Mixed Feelings

It's that time of year again... The last weekend before school starts. I'm actually very excited for some parts, not so for others. 

We start rehearsals for A Midsummer Night's Dream on Tuesday, designs are due the next week, and we open in September. I'm so excited. I have a feeling this is going to be a great year. Our group of Troupe officers saw Midsummer at The Shakespeare Tavern in the city and it was fantastic. It was so funny and the costumes and lighting were fantastic. Mrs. O gave me pointers for the way she wants the scenes to look, she wants contrast between every scene but also contrast within the scenes. I.e. if it's nighttime in the scene with a blue wash, she wants a yellow or an orange counter wash to keep balance but also give it a fantastical feel... I guess it makes sense. I tried to incorporate that into my design and I'm actually very pleased with it. It gives me a lot of flexibility while maintaining what both of us want. I just hop we have enough break up gobos. I love the front break up wash.

Even though I started these designs intent upon using a lot of side light, I seem to have shied away from that. Maybe because Mrs. O doesn't like having lighting trees in the wings or because we have a limited amount of circuits built into the stage but the design I just finished doesn't have any side at all. I hope that changes. I love the look of high sides. 

That's all folks.

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

A Midsummer Night's Inspiration

Before I had any input from Ms. Ogle, I was blindly creating random set configurations and trying to make the lights look cool.

Now that she has given me a solid set idea and a bunch of good ideas, I can't think of anything. We had the design meeting about a week ago and I'm having such a terrible time thinking of ideas. Part of me thinks that since I've started using Capture, I've become too focused on what the light looks like in the air; not on the actors. I've tried to turn off the haze effect in the program but there's no setting to disable it. I feel like I'm spending too much time in trying to punch out a solid design and I can't take the time to make something I really really like. I've made something like ten designs, the first seven are basically void, however, because Ms. Ogle made it clear that she would like to do the set design. The most recent three are using her set but they look painfully similar and somewhat boring to me. I can't seem to find a way to pull myself away from making another clone design. 

I need something to kick me out of my comfort zone...

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Oh, Awkward...

I thought I might as well get a big head start on our production for next year, Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Well I started and I loved it at first. However, the more I look at it, the more I see something that I can't put my finger on. Whatever it may be though, I absolutely hate it. I have no idea what is wrong but something is just so WRONG.

I got the cool side lighting deal going on due to the fantasy of the show but something is hiding in the back of my mind that just bothers me enough to make me want to completely start over. I actually shouldn't be worrying about it as much as I am though because Mrs. Ogle hasn't even given me a set design so I don't know what I'm thinking. I made up a quick little set that slightly resembles out Les Mis set but with major differences/improvements. I think that might be what's bothering me. I have trouble doing both set and lighting. I did it for SAST and it wasn't really for me to be in charge of both sections. Which is odd because it was nice controlling both sides because set and lighting go so hand in hand with each other. I dont know. I'm very scatterbrained recently. I basically have no idea what I'm doing right now.,

That's all folks, 

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Well...

This is my least favorite time of the year. The musical has finished, SAST is over, and there's nothing to be done. I hate having idle hands. I have so much I could be doing but no reason for Mrs. Ogle to let me. However, it was recently announced that the show we will be doing next year will be... Wait for it... A Midsummer Night's Dream. While I hate the Shakespearean writing, I love the shows. I'm actually very excited for this lighting design because I am allowing myself to kind of go crazy. This is a comical fantasy type of show that we are setting in a 50's summer camp. Cool, I suppose. I don't exactly know how I'm going to approach this but I think it will look very cool. During auditions today, I looked at the application and a question on there was asking about the actor being afraid of heights. Two story set, maybe? I hope so, that would be incredible.

For Antigone, at the beginning of this year, I experimented with some side lighting and I LOVED the way it looked. Due to the surrealism of this show, I would like it to be very sidelight heavy. It looks so cool. Well, this is going to be my last post for awhile until something wildly fantastic happens.

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Here Comes S.A.S.T.

