitz: We don't need the seating, we don't want to see any of the seating, that's all out.

[23:12] Marc Janowitz: He said, All right, leave it with me.

[23:14] Marc Janowitz: And I come back, and the first thing he says is, how about the beacon?

[23:21] Marc Janowitz: So many stages.

[23:23] Marc Janowitz: Giant theater with a small stage, or less.

[23:25] Marc Janowitz: It's a little bit deceiving, but the stage itself is very vaudeville-sized.

[23:29] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[23:29] Marc Janowitz: Um, and I thought, well, Richard, the stage isn't really that big, and um and local one.

[23:34] Marc Janowitz: I mean, it's gonna be how you you know, I feel like it's all he goes, don't worry about a thing.

[23:38] Marc Janowitz: MSG's gonna give it to us, and they're gonna pay for the stage hands or at least pay the base coat, and they're all in on the benefit.

[23:46] Marc Janowitz: We've already worked it all out.

[23:47] Marc Janowitz: So now you just need to, you know, figure out how to make it look cool.

[23:51] Laura Camien: Wow.

[23:52] Marc Janowitz: So, okay, great.

[23:53] Marc Janowitz: I mean, I'm I'm ready.

[23:54] Marc Janowitz: You know, I'm like, cool.

[23:55] Marc Janowitz: It sounds good.

[23:56] Marc Janowitz: We get you know back into conversations with Trey, and we talk about the first thing we we get into is really talking about like who is the audience here, right?

[24:03] Marc Janowitz: Because we can't have an audience.

[24:06] Marc Janowitz: So that's great.

[24:07] Marc Janowitz: What do we do without an audience?

[24:08] Marc Janowitz: What can we, what are the things?

[24:10] Marc Janowitz: Let's let's embrace these.

[24:11] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, we'll never have this moment.

[24:13] Laura Camien: The obstacle is the path.

[24:14] Marc Janowitz: Yeah.

[24:15] Marc Janowitz: The obstacle is the way.

[24:16] Laura Camien: Yeah, obstacle is the path.

[24:18] Marc Janowitz: I love that.

[24:18] Marc Janowitz: I went to the venue in September for a scout.

[24:22] Marc Janowitz: First thing was the first time I was back in the city since beginning of pandemic.

[24:25] Marc Janowitz: So that was spooky enough.

[24:27] Marc Janowitz: And I walked on stage, and I tell you, like, I was choking back tears.

[24:32] Marc Janowitz: I I I wept.

[24:32] Marc Janowitz: Like I was the rush of emotion of just knowing that we were doing something, we're back into it and doing the thing.

[24:39] Marc Janowitz: Because if you're in a creative field, it's highly likely that you derive a lot of your own sort of personal worth and self-worth and value out of the fact that you are in a creative field, and when you have no opportunity to do that, there's a number of different existential crises that go with it.

[24:53] Marc Janowitz: Um, you know, crying in my mask, get over that.

[24:58] Marc Janowitz: Um, and then after going through a couple of weeks, and I showed Trey all the photos and I started doing some sketches and some 3D models and and looking at things from different perspectives, and then and I saw like a photo, like a Jerry Seinfeld photo that I come across where Jerry's standing on stage facing the camera, and the background is the auditorium.

[25:20] Marc Janowitz: Yeah.

[25:21] Marc Janowitz: And it's just all the empty seats, right?

[25:24] Marc Janowitz: And all the beautiful architecture, but not everything, not the you know, gilded proscenium arts and stuff, but just you know, these really great like balcony front details and the ceiling details, the spire.

[25:36] Marc Janowitz: And I thought, okay, perfect.

[25:40] Marc Janowitz: Uh-huh.

[25:41] Marc Janowitz: Except that we're looking at a room full of empty seats.

[25:44] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[25:45] Marc Janowitz: But we're looking at a performer, we're looking at the room.

[25:49] Marc Janowitz: The audience who only ever sits in those seats is now seeing a perspective they'd never see.

[25:53] Laura Camien: That's right.

[25:54] Marc Janowitz: And I kind of I locked into that, so rendered it out, and I took the idea to Trey, and he loved it.

[25:59] Marc Janowitz: And I explained to him, and he said, What about all the empty seats?

[26:02] Marc Janowitz: I said, We're gonna fill them, but we're gonna fill them with light.

[26:05] Marc Janowitz: I'm gonna get as many small lights as I can and just randomly play.

[26:11] Marc Janowitz: I'm just gonna fill it, and it's gonna be something like the idea of maybe it's a bunch of people kind of looking in, you know, um, all the souls at home, or maybe it's a constellation and starry night, or it's it could be anything we want it to be.

[26:25] Marc Janowitz: You're not gonna feel the emptiness of the room at all.

[26:27] Marc Janowitz: It's all gonna be behind you.

[26:28] Marc Janowitz: But it's also the totality.

[26:29] Marc Janowitz: While he's Trey Anastasio may be having an experience where he is singing to a camera and a brick wall and a skeleton crew.

[26:38] Marc Janowitz: The he had to, when you rendered that out, he had to understand the power of that imagery and and the story that it tells historically about this slice of time in our lives when those seats needed to be filled with, you know, the lip souls of of the viewers at home because it couldn't be filled with uh the human people that would normally be there.

[27:02] Susan Blackwell: That is a great, great creative risk.

