Prod LX & Programmer:
Opera Makers Journals
Week 1: 31/05/2021
31/05/2021
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Bank Holiday Monday
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01/06/2021
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10.30: Opera makers meet and greet with Model Box showing.
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14.30: Start of Allocation Tutorial with Nick Peel and Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturers)
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16.00: Brief catch-up meeting with Sam Ferstenberg (LX) and Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer)
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Did Allocation Action Plan
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02/06/2021
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Read briefing document
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14.00: REPS production review meeting
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03/06/2021
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Looked through the Eos Family Console Programming handbooks that we were given when we had our ETC training in first year. I am just interested in the bare basics at the moment. Including, patching, addressing, sneak, groups and cues.
04/06/2021
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10.00: Came in to play around with the desk (ETC Gio). I couldn't get the internet to work on the Mac that is plugged in, so couldn't find a capture file/vectorworks file from Moodle to work from. Until Sam Ferstnberg (LX) came around 11.00. I just familiarised myself with the desk layout. When Sam came, he said there is a file on capture that we can use already. Once we got that going, it was a matter of making sure the desk talked to Capture, and getting in the correct fixture data.
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11.30: Met up with Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) and he went through everything he knows so far about Opera Makers. He reckons he will have a rough plan that we can start working from, from Monday.
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12.00: Tour around Milton Court Studio with Sam Ferstenberg (LX), Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer), Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) to familiarise ourselves with the venue from an LX perspective. I realised that the networking/power is very similar to Sound, so it was easy to follow when Anna was explaining it.
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13.00: Finlay went through some programming commands on the desk with me; such as Marking and RemDim, as well as all the different views you can have on the desk.
Reflection of the Week:
Nothing really occured this week, was to be expected from our side of things. We can't really progress in our roles (as Prod LX, LX Team Member and Programmer/Operator) until we have any hint of a plan from Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer). I look forward to getting stuck into the preparation work for when we fit-up- of which may be sooner than anticipated from the schedule. I also really look forward to working with an external programmer to teach me the ins and outs of the desk, ready for when Tech week hits. Learning all this new information from Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) point of view was enlightening. I already feel very infromed from our walk around on Friday than I had felt before. Eager to get stuck into the weeks to ahead.
Week 2: 07/06/2021
07/06/2021
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I was working from home today. Finlay Anderson (LD) asked if we could see how many scrollers are in the studio (mainly for spares as they are unreliable). Sam Ferstenberg (LX) went to check and he managed to find 12 but some might be used for Barbarians.
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Worked on my grad project for most of the day.
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08/06/2021
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End of Allocation Tutorial with Andy Taylor (Sound Lecturer) at 11.00
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Had a chat with Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) and Sam Ferstenberg (LX) at 12.00 about the roles of a Prod LX and how to make a Vectorworks plan from the Lighting Designer into a physical thing. Went through Label Legends, colour calls, the purpose of a Lightwright and Vectorworks document. Making sure all the lighting fixtures and practicals are labelled and collated, as well as the gels being pre-cut and labelled as well as scrollers (in this instance) being addressed before-hand ready for a quick fit-up.
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Went and found six more eight-inch scrollers on Level 3 in Milton Court, in a scroller flightcase. I moved them to the rest of the stock in the Studio Control Room.
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After lunch, I went to shadow Josh Collins (Prod LX on the Opera in Silk Street) on the Opera Strike and see what he is doing over the road. He didn't need any extra help as he was struggling to give all the first years jobs by the time I was there. Furthermore, as I have a long commute home, I don't want to stay till 9 doing the truss strike. So I got some good advice from Josh Collins before leaving. One good advice was to make a show file as early as possible before the real programming begins with everything patched into the desk.
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Attempted to download Vectorworks 2021 and Lightwright 5. Vectorworks eventually got there in the end but Lightwright refuses to download even though I overrided the access in System Preferences. Will have to troubleshoot this further this week.
