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Soo...thanks to this thread, I emailed our local community theater. ...I'm helping with focusing lights for tonights show as soon as I get off work. Nothing like last minute lighting, right? :tenbux: says I wind up in the booth doing something as well. If not the booth, I'll wind up ushering, since I did that for 5 years at McCarter in Princeton. (god do I miss that theater. I got to see Sigorney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce and Chirstopher Durang finally win a well deserved Tony in Vanya and Sasha and Misha and Spike last year and it was a mindblowing show) I work in TV now, but have something of a theater background (does high school theater count? I counted it on my volunteer ap. Dude sounded so excited to have someone with any expierence come in.) and miss the "live" thing of theater. It's far more thrilling than producing something where if something goes wrong you yell "cut" and redo it in another take. The connection with the audience, even as a tech, watching the show and knowing that everything is going fantastic - it's a wonderful feeling. E: didn't wind up working the board for that production, but am running it for next weeks show that goes into tech this week which means I'm going to be living at work and the theater. It's ok though, cause the theater is OHMYFUCKINGGODWHYDIDIWAITTHISLONGTOGETBACKINTOTHIS gorgeous. This show is in the black box, but show after that is on main stage and then in april they are doing Les Mis complete with rotating stage. (they're using the turntable in the next show too to get all the kinks out before Les Mis) Also, anyone know how to unfuck it when you lock a channel on a strand board? I remember I used to have that problem with the old strand board we ran, and because it's been...a half dozen years since I've ran one I can't rememeber poo poo about poo poo. Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 10, 2014 20:25
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AnonymousNarcotics posted:Hi guys. I need some help with lighting plans. I really don't know anything about lighting. Definitely see if you can get some decking for a "stage" - speak to the rabbi/whoever is in charge of the hall because it may be something where you can get it to be a semi-permanent thing if it's frequently rented out for weddings/bar mitzvah's etc. It's not hard to construct a small stage either, we built ours for this show (its in our black box theater so we had to build the stage) out of scrap 2x4's/4x6's for the bracing under the floor, and about $100 worth of cheap vinyl fake wood flooring. You can also get some cheap trees designed for DJ's, and again, you can probably see if the rest of the synagogue will split the costs by keeping them for weddings/bar/bat mitzvahs, purim spiels, etc. You may, if you have any DJ's in the congregation, be able to get away with borrorwing some, but it can be something that y'all use as a selling point in the future as a "we have our own lighting for the dance floor, why go have your kid's bar mitzvah at a country club when you can have it here!" thing. These are surprisingly versitile, and usually come with a few different color gels, so start from there and see what the synagogue is willing to chip in for things that you can keep and repurpose. Also, how are the "house lights" wired? Because you'd be amazed at what you can get away with just from creative uses of the "house lights" and creative staging. Speaking of lighting, I really hope the electrician made it out. We were supposed to open last night but due to a blizzard opening got pushed to today, and wed. night during previews we realized that two of the breakers went completely kaput - we have no dimming capabilities over two of the circuits, with our options being "breaker on" or "breaker off"...and since one of those circuits is an accent light that's currently stuck on at full if we have it on, I really, really hope we got it fixed. But since that's all on the house to fix, who knows if it got done or not...
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Jan 17, 2014 16:07
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Burger Crime posted:I had an ETC sensor rack stop communicating entirely with the console (ETC EOS)a few months ago. So we had no house light control or anything because it is all ran through the sensor rack. Everything was off. It took 16 hours on the phone with Barbizon to get it up and working again and it was 2 days before tech week that this happened. I always love stories of stuff that goes horribly wrong at the worst time. Ours isn't that bad, but we're up to 4 circuits now that are all stuck. They're also all twofer'd circuits, so my thinking is there's something shoddy in the wiring that can't handle the extra current two run two instruments in parallel. Lighting designer who's an absolute rear end is swearing it's not, but let's see what the electrician says since he took a look at it, said he'd never seen the circuits go into an alarm state like that before. Cause everything else is working fine with the exception of the twofer'd circuits, and I don't think anyone has tried running as many twofers in the black box as we have for this show. Question for you pro lighting designer types - one, in case of technical difficulties like this, if the person running the board texted you with a "hey, heads up, we've got four circuits stuck on now, house knows about it, and with the two new ones none of the breakers in the main panel got them to turn off" is saying "not my problem, I designed the show, the fact that shits not working is between you and the house" generally the response? I get that there's nothing he can do, but I figured the designer wanted to know that we've got a bunch of lights that have no dimming capabilities at all wasting his gel paper. And two - if the person running the board asks for a list of cues, is it general practice to go "you've got a stage manager. they'll cue you." Every show I've run before I've had my own copy of the script with the lighting cues. I get that community theater can't afford to buy multiple scripts like that, but this guy straight up refused to give me a copy of the cues - like even a "cue 1 - happens when guy yells "gently caress the hamster" type thing. Our stage manager had the flu - if he lost his voice, he wouldn't have been able to call cues which meant that I woulda been up shits creek. Is this just a dick being a dick, or is this a whole lot more common now that I'm out of school and no longer running shows designed by students?
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Jan 19, 2014 06:41
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Sound_man posted:One of the frustrating things about theatre is that at each level all the rules change. Titles are almost meaningless between levels. From the LORT level and up the designer is there to design. Broken gear isn't their problem. HOWEVER a great designer will know that it is their best interest to keep the show looking great. If you texted the designer that the dimmer for the ultra important front light special was broke and it might be several shows before it could be replaced a great designer would say steal the dimmer from one of the bullshit gobo wash channels until it is repaired. What type of dimmers are they? House is 90% sure it's not the dimmers themselves but the wiring to the circuts not being able to handle twofers. All the lights that are stuck are twofer'd, and the house thinks its just really poor wiring. And...the lighting director hosed off after the first dress rehersal. By the end of tech week he was all "welp, show's designed, looks good, i'm out." so he's not giving extra notes, and since I *am* the ASM (it's community theater. we have a small volunteer pool) I am aware of any notes the director gives, and I still had to go through the SM's notes to get a list of cues just so I'm aware of where we are. I didn't want a lot, just something so I can follow along and if something happens be able to play catchup. Hell, just being allowed to sit on paper tech woula been nice so i could jot down what cues happen when and be aware of it. I actually wound up sitting down the director and reprogramming all the drat cues since we lost 2 lights and the director wanted more light in the back to start with I went through and did it all for him. And it's all volunteer, no check, no nothing, hell, i'm not even in the program since I started volunteering after the programs were printed. ...but the show has been absolutely fantastic outside of the actors destroying some of the props. (If you've seen God of Carnage, well, the tulips were planned to not be reused but we've gone through part of the table, more books than I can count, and nearly broke a couch.It's fantastic) E: Part of lighting designer's contract was to show up for strike. Now we hung extra pipes to hang lights off of for the show that he knew had to come down. He knew strike was starting right after the show, but he was told to be there at 6. There were about a dozen lights hanging off of those pipes. ....did he really expect the construction guys (now mind you this is community theater - we're all volunteers) to stay til he showed up at 6 if he didn't have me? I mean I just started volunteering the last week of rehersals. Nope, I wound up having to strike every single light he hung, and he hung the entire inventory of parnels that we had. That said, enough of the horror stories, what's the best software out there for designing lighting plots since I'm probably going to wind up doing Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in may? Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 23:12
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