[27:05] Susan Blackwell: And I I believe you when you say that there were pro times in that process when it really was sort of like, what are we going to do in this unprecedented time to work within the creative limitations that have been dictated by this pandemic?

[27:24] Susan Blackwell: And make it feel meaningful, not that you just had a bunch of limitations, but actually that you transformed it.

[27:31] Marc Janowitz: Right.

[27:31] Susan Blackwell: That we were gonna take it and we were gonna come out the other side with something that could only be done in this time, and that we were fortunate to have this time to do it.

[27:41] Marc Janowitz: Not that anybody would, you know, want a global pandemic um for any creative reasons at all, but the life doesn't give you the choice.

[27:49] Susan Blackwell: That you are able to make magic out of it.

[27:52] Susan Blackwell: And this f by the way, you're officially admitted into the Spark file. That is a beautiful creative risk.

[27:58] Susan Blackwell: And lighting design, production design, when it's done well, sometimes it can be uh seamless and almost invisible and a real platform and a highlight for the artist's work.

[28:11] Susan Blackwell: Marc, you do this amazing magic trick, and you did it with that Trey Anastasio project at the Beacon, where the artist is completely there, you are completely highlighting, literally spotlighting the artist.

[28:25] Susan Blackwell: And also you are taking something that can be seamless, it can be invisible, it can be ephemeral, like lighting, light production design. And you are making, I hope you can hear me as you're listening through your earbuds, friends. Like I am so emphatic about this.

[28:42] Susan Blackwell: You make magic. It is crazy what you do with your production and your lighting design, and it elevates the work to this place where it's like usually there's like an audible gasp that happens, and it's happened with me uh your work over and over again.

[29:02] Susan Blackwell: And then I just have to watch it again and again and again. There's no question baked into this. I'm just sharing my truth. My heart is warm. My heart is growing. I feel like you didn't get that memo that that reads, um, you know, good lighting design isn't noticed.

[29:20] Susan Blackwell: Um, that's how you can tell a good lighting design. I understand like there are times when that's applicable and you don't want the design to overshadow, you know, what the story is.

[29:33] Susan Blackwell: Um, but you have on many occasions that I think we could point to, found a way for the design to be so additive. It's not, it's certainly not not noticeable, but it is another presence there.

[29:49] Susan Blackwell: It is another character on stage, or it's another piece of the full puzzle that just amplifies and elevates everything. You just have to take it. You just have to take it. Just sit there and take it.

[30:01] Marc Janowitz: Thank you for that. I'm I'm I'm taking it. If we could describe the discomfort on Marc's face of just like, oh God, all these compliments.

[30:10] Marc Janowitz: So can I tell you though? So a note that I just took as you were saying that. So so that's an interesting one with with design and especially with with lighting, and especially lighting for concerts, which can be um oftentimes, you know, center of attention, even overpowering.

[30:23] Marc Janowitz: Even some, and and and even like I definitely have some shows where I come out of, I'm like, I need to tone it down. Um there's this fine line because you really don't want I should say, I don't want the work itself to draw its own attention because I think that that draws attention away from the full product, which is a collaborative form.

[30:48] Marc Janowitz: So that's one of the things that I find myself conflicting with a lot on every design is you know, is it too much? Is it too little? Am I am I saying, hey, look at me, hey, look at me, or am I saying, oh, this, you know, hey, look at us.

[31:00] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah.

[31:02] Marc Janowitz: I want to uh if I can, I just a quick a addendum back to the the Trey story because there was this point, so we're moving forward with this design and the layout, and everyone's starting to kind of piece it together and realize why it's gonna be special.

[31:18] Marc Janowitz: Um, and I remember having like sort of one last like there's always a in every design period there's the point of no return where you actually really have to commit and execute, and there's no more iterating, and it's like, you know, see you at the venue.

[31:30] Marc Janowitz: Pencils down. Pencils down, exactly. And uh, but I remember I was sitting out on my front porch, it was uh, you know, mid-September day, and um, and I'm on the phone with Trey and Patrick, his manager, and he, you know, we're like, all right, we're gonna really gonna do this. Okay, we're gonna do this.

[31:46] Marc Janowitz: And Trey says, you know, I just it it occurs to me, it just occurred to me. I've had all of the, you know, I've done these interviews, I did a rolling still interview, and I said specifically, I'm not gonna play to an empty venue.

[31:59] Marc Janowitz: And he said, Fuck, man, I'm here we are, we're just featuring an empty venue. Like he's he's like, Mark, what if it's what if it's just total a big mistake?

[32:08] Susan Blackwell: So, so uh what I love uh to pause you for just a moment, I just want to highlight the fact that you're talking about two very well established, very respected artists conferring about what if this fails? What if this sucks?

[32:25] Susan Blackwell: What if I just said one thing and I'm gonna take a big creative swing, I'm gonna run directly to the center of that thing I just said I wasn't gonna do. I love that, I just love for us and for our listeners that they're hearing that I feel like people who continue to change the game, continue to be engaging in a list creative work, it means that you are going to have those moments of real fear if you're doing it right, if you're doing it right.

[32:33] Marc Janowitz: If you're doing it right, yeah. There was a point there where the fact that he was confiding that in me also, and look, Trey and I had worked together for a long time. And I feel like we had done great work together, but it was never in this kind of way where something was kind of birthing and and and we were like, you know, I feel like we were really leaning on each other.