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09/06/2021
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Came in at 2.00 and went through Scrollers with Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) and Sam Ferstenberg (LX). We started by grabbing 13 scrollers from the studio control room and brought them up to the break out area on Level 2 in Milton Court to power them up and address them (we couldn't do this in the studio as the first years were doing their video project). Powered up a PSU (power supply unit) and daisy chained scroller cable into three scrollers (one each). We then learned how to re-calibrate them, re-address them and unload them.
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Before touching the scrollers controls, need to check that the scroller has the right colour scroll that you want in it. So physically swipe the colour across to check it.
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For re-calibrating, we had to check that is was on Run 7, as this is the standard run mode you want your scroller in at first. Then in the menu (hitting X) to back to rCab (Re-Calibrate) and double press for it to re-calibrate.
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For addressing, go on the menu (X) and move across using the arrows until you reach a number (c.000 for example), this is the address number. Hold down the target button until it flashed and you can press the arrow buttons to change the number.
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Make sure to re-label the scrollers with some LX tape on the outside so it makes fit-up easier.
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For unloading scrollers. You want to go back into the menu (X) and go to unload. Pressing down target, it should wind itself to one side to where you can peel off the tape holding down the gel. Neatly roll the gel up, tape with lx and label it where necessary.
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Two of the scrollers had the wrong colour scroll in them so we emptied them.
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We got 4 more scrollers from the control room- two were broken. The other two we found source 4 frames for and took the barn doors off.
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Putting away the extra barndoors and scrollers into the flighcase on level 3- we labelled our trolley of scrollers and sat it into the MC Studio running room for the time being.
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10/06/2021
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Came in at 10.00 and had a Vectorworks session with Anna Matthews. She explained about Label Legends, how to assign and edit them. Standard is to have the colour, dimmer number and channel number displayed around the fixture. Sometimes you may want to show the universe/address as well and if having scrollers- the generic lantern will need to show its DMX address on the plan. We split the plan into 3 universes. However all this can fit onto one node, just splitting it evenly makes it easier. We then assigned every fixture to the most reasonable PLB either in the grid or on the floor. This is usually determined by location- how close the fixture is to the PLB. We gave generic fixtures a dimmer number on the PLB, whereas we gave the intelligent fixtures a ND (Non-Dim) Number that the PLB has on it. By the end of it- the power plan should show all the correct numbers for each fixture corresponding to their dimmer/non-dim number, universe number (sometimes), channel number the designer has given it as well as a colour number (Lee or Roscoe). Also the magic wand tool is great at selecting everything that is the same thing- so for instance, when clicking on the lighting pipe with the magic wand, it will select all lighting pipe that is on the plan. This is useful as in our case- the rig wasn’t set a height. So by selecting all of the lighting pipe, setting it a height, it brought the entire rig up to the grid. So when we do into isometric view, we can see this working in a 3D space.
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Went to colour room in Silk Street and managed to find all of the correct gels that are needed already pre-cut. This was 12x #373 for the Robert Juliats and 2x L500 for the Source 4 profiles. I then found some nice mesh cloud gobos that we could use for the profiles. I sent them over to Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) for confirmation.
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I got an email back from Laura Jukes (Production LX for the MA Project) about the orchestra stands. She reckons she will need to use all of them (which I highly disbelieve)- I needed to discuss about how to move further about this with Anna.
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Went to look through the frost folder in the MC Studio control room and we have loads spare for both profiles and RJs.
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Finlay then came into MC in person and saw the gobos and liked them. We then went up to see Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) together to discuss the orchestra stands, stock and extra lanterns that Finlay wanted to add. Anna said it was best to go to MC Theatre substage and check the orchestra stand stock down there first and email Laura back- to confirm just how many she actually needs.
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From Finlays requests, Anna added 8 LED Wash Bars for the cyc (will need 3 pin DMX for this), 4 more RJs on the side as well as two more source 4 profiles. Then 4 RJ Fresnels to create a corridor of light in front of the orchestra set-up. We also have two more RJs for the flower specials (may need either gel or gobo these). Finlay also notified us that the below grid side lighting is now above head height (roughly 2 and a half meters), might be outrigged or on a ladder.
