Calling the Focus

March 8th, 2010

I have been involved in a lot of focus calls and pointed countless thousands of lights. From when I worked as an electrician up in the catwalks manipulating the lights themselves, to assisting other designers, to focusing lights for my own shows, I have seen a lot of different systems for focusing lights. Sadly I have seen more poorly called focus sessions than I have good ones. Hopefully this post will help outline some good ideas for a fast and efficient focus call. This is geared towards Master Electricians and Assistants who will be directing the focus session. It is by no means complete and I would welcome suggestions and improvements in comments.

I have focused lights everywhere from 60 seat off-off-B’way houses in New York, to Broadway national tours And everything in between. Over the years I have developed some best practices for making the process go smoothly and quickly. Remember, the designer probably wants to get through the focus as fast as (or faster than) you. Focus is not exactly fun, but it is a necessary part of the process to get on to the interesting work. The focus session helps to set the tone for the production. Having a quick and efficient focus allows the designer to enter the technical rehearsals in a state of calm, ready to create.

Any designer who has properly done their homework, with regards to working out the angles of their lighting system, will be able to start anywhere on stage and is not dependent on “Oh we need to begin with channel 1.” Rather than asking “where do you want to start,” because the honest answer is probably something akin to “With a beer at the bar down the street,” figure out the best place to start in your theater and ask the designer “Can we begin at such and such a position?” Chances are the designer will say yes. The designer is busy enough thinking about how a particular light will be used, “and should it be cut off the Act 1 or the Act 2 legs,” that they don’t need to worry about what light they are going to next. That is your job. You should direct the focus call such that the session moves at an average of about a minute and a half per light. Faster is nice, but much slower gets very tedious.

I like to start with something easy like catwalks or balcony rails to get everyone into a rhythm. Once a good working rhythm has been established, mixing up more difficult positions into the focus (like climbable torms) can balance the pace with something easy light PARcan backlight systems. The person calling focus needs to think systemically to make the process go fast. Systemically in terms of how the designer laid out their lighting systems as well as the systems of the lighting positions. Act like an electrician, think like a designer.

Once you have determined the optimal starting positions, you need to break your crew up and send them to those positions. For the purposes of this post I will be assuming a 4+ electrician/1 ME crew for a standard three position focus. This means that three electricians are pointing lights and one (or more) is acting as a runner/lift mover, while the ME turns lights on and off at the console. How you divide your crew up can be critical to the speed of the focus. If you don’t know the skill level of your crew, putting everyone front of house to focus can be a good way to find the fast/skilled electricians and the less proficient ones. Once you know that, you can move on to more complicated positions.

Here is a basic rundown of the tools you will need to call the focus:

  • A console with the completed patch
  • Full size copy of the plot (1/2″ or 1/4″ as needed)
  • Printed Channel Hookup
  • Printed Instrument Schedule
  • Laptop with the current Lightwright (or other lighting database) file
  • Note paper
  • Two different colored highlighters
  • Writing Pen

If you are an assistant you will also need:

  • Blank Focus Charts
  • Tape Measure
  • Sharpie
  • Painter’s Tape

A quick note on plots. I have seen, on smaller shows (typically 100 units or less), a tendency to print the plot on standard office paper. While this is faster (at first) the end result can be a nightmare. Units often get hung in the wrong place and have to be moved at focus, numbers can not easily be read, and sometimes the wrong fixture entirely gets hung at a position. Taking the half hour to go make a large format print of the plot will save you hours of work down the road. Trust me. It’s worth it.

When you send your electricians to their positions it is a good idea to glow the units they will be going to. This allows them to get in place and start working faster. Once you glow a unit, put a dot of highlighter 1 on the channel on the plot. This is an easily visible way to note a channel you will soon be going to, and with the plot in front of you, allow you to strategize the best path through the plot. Also, when you stop for breaks, this will be a quick reference to get right back to where you were. When a light is turned on to full for focus, you fill in the channel circle with highlighter 1 completely. If you need to skip a light, or it is broken or has otherwise been touched but not completed, put a dot from highlighter 2 over the Unit Number. Write down any worknotes that can not immediately be solved on your pad of paper. When the light is focused, you fill in the whole instrument symbol with highlighter 2. This is a clear graphic way to determine what you have done and where you have to go.

