LX day 3+4 of Opera 2
Day three and we are way ahead of ourselves. Today we marked up the booms with metre and half metre points for when we rig the lights onto them, i helped look out ten birdies and made sure they were all in working order. Dave managed to dig out the surtitle (have no idea what you call it so will say machine ,and will find out the right answer tomorrow) we checked if that was woking. the only other things that we got done that day as we had mainly did everything previously to this day was to look out two ground rows and rigged two lighting stands. i was slightly dissappointed that we only had two hours worth of work, it seemed rather pointless travelling all the way in just for that, im sure there was something else we could have been given to keep us busy.
And then we saw the beginning of day four the onstage rig! its all very dramatic but for first years we got on with it really well i thought. By lunch time we had rigged 6 out of 7 bars so i felt it was going really well. After lunch we finished lx bar7 and then moved onto the trust booms. Me and dave started rigging on one side whilst madeleine and laura did the other side. I thought the whole day went really smoothly i dont think that the lx group could have done anything differently, we just got on with it really and it was done in no time. I thought it was a really fun day actually cause i really like being kept busy. The last task we undertook that day was to plug up the trust booms to the gods,wires everywhere and mainly plugged up in the dark until someone finally found the light switch but we got there in the end.
Add comment March 1, 2009
pinkspiders
Panto 2008
The first production process I went through in my Introduction to Management and Technology for performance was to become stage crew for the upcoming Christmas pantomime “Mother Goose”. As stage crew I would be involved in a number of different production roles throughout the weeks leading up to the fit up, both technical/dress rehearsals and the performance shows. I started off by helping the second year TPA students hang the rest of the scenic cloths onto the fly bars. I soon learned the correct way to role up a cloth so as not to damage the paint finish as some were incorrectly positioned or hitting off of Lx bars and later had to be moved to a more suitable bar.
I found my next task was to set up and partly construct a walkway which would be used by the actors to enter the auditorium during the show. For me, the first real challenge was being able to find all the things which were required to construct it and an understanding of what each element was used for. I had to make sure it was build in a efficient way that was strong and safe enough for the actors to walk back and forth. There were some points when I struggled, as there were certain tools I didn’t know how to use but after asking various members of the TSM crew I managed to work my way around it. When I had completed the build it was very rewarding to see it being used throughout the show it as it wasn’t something I thought I could achieve.
I also got the chance to work with the lx crew and started off by rigging lanterns in the gods. I used their lx plans in order to rig the lights in the correct place along the bar. Afterwards I stripped each of the gels which had been previously used and were either burnt out or the wrong colour and replaced them with the new one’s which were colour schemed. This was something which I really enjoyed as I haven’t had much experience when dealing with lights.
Throughout the pantomime production I spent a lot of time on the grid fixing, moving, attaching and adding hemp lines. These hemp lines were used to attach fly bars onto, either cloths, masking or small set pieces. I would first have to find a hemp line which was a suitable length and then position it on the grid to drop down onto the stage. I learned that when dropping a hemp line you lower it down slowly and shout audibly “heads on stage hemp line coming in”. At first I found this experience frustrating as I had no idea how to attach hemp lines or where they should be correctly placed in the grid blocks. If attached incorrectly the hemp line would fall to the ground which could cause serious injury to someone working on the stage below. By the end of the process I had finally got my head around the hemp system and felt that I had been a useful contributor to its set up.
My role throughout the pantomime was as one of the LX follow spots. I learned how to hold and move the light correctly whilst making sure it subtlety followed the performer onstage. At times I found it a challenge to keep up with the actors as they would move very quickly onstage but with practice I soon found myself capable. There were shows when I got everything spot on and ones where I didn’t. However, I learned from both and would try and better myself continually. Operating the follow spot was definitely a highlight for me as I had not used one before and now I would feel confident when using it again.
I think the entire pantomime production was very useful in my development as a production student. It allowed me to see how closely all the different departments worked together as a team. I found that there was constant help and support throughout the production which I think contributed to my understanding of its process. I have learned so much during the pantomime and hope to further my knowledge in production. If there was something which I could work on in the future it would be to build up my strength as I found that I was quite useless when it came to get in/get outs as I struggled to lift heavy loads. However, I took steps and bought some weights.
Add comment February 25, 2009
pinkspiders
Lx for Opera 2, Day 2 Tuesday 24th Feb.