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I went to substage to count the orchestra stands and we have 26 in total. I emailed Laura Jukes (Prod LX for the MA Project) and she said we can have 12- I don’t she was aware of how many we had.
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I then got out two more scrollers from the flight case on MC Level 3- brought them down to Level -2 running room and addressed them accordingly, and labelled them. The two other scrollers that we need are lacking colour scrolls- however I heard we may be able to get 2 source 4 lustrs instead which will solve this issue.
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Anna met me down in the running room and I took a barndoor off on of the scrollers that we are using for the profiles, and added three source 4 plates to three of them. Me and Anna then continued to unscrew and move every other scroller back plates in as far as they can go so they fit the fresnels.
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All of our scrollers are now fully prepped for fit-up with the exception of the extra two that might not be needed.
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11/06/2021
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From 9.00 to 5.00 was LX fit-up. Today was actually meant to be a prep day but we thought to start early. Made sure I had full PPE on- Hard hat, Hi-Vis and Steel Cap Boots. As well as my tools on a lanyard attached to myself. Any loose items to be put on the shelf outside of the grid space.
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We first moved the correct scaff into place using the plan (2 people at a time to reduce the chance of it falling through the grid). We then started rigging the necessary fixtures onto the right bars, took off the barndoors for all the fresnels having scrollers, then attached the correct scrollers to the correct fixtures. Making sure their saftey chains are attached to both the bar and for the scroller and barndoors- their chain is attached to the light.
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After tea break we then put soca boxes in necessary positions and then cabled up the rig. We then went into MC Theatre to find more PSUs for the scrollers as well as more scroller cable. We managed to find two more mini PSUs and a lot more cable.
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After lunch, we looked at the plan and added PSUs where we thought was a reasonable place in correlation to the cluster of lights with scrollers. Then added data to the scrollers using 3-pin DMX- out of the PSU into the first fixture, making our way round in a circuit-style fashion to the lanterns in its proximity before circling back round into the same PSU. We then added a node that was halfway between a PLB and a PSU, plugging in a cat5 from the PLB to the Node, then DMX out of the Node into the PSU.
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Me and Sam then made sure that each barndoor on all the lanterns were open so when we eventually flash through later on, we can see it.
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After tea break, we were joined by two first years- Ben Shepherd from TT and Jason Hyde from VDLP. Sam went up to move the scaff above the control room on a zarges, and I did the same using the Genie. Whilst using the Genie, we make sure that the Genie checklist is ticked off, making sure it is safe to use. Whilst one of us is in it, the other is monitoring it from the outside. Making sure people and obsticles are clear from it. We reaaranged the scaff so that we can hang the 'floor' package off of, this consisted of moving brackets around, using the unistruts with zebedees and removing scaff. Thanks to Ben and Jason, we got the whole job done before we finished for the day.
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Began creating a patch sheet for Monday.
Opera Makers Lighting Plan V.2
Opera Makers Patch Sheet v.01
Reflection of the Week:
This week felt a lot more productive as we are getting nearer to fit-up. There was a lot more production LX type roles to get my teeth into such as going through Vectorworks, spreadsheeting fixture information, sending out emails and being more involved in the prep work. I learnt alot about scrollers in particular this week, especially considering the high volume of them that we need. A lot of the prep work has been surpirsingly easy, such as hunting around for gels and gobos- obviously this is a show by show basis but it has been very chill so far. As it is official fit-up/focus week next week, this will all ramp up a lot more. But I can't imagine it becoming too stressful considering we are so far ahead already and are pre-empting changes. Because I have worked with Finlay before, and he is a student, gettting information from him is really easy and he is very approachable so this definately makes our lives easier.
Week 3: 14/06/2021
14/06/2021
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Put up scaff on the side of the walls for the coloursources (ready for when they arrive) using wall brackets and zebedees into the unistruts, making sure it is above head height. Making sure that their is someone to foot the ladder for whoever is rigging.
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Then went up into the grid (making sure to let those below that I am working above) and got some data as well as power, and paged them down behind the curtain rail to the fixtures on the dock door side. I then tidied these cables using the zebedees and hiding the cables inside of the unistruts.