When you turn a light on to full, call out to the designer the channel number and its purpose. For example, “This is channel 2 Front Warm DLC.” This allows the designer to get to focusing the light without fumbling over their own channel hookup or cheatsheet. This will save you about 10-20 seconds per light. When you move on to the next light turn the new light on FIRST, call out its number and purpose, THEN turn off the previous light. This will save you about 10 seconds per light. This total of 30 seconds may not seem like much, but in a 250+ unit plot that means almost an hour and a half that could be spent fixing troubled gear or getting to the bar sooner. The bigger the plot, the more the time savings.

In terms of assigning electricians I find the following system works very well. If your crew is widely varied in terms of skill, pair your best and worst electrician on symmetrical systems(Box Booms, High Sides, etc.). When you turn the lights on, turn the light for the worst electrician FIRST. At the same time you glow the light that will focus in a mirror location for the second electrician (If electrician one is Focusing “BB Frm Lt FAR” you glow “BB Frm Rt FAR” for electrician two) . The first electrician will take however long they take. Because you are glowing the mirror image for the fast electrician, they are probably paying attention to the designer and focusing that light while it is glowing. So while it may take the first electrician two minutes to point the light, when you turn on the next unit it is all focused except for shuttercuts and color. It takes 30 seconds to focus that one and thus you have an average of 1:15/per light. Not too shabby.

Keeping a steady pace is critical. If you are always one step ahead of your designer and thinking with them in terms of systems you can get your plot focused quickly and efficiently. The faster the plot is focused, the sooner we can all get to the bar. Or in the unfortunate case that there are serious problems, or the set moved and thus half the lights need to move, you have the time built in to the focus session to deal with those scenarios. The technical rehearsal will start at the same time no matter how long (or how complete) the focus is. We don’t want to be rushed. We want to move quickly.

How do you call focus? This is only one person’s system and there are infinite details which can not be put in a single blog post. I would love to hear your thoughts in comments.

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Let’s connect!

March 7th, 2010

Are we connected on Facebook? We should be. Come on over and say hello.

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Inside the Design Idea – Den of Thieves

March 5th, 2010

When I first moved to the Bay Area after leaving New York I kept hearing about SF Playhouse. It seemed that in the time I had been on the East Coast this little company had gone from nothing to making quite a name for itself in San Francisco. Eager to find interesting work, I made a point to see some of their shows and was not disappointed. So, when Artistic Director Bill English asked me to light a play for them I was excited at the opportunity.

I need to confess something to my readers at this point. I don’t like reading plays. I enjoy rehearsals, and techs, and worksheets, and everything that goes into making a play, with one exception. I don’t like reading plays. Thus it was with my usual resignation of “Well, I have to get through this part in order to get to the fun stuff” that I picked up Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Den of Thieves and began reading.

The result? I had not laughed so hard in quite some time. The script is so outrageously funny that I had trouble getting through it, but this time for totally different reasons than a typical script read. I kept laughing so hard I had to put the script down repeatedly. The story revolves around a group of thieves in a kleptomaniacs recovery program. Then someone shows up with the perfect heist. Wackiness ensues.

When I did finish the play I began thinking through how to light it. There is a sharpness to the comedy that demands to be addressed through light. No mushy recessive stuff here. Both colors and angles need to be crisp and distinct.

The first thing I saw clearly was that the air must feel colorful. Much like approaching musical comedy, the farcical nature of the piece demands a feeling of color everywhere. But that color must be carefully chosen to augment the crisp dialogue. I also knew that I wanted a very sharp look in terms of my approach to angle but was not sure how to achieve that.

At the first production meeting Bill, who was designing the scenery, came in with a corner set on a 90 degree angle (the US was the corner of a room with walls at approximately 45 degrees from that point). Upon seeing this I was immediately struck with my solution to the sharp angle. I would hang a two color system of diagonal front Head-Hi’s following the angles of the walls. Once this piece was resolved everything else fell into place.