[33:11] Marc Janowitz: I was I obviously he wasn't leaning on me for anything musical or anything like that, but but as far as like how this thing was gonna look and how it was gonna portray and what the world is we were creating, and I said, We've been looking at this, we've been looking at this, we keep responding the same way.

[33:24] Marc Janowitz: There's not a single time once we've put the lit renders in where we've looked at it or anyone else has looked at it and said, you know, what the fuck are you doing? Or anything like that. And I said, the only way we're gonna be able to move forward from this point is if you and I just agree together that we're we're taking this risk together.

[33:40] Marc Janowitz: Like we're we're going, we're going to and if it and if it and if it crashes and burns, for one thing, we're gonna thelma and Louise it together.

[33:49] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[33:50] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, and for second thing, I mean, we're gonna be at the Beacon for eight to ten weeks.

[33:55] Marc Janowitz: If we do the first week and we're like, wow, what a fucking mistake, we will figure it out.

[34:01] Susan Blackwell: Fix it, yeah.

[34:02] Marc Janowitz: Good to change course.

[34:03] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[34:04] Marc Janowitz: We will fix it. We will fix it together. We'll move the cameras, we'll flip it around. Well, hey, hey, week two, or facing forward, or we'll, you know, we we can do that.

[34:12] Marc Janowitz: We have that within our means, but if we don't embrace this and do it now, we'll never have the opportunity again.

[34:17] Susan Blackwell: Amazing.

[34:18] Marc Janowitz: He was kind of he was quiet for a minute, and Patrick didn't say a thing. He was just and he knows Trey pretty well. He was just like, I'm gonna see how this goes.

[34:23] Marc Janowitz: And yeah, and he goes, Yeah, all right, yeah, let's do it. I'm in, I'm in with you. Let's do it.

[34:27] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[34:30] Marc Janowitz: It's so true.

[34:32] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[34:33] Marc Janowitz: And it and it worked.

[34:34] Susan Blackwell: And it worked.

[34:35] Marc Janowitz: It's so true. And and the obstacle is the way is so true because you like the way you approached it was not like an apologetic, sorry, we're here at this empty theater.

[34:47] Susan Blackwell: Uh those uh those seats would represent like a sadness, as opposed to the flipping it around. At one point, I think in the first, like, you know, he was talking with he was like talking to his audience uh in somewhere in the first show, and he kind of points behind him and he goes, This is what I usually get to see.

[35:04] Marc Janowitz: I'm looking out at you. Now you get to see me looking out at you.

[35:07] Susan Blackwell: What I see.

[35:08] Marc Janowitz: Yeah. And then and then it became obviously over the next, you know, we got to really play around with it after that.

[35:12] Marc Janowitz: And spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen the beacon gems. Um, the last one, you know, he walks out through the through the seats, and you and for the first time you get really close and you see just how much structure and all this grip equipment and everything that's creating this kind of you know ocean constellation of people.

[35:29] Marc Janowitz: And he walks out in the lobby and he gets out there, this gorgeous rotunda of a lobby, and there's you know 30 or 40 dancers all out there, like, you know, there's a drum circle, there's just this huge like celebration.

[35:43] Marc Janowitz: He walks through that, he dances with them for a bit, and then he walks out on the street underneath the um marquee, takes a left, walks down, turns around the corner, he's gone.

[35:52] Susan Blackwell: Ah, beautiful.

[35:53] Marc Janowitz: Mark, you know how to bring it home.

[35:56] Susan Blackwell: Like you know how to uh end a show.

[35:59] Marc Janowitz: Yeah.

[35:59] Susan Blackwell: Really, really, really well done. And clearly you collaborate with people who do as well.

[36:04] Marc Janowitz: That is, I love that story.

[36:06] Susan Blackwell: That was a risk with a happy ending.

[36:09] Susan Blackwell: Marc, we want to take it back. We want to go back in history just a little bit.

[36:13] Susan Blackwell: Maybe it's like uh the origin story of the three of us and how did we end up here today.

[36:19] Susan Blackwell: Um, you and I first met when we were working at Blue Man, Blue Man Group. You and I, I think both started in the same year, 1996, but you were in Boston, correct?

[36:28] Marc Janowitz: Correct.

[36:30] Susan Blackwell: You eventually made your way to New York.

[36:33] Marc Janowitz: I don't know what year that was. The quick history, my quick chronology at Blue Man.

[36:38] Marc Janowitz: 96. I started as the master electrician on the Boston show about three months after they opened.

[36:44] Marc Janowitz: Mm-hmm. I was finishing my senior year at Boston University, so I was like, one of the B U folks.

[36:48] Marc Janowitz: We had a lot of B you. We had B you, we had Emerson, we had crews from both.

[36:54] Marc Janowitz: I stayed at the Boston show until summer ninety-seven, and then um became the assistant lighting designer for the Chicago show.

[37:02] Marc Janowitz: And we got that. That was Matt McCarthy was the designer. We got that up and running and open that fall.

[37:07] Marc Janowitz: I think we did a big Leno, if you remember with the live wire and stuff.

[37:14] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, we did.

[37:15] Marc Janowitz: Oh, then we came back, and remember they had just bought Third Street.

[37:18] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[37:19] Marc Janowitz: Yes. And they, in order to keep like their public occupancy or cabaret, whatever license they needed, there had to be a public performance.

[37:26] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[37:26] Marc Janowitz: So we did the new constellations December of 97, shivering in that space with the rats.

