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