Backlight would be a cool and a color changing system. Sidelight would be a pair of pipe-ends from each side. A bunch of scenery specials. Both the Act 1 and Act 2 set had windows, so light through the windows would be prominent. The nature of the comedy led me to choose to fill in the shadows with color. As such there would be a medium blue through the windows for the night scenes and a dark blue frontlight system to fill from front of house. A pair of FOH IQs would do any additional specials as needed. The final element would be a lot of practicals in each scene to really bring the world to life.

Lighting systems are as follows:

  • Cool Head His in L201+R132
  • Lavender Head His in R51+R132
  • Warm Diagonal Fronts in R302+R132
  • Low Blue Fron in L079
  • Straight CLR Front in CLR
  • Cool Backs in L202
  • Color Backs (the house scroll is a standard apollo rock&roll string)
  • CLR Cross Light in R132
  • Outside Night in R68
  • Outside Dawn in L201
  • Outside Sun in R318
  • Practicals are all CLR
  • IQs in R132

Below is a look at the lightplot:

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Inside the Design Idea. Please leave any comments or questions you might have.

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Orestes 2.0 Opens tonight

March 4th, 2010

More information here. Note, this is a link to a Facebook event page. You may need an account with that service to view it.

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This is your sort of civilization, then

March 3rd, 2010

I think Charles Mee is one of the most interesting writers alive today. He publishes all of his plays to his website for free download. This speech is by Tyndarius from his Orestes 2.0:

If I would speak to you, how should I speak?

I know one mustn’t use certain expressions these days,
among your generation.
One mustn’t call people barracudas, for example
no matter how they behave.

Shall I apologize?
This was your mother, after all,
my daughter,
even if she was a slut.

But one mustn’t speak this way, I know.
For this is rude and might offend one’s feelings.

(He takes his time)

There are words these days, I know, that cause a certain pain–
like”slut” or “sweetie” or “dear” or “peg leg,” or–”watermelon.”

There is some quality of magical thinking in this, a certain
“primitive” turn of mind, if I may use the word, that seems to fly to
the belief that if one disposes of a word, one disposes of all the
dreadful or disagreeable things that have become attached to it.

So that if one simply doesn’t use the word “articulate,” in referring
to a certain sort of person who is articulate, as though a certain sort
of person’s competence with language were an exceptional matter, then
the exceptionality of this articulateness will disappear.

Or, if one will eschew the word “community,” in speaking of a group of
people, as though that group shared a monolithic culture in which they
all acted and thought in the same way, then one’s language would not
create ghettoes in which these groups are constrained to live. One
should never refer to the black community, for example, or the gay
community. One should refer, rather, to the black residents in a
southside neighborhood.

Then, too, one ought not to say “oreo” in reference to black Americans
who have abandoned their culture, or refer in a similar fashion to
Asians as bananas or Mexicans as coconuts.

One ought not to say “illegal alien,” when one has available such
vocabulary as undocumented worker or undocumented resident.

One ought not to use the expression “qualified minorities,” as though
minorities were in general unqualified.

One ought not to use the word “swarthy.”

One ought not to say “blonde and blue-eyed” unless one is prepared to
use the expression “brown-haired and brown-eyed” as an expression of
equal attractiveness.

One ought not to say “inscrutable” in speaking of an Asian.

One ought not to say “Dutch treat,” as though to say the Dutch people
are cheap.

One ought not to say “fried chicken,” under any circumstances as I
understand it.

One ought not to say Jew–or I should say that some people prefer the
expression Jewish person, and in any case that the word should never be
used as a synonym for stingy. And that it should always be used as a
noun, never as a verb.

One ought not to say buxom or fragile or feminine or pert or petite or
gorgeous or stunning or statuesque or full-figured or in any other way
refer to the physical attributes of a woman.

I can accept all this with equanimity.

And yet, one can commit murder and find the words to justify it.

This is your sort of civilization, then. It speaks nicely and behaves
barbarously.

Indeed, it thinks that speaking well, putting a nice face on things,
will transform the very stuff of life on earth.