We started off by looking out all of the lights for the fly bars. Most of the lights were already situated in the Ath so it was just a case of sorting through them. With our list of lanterns to find we managed to track down the bulk of them except a few as we think they are on a fly bar. Unfortunetly we coundn’t get the fly bar brought in as there was stage set in the way of the bar, the venue techs were in the ath doing maintence work on all of the other fly bars and there was also a automation class with steve going on, so the ath was a very busy place. Later we sorted out all of the boom arms that we had. We managed to find 25 and we required 24 so yeah it was a close call. Just before we headed off for lunch 4 (61 source4 pars) had to have there lenses changed to become 62 source 4 pars. Madeleine had a little disaster and put her lens in the wrong way so trying to get it back out killed a bit of time. After lunch we started work on wiring some lights that are used as part of the show. Jonny cut the wire whilst me and Laura started to take apart the lights so they could be asembled together later on with the new wire. All the colour that we could cut was done that afternoon aswell so we just have to wait for the missing colours to come in so we can finish the other half of the gels. Today was ok i have to say i dont really like sitting about i like getting on with things and having a busy day but at the moment its going slow slooow slooooooow! im sure this will change next week though when productions properly starts.
Add comment February 25, 2009
pinkspiders
Lx for Opera 2, Mon 23rd Feb.
Today Laura, Madeleine, Jonny and myself started LX for Opera 2. We began by looking through the LX plans and deceided where to begin. We started off by stripping all the lights that were up in the gods, balcony and dress circle. We set them to one side to see what we had to work with. After we located the lights that were required for our front of house we started the front of house rig. Madeleine and Jonny began rigging in the upper circle whilst me and Laura focussed on the dress circle. We followed the LX plans until front of house was completed. We found that trying to losen the clamps ,that hold the lights up, and change their position was the biggest challenge of the day as they were partically fixed into place they were so tight. I think its a bad system in the first place as it makes the job ten times harder. Instead of having clamps there should be a circular bar that just goes the length of the dress circle. Then it would just be a case of rigging the light straight onto the bar.
1 comment February 25, 2009
pinkspiders
Technical Stage Management
Safe curtain on stage called “The Iron”
General things to know in New Athenaeum Theatre;-
Opera Pit
Prompt Desk
Iron
The Stage
The Gods
Fly Floor- right side of stage
Prompt Fly Floor-left side of stage
Mid Fly Floor
Grid (Loading Gallery)
When on grid make sure warning lights are on to warn others below (wear hard hats onstage)
Header Blocks
Big Tow Winch
Cradel
3 Types of Flying Systems
Hemp- 3 ropes made from hemp
Single Purchase Counterweight
Double Purchase Counterweight- The cradel goes half the difference og the bar but you have to put twice the weight of the bar into the cradel.
14-Hemp Sets
25-Single Purchase Counterweight Sets
5-Double Purchase Counterweight Sets
4-BT200 Point Hoists (0 Fleet Angle)
The Hemp System-
Manuel effort to lit load on bar
Header Block
Grid Blocks
Cleat Rail
3 Ropes
Long/Centre/Mid Rope
Aluminium Bar
Clove Hitches
Loft/Grid Block
Single Purchase Counterweight
4-Wire Suspension Lines
Steel Bar
Loft Blocks
Header Block
Cradle
Rope Brake
Control Line
Weight on bar compensated by EQUAL weight in cradel
Double Purchase Counterweight
4-Wire Suspension Lines
Steel Bar
Loft Blocks
Header Block
Cradel (Double size)
Rope Brake
Control Line
Twice the weight in the cradel than that of the bar.
example:- bar 50kg/cradel100kg
Rope Brake:-Used everytime the control rope is not moving.
Rope Clip- Used as secondary backup when load is unbalanced.
Rigging Step by Step
- Check bar is available then warn those in the area that you are about to move a bar.
-fly in the empty bar to a working height.
-Brake and Clip.
Attach scenic elements to bar.
-Lower the bar to the floor to allow the cradel to be weighted.
-Brake and Clip.
-Ask loading gallery to weight cradel.
-Once cradel is weighted carefully remove clip.
-Shout audibly “Bar going out”
-Remember the set will be cradel heavy until the scenic element is hanging freely on the bar (balance is what we want to achieve) cradel heavy-more weight on cradel/Bar heavy-more weight on bar.
-Rerturn to standby mode always alert and paying attension.
Add comment February 10, 2009
pinkspiders
Stage Management Take 4!