[37:31] Marc Janowitz: Then I disappeared for a while. I went to Vegas, got with Brian Fed. We worked on Bellagio on the O show, the installation of that.

[37:38] Susan Blackwell: Didn't you work on our first Vegas show uh in 2000?

[37:42] Marc Janowitz: Yeah. That was the whole live wire, the desert scale.

[37:45] Marc Janowitz: Because by summer ninety-eight, I came back and we did the 817 show.

[37:50] Marc Janowitz: Which was all the workshopping. Right? It was the original workshopping, the shadows piece, the live wire piece.

[37:56] Marc Janowitz: That it was at one of those performances. I was married to a blue man at the time.

[38:00] Susan Blackwell: Oh, one of one of my former husbands.

[38:03] Marc Janowitz: And I remember sitting in that workshop and gasping uh at your work.

[38:08] Susan Blackwell: That was one of the times when I literally gasped out loud.

[38:11] Marc Janowitz: And Chris Wink after the show, Chris Wing, one of the founders of Blue Man Group, said, I heard you audibly gasp.

[38:17] Susan Blackwell: And in all truth. Did you tell him it was the lighting?

[38:20] Marc Janowitz: It was the lighting.

[38:21] Susan Blackwell: In all fairness, I feel very much like I was a member of the design team.

[38:21] Marc Janowitz: I was a member of the design team. I was not the designer of record for those for those projects.

[38:29] Marc Janowitz: Um eventually became the associate designer.

[38:31] Susan Blackwell: Right, but you were very much a part of a collaborative team.

[38:35] Marc Janowitz: Very much part of a collaborative team.

[38:36] Susan Blackwell: If I'm correct, the thing that I specifically gasped at is your handiwork.

[38:40] Marc Janowitz: So, with all due respect to all the designers and all the people.

[38:43] Susan Blackwell: You're not getting out of this interview without a million more compliments, Marc Janowitz. Just be prepared.

[38:48] Marc Janowitz: Oh God.

[38:50] Susan Blackwell: So and then I was in New York.

[38:52] Marc Janowitz: So then I was in New York, 8178 onwards.

[38:55] Marc Janowitz: Um, and by you know, 99, it was we are doing this Vegas show, come be an associate designer on it.

[39:03] Marc Janowitz: And and I, you know, got my little office at Third Street in that kind of weird loft area and stayed through, and then you know, kept kept growing.

[39:10] Marc Janowitz: As you know, I became a Blue Man Productions employee, lighting director.

[39:13] Marc Janowitz: I was the associate designer for all the new projects and special events, and you know, kind of went through, we did the complex, they brought Mark Brickman on board.

[39:21] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[39:22] Marc Janowitz: Which was a C change for everything, big C change in my own career at the time.

[39:26] Susan Blackwell: I was gonna say, because is that like when you segued a bit into concert lighting?

[39:32] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, well, the complex was the first concert that I had been involved with in a designer way.

[39:37] Marc Janowitz: I mean, I had been lighting bands since you know high school.

[39:41] Marc Janowitz: I mean, I used to drive around Boston when I was in college with 12 park hands in the trunk of my car and you know, going into Harper's Ferry or the Rat or wherever I could, plugging them into the wall and flash too flashy.

[39:51] Marc Janowitz: Um, but but Brick Brickman was like anyone who was into concert design, would have he was an idol.

[39:57] Susan Blackwell: You know Mark Brickman, yeah.

[39:58] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, Mark Brickman.

[40:00] Marc Janowitz: And um and Jenny Willink had asked me to put together a short list of who I thought would be good designers when they wanted to do a concert thing, and he was first on the list, and I knew I'd be assigned to him.

[40:10] Marc Janowitz: So yeah, I basically got to name my mentor.

[40:12] Susan Blackwell: Wow, Marc, you're so smart.

[40:14] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, because he came in, and then we were basically joined at the hip for the next almost three years.

[40:19] Marc Janowitz: And so what happened from there is when I left Blue Man, almost immediately started doing stuff with Brickman or stuff that Brickman would get called for but didn't want to do, or stuff that he was designing and needed a lighting director for.

[40:31] Marc Janowitz: And that really launched my concert career.

[40:33] Marc Janowitz: And um, you know, I I really, really, really wanted to keep a foot in theater, and I did for a while.

[40:40] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[40:40] Marc Janowitz: Um, but it eventually turned to a point where um concerts and that kind of live event thing really took me over.

[40:48] Marc Janowitz: And I was, you know, I think I was doing about one theater show a year just for my heart.

[40:51] Susan Blackwell: Sure.

[40:52] Marc Janowitz: But it didn't do a whole lot for my wallet.

[40:54] Susan Blackwell: Sure. Absolutely.

[40:56] Marc Janowitz: Sure. You know, I want to give you one other kind of compliment. Despite the all the compliments on your work, I just want to mention a few things that I remember about our time together at Blue Man.

[41:09] Laura Camien: So we were working on, you know, multiple shows at all times. And as the PR person, I was always bringing in TV crews or arranging for TV appearances. So despite the fact that we open in three days, Mark, we also need to switch over and light this Tonight Show appearance. I hope you don't mind. Um and so I would have to approach the tech table to speak to the designers and you know, about things that I needed, whether it's like just can they plug into the soundboard or you know, can you would you mind taking on another TV show in the midst of this show launch? Um, and I have to admit, I would always have to muster my strength to approach that table because there were a lot of personalities at that table, and they were all very, very kind, but just had sort of like a tough shell with a soft center, you know.