No, no, no.
You’ve come unhinged.
You’ve lost your bearings altogether.
You’ve assaulted the very foundations of your home.
You’ve forgotten who you are, where you come from.

You remember nothing: not your parents, nor the values they held dear,
not your country, nor the polity it once held in its grasp, or at the
very least aspired to, not your history, nor your religion, nor even
the most rudimentary tenets of ethics or gentleness.

And this is what you ask me to give my blessing to.
No.

(To Menelaus)

As for you, Menelaus, I don’t expect some form of civil behavior from a
man who has just returned from rendering an entire civilization into a
smoking ruin, while his own home sinks in rot and violence, husbands
murdered by their wives, mothers murdered by their sons, sleeping
children shot through bedroom doors. I know of a boy who poured
kerosene on a derelict and lit him on fire and burned him to a crisp,
not thinking he, the boy, had done anything wrong. That’s the value
they place on human life in the world that boy comes from. And soon
enough such boys will fill your neighborhood. You flatter yourself that
you are an old-fashioned sort of man, but you’ve no idea what it is you
ought to be old-fashioned about.

And I will tell you this:
for the murder of my daughter,
I expect the murderer to suffer the punishment of the state.
No more. No less.
That’s what I mean by a civil society.
I’ll hold you responsible.
Let us begin there to put the world to rights.

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Tools of the Trade – What’s in your bag?

March 1st, 2010

I recently sent off design drawings for a project and was told by the Master Electrician that they did not have a copy of Lightwright and would I please send the paperwork in a different file format. I converted everything to PDFs of the Channel Hookup and Instrument Schedule and sent them along. This is not the first time such a situation has happened to me.

I am often amazed at the number of people who work as freelance Master Electricians who do not own their own copy of Lightwright. While the program is a bit pricey it has become a necessary tool for the job. The simple creation of an Instrument Schedule or Channel Hookup could be done with any spreadsheet or database program, the specific calculations made by LW allow the job of the ME to be infinitely easier. And given that nearly all lighting designers use it, having one’s own copy is necessary for working with your primary collaborator, the designer.

An electrician would not consider coming to a call without a wrench. It is seen as a necessary part of the job. Lightwirght, like email and a phone, should be considered necessary for anyone directly interfacing with designers. This includes MEs, assistants, and so forth.

The intent of this post is not to rag on a few individuals but to make a larger point. When working as a freelancer there are certain tools that are necessary to have for your job. What those are will vary depending upon what your position is, but none the less you must have the basic minimum necessary tools. Back when I worked as an electrician it was a wrench, a multi-tool, and a pair of gloves. Minimum. Many electricians carry around far more tools. You don’t want to be the electrician who borrows the designer’s wrench. It just looks bad.

I know designers who carry around a huge bag full of tools. I am not that extensive and prefer to keep my carried items as lightweight as possible. Here’s a quick list of what I consider the necessary minimum tools as a lighting designer.

  • Laptop

    • Lightwright

    • Vectorworks
    • All show files for currently active projects
    • An Office Suite that can open and save as XLS and DOC files (I prefer OpenOffice)
    • Photoshop (or equivalent)
    • Illustrator (or equivalent)
    • Desktop email client (the theater may not have wifi, so it’s best to carry your info with you)
    • Calendar
  • Multiple pads of paper for notes
  • Pens
  • Floppy disks and USB drives to back up show files
  • Scale rule
  • Tape measure
  • Pens
  • A light for your tech table
  • A Headset
  • Cell phone
  • A Water bottle
  • Wrench
  • Pens
  • Snacks (focus and tech can get exhausting and breaks are not always timed to your body’s rhythms. I prefer Clif bars and fruit)
  • A Book (sometimes you are just sitting around waiting for scenery to arrive, might as well learn something)

Like I said this is a small list and many designers carry quite a lot more than this but for me I find it to be about the minimum that I can not assume will be provided in adequate quantity or repair by the theater.

