Planning

The actors have decided to split up into smaller groups to do their own pieces. There are a total of seven groups, therefore, there are seven different plays. Some of the groups are doing one person shows and others are in groups of 2-4. As technical director, I attended a production meeting last Thursday (25th April 2019) with the actors to discuss the technical elements that they wanted for their respective pieces. During the meeting, I was given a copy of their scripts which will allow me to note and record the lighting and sound cues. The actors also told the sections of the script that they had cut out. I have also been given a production schedule that enables me to plan my time according to the tech rehearsals and performance dates. The current plan is to dedicate a tech day for each performance in order to make sure that all of their technical requirements are in place. We also plan on doing a full run of the play at the end of each tech and on the morning of the show day in order for the performers and I to get as much practice as possible in running the show so that for the actual performance I would be less likely to trigger a cue late or miss it entirely.

The Production Schedule for the second year actors

There is a wide variety of complexity between the shows. Some of the groups have requested simple lighting cues and a low number of sound cues which is going to help relieve some of the stress of some of the other shows where the actors have requested complicated lighting cues and a high number of sound cues.

Quite a few of the actors wish to have voiceovers in their pieces, so although some of the shows have high a quantity of sound cues, they are not particularly difficult as most of the sound cues are short voiceovers. For example, in the piece 'Misty', there are around 60 sound cues but a lot of them are voiceovers which are pre-recorded lines that the actor is using to have a conversation with another character which isn’t onstage. This means that despite the high number of sound cues, we get through them quite quickly. The complicated thing will be to trigger them on time.

Some of the technical requirements given to me by the actors.

Some more technical requirements

For the sound cues that the actors have requested, I am going to have to get them from YouTube and in order to get them from YouTube onto Q-Lab, I will need to first convert them using a YouTube converter, I will then need to download them onto the laptop that I am using to run the audio cues and from there, I can put them onto Q-Lab.

This is the YouTube converter that I will use to convert the sound effects for the actors.

I plan on writing up a cue sheet for each show in order to make it easier for me to trigger each show. The cue sheets will include the cue number, the cue line or visual cue, the song/SFX if any, a description of the lighting state, any notes about the cue and the fade time of the lighting cue.

I have done this because I am going to have run all of the shows by myself. This will help me a great deal as it will put all of the information that I need to trigger the cues in one place. Another reason for this being helpful is that the actors have cut out large quantities of their scripts so I feel that if I were to follow the performances using the script, I would lose my place too easily. By having all of the cue lines in one place, I can trigger the cues more accurately.

This is the template that I will use to create all of my cue sheets.

Two of the actors have requested a lighting effect that represents the lights of a police vehicle. To achieve that, I had to use a step-based effect. The effect that I needed wasn't among the pre-recorded effects on the lighting desk so I had to record it myself which was easy enough once I had watched a tutorial on YouTube.

To record a step-based effect, you first have to go into the effects tab on the lighting console by double tapping the effects button, to record a new effect you press the effect button and the number that you want the effect to be. Then you select the type of effect that you need. You can choose from step-based, absolute, focus, linear or colour. I chose a step-based as that's what I needed. You can choose the number of steps in the effect pressing the 'step' button which is a soft key. My effect had two steps in it so I typed '1 through 2' into the command bar. Now, you have to go into the channel column by using the arrow key. This enables you to assign the required fixtures into the channel list.  The effect has now been recorded. You can change the time that it takes to complete one loop of the effect (the cycle time). By default, the cycle time is set to five seconds. I needed the cycle time to be faster so that the effect could represent police lights more accurately so I set the cycle time to two seconds.

This is my first attempt at recording the effect of police lights. It was too slow so I had to re-record the effect.

This is my second attempt at recording the effect and it was successful. I reduced the number of steps in the effect from five steps to two steps. I also reduced the cycle time from five seconds to zero seconds.

I plan on using a number of groups and palettes during each technical rehearsal in order to program the lighting cues more quickly. In the top left: there are focus palettes, top right: colour palettes, bottom left: groups and bottom right: intensity palettes.

This is the magic sheet that I will be using for each show.