So it took like a moment sometimes to like get to the soft center. So I always felt like, okay, all right, I need to go talk to these guys and make some requests. And everyone always eventually was gracious. But you from the first moment, always kind, always approachable, always made yourself available to say, what is it that you need? What is the project need? You were always so great. And it, I I always like, I'm sorry I put this burden on you, but I was like, I'll go to Mark first. This will be my strategy. I will go to Marc Janowitz first. Mark will be kind and gracious. And then Mark and I will ask subsequent designers for the things that we need from them. So you a, you made my life so much better.

And of course, once I knew you were on board, I knew all of those TV appearances would go off beautifully. But then a few years into working together at Blue Man, I started Bridge Club Productions and had a residence at a small theater called Manhattan Theater Source. And I came to you asking if you might consider lighting our very first show, which I believe was Shrinkage by Manny Gracious, starring Susan Blackwell and myself. But yes, both Susan and I in that show, Jeffrey Dornboss, a few other people. And I asked you, and you blew my mind because you were like, sure, I'll do that. Actually, why don't I do all of your shows? Why don't I just become your resident lighting designer, man? And I was like, what the fuck?

Yes. Lucky us. Lucky us. And then you and Title of Show was part of that. Well, lucky me though, because I wanted to do as much creative work as possible. And here you were walking in saying, We we're just gonna do shows all the time in this great little black box. And yeah, it really hit right where I needed it to at the time.

[44:02] Marc Janowitz: Oh, well, you delivered for us like in such a big, big way. I think all of us felt immediate like elevation of quality of work that we're gonna be able to do there with you on our team. This is just a very, it's taken me years, but this is a very public thank you to say we appreciate you and your support of our early work. You even invested in Title of Show. I mean, you have really been for this little pair right here. You have been there to support our work in so many ways. Thank you.

[44:36] Laura Camien: You're welcome and thank you for including me.

[44:38] Marc Janowitz: Oh my god. Our fucking pleasure. Lucky us. Did I mention lucky us? Um jumping forward, I Laura, can I can I get into this?

[44:47] Laura Camien: Yes, of course.

[44:49] Marc Janowitz: Oh my God, I've been waiting for this moment. If you thought you got compliments before, here we go. So humble beginnings, just three little noodles trying to make theater at the Manhattan Theater Source. What you have become and continue to evolve into, one of the reasons that I'm so excited to have you on the podcast is because I'm a big fan of Bo Burnham's, and I was watching Bo Burnham's Kanye Rant, and I was so the whole thing, the whole thing, the totality of the whole thing. I've recommended it, I've talked about it on this podcast. I've recommended it. This was this was in Inside or this was in uh Make Happy. Make Happy. It's a beautiful piece. Like you were saying earlier, the foundation of the writing is to my estimation extremely strong.

And then I just couldn't stop. I had no idea you were involved in it. I couldn't stop watching it because I felt like the emotional impact of it and the way that it all comes together, it's thrilling, it's gutting. I was just like, this is I can't tell you how many of our clients I've sent this to. I'm like, take a look at this, see if this inspires anything for this thing you're doing. I just love it so much. And then I did a little research to learn more about how he made that. And I got, I was sort of like, where she don't want it. And Laura helped me piece it together that it was actually you. You were one of the geniuses behind this piece. So again, no question, just a declaration of my feelings for your work.

But I'm just curious with a piece like that, is that another example to our conversation earlier where there was a measure of risk involved and it's commensurate with the impact that it has, or were you and Bo and the other the sound designer, were you like, oh no, no, we got this. Like talk to us a little bit about that.

[46:57] Marc Janowitz: Okay, so um, gosh, I feel like I'm about to burst your bubble big time. You're like, it's the it's the easiest thing I've ever designed, kid. No, it's not, it's not that. But I I need to give credit where credit's due on this one. Um I was brought in to do Make Happy as what's commonly known as a broadcast designer. Okay. The scope of what that is can be a lot of things, but the specifics of it is a designer brought in to take a show that already exists and make it broadcast friendly, or make it broadcast friendly. Or or it augment it and expand. One that I was ever brought into. Um so it's the first comedy special I worked on. Yeah. Bo had been touring for a number of months already, and most of the framework of what you saw creatively and the and the style of cueing and and a lot of the sort of extreme visual stuff, that was him.

He did that. Great credit where credits do. Love it. Credit where credits do. No, and and and he had a lighting director who was touring with him who helped program that. My involvement was here's the bones of this thing, okay. Uh, which is which which I saw, or I saw a video of it, or maybe I don't remember, maybe I saw I think I saw a video of it. Like uh you, you know, they had they had taken a video a few months before I got hired, and I saw it and I thought, oh, this is incredible and will never look good on camera. Because it was just it was so extreme, like the levels and the color and the it was it was kind of all over the place, but it looked really cool live.

[48:30] Laura Camien: Well, that's interesting you say color because it I think of it almost as this is probably not technically accurate, but almost like it's in uh black and white or blue and white. Do you know what I mean?

[48:39] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, yeah. Especially the part, and the part that you were mentioning, the Kanye rant was very much in that in those tones. Um but that kind of those extremes of color, the deep blues and that sort of thing on HD and 4K cameras is a is a mess, it just it just tears apart, it leaves no image. So what was really fun and exciting for me on that was to take something, uh first of all, in a genre that I hadn't worked in. Nice. Um, and I got involved. The director of photography on that was um was very open to collaborating. He had he was very cinematic, and I think he realized right from the start when we got involved that he didn't have to light it, which is what cinematographers usually do. He needed to talk to me about how he was going to shoot it so that I could adjust, augment, change, adapt as needed.