A quick note on disks and drives. I recently pulled floppy disks out of my necessary list to lower the weight I carry on my back. Poor choice. I just ran into a situation where the theater had misplaced their disks in a cleaning frenzy and the schedule was so tight no one was free to pick any up until three days of programming had gone by. And this was a complicated show to program. Not the best situation for the nerves.

I almost never have a need for tools like Photoshop or Illustrator, so I use open source alternatives GiMP and Inkscape, but I have the option should the need arise (I also keep a full set of audio manipulation programs on my computer for similar reasons).

You will not need all these tools every day. My tiny designer wrench that is small enough to go in my carryon for airplanes would hardly serve a professional electrician. But when I need to run up and adjust a boom, because the crew of one or two are on lunch, I can do the note.

The wrench I learned the hard way. Getting all high and mighty thinking that as designer boy I would never need to touch a light again in my life, I was left high and dry during one lunch break and the few simple notes did not get done until AFTER the run through. After that, I started carrying a wrench as part of my necessary tool kit. I am sure my list will continue to evolve over time but for now this is more or less what it looks like.

Everyone’s needs are different. What do you consider a necessary tool for your work?

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Product Review – Vectorworks 2010 Part 1: In the trenches

February 26th, 2010

I received my new copy of Vectorworks 2010 right in the midst of drafting several shows on top of one another. Never one to turn down a challenge, I installed the software, ported over my symbol libraries, downloaded my two main plug-ins (Autplot Tools for Spotlight and Beam Draw) and went to town. It took me an hour or so to rebuild my custom palettes, menus, and get used to the new placement of a few critical keyboard commands (must remember “H” is now the grabber tool). Once that was done I was ready to get to work.

Since at its core what I need Vectorworks for is to draft lightplots I figured the best test would be this plunge into the deep end of the pool. I plan to cover more of the functionality of this software in later parts to this review. As a basic drafting machine for the creation of lightplots Vectorworks 2010 is fantastic. I thought the process of my upgrade might be of interest to readers so I will begin there.

The first thing I noticed was the visual design. It is quite beautiful. The images for tools in the palettes are very clear and distinguishable as well as good looking. While non-essential to getting work done, it does make a big difference when you are staring at a computer screen for eight or ten hours a day. A small change around tools that I found incredibly useful was the fact the the program now remembers your last choice for tool options rather than returning to a program default every time you launch the software. For example, I often use the mirror tool to layout sidelight systems. The system default is mirror mode but I need mirror and duplicate. I can’t tell you the number of times I am racing to get a plot finished and forget to switch modes and then have to redo the work. It’s only a few seconds but it adds frustration to the process. Now that frustration is gone due to the program remembering my settings. Very nice.

The second thing about the visual design is the visual feedback the program gives specifically regarding instrument selection. Highlighting the objects and giving names and highlights to the area on an object as you pass over it is incredibly useful. While it took a little bit of time to get used to and be able to parse the visual language without it impeding workflow, I quickly became acclimated to it and very glad that it was there.

The basic Spotlight functionality is all there but no longer clustered in a single menu. As such I modified my standard lighting menu to include tools previously contained in the spotlight menu. These include convert to Symbol/Multicircuit, Assign Legend, Instrument Key, Refresh, and Number Instruments. In addition to the basic Spotlight functionality I used on these plots there looks to be quite a lot of additional material that I will be exploring in future posts.

The layout of the basic drafting window is very different from the version I was using before. All the class/layer menu information is still up top, but so too is the magnifying buttons and fit to page. While it took a little getting used to, the new layout is an improvement. Everything relating to visibility is in one place. Further, the addition of a classes/layers button is much improved over the older drop down menu item I previously had to contend with.

My biggest (and so far only) complaint is the changing of keyboard commands. While this is certainly something that can learned it is frustrating at the beginning. It should also be noted that Vectorworks keyboard commands are all fully customizable and editable(and I added back my align button). It just takes time. As I get deeper into the functionality of the program for later posts I will be approaching the software as though it were a wholly new technology for me as some of the changes are so massive that it might as well be.

I am looking forward to exploring the event planning suite of tools, new trussing, color/gobo libraries, and other new Spotlight tools as well.

