[gafftaper]

Originally Posted by allthingstheatre

I'm puzzled, how can you do visual cues on a timed crossfade, for example, actor comes into darkened room and slightly opens a curtain and looks outside then opens up first one curtain then the other and the daylight streams in.Easy with a fader in your hand to follow the actor but extremely tricky with multiple x fades and certain to foul up during a season if actor slips with curtain etc.So I can see why you would want the ability to control manually.

That's the problem of the actor and the S.M. The designer designs it a set way and that's it. I'm surprised you would ask this question. That's how it's done here by anyone with a decent console and a little training. Again the point being that you set the timing in rehearsal and then it's exactly the same every night. There's far less chance of error pushing a go button on cue from the S.M. than there is in manually running sliders.

As far as I know the only time in the pro world you will see some "artistic control" is in concert lighting. But even then its still working with pre-recorded routines.