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Put the two available source 4 lustrs into the grid and replaced them with the two source 4 profiles with scrollers.
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Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) changed the plan in the morning and moved the 4 RJS that were meant to be on the walls to the back on the tech box wall with the other RJs for 'cloud' cover.
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Myself and a first year then got the original 8 LED Wash batons from the dimmer room and roughly placed them along the curved line marked out on the floor. There was another spare LED so we ended up with nine sitting on the tension wire. We then sent data out from the same node controlling the scrollers into the batons, daisy chaining them with 3-pin DMX. And at the other end starting with power- cable chaining IEC in and then out of each fixture.
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The far stage right baton wasn't responding how it was supposed to, even though it works and is on the right address. Turned out to have a dodgy DMX cable.
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I began amending my patch sheet appropriately to the new changes made throughout the day. Me and Sam Ferstenberg (LX) then went onto the desk and began patching, starting at 1 all the way to 998. We then flashed through all the channels and some weren't respondng and some had their shutters/barndoors in.
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I went up into the grid to problem-solve some of these issues as well as opening all the shutters/barndoors whilst I was there. Most of the problems was that either the dimmer information has been changed without us knowing or we patched it incorrectly, another instance was the simple issue of a blown lamp.
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After tea break, I then began to patch in the scrollers. This is done by going into blind> (Channel Number) Part 1 At (Address Number)
> Part 2 At (Universe/Address of the scroller)
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So there should be a Part 1 of the type being the Dimmer and Part 2, the type being the scroller make.
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Myself and Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) then flashed through the rig (Channel Number) At Full Rem Dim Next. With both scrollers, colour wheels, and pan and tilt functions.
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15/06/2021
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Came in for 10.00 and started with patching in the Martin Mac TW1s, House Lights (Channel 1002) and Audience Lights (Channel 999). We managed to successfully put the audience lights onto sub master 10. There was one TW1 that wasn't responding and some of the house lights weren't turning on. Turned out that the TW1 was plugged into the wrong non-dim and that some of the house lights were either unplugged or their switches werent on.
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I then checked the scrollers as three of them weren't working. The first one just needed recalibrating. At first I thought it was a DMX cable issue as the other two are joined together but it turns out that their PSU simply wasn't plugged in.
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After lunch, I then put in the correct colour and gobos for the source 4 profiles in the grid as well as the 6 RJs along the wall. The 101-104 angled RJs with just gobos and the others with just colour.
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Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) then came in with the corresponding colours and gobos for the lights for the flower specials. These were L700 with a pine gobo.
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Tomorrow the coloursources will be arriving in the morning, so we can get them rigged and the full fit-up should be complete.
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16/05/2021
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World of Work: 3rd Year Management Skills at 11.00
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Came in for 2.00. Me and the first years began rigging the colourscources from White Light.
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We turned them on from the desk and got them all working.
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Parked the genies back in the MC -2 Cafe. Making sure each genie had someone to banksman it safely from the studio theatre to the MC Cafe just infron of the Rehearsal Room doors.
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One of the scrollers weren't responding but Sam got it to work, a part of this was because two of the wheel encoders on the desk weren't physically screwed on properly.
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One of the rigged GLPs werent responding. Me and Sam Ferstenberg (LX) then checked the fixture and found that its dimmer switch was tripped.
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Me and Sam then swapped out the DMX going from the PSU nearest to the projector that connects to the projector- as the shutter wasn't responding. This solved the issue.
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Sam then isolated the studio from the front desk. We patched in the MDG and we tested it. (Channel 990) enter, haze, enter. In the ML controls on the left screen we clicked on 100%. In 'About' we can also wakeup and shutdown the hazer. We are yet to learn how to properly turn it on and off effectively as well as put it on a sub master.
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Last job of the day was to place and plug up the Source 4 Pars for underneath the trapdoors. We have individual control of them and they work fine.
