Hello, Dolly! Lighting Design and ETC Expression 2 Question

[DHSLXOP]

Hi everyone,
My school is doing the show Hello, Dolly! this year and I am one of the student lighting designers for the show. I have been thinking about the cues and have done a couple of "designs" (specifically for the overture...if you don't know the show, the overture is mostly up-beat and has a bunch of changing tempos). Well, at the end of the song, the music has very quick beats (each one comes less than a second from each other). What I want is for a light change to come every beat. There are 2 box booms in front of the proscenim and each has 6 source fours and color scrollers in them. I have designed it so that on the first beat theres a blue gel from the scrollers stage right and then on the second beat it has red coming from stage left. It then repeats this for a few more beats. The problem is, I know that the stage manager can't call the cues that quickly, so there has to be another way to do it. On an ETC Expression 2 console, is there a way to do that?

Also, for the rest of the overture, since the gels in the scrollers are not in the order that I want them to be (and I can't change them), I will need to alternate between two sets of lights. (So that one is on while the other is scrolling) (3 from each box boom) It would look like this (the x represents a light on...the - reprents the light off)
Group 1:
SR:
X -
- X
X-
SL:
-X
X-
-X
Group 2:
SR:
-X
X-
-X
SL:
X-
-X
X-
Does this make sense...and if so, is it do-able?
Thanks

[soundlight]

Use follow cues. If the SM calls the first one right on, you should be able to pop between cues at the specified time (accurate to the tenth of a second) through the console. That is you hit go, and that triggers the first cue, which triggers the follow on the second. When the second fires, it triggers the follow on the third, and so on. Works pretty well. The follow time is adjustable anywhere from 0.1 seconds and up, I believe.

[DHSLXOP]

Originally Posted by soundlight

Use follow cues. If the SM calls the first one right on, you should be able to pop between cues at the specified time (accurate to the tenth of a second) through the console. That is you hit go, and that triggers the first cue, which triggers the follow on the second. When the second fires, it triggers the follow on the third, and so on. Works pretty well. The follow time is adjustable anywhere from 0.1 seconds and up, I believe.

Thanks!
Do you know how to enter this on the expression?

[icewolf08]

Follow cues is a great idea, and it does look like what you are proposing to do with your alternating lights should work, you may just have to try it. If your cues are so fast the the SM can't call them experiment to make sure the scrollers will be able to change in time. Also, the other option you have instead of follow cues is if your board op has good rythm, let him/her take the cues on his own with the beat, this would allow for the fact that you probably have a live band that may not play the overture at the exact same tempo every night. Or, if there are only light cues happening in the overture that the SM is calling, they could just give a standby for cues 1-20 (or whatever) and then just GO... GO... GO... I have worked shows where we had close to 100 cuse in one number and the SM would come on and give me a "Standby lights 100-200... if anyone else besides me or the board op talks during this sequence i'll shoot you!" It worked.

I think that on the Expression you create follows by using the LINK button. It's funny becaue I was on An Expresstion for 4 months over the summer and now I totally forget. But I think it would be "Cue X LINK Cue Y ENTER" and then you will be prompted for a follow time.

Have fun with it because if you figure it out now, the next show you do you will be able to come up with something even better.

[DHSLXOP]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

Follow cues is a great idea, and it does look like what you are proposing to do with your alternating lights should work, you may just have to try it. If your cues are so fast the the SM can't call them experiment to make sure the scrollers will be able to change in time. Also, the other option you have instead of follow cues is if your board op has good rythm, let him/her take the cues on his own with the beat, this would allow for the fact that you probably have a live band that may not play the overture at the exact same tempo every night. Or, if there are only light cues happening in the overture that the SM is calling, they could just give a standby for cues 1-20 (or whatever) and then just GO... GO... GO... I have worked shows where we had close to 100 cuse in one number and the SM would come on and give me a "Standby lights 100-200... if anyone else besides me or the board op talks during this sequence i'll shoot you!" It worked.
I think that on the Expression you create follows by using the LINK button. It's funny becaue I was on An Expresstion for 4 months over the summer and now I totally forget. But I think it would be "Cue X LINK Cue Y ENTER" and then you will be prompted for a follow time.
Have fun with it because if you figure it out now, the next show you do you will be able to come up with something even better.

Thanks for the ideas. The show is in the next 3 weeks, so if I remember, I'll post how I end up doing it, that is, if the director lets me do it at all...

[soundlight]

Nope. It's not the LINK. There is a specific FOLLOW command in the express/expression architecture. You say CUE [#] FOLLOW [time in seconds].
the things in brackets are the things that you input as numbers, and the things that are all caps are keys/soft keys that you push. When you do this, this will happen:

Say you put cue 1 with a follow time of 4 and a fade time of 2 (I assume you know how to enter fade times). You put cue 2 with a follow time of 0.2 and a fade time of 0.1. You put cue 3 with a fade time of 0.5.

Here's how this would execute:
You press the go button for Cue 1
Cue 1 fades up over 2 seconds
4 seconds after you push the go button, cue 2 executes it's fade over .1 seconds.
4.2 seconds after you pushed the go button, cue 3 would execute with a fade time of 0.5.

This comes from my careful reading of the expression manual.

But I have been known to mis-interpret.

[drawstuf99]

On an Express, I do believe the button is "link" because you are physically linking the cues together, but when it prompts you on screen it mostly says "follow." IE: Follow time..etc. Thats an express though, but I've heard they're quite similiar.

you're right on the fadeup & follow times. The follow time is how much time you have after the GO button is pressed, NOT after the cues fade up. Example, if you have LX1 fade up at 20secs and the follow time on the next cue (the time it waits after you press "go for LX1") is 15sec, the first cue wouldn't load all the way up, I'd just go into LX2 or w/e. Make sense?

That tricked me one time, but once I understood that it wasnt difficult to manage. It's good for music thats played with a CD or something of that sort, you can have very accurate musical cues.

any of that help?

[DHSLXOP]

Originally Posted by drawstuf99

On an Express, I do believe the button is "link" because you are physically linking the cues together, but when it prompts you on screen it mostly says "follow." IE: Follow time..etc. Thats an express though, but I've heard they're quite similiar.
you're right on the fadeup & follow times. The follow time is how much time you have after the GO button is pressed, NOT after the cues fade up. Example, if you have LX1 fade up at 20secs and the follow time on the next cue (the time it waits after you press "go for LX1") is 15sec, the first cue wouldn't load all the way up, I'd just go into LX2 or w/e. Make sense?
That tricked me one time, but once I understood that it wasnt difficult to manage. It's good for music thats played with a CD or something of that sort, you can have very accurate musical cues.
any of that help?

Yah, that helps a lot...I've never had the chance to really play with the board at all, since we don't own the theater and we're only in there from load-in to strike (all of one week), so its nice to be able to learn more about the board before going in to program.

[tfactech]

Hey, you never said if it is live music or canned (CD, Tape or other). If it's live music just do the cues live and forget programing the stack to auto-follow. The musicians will never play it the exact same every night (not to the 1/10 of a second anyway.)

Just do it live, you'll be much happier with the results...

[DHSLXOP]

Originally Posted by tfactech

Hey, you never said if it is live music or canned (CD, Tape or other). If it's live music just do the cues live and forget programing the stack to auto-follow. The musicians will never play it the exact same every night (not to the 1/10 of a second anyway.)
Just do it live, you'll be much happier with the results...

Oh, yah, its a live pit orchestra playing...I'm just concerned that the cues will be off, which will really destroy the look that I'm going for. Any other possible things that could do what i'm looking for?
Thanks