Aww its the last day of our stage management classes (well it was a week ago anyway, had computer problems) but better late than never as they would say. So yeah our last day and what a sad day, its been one of the most enjoyable weeks so far and now its at its end. Today was excellent as we finally got ago at being a DSM and it was great! At first we spent time marking in our cue’s in our script’s that we had chosen:-
American Psycho
“Harold,.it’s Bateman,Patrick Bateman. You’re my lawyer so i think you should know i’ve killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh,some homeless people maybe 5 or 10 um an NYU girl i met in central park i left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany,my old girlfriend with a nail gun and some man uh some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw,i had to she almost got away and uh someone else there i can’t remember maybe a model but she’s dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face,his body is dissolving in a bathtub in hell’s kitchen. I don’t want to leave anything out here i guess i’ve killed maybe 20 people,maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it,uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even um…i ate some of their brains and i tried to cook a little. Tonight i ,uh,i just had to kill a lot of people and i’m not sure if i’m going to get away with it this time. I guess i’ll uh,i mean,ah,i guess i’m a pretty uh,i mean i guess i’m a pretty sick guy. So if you get back tommorrow i may show up at Harry’s Bar so you know,keep your eyes open.”
We did our stage blocking followed by cue’s and standby’s (consisting of 6 LX cues and 4 Sound cues) and placed them within our script . We acted out our script’s in the stage space (that we had previously marked up earlier that week) whilst our partner Dsm. Then we switched roles with yourself being the dsm and your partner the performer. We did then same in the afternoon with our score, marked in the cues etc but the only difference was that there were no performers onstage. Just three boxes and production students having to dance on them to the music like utter banana’s, but it was all part of the fun.
I think the day, the whole week in fact was a high for me. I loved the team work and interactions with people and just generally getting to know the life of a stage manager and having a better understanding of their role and tasks in the production process. After everything i’ve heard so far i’m still loving it. Also thought the DSM and ASM handbooks that John gave to us was great! i love getting hand outs cause lets face it if your trying to learn and improve on something someone telling you how to do it once isn’t much good but if you have a reference you can look at whenever then it’s like a security blanket. I think more classes should give them out:-TSM, Lighting etc. Hint Hint.
Add comment February 10, 2009
pinkspiders
Stage Management Classes Take Three 29th Jan
During our class today we first of all went through to the groves studio to see a mark-up that had been done in the rehearsal space that had been used for “The Love of Three Oranges” in it’s pre production phase. It was good to see someone else’s mark-up in comparison to our’s and i have to say that i think we did not a bad job at all for our first mark-up. I know i freaked out anyway when i saw what we had to do but by the end of it i think we’d done a pretty good job. We also had a micro-mini project task to do today where we were split into two groups and had to come up with a game that must be based around theatre and focus on including the elements as follows:-Communication, Planning, Cooperation, Creativity and Problem solving. My group came up with the idea of “Extreme Propping” .The aim of them game was to fix the stage managers stage left/right props tables(make sure all props were in there correct position) as the ‘actors’ had moved them out of place-the twist was that paintframe had come in a painted the floor so you had to make your way across the stage in your group without touching the floor and only using the objects in the given space ie chair. When the game was played it didnt exactely turn out the way it was meant to this was due to confusion in the briefing of the rules and it was also due to over complicated with too many rules, But i think the important part of this excercise was not so much the most excellent game that worked out best i think it was the team work and contributions and effort that each member of your team put it and how you came to the concept of your game. It was much more to do with the group dynamic and how we came together in a limited time to produce a game on quick thinking. Although there could be much improvement to our game i thought the group worked so well as a team. We all agreed on our ideas and more importantly we all listened to each other and adapted our idea’s to interlink each other. The group made the task fun and by listening to each other we all felt envoled and a part of something.
2 comments January 29, 2009
pinkspiders
Stage Management Class Take Two! 28th Jan
In todays stage management class we learned how to do a mark-up for rehearsals spaces and the stage. I thought that this was such a useful excercise as i have never done a mark-up before or even knew that there was such a thing as a mark-up to be done. It felt like a real achieve when i stood back and saw the mark-up that me and my fellow peers had produced. I thought that at the end of the task you were left with a rewarding feeling. At first i thought oh my god we have to up- scale this floor plan to scale on the stage but i just got stuck in and actual found it a very enjoyable task. I felt that everyone pulled together as a team and we worked well and efficiently.
1 comment January 29, 2009
pinkspiders
Stage Management Classes 27th Jan
Today was lots of fun taking on the role of asm (assistant stage manager). our first exercise of working in groups on answering survivival questions was very useful,although extremely amusing,as it showed how an asm has to think on their feet and come up with the most logic answers. Doing the prop tables i found very manageable in my group as we all new roughly what a prop table should look like and the way it should be laid out. I thought that the numbering of the spaces and a list beside to describe what goes in each space was a very effective way to organise the props and was something i hadnt thought about until today. When we we’re doing the propping excercise i thought it was a really fun way of learing how to do something that has to been taken seriously as your phoning up companies etc so it is the academy’s reputation that is at stake if you were to approach a phone call in the wrong way.
3 comments January 27, 2009
pinkspiders