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17/05/2021
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Came in at 9.00 and began our focus session with Katie Pitt (External Programmer). We began changing our view layouts first, by making our right monitor show our active channels and cue lists. Our Left screen all of our Beam palletes, Macros and Presets. (Direct Selects). The our main screen to show our colour palletes. But this can all be changed at the press of a button. We recorded this as Snapshot 1. (Record Snapshot 1 Label Programming 1 (enter)).
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We put the hazer on a sub and made a macro for it to heat up and to cool down, we pressed enter enter for warming it up as we wanted to double check that we definately want it on. As well as creating an inhibit fader to make the fader active.
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We also made
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After tea break we checked the movers (TW1s and GLPs) for their pan and tilt functions, from their point of view. As well as making sure the shutters are in the right place. A on top, B on the right, C on the bottom and D being on the left.
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By pressing By-Type, Lock now on everything that we are doing, we are ensuring that it cannot be changed in plotting/tech/dress.
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We made sure all the scrollers have their frame colours into the desk by putting in the correct rosco colour for each frame. We then programmed for their home state to be in an Off-White.
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Created groups for everything using Finlay Andersons (Lighting Designer) plan. For example; group 20- is scrollers as they start at channel 21.
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After lunch we created beam and focus palettes for the movers. For the focus palettes in particular, we chose the fixture we wanted and moved it to 9 places in the space (DS L,C,R/CS L,C,R/US L,C,R) and recorded them to focus palette 1 thru 9 along the way.
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18/05/2021
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Came in for 10.00 and programmed in a Rig-Check on our back-up desk. We created an effect to cycle through the colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and White). Effect 101 Action 1 Thru 11 Level Colour Palette 911 Thru 921. Time: 0, Dwell: 1.
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Beam Pallettes (testing the gobo wheels, rotations and zooming) and Focus Palletes (testing pan and tilt) for each of our Movers as well as giving them mechanical shutter cues (for the GLPS).
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We then moved onto to making the rig-check for the Source 4 Lustrs. and did the same, they werent as complex as the movers.
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We then finally moved on to all the generics and made a rig-check to just test that they turn on.
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Started Focusing at 4.30 - was pushed back from 2.00pm.
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Added two more RJ lights- 47 and 48 for more flower coverage.
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To finish the day off, we moved the original lighting desk back into the space and connected the DVI for Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer).
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Reflection of the Week:
This week has continued to be busy for us, but we are in such a good place regardless especially as we has started our fit-up on the Friday before. The bulk of the fit-up work remained included preparing for kit we didnt have yet or putting in/swapping out new kit due to Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) adding more to the plan. The latter half of the week consisted mostly of programming on the desk with Katie (External Programmer) which I knew was going to be intense but I don't think I was prepared or understood the volume of preparation needed before plotting begins. I thought I had a good vague idea about programming going in but I realised quickly I didn't know a thing. Even though I now feel confident now with the desk physically- I can't help but feel more anxious going into next week. I am grateful that plotting sessions exist so that we can work with the lighting designer before the director can push for time, for when tech starts.
Week 4: 21/06/2021
21/06/2021
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Did Rig-Check when we came in and noticed that one of the lustrs was off and discovered that its curve wasn't linear like the other on its settings.
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Plotting Session 9.00-13.00. We managed to a lot of scenes plotted, and all the first cues in the desk for each scene.
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I plotted from 9.00-11.30 and learned a lot about the right way to record a cue as a lot of the time- record cue (number) enter isn't that simple. When creating a new state- you usually want to create and intensity block (especially when its a very different lighting state with a somewhat dramatic difference). Also everytime a mover is moving to a cue you want to make sure it is marked so when it is off in a previous cue- it is moving to its next position whilst turned off. And that it is also recorded to a preset and labelled. This is usually for the Earliest M. If a colour changes into a different cue, you will want to record it to a preset and a colour pallete. The colour palette is great for future reference if the Lighting Designer wants the same mood on a different light in a different cue.
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It is good to label the cues as you go for context to what that cue is in the show. Furthermore, you can add scene labels so its easier to navigate through the cue list so its clear to where you are in the show.