And so what was what was exciting is is that because I already knew what Bo's vision was, because there it was on his live show, it was like, okay, now you get to take something that's already been like sketched and colored in, and now you get to like make it into what will become the um the forever version that people get to see on TV.

[49:47] Laura Camien: Oh God. I that's a great collaboration.

[49:50] Marc Janowitz: And the reason why I ended up on that project, and and it's funny because I and I think it's it's important, especially for creative professionals, to understand that it's not you know so much about how you end up getting your work, is not necessarily based on what you've done before, but it or or like how creative you can be, but it has a lot to do also with like relationships and people you know and ways in which you've either wittingly or unwittingly branded yourself. You know, Bo's thing definitely looked more like a concert. And his promoter's rep, because it was he had one promoter, I think it was AEG, Chris Scanlon was touring with him, and he knew me and he knew my concert work and he knew my um concert film work, and he had said to Bo early on, when you if you're gonna shoot this, this is we gotta get this guy Mark involved.

He's gonna come in, he's gonna make it, you know, where it needs to be. I I don't know what those internal conversations were with Bo, but I do remember that the executive producer who was brought in, when she didn't see any like listing for me in IMDb, she said to Scanlin, no way, no how I'm not risking this whole thing on a guy who's never done a comedy special before.

[51:01] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[51:03] Marc Janowitz: And Scanlan said, hey, look, fine, bring in whoever you want, but we're also bringing in Mark, and there's only one budget, and we'll fight you for it.

[51:11] Laura Camien: Oh wow.

[51:12] Marc Janowitz: And so she kind of looked it through. We had a couple of, she and I had a conversation. She realized I wasn't a complete joke. What a fruitful collaboration.

[51:21] Laura Camien: Yeah, and she said, fine, you can do it. And and here's what's great about it. Is so we got through it. We shot, I think we shot two shows in one day or three shows in two days, but it was at the Capitol Theater. Um, you know, which also being in my backyard, and I'd done a lot of shows at the CAP, so I really was able to smooth over a lot of kind of language barriers between the genres. I think we wrapped on a Friday or Saturday, and by Sunday, Kathy, the producer called me and said, I've got another project I think you might be interested in. First, an apology, and second, another project.

[51:56] Marc Janowitz: No apology was required, simply the offer, and it was um Horace and Pete.

[52:00] Laura Camien: Wow, yeah, of course.

[52:04] Marc Janowitz: Yeah, you know what I realized? We should probably tell our listeners a few things that we didn't mention up top, but that you so when you speak of these concerts, we're talking about My Morning Jacket, The Lumineers, Fun, so many others, the comedy specials, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Flight of the Concords, Bo Burnham, as just mentioned, theater shows like Blue Man Group and Forbidden Broadway. We just realized, like, so A, everyone should know those things and many more things that you do. But is there something that we haven't mentioned that you don't often get asked about that you would also like to say, like, I'm really proud of this as well, and I'd like the opportunity to share that.

[52:48] Marc Janowitz: Um, you mean as far as work goes, or like I'm really proud of the fact that I've got two amazing kids and a an amazing wife?

[52:54] Laura Camien: That's great too. Because building a life is a creative project as well.

[52:59] Marc Janowitz: And we talk about that a lot. And so building the life you want. And it's the actually a big part of the creative process that we often forget. Like we get so wrapped up in what we're doing that you you can really go, like if if you're not careful, you'll go your whole career and forget to build a life around it.

[53:13] Laura Camien: Oh man, that is so true.

[53:15] Marc Janowitz: Saddest thing I've ever heard. I think that's a great answer.

[53:19] Laura Camien: Yeah, or is there something coming up that you want us to like keep an eye out for?

[53:24] Marc Janowitz: There is a um an HBO uh HBO Max uh special out called uh Trash White by Moses Storm.

[53:32] Laura Camien: Yes, yes, of course.

[53:35] Marc Janowitz: That doesn't look like any other comedy special you've ever seen before. It's a one and it's really a one-man show. It should have when we we installed it at a theater in LA, we should I I wish he could have just done an off Broadway run of it. It could it should have just sat there. It was so sad to tear it apart. Um, and that was another one where um the artists themselves had had a vision for what it was gonna look like. I mean, he knew Moses wanted a white set and he made a model with all the trash around it. Uh huh. That was that was it. When I said, well, maybe we can do some color. No, this is what it's gonna be. Uh huh. Um, I'm I'm happy to work in sort of all sorts of different ways.

And sometimes it's nice when somebody comes in, they're like, I have no idea. I just know I really like what you know, oddly angled streets look like. Come up with something cool. That's great. I like that. Um, but it's also what when you're collaborating with someone who comes in and and already has something for you to sink your teeth into, there's something really great to that too. It's it's some of the fear of like, what if I birthed something from nothing and I don't like it? Like that you're assuaged a bit, you know, because you've got someone to kind of go in with you on it already.

