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.