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Placed and plugged up orchestra lights to dimmer 73, 74,75 and 78. Gathered some 16 extenstions and 13 amp to 16 amp converters. We then named the orchesta channel 921 and put the conductor on channel 920. We then made these 'GM Exempt' so that when we RemDim in plotting/tech, it wont affect the orchestra and conductor lights.
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Added L500 to the 4 RJ 1K Fresnels for the 'corridor'.
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Patched a new birdie in for cover for the tops of the flowers to channel 918.
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Did another Rig-Check and noticed one of the scroller wasn't scrolling at the same speed as the others. I checked it and it was on RunC not Run7 so I corrected that.
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Plotting session 2 began, this time with Martin Lloyd Evans (Director). It went rather smoothly and we updated some states. The clouds need to be looked at as well as the one birdie not turning on DSR and one of the booms with a coloursource needs to be re-focused. I was on the desk till 19.30 and left at 19.45.
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22/06/2021
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Wasn't in today as our plotting session was only 1hr and 45 mins in total (17.15-19.00) so I gave that session to Sam Ferstenberg (LX) as it wasn't worth me coming in.
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23/06/2021
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Got asked to complete several jobs before Rig-Check at 2.30. Including refocusing coloursources (Channel 75 & 76). Focus the RJs for the conducter, Piano and Celeste. Refil Hazer, change the three DS birdie lamps from a 14 degree to a 12 degree.
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Tech Rehearsal 1 at 3.15 to tea break. Sam Fersenberg (LX) on the desk. I was watching from the control room on the backup desk, connected to comms.
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In the first tech, I went to the Silk Street Gel Room and cut new gel L500 for the trap pars.
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On tea break, I trouble-shooted one of the S4 Lustrs (Channel 32) and it was just a case of needing to be replugged to be woken up a bit.
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Moved another RJ into position next to the conductor light for a cool option in the show.
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Checked the hazer.
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After tea: I programmed till 6 as Sam Ferstenberg (LX) was busy.
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Continued to plot from 6.30 t0 7.30. I do feel by the end of today that I am much more confident in programming and what and where I need to record presets/colour pallettes and to mark lights.
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24/06/2021
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Rig Check at 9.00. I changed out tw0 19 degree S4 lenses for Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) to then become more coverage for the orchestra.
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Began Tech Rehearsal 2 at 10.15. I programmed the first session till tea break. I did find it quite stressful not having Katie Pitt (External Programmer) with us. I didn't know she wouldn't be here anymore and didn't feel prepared.
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Sam Ferstenberg (LX) programmed till lunch.
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I programmed till tea break, myself and Sam swapped again until dinner.
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I programmed for plotting till 19.30 and went home for the day.
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25/06/2021
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Isolated the theatre and began rig check at 9.00. Made sure the projector shutter was out for Orfeo, Text and Watchmakers Daughter as they all have clouds projected onto the US 'Cye'. We just selected the macro we made for this. I put on the profiles that Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) put in for the orchestra cover and made a group for them (Group 200).
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Began tech Rehearsal 3 at 10.15 and Sam Ferstenberg (LX) was on first. The haze was coming out quite strong then it went out completely. Myself and Anna went to investigate and found that the co2 tank was full but it wasn't attached to gauge properly. Went we put up the haze sub it then was pumping out quite a lot. I then lowered the gauge all the way down from just below 30 PSI to 0 and bumping it back up to aroun 7-10 PSI.
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Piano Dress Rehearsal at 15.00. Sam started the first act and I took over after the interval. Watchmakers daughters need to be looked at the most and some cues were missing from our cue list that Ophir Westman (DSM) had, including blackouts. We added three more cues at the end. One a blackout to end Paradise Gardens, another for the curtain call and a final one to bring it back to the house open state.
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Further Plotting at 19.00 to 19.45 for Watchmakers Daughter. I just walked for light.
Watchmakers Daughter
Der Rosenkavalier
Paradise Gardens
Hazer Gauge - too high of a PSI.
