The "You Work Too Hard and Care Too Much" Award

Mrs. Ogle gave me that award today... Printed and signed and all. I think that's a sign. Too bad I chose to disregard the warning. I stayed after to decorate the auditorium for our Theatre Troupe meeting and dealt with the most stressful of the lights that we own. Christmas string lights. It was an utter nightmare. They kept getting tangled and I kept having to walk up and down the stairs to check the symmetry and it was horrid. I can't wait to take them down and rid myself of the stressful reminder. They look nice though, I can't wait to see them with all the other decorations and things. 

That's that-until next time, 

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Stress Free for Me

It's a very weird feeling, to be stress free after working a show. Antigone was honestly a nightmare come to life. It was staged 100% in front of the plaster line, meaning I could only light it from the catwalk and the apron wings. That also meant that I only had 18 circuits to use, four were dedicated two-fer circuits, three were dedicated night wash, one was fill light for our extra tall Creon, four were dedicated apron fill, one was a lightning special, there goes all of the catwalk. The remaining five were all floor pocket positions in the deck all used for either side light, of more lightning. There were two Source Fours with 50 degree tubes for standard side, along with two-fered specials with red gels for death conversations, and finally a strobe light with Stage Pin adapter for lightning. Speaking of lightning, we never actually used those cues in the show. Two circuits wasted! Yeah!

I actually got a video of the show but I recorded it on my phone and it's much too over exposed to have any idea what was going on. 

After we finished the final show on the 17th, we struck everything. How long did it take, you ask? Lighting and all, no joke, took an hour and a half. how crazy is that? It was much easier taking it down than putting it up! The catwalk was quite simple, actually. See, at RHS, we have an in-between show set up that is quite easy to revert to after every show. We have two apron areas from the catwalk, five areas upstage of that from the catwalk, five areas from the first elec. and two from the second. It only requires 12 Source Four's, 10 Fresnel's, two PAR's, and 6 more Source Four's for back light if you please. Which I do.

However, there's one small problem with that. The janitors ruined the batteries of our lift. They thought it would be a good idea to take it on a little journey out and about around the school and even outside, in the parking lot, in the rain. Who knows what they were thinking or who let them take our property but that's not the point. The point is that the batteries still work they just aren't exactly, well, good. They only charge if they want to and they die quicker than... well quicker than  I'd like them to. There was a back light left from the LD before me that I never bothered to take care of until now but here's the thing, I didn't want to take it down, no, I wanted to give it friends. At first, I got it one, a twin on the other side of the stage to copy. Too bad for me that they weren't bright enough to do much against our front light. So the next day, I decide during class to add another set of twins to help out. There are four pipes that hold some of the weight of all the curtains that just so happen to be 1 1/2" diameter. They run parallel to the Center Line, two are about 5 feet from center and the outer two are about 15 feet from those. The original and the twin are hung on the outer two and the fillers are hung on the inner two, throwing across center so the beams are about the same size as their partner, on the outer. Well, that's the way it should be. In the span of an hour class period, I had time to gather my tools, cabling, and fixtures, get the lift (affectionately named "Dinky") to where he needed to be, try to go up, have the batteries dies, plug Dinky back in, waste time, go up, get one light locked down, and put Dinky away. So now there is a two light BL area, and a one light BL area. I intend to finish up Monday, if Dinky permits. 

That's all folks, 

That Tech Kid, Jordan. 

Complications

As production for Antigone progresses, I can't help but feel as though this is going to be a very difficult play to put on. One of the main reasons for that is that the whole production is only able to be lit from the catwalk. The set is being constructed so far forward that the lighting positions on the first electric are completely unusable. With that, we also have to scrap back light and probably side light because the alcoves off of the apron are not tall enough for the lighting trees. This is just great... But on the bright side that fixes the problem of the lift not working. It needs new batteries and we don't have the money to buy the four that we need. I'm running out of ideas, I'm getting lighters block. Thankfully we have another month before the show starts, we open on November 15th. 

That's all folks,

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Great Minds

People often say that great minds think alike. I found this to be explicitly true yesterday while I was talking to Mrs. Ogle about what I had in mind for Antigone. I first said that I really wanted to replicate the side lighting that Milton utilizes and she said that she is very interested with pursuing it as well. We also had similar ideas about how many areas we needed in order to have enough fixtures and also what we wanted for the basic color scheme. I also explained to her how vital I think it is that we jump into the digital planning process with both feet. I already use AutoDesk's "AutoCAD" and Capture Sweden's "Capture Polar" along with eos Family Offline to do the cueing. However, the only way I can show Mrs. Ogle any of my design's I have to take my laptop with me to school and show her there. So I got thinking, why not download the same programs on the desktop she has for student use in her office so we can share the files and she can change and revise them when she has free periods or lunch? It's perfect! I haven't talked to her about it yet but I feel like it's something she can get very interested in. It would be such a great way to streamline our planning and designing process and I see no downsides. I'll try to update when I hear anything, that's all folks,

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Antigone

Well, we're doing Antigone. A Greek drama about a girl who goes against the rule of the king to give her brother a proper burial and the consequences following. It should be a real treat to get to do such a dramatic lighting design. I've already been taking notes in my script as rehearsal go by. I'm hoping this all goes well. The only difficult part about it is the fact that the batteries in our MS-19 aren't taking a charge so we don't have a way to access any of the stage lights but the ones on the catwalk. Mrs. Ogle and I were discussing buying new ones to get her up and running because I have ideas that need to get set in motion now if they're really going to happen. One of them being true, real, actual sidelight. Something RHS has never dealt with before. I got the idea when we visited our overly funded enemy school, Milton. They have two lengths of Schedule 40 suspended vertically from the rafters on both sides of the stage. It's actually a very good idea once you think about it. I talked it over with Ogle, her opinion being that the only other way to create side light is to use a stand on the stage deck which she's worried about kids running into. I may not necessarily agree, I mean, when I was acting in Seussical, we had stands on the ground and i never heard about any problem at all. Then again, it is ultimately her choice. I just hope one way or the other, I get the side light I've always wanted. Now that I think about it, I feel like using a stand would make more sense. There seem to be less draw backs. Isn't side light supposed to come from as close to eye level as possible? I thought it was, but then again, I could also work with back light if we hung the pipe from above, but not from the stand. Decisions, decisions. 