Short Attention Span Theatre is kicking into high gear. I was supposed to only handle the lighting but our director is doing so much for the musical at the moment that I now am the Lighting Designer, Set Designer, and Technical Director. I'm also doing the lighting for the musical but she decided to design so I'm just doing the "execution". Back to SAST... I set out yesterday to get the set design done and I did but then I started playing around with the lighting design and I might've finished that too. I don't think I'm 100% done with it yet but I'd say I'm pretty close. I'm quite satisfied with it in light of the fact that it took me a day. I got all the lights set up and I tried to do some cueing for the beginning of the show but we haven't decided the show order yet. I was talking to one of the stage managers the other day and he said that Mrs. Ogle said some things about us possibly getting an ETC Element by the end of the year. That is both good and bad. If we get it after SAST then we are good but if we get it before, it could take some time to work out the kinks in the system as I imagine we would have. It would be especially difficult because of the nature of the cue list, everything is in order. We don't always know the order of the shows until a week before so I would have to hold off the cueing until the dress rehearsals. Either way, I really want this board because our board is analogue. BOO. We really need a new board.

That's pretty much it,

That Tech Kid, Jordan.  

I Might Get a Job!

I just got an interview with the coordinator of a Playhouse near my house! I just sent her my resume and we are working out a time tomorrow! I'm so excited for this opportunity!

I'm literally speechless,
That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Let Short Attention Span Theater Begin!

We've just started working on our student written/directed/acted play compilation called Short Attention Span Theater. We have 6 ten minute plays and three monologues! All original, student written. Of course, I'll be doing the Lighting Design but Mrs. Ogle also gave me the position of Technical Director which is HUGE! I'm now completely in charge of all the planning an execution of all the technical elements of the show. I'm very excited to get this opportunity to control more than just the lighting but also have a big influence in sound and set design. I've been thinking of some good set designs and the playwrights have put a lot of places in scripts for some very cool lighting effects.

I've been looking through scripts for sues and prop needs as well as familiarizing myself with the plots of the shows so I get ideas of setting and time of day. I predict this will be a lot of fun.

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

Trouble In Paradise

Kind of, not really. We came back from Winter Break this week and Mrs. O gave me the great opportunity to reorganize our Lighting Closet. It was quite therapeutic actually. I took decided that the best way to go about it was to pull everything out, organize it, and them put it all back in. It was certainly an interesting experience to behold. We had equipment hiding under the staircase that I didn't even know existed. We pulled out all of the strip lights, lens tubes, and dead fresnels and went to sorting. It took out two man team about 5 hours but we got it done. Then came trouble. When I went about hanging things back on our organization board, I got a little too crazy with the space saving and we have a big top half of board that is totally empty. Whoops.

And then came even more trouble. I went to the booth to check all the labels for the lights on the catwalk and noticed that some of the faders have started  to ghost and the Grand Master malfunctions when you bring it all the way up. You basically have to set it at 99% or else it starts reading the wrong values and all the lights flicker. It's going to be a nightmare. Especially with the musical coming up. I need to talk to Mrs. Ogle about looking at getting an ETC Element. I really think that that's the board for us. It's focused at schools that have primarily (or all in our case) conventional lighting. It has the perfect amount of hands on control as well as the indirect control through the keypad, which I like.

At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Ogle put the idea in my head that we should maybe start thinking about LED cyc lighting because of how quickly we burn through our cyc silks. I really like that idea and the Element is perfectly suited for such a thing. However in light of the fact that we don't have any foundational DMX outputs around the stage, we would have to look at a wireless DMX system. Which is actually very cool. The Element has two DMX outputs which is so handy. Universe 1 would go to the dimmers for all the stage lights and the second universe would be where the wireless comes in. Chauvet makes a wireless system called the D-Fi, there are both transmitters and receivers and can be used from a distance of up to 600 feet away. There would be a transmitter hooked up to the second DMX output and a receiver above the stage connected to the (theoretical) Chauvet COLORstrips. IT'S PERFECT. I just don't know how realistic it is. I just hope and wish that I could have at least my senior year with something so amazing. I want something like that to be my Senior Legacy. That would be nice.

Oh dreams, whatever shall I do?

Welp, goodnight,

That Tech Kid, Jordan.

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