Reflection of the Week:
This week has been a lot more full on, naturally, as the bulk of our programming work has overtook most of our Prod LX roles. I was rather enjoying learning about programming, the nature of the role and understanding just how much preparation you can put into the desk before even being with the designer. However this enjoyment ended quite swiftly when Katie (External Programmer) left after the first Tech. I'm not sure if this is Guildhall standard, but if it is, it is not enough time with an external programmer for someone like me who is learning from scratch. On the second tech, I felt overwhelmed and somewhat underprepared. Furthermore, I can't help but feel pushed out by Finlay Anderson and Sam Ferstenberg sometimes. Sam is better at programming than me already- which is fine- but Finlay wants to do more sessions with him than me (an example is on Friday night- Finlay asked Sam to do more plotting with him Monday morning and didn't consider me as part of that session). Which is understandable, but if anyone should have more sessions, it should be me. I really need and crave the practise. Overall, its been a tough and quite isolating week, but I'm not letting it upset me too much. Looking forward hearing the orchestra.
Week 5: 28/06/2021
28/06/2021​
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9.00: Rig Check. Anna Matthews (Lighting Lecturer) said about me making focus notes sometime this week as thats what a Production LX usually does at some point. I may be able to do this tomorrow or Wednesday.
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10.00: Stage & Orchestra Rehearsal 1 - 'Watchmakers Daughter' and 'Paradise Gardens'. I was on the desk for Watchmakers Daughter. Notes that need to be done is to check that all orchestra stand lights are on (SM reckons one isn't working). And to black tack some of them as they are too bright from the front.
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15.00: Stage & Orchestra Rehearsal 2 - 'Text' Sam Ferstenberg (LX) continued to programme on this as I can do the evening session before I leave at 19.30.
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I only took half of my dinner hour as I was leaving at 19.30. So I moved the hazer away from the TW1 so the haze wouldn't sit like a cloud when pointing at the beam. I then got some black tack and tape it to the edges of the orchestra lights that glared the most from the audience view.
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6.40: LX Notes with Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer). Looked at several notes from text and watchmakers daughter.
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29/06/2021
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In at 10.45 for Rig Check/notes. I programmed in the morning. The desk wasn't set up properly when it was moved (mouse and keyboard and monitor wasn't plugged in) so it delayed our notes session in the morning. I eventually figured out that if I recall 'Snapshot 1'- it should put my views back to normal.
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Dress/Photo Dress Rehearsal 1.
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After the dress, I took some black tack and cut out strips of it to measure to the LED Batons. This is to hide the pixels better from the grid. I managed to get the bulk of it done by 19.30. But will need to check it again in the morning.
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30/06/2021
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Down Day/Notes
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Came in at 4 and finished of black tacking the batons and checked their power as they flickered before
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Took focus notes of the coloursources (Channel 71 thru 76) and taped the half hats down so they didn't spin.
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Focused the house lights for the audience
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Focused the birdies onto the flowers (now that the screens are gone)
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Opened the top cutout of the FOH RJs as some are the actors heads are still being cut off.
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Figured out the channels/addresses for the new fixtures that have been added in and not on the plan.
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Focus notes with Finlay Anderson (Lighting Designer) and fixed some parts of paradise gardens as well as broken marks.
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01/07/2021
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Rig Check at 18.00. Channel 32 is still causing issues. It doesn't want to come on but when I take out the TRS and plug it back in, it turns on and is fine. Sam Ferstenberg (LX) even changed out the TRS yesterday so its definately an issue with the fixture. It should be fine to deal with as we only have 4 performances. Just need to monitor it everytime we do Rig-Check.
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Performance 1 at 19.00
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02/07/2021 ​
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10-1: Studio Scenes cast shown around venue, small practise.