We'll see what happens, 

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

School's Almost Here!

School starts on August 13th which I'm greatly anticipating because I definitely cannot wait for my restoration of power! I'm raring to get started on whatever fall play we may be doing and the outlook today is wonderful, the blog posts will pick up for sure once we start working on drafts and hookups but for now all i have to offer is my enthusiasm. I've been dabbling in AutoCAD recently, trying to use my resources to the max and i came up with a whole new plot that I'm quite pleased with. Once I finished I was so optimistic that I even assigned gels, made a hookup and completed a Capture design for it. I hope that Mrs. Ogle thinks it's as good of an idea as I do and she lends me her resources for a day or two to get it out there.


We'll just have to see,

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Drawing a Blank

I've really been trying to think up something to write about but I'm really drawing a blank. Recently, I had to uninstall my Eos Family Offline software because of a space issue on my computer. However, after clearing out a bunch of old TV shows and movies, I have a lot more space but I'm hesitant to re-download it. Between the uninstallation and the clearing out, I downloaded Capture Polar, a lighting visualization software. I would like to run Eos and Capture simultaneously but I'm not sure how that would work out. Eos automatically detects the number of screen you run on a computer, two in my case, and saying that I don't know how Capture would be used with it running. Decisions, decisions.You know, I just made thi decision right now, I'm just going to go ahead and see how it works out, I've got an idea :)


I'll be just a minute,


That Tech Kid, Jordan

What I Dream About

Honestly? Lighting. I'm that crazy about it. :P I woke up this morning with my head reeling about how to fix a problem we have at school. Followspots. We have two of them but they are extremely sub-par for our application. There is a span of 90 feet between the apron of our stage and the followspot stands, which is too large of a gap for the followspots to cope with. Our 1982 Altman 1000Q followspots have a data-sheet trow of 80 feet. So, you wouldn't think that another 10 feet would cripple a stage production but oh how it does. We recently preformed "Hairspray", a very followspot demanding show, and boy did I steer clear of that as much as possible. Throughout the whole span of the 2 and a half hour play, I recollect using the followspots maybe three or four times. I couldn't stand the way the beam looked on stage during our dress rehearsals, it was just dreary, grey, and all together depressing, the exact opposite of the plot. So I got to thinking, if I can, why don't I fix our problem. And, I can! The solution literally came to me in a dream. All we have to do is get two ETC Source Four 5 degree lens tubes! That's all! We just rid ourselves of the followspot bodies, keeping the stands, and mount the Source Fours on the pipes. It's gold. All we have to do is run cabling from our dimmer racks out with the sound cables to the stands and we're good to go, no problem. I even worked out the math and with the new lens tubes, at a throw of 90 feet the beam diameter of the fixture would be nine feet. However, Mrs. Ogle was telling me at the end of the year that she's looking into getting a new board to replace our Electronics Diversified Mistrel Plus. And with that, some moving lights, something like a Martin smartMAC or MAC 250 Entour. She'd like four or five and I won't argue with that! I was thinking I would mount one or two of them, depending on how many we purchase, above the tech booth to replace whatever followspots we may have at the time.  It would certainly free up two techies to work in other places we need help and it would help eliminate operator error, with the whole system completely computerized, the only thing to go wrong is the power going out. I like the sound of that.

For now, that is all,

That Tech Kid, Jordan  

Another Day, Another Dollar...

When I'm not stressing myself out over school work and tech, I work on more tech. I do lighting for not only my school but also my church. And may I just say that it is heaven, nothing like school. Our rig at school is a disaster, everything pre-Jordan was done with a "That'll do" attitude. Not cool. But at church, oh lordy, is it nice. We use an ETC eos console along with at least 100 Source Fours, at least 50 Source Four PAR cans, and 6 moving light fixtures. B-E-A-utiful. I just got home from running the double service and it was great, except for the color-scroller-gone-haywire and the MAC 550 bulb that blew out. Other than that it was good. I'm running two Sundays in a row pretty soon and I'm super excited. 


That's all for now, 


That Tech Kid, Jordan

Just Starting Out

Starting anything is hard. It doesn't matter what you might be doing but the first step is always the biggest. This is my first step, here we go. I just made it through my freshman year of high school. It was amazing. Not the actual school part of it, of course. I'm talking about theater. High school theater is better than I would have ever imagined. It is a dream come true. I've never known such freedom than what my theater teacher and director, Mrs. Ogle has given me. I don't know what went through that woman's mind to give me all the responsibility I have but man do I love it. I was made the head lighting designer, master electrician, chief console operator, and treasurer of the Theater Troupe, all in 180 days. Lighting is my passion and Mrs. Ogle did exactly that right thing to keep me interested. Don't get me wrong, lighting isn't all glamour and shine, it's messy! In total, I've done one full show, one full musical, three "Battle of the Bands" type events, and at least 6 concerts for the band, orchestra, and chorus. I've spent a total of 157 hours in the theater, I've burned myself 16 times, electrocuted myself twice, fallen from over 15 feet once, and still managed to be home in time for diner. I get hurt, sure, but I'll never stop. I look forward to three more years of hurting myself, but more than that, three more years of lighting work.

Until next time,

That Tech Kid, Jordan