Girls & Boys:

The technical requirements for this piece are straightforward as the performer would like very few basic lighting states. She has also requested a few voiceovers which will not be too difficult to trigger as all I need to do is listen attentively for the cue lines. One thing that will make it easier is that the voiceovers are going to be given to me pre-recorded so all I have to do is put them onto Q-Lab then trigger them. After a couple of run-throughs, I should get enough practice to be able to run the show with relative ease as long as I concentrate.

This is the first page of the show’s cue sheet. This cue sheet for this show only has two pages as there aren't many cues.

Zoo Story:

This show is also going to be quite quick and easy to tech as they only have one sound cue which is going to play throughout the entire piece and six lighting cues which are easy to record. The first lighting cue is the audience lights which is used for when the audience enters the theatre. The second is a blackout to indicate that the show is about to start. The third lighting cue is meant to indicate a park environment; to do that, I used general lights along with sidelights and green and yellow lights. Towards the end of the piece, one of the characters gets stabbed. In order to increase the impact of the stabbing, the actors would like to have a lighting state which is completely red. They have also requested that it stays for five seconds before it goes back to the previous lighting state. In order to make the timing of the cues more accurate, I will put a five-second hang on the cue so that the next cue is automatically triggered five seconds later.

This is a scene from Zoo Story with the projection of park at the back.

Waiting For Godot:

For the tech of Waiting For Godot, I will have more freedom to contribute some creative input. During the production meeting that I had with the actors, they did not ask for specific lighting cues.  told me that they wanted a lighting state which represented a sunrise, which evolved into mid-afternoon and finally into night-time. For the sunrise and the night-time lighting states, I intend to use the LEDs as they have the ability to colour mix so I am able to pick from a wide variety of colours. My initial idea is to use a moving light and get it to track across the Cyclorama at the back of the stage. I was thinking of getting the moving light to change colour over time in order to represent the sun. However, the actors have told me that they wish to have a projection of a willow tree so I cannot use my idea of using a moving light on the cyclorama because it will bleach out the projection.

Myths & Bricks:

The actor that is doing this show has decided to perform at a later date so as it turns out, I will not be working on it.

A Bronx Tale:

This is the most complicated piece because the performer has requested very complex sound and lighting effects without really thinking about the effort and time required to achieve the effects. He wants four sound effects to occur immediately after one another so, in order to make my life easier, I plan to apply an 'auto-follow' on each cue so that they are triggered more quickly which in turn will emphasise the effect of the scene. He also wants several projections which may make it difficult to run the audio cues. He wants to have several different projections to change throughout the piece. One technical problem with that is that since there are sound cues which happen in between each change of projection, I will need to find a way of running the sound cues and stopping them without 'quitting' the projections. One method that I might use is to trim the sound cues to the length that the actor wishes to have them at. That way, I won’t have to press escape in order to stop the audio cues which will get rid of the risk of stopping the video cues. The thing that concerns me about this piece is that I will have to trigger a high number of cues in a short space of time so running it will be quite intense.

This is the first page of the cue sheet for this piece. Due to the number of cues, the cue sheet had several pages.

Misty:

This piece is not too complicated but quite intense as there is going to be 60 sound cues but most of them are voiceovers so they're quite short and they happen in quick succession so we get through a lot of cues in a short space of time. The amount of cues in this piece means that I have had to write a six-page cue sheet. The actor of the show has given me the sound cues that he would like to have which speeds things up and it makes my life a little easier as I don't have to worry about having to convert and download them from YouTube. The lighting cues are fairly straightforward but there are 35 of them so running them is going to be intense. The show is technically not complicated so programming the lights and putting the audio cues onto Q-Lab is fairly simple but running it is complicated and intense as I am going to have to coordinate quite a lot of cues in a short space of time.

This is the first of six pages of the cue sheet.

Girls:

This piece again has a lot of cues but is not overly complicated. For example, there are around 25 lighting cues but most of them are a repeat of previous lighting states so once I record each lighting state once, it should be fairly quick and easy to copy them over to another cue. The cast of this piece also wishes to have a PowerPoint to be played at the end of the piece.

There are also a lot of sound cues so when it comes to the actual performance, I will have to concentrate very intently as the cues are very important in helping to keep the scene flowing smoothly.

This piece will be quite difficult to run as it has a high quantity of lighting and sound cues.