[54:49] Marc Janowitz: I mean, that's kind of a beautiful combo platter, though, of having a creative life. Sometimes you're plucking something from your own imagination, and just from the jump, you're like, this is new and different, and I want to share it, and it feels really vulnerable. And then other times you're like, I hear and can visualize this explanation of a vision that another artist is sharing with me, and I can help them to make that a reality. And that's also equally exciting. Right from the start, you know, you've got there's already a team forming out of it. And that was, you know, for a lot of people involved, not the least of which Moses Storm. Oh, it was a huge passion project. I mean, it was uh I I know like from the producer's end, you know, they they were in way deeper than they expected to be.

Um, because it just, you know, that it everything needed a lot of attention. And um, and ultimately, you know, the the finished product was, you know, like you said, something it was it was like no, it was like no other special out there. And um, yeah, I was really proud of that work. You know, a couple of artists I've worked with who you didn't mention in the list, um but some stuff that really stands out for me, like um my um collaborations with Hassan Menaj. Uh-huh. Yes. You know, have allowed me to go places um creatively that might not have been the case if it wasn't somebody like that. Um, you know, the first thing I did with him was Homecoming King, uh, which was his uh Netflix special.

And that was another one that was it was a one-man show that he'd already been developing for a long time. He had an idea, he knew that the video content needed to be a certain way, they'd been rehearsing it a certain way. Um, so getting to jump in where it was like, here's the bones of this thing, and I know how to do the show. Now make it into the thing that it needs to be using the things that you do to get it there. Yeah. Yeah. The original idea was there'll be a screen up center. By the end, it was like these strips of screen all over, and you know, angular pieces that were very much like eight-bit uh geometry combined with sort of a uh homage to his um Indian background, you know, that um there being an aesthetic through that.

Because of that, I got to do Patriot Act, which was his series, his Netflix series. That's right. And that one, it was infographics at a massive scale, and um, you know, I'd never done a series. I'd never done a series, like I guess Horace and Pete was a series, but where, you know, it was all the videos, screens and information, all that was part of the set and lighting. And so to be able to kind of bring that sort of 360 vision to it with with an artist who was really into it and really knew how to use it and really like I'd come in and I'd say, you know, let's we're gonna add this level to it, and there's gonna be the strip, and how about a floor you can stand on and move around that has the graph he's like, I know exactly what to do with that.

Yes. It was uh definitely a learning process for me because New York Netflix series, not a genre on the process side that I understood at all. Uh-huh. Um yeah, new challenges. Yeah. But uh you're also describing just the beauty of like when talented people come together, they know what they know, they're willing to share what they know, and everyone's contributions elevate the whole thing. I mean, that's truly the magic. That's those are those magical moments. I'm also relishing the idea that our listeners are going to watch some of these pieces of entertainment either for the first time or again with fresh eyes, knowing that this artist has made this contribution to these collaborations. I love creatives just increasing their awareness of all the all the people and all the the contributions that are made into a piece.

So I'm also enjoying that. I feel like I've been really fortunate in my path that I've gotten to work with a lot of people who embrace the notion of what if, and um and and you know, starting a conversation creatively, like, what if we did something like this? That's not really something we know how to do, but we'll get to it if we like the idea. And and having people who will go down the rabbit hole with you, like a Hassan Minaj or like a Bo Burnham or like a Trey Anastasia. I'll take a lot of it back to Blue Man because we were very fortunate there that the whole like sort of founding structure of that was a lot of what ifs and let's create now, figure out the budget later, which is uh not so easy really.

Yeah, which isn't how it always gets to work. But it taught us, I think, and and I think that there's a whole when I say us, I mean that kind of like large extended family that has sort of experienced a bit of a creative diaspora now, because we're all over the place. Yeah. But we all came out of that with a different sense of what is possible and and how to not be sort of penned in by established boundaries. That is and taking that with us. You look game changer, that's right. Yeah. Well, we all changed the game on that one. Well, I mean, blue man was probably one of the biggest game changers. It doesn't feel like it now at 30 years old, but at the time, it was a lot of people saying, You can't do that.

No, you can't do that. Theaters don't do why would you do that? Luckily, that it made an impression on me at a young enough age. And and then the mentorship with Mark Brickman, who was definitely a why we can do any, you know. I mean, I can't. That was a stroke of genius. Can we just say if you like have in mind people, who would you get mentored from if you could? And if you ever have the opportunity to put your mentor right in your like right in your science, take it. Take it. And to this day, we still we don't do a lot of work together, but uh we do enjoy a very close relationship. I'm gonna he still he still says that he's Mark's senior because we spell our names the same and will introduce me to people randomly as his son, um, which really stumped David Gilmore when he introduced me to Gilmore.

Wait a minute. This is my son, remember that night and Gilmore's like, what you don't have a son who's like in his at the time 30s, now I'm much older. I love that. I love that story, and I love that you're still close. And you know, just how that whole transition happened for you and allowed you to really spread your wings. Listen, we have in the interest of time, we've got to move to a question that we ask all of our guests, you may be familiar with it. You work really fucking hard. What's it all for? I was not prepared for that. You didn't premiere you didn't prepare. We did not. We did not. What's it all for? First thing that comes to mind. This I'm gonna skirt, watch me skirt this question.

There's too many answers because the base code, what is all the work like right now? Why do I work so hard? Uh-huh. You know, I have a life and a and a family, and I need to provide. So that's A, yeah. There's that part. And um, but but I think if somehow my career had gone a different way and I was doing something that paid the bills differently, uh-huh, I'd still need to find a n some sort of creative outlet. I can think of one what's it all for, just listening to you share about these different uh projects you can do. Okay, I'll say it, I'll say uh a hypothesis, and then you can either say that's on target or you can shoot it down. I feel like one of your what is it all for is to create opportunities where you can sort of link arms with great creatives who are working at the top of their game and just Thelma and Louise into creative risk together.