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Performance 2 at 19.00 (NOT OPERATING)
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Finished off my Lighting Design Essay
Lighting Design Essay
Reflection of the Week:
This week has been quite tough as Programming doesn't come to me naturally and trying to problem solve in a really small amount of time is really difficult for me. Especially when it comes to remembering and keeping track of hard values. And I do feel frustrated because I am interested in learning programming but any fun or interest is taken away when I feel out of my depth, and not being helpful to the designer. All I can think is that I am so glad that I have a student lighting designer with me that does understand programming to help me as well. I do hope I have been somewhat helpful to the team this week as I dont feel like I am most of the time (probably just my lack of self confidence talking). I just hope that I will get to a point in my career as a technician to where I can confidently do things unsupervised; as currently it feels like its taking me such a long time to get there still. It was interesting hearing the Opera all the way through though, especially with the Orchestra. Visually, I think Paradise Gardens is my favourite, I really like the colours that are used.
Week 6: 05/07/2021
Studio Scenes- Semele & Barber of Seville
05/07/2021​
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Rig Check at 8.30. Loaded up my pre-made Studio Scenes file of which is in cue list 3/ to then allow for me to recall states from Opera Makers 1/ cue list. I was originally recalled 'Die Flaudermaus' from Finlays Opera Makers for the start of the show for Hansel & Gretel, dance.
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Guy Knox-Holmes then came in and helped me programme. today for Studio Scenes - Plotting 9.00 to 16.45. Originally it was till 13.00 but no one from Opera Makers had any notes, so we worked through. We managed to plot all of Studio Scenes, so now we are in a really good place for Tech tomorrow.
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Rig Check for Opera Makers at 18.00. The two paired birdies (Channel 151) tripped twice. Performance 3 at 19.00, my last time operating.
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06/07/2021
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Rig Check at 9.00 ready for Studio Scenes Tech Rehearsal.
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Studio Scenes - Tech with cast 10.00 to 13.00
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Last Performance 4 at 19.00 (NOT OPERATING)
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07/07/2021 ​
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Rig Check at 9.30 ready for Studio Scenes Tech Rehearsal.
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Studio Scenes Tech Rehearsal 10am to 1pm (without Guy Knox-Holmes)
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Studio Scenes Dress at 2pm. Before the show at 7 I made note of all the helpful programming stuff that Guy Knox-Holmes showed me. Including how to interpret the Letter symbols on the Playback Display. I have made a document that I could use later on.
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Studio Scenes Show at 7pm
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08/07/2021
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Opera Makers Strike 9am till 6.30pm
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Came in for 9am and put on my PPE (Hard Hat, Hi-Vis and Steel Boots). We started with getting rid of the orchestra stands in and put the stands onto their trolley out in the corridor.
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We then moved onto the Coloursources that are mounted on the wall. Degrigged the source 4s and got rid of the wall zebedees where we can. Making sure the coloursources when back into their white light flightcase.
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Going up to the grid (making sure I take everything out of my pocket and have my tools on a lanyard) I then derigged all of the scrollers on the front of the fresnels and put three scrollers and the two small PSUs into their scroller flightcase on level 3 and put the remaining 8 back into the stuido control room with the maxi PSU.
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We started to move the scaff in the grid (2 at a time) to make it easier to move around.
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After a tea break, started generally to decable everything. Coiling LX cable and putting it back on the ledge. Taking the 16amp breakouts and putting it back in its pile just outside the grid door.
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We then put the Performance Venues rig back up and re-powered everything.
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From our blue box we I put back the iris's and gobo holders back into the control room.
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After Lunch, I got onto the Genie and de-rigged the Robert Juliats on the back wall, as well as the 16amp breakouts along the way. Myself and Anna began to loosen the scaff and scaff joints as well before fully removing it.
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End of Allocation Tutorial
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Got back into the genie and got rid of any excess tape high up on the walls as well as any remaining zebedees in the unistruts.
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Put the orchestra stands back into MC Substage.
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We then went over to Silk Street with the trapdoor steeldeck and left over show materials to give to DR. Turns out they didn't want 80% of it so we had to come back and put most of it in the skip.
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Put some drapes back into their shelving, flashed out the PV rig and focused it whilst the theatre was going back to black.
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09/07/2021​
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Last Academic day of Second Year.
New helpful Macros Made
ETC Playback Display Symbols:
Production Photos