As a drafting program to make a lightplot Vectorworks has maintained its edge as the industry standard setting the bar for what Computer Aided Design can do for the lighting and design community. I hope you’ll join me in future posts as I continue to explore this fantastic piece of software.

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Diet, Energy, and Design

February 22nd, 2010

A good diet and healthy eating habits are critical to a healthy body and stable moods for everyone but it can be particularly important for those of us working in theaters. When you work inside for 10-12 hours a day for weeks on end you are not giving your body the necessary sun exposure it needs to function at top performance levels. That may be beyond our control, but food and diet are totally within our control and it would behoove us to pay close attention to what we put in our bodies.

I’ve noticed a lot of my friends and colleagues resign themselves to an attitude of “well I’m in tech so I can’t eat healthy, I’ll just get fast food takeout and supplement with lots of coffee.” While this might give you a certain kind of energy it does not give us the energy to operate at an optimal level. These ways of raising energy are often supplemented by heavy sugar intake with the ubiquitous candy bowl on the stage manager’s table.

You can get energy from these methods but it is not sustainable. In order to avoid the high/crash cycle of these “foods” we need a constant intake to stave off the crash until the end of the day. The result is a body so wreaked that the next morning we can hardly functions without a massive intake of caffeine, usually in the form of coffee, to get going and do it all over again. The spiral continues and by the end of a show we are burnt out and ready for that day off, desperately hoping it is not a travel day to another show.

I have traditionally been one of the worst in this regard. While my basic diet was vegetarian, thus minimizing the fast food dilemma, my coffee intake was off the charts. Two mugs, not cups but mugs, of espresso before leaving my apartment then constant coffee intake throughout the day. While I don’t typically eat sugar given the choice, I would find it necessary in tech situations to keep my energy levels up. It was not a pretty sight. Add to that the fact that my vegetarian diet was so high in carbs (rice, pasta, sandwiches) that I was making myself very sluggish dealing with those foods I had no energy. Thus I had to up the caffeine intake to compensate and the spiral continues.

Recently I made a few changes to my diet that have not only led to greater energy levels but higher functionality and more creativity. The switch has two main components. The first was a change from coffee to tea. While it does have caffeine, there is a lot less. Further, it does not hit your system as powerfully as coffee does. Within less than a week I discovered that i could be functional in the morning without caffeine. I still drink the tea, but it is a little bonus rather than a necessity.

The second change was from high carb/low protein to high protein/low carb. The first phase of this was simply a few diet changes with my vegetarian mode of eating. Eggs every morning, lunch went from yoghurt to cottage cheese (which has a much higher protein level) with fruit, and dinner reduced the pasta and other carbs. I then experimented with some fish and found the high protein levels to have a radically positive effect on my energy levels. From that experiment with fish I expanded my consumption of animal flesh into my diet to very positive results.

The effect of this new low caffeine, low carb, low sugar, high protein, high fruit, high vegetable diet is that I have high sustainable energy levels all day long. My need for stimulants like sugar and caffeine during heavy endurance times like tech has been radically reduced. Because I have pulled myself out of the high/crash cycle, my moods are much more stable as well. No more grumpy in the morning and late afternoon.

Of greatest interest to me is the discovery that I am more creative now than before. Eating this way gives me sustained energy all day long and as such my problem solving and creating is not subjected to crashes and their necessary recovery time. Not only has my day become more pleasant, as I am not contending with fighting off low energy levels, but my work has gotten better and more productive.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who work in live performance who would argue that such changes are not possible for them. That may be true. It certainly is if you hold that opinion. But considering the benefits I have found, I would strongly encourage you to give it a try, for the sake of making the best art possible, if nothing else.

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Don Giovanni Opens Tonight

February 20th, 2010

Don Giovanni produced by Berkeley Opera opens this evening.

For time, location, and ticketing information click here.

Posted in design, opera | 1 Comment »

I get interviewed on iSquint.net

February 19th, 2010

I was interviewed last month by Justin Lang of iSquint.net for a podcast which was released earlier this week.

Click here to give it a listen.

Posted in business, design, meta | No Comments »

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