Yeah, the creative companionship, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. But taking big swings together and making really uh making big, beautiful, sometimes really game changing things together. You know, Susan, uh that helps me come up with this one when I when I feel like something's um, you know, can't be done or shouldn't be done, hasn't been done, or if um one of the things I find like if I go into a venue somewhere and I'm we're trying to figure out what to do, and somebody says, Well, we just never done it that way, boom. That's my spark. I'm like your oppositional defiance kicks in and you're like, yet. It's more like what's stopping us. Right. This could be anything. Let's make it something beautiful.

Let's create something from nothing. Let's love it. That's the game changer. Game changers rising to the surface here. There's this moment like um in the design process, you know, I I'll work in the computer a lot, I'll do sketches and it'll be, you know, everything I see is like this big. But I know that in scale, I'm gonna walk on a stage one day and it's gonna be, you know, 20 feet tall, 50 feet tall, 80 feet, whatever it is. And there's these moments of where I wow myself, and it's it's like the first time a design is like either on stage or in the scene shop when I see it full full scale, and I'm like, holy shit, like I can't believe they actually did it. Someone actually had the you know, saw yeah something that I that I came up with out of nothing or out of whatever, some crazy idea, some thing in life that I pulled out and said, let's make this.

You saw some trees piled up, and you're like, I'm gonna take this. This is something Lynn Manuel has said in our presence, which is you have to be moved first. I feel like you wow yourself, and then we get wowed. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's though that is a big metric for me in um when I'm working on sort of you know, late night queuing a show, you know, we're like, you know, we're gonna do a rock tour, and there's you gotta you gotta program 30 songs, and when do you do it? Overnight, usually. And it'll be like, you know, two or three in the morning, you've been working on a song for two hours, and you come up with something and you just sit back and you're like, shit, that is awesome. I I am wowed, I'm floor.

That works for me. Yeah, it's gonna work for the audience. Like I'm I'm because I'm gonna be I'm the biggest critic of that work, you know. If if if it can't move me, not gonna move anyone else. Listen to his voice, listeners, you have to take this in. This is this is so fucking priceless, Marc Janowitz. Listen to this. Like, wow yourself and then wow the world. And and you know, I this is this one's gonna I know this is gonna sound kind of I I feel like it sounds a little bit petty. It's this sort of self-aggrandizing thing again. Um, but when the credits roll, and if you if you can get Netflix to actually stay past the 25 executive producers and just that the next one after that, which is you know, design and then usually directory, and like I see when in there, and I think about you know, when I was a kid, I'd be watching comedy specials, and I would be like, who's that person?

I used to keep a log of like who the designers are. And I'm like, that's me. And you know what? And my mom can see that, and my friends can see that. And and my dad, who's not with us anymore, but he would, you know, he'd be very proud. And it was like, I I actually did it, I made it. You did it. It it yeah, I did it. And and um, you know, I don't know exactly where the next job is coming from, and you you never do, and I go through, you know, massive periods of time where if I see this gap in my calendar, like I freak out, which I'm working on because part of what I have to keep reminding myself is you may not know where it's coming from, but like it's putting the best work out there and keep you know, respecting the people around you and and you know, get have a good kind of air around who you are with other people, and and and you're and you're not gonna be lagging for that long, and before you know it, you're gonna have too much to do.

And you're gonna have to take long walks in the woods to just clear your head enough to like get through the day. That's right. Mark, you are living it. You're living the like being a good person doing good work, being a great person doing great work in the world, and that work is just gonna be get work. It's it's just a pleasure to know you and a pleasure to get to work with you and to be your friend. Thank you so much, Marc Janowitz. Thanks for joining us on the Spark File.

[1:06:41] Marc Janowitz: Thanks for having me.

[1:06:41] Susan Blackwell: So that is it. This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape people. And we hope that it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like to share that, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback. But first, the price of admission. You need to share a creative risk that you have taken recently. And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe, rate, five star review it. If you like this podcast, share it with people you love. And if you didn't like it, I don't know, Mark. What do you say to your critics?

[1:07:24] Marc Janowitz: Well, just wait for the next one.

[1:07:25] Susan Blackwell: It might be a little better.

[1:07:27] Marc Janowitz: So humble.

[1:07:28] Susan Blackwell: The humility. Beautiful. If something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You know you gotta take it and make it make it.

[1:07:49] Marc Janowitz: Bye.

[1:07:50] Susan Blackwell: Mikey!

[1:07:51] Marc Janowitz: Bye, Marc Janowitz!

[1:07:53] Susan Blackwell: We love you.

[1:07:55] Marc Janowitz: Love, love, love.

[1:07:57] Susan Blackwell: We're not bugging into something that inspires me.

[1:08:02] Marc Janowitz: I dump it in the sparkfiles.

[1:08:05] Susan Blackwell: Sparkfiles.

[1:08:06] Marc Janowitz: Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[1:08:11] Susan Blackwell: I'll pump it in the spark files.

[1:08:15] Marc Janowitz: Sparkfiles.

[1:08:16] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark flies.

[1:08:21] Marc Janowitz: Let's open up the spark flies.