Guest Profiles

JAMIE AND JIM WISE

        When I met Jim Wise to talk about him and his Magic Hour Lighting and Grip, he asked almost immediately if we had met before.  I honestly thought not, and I said I did not remember having met.  Later in the interview, Jim proved correct in a most unexpected and delightful way.  We will return to that later.

        Jim began our conversation with a sincere statement about his concern for those with Parkinson's disease, his respect for the Goldstrom family's ongoing support of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Parkinson's Association, and his willingness to help with their effort.

        Mr. Wise attended San Francisco State University where he majored in Theater with a concentration in Lighting and Scenic Design.  The Bay Area cultural nexus includes the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, and Jim found himself working with those two organizations on lighting and staging as a student and for a time after his graduation.  He notes that although he enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to work with the ballet and opera as a student, he later came to understand how formative his time and study there was to his still uncharted future.

        Jim later was the lighting director for the American Conservatory Theater and the Geary Theater in the San Francisco area.  From 1979 to 1984, Jim partnered with Bill Graham and Tom Mendenhall as FM Productions to stage and manage the best known and talented rock bands and performers including Fleetwood Mac, the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, to name but a few.  He also had a stint working with George Lucas at Industrial Light and Magic before he received a job offer to produce media spots for Club Med worldwide.  That "adventure," as Jim calls it, lasted from 1984 to 1993 and from 1994 to 1997.

        Mr. Wise's work required extensive technical knowledge and the talents and flexibilities to blend varying demands into professional commercial and artistic productions.  Jim noted that every assignment brings with it a new kind of technical demand and that the work he does is ever renewing and refreshing.

        Mr. Wise is still involved (he plays about once a month) with ice hockey after an earlier career as a competitive and professional ice skater.  He performed in the Ice follies, and his practical, working career with choreography as a skater and dancer made his work as a lighting director for ballet and opera companies an amalgam of technical skill and artistic expertise.

                Jim grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and was a student of the noted skating coach and choreographer Nancy Ackerman who was one of his mother's best friends.  Jim has known Nancy since he was five years old, and he grew up with her daughter, Jamie.  In an extraordinary story made up of shared talent and affection and serendipity, Jim married Jamie in 2003.  Jim says that having grown up with Jamie, "it just took a few extra years to get married."  It is a marriage he cherishes, and he speaks of his four stepsons with pride:  Brenden, Andy, Matt, and Robbie are all forward-looking young men with responsible goals in their chosen careers.

            In a wonderful intertwining of interests and conversation, Mr.Wise and I spoke of our shared interest in photography and in choreography and dance.  I mentioned that I had taken classes in ballroom dancing (a passion and skill of Nancy Ackerman's, if any other coincidence might be needed) and had been assigned to write a paper about the Nevada Dance Theatre as part of that course.  I went to see that company, and some fifteen years later became a good friend of one of the founders and the artistic director, Vassili Sulich.  Jim smiled as he now knew where we had met:  we had been at Mr. Sulich's home for an event prior to Vassili's move to Brazil.  We both have artifacts from Mr.Sulich's collection of art, and Mr. Sulich, who is one of the most honored and important figures in the cultural history of Nevada, had also given gifts to both of us.  Jim was alert to this almost immediately; it took me a good amount of conversation to remember:  advantage Mr. Wise.

        Mr. Wise's Magic Hour Lighting and Grip is involved in a full range of film and video productions and management that includes work for MGM Grand, Station Casinos, to name but a few.  Please do look in on www.MagicHourLasVegas.com for a more complete look at the services provided by this talented man and his company.

G.A. Villa, February 27, 2011.  Photograph of Jamie and Jim Wise courtesy of the Wise Family.  All rights reserved, 2011.