New Dude from California

[musictom]

Hi,

Thought I'd do the right thing and introduce myself here. I'm Tom, 47, and by day (and several evenings, lol) I am in charge of the music and audio/lighting/video technology for a church in California. I have a Bachelor's in Piano Performance, and am fairly savvy when it comes to audio (can get around our M7CL pretty well), and am continuing to build my home studio around Logic 8.

When it comes to lighting, however, I am woefully uneducated. I can describe three and four source lighting, I know blue goes on one side, and amber on the other, , and I know the difference between a par, fresnel and a Leko, but after that, fuggetaboutit. I'm looking forward to gleaning all kinds of information from this board, and if I can contribute, well, that's even better.

Cheers!

Tom

[derekleffew]

Welcome, musictom. It's nice to have someone on CB who's the same age as me. I am almost the opposite of you: while I have knowledge of stage lighting (been doing it 32 years); beyond the basics, I don't know so much about sound. Never touched a digital console. But I'm pretty good at ground-rigging line arrays and still know the names of what all the parts are. I was on a call recently where all of us lighting people were working sound. The road guy handed us a stage plot and said, "mic the stage." The others all looked at me. I said okay. It's just like a light plot. It says we need 5 Beta-58s on straight stands across the front of the stage, Horns get 421s and 409s, 57s on the guitar amps, etc. I said I'll do the drums, as those are somewhat tricky sometimes... Only had to ask the road guy a few questions here and there. I have worked many times with Clair Bros., and had the first 12AMs in the city.

Now to introduce you to a favorite CB pastime: thread hi-jack. What is it with all you people and your fascination with the HES Showgun?? It's just a light, and so what if it's the brightest (which it's not) or has LEDs (which are fairly useless)? It has no place in theatre, and Syncrolites are still better!

Back to topic: Any pictures or website of your church, Tom Dude?

[Logos]

Welcome to the booth from down under. I seem to be the first from the southern hemisphere to have reached you but there will be others. This is a warning.
Post lots and ask questions, the only redundant question is one that was answered last week so make the search engine your friend.
If you have a website let us know about it cos we are all incredibly nosy. We're also friendly. Mostly. Well, subject to change.

Derek in case you hadn't noticed I'm actually older than you.

[gafftapegreenia]

But, the Showgun has a cool name! However Syncrolites still pwn.

Musictom, welcome to the Booth!

[musictom]

Thanks, all for the quick replies!! I feel so welcome here (single tear slowly streams down cheek).

Charlie, I'm definitely up for a few of the Showguns! LOL.

As to website, our church has one, but there's not much to it tech-wise.

www.calvarymanteca.org

I'll put it in my profile.

Not really any pics, but suffice it to say our lights really suck. Last year, we got a $60K bid from a company to do some upgrading; they got a 50% deposit, and long story short, went bankrupt. Ouch! So now, we're trying to scramble the best we can, upgrading here and there, with what little we have left.

Thanks again for the welcome, folks!!! I plan to post early and often.

Tom

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

Derek, isn't that (a lighting guy working sound) against contract regs or something? You should go on strike, I mean, er, load-out!

Well, again, yes and no. Why do you ask such hard questions?

If I am called in as a member of the sound crew, I have the option to ask what else is available before I accept the call. For instance I don't like video, but again, since I know what all the parts are called, sometimes they want me to do it. The only thing I won't do is carps--as I've said before that means "carry something heavy." On a rock show load-in, the rider will call for say 50 stagehands at 8am. We all start by unloading the rigging truck. Once the rigging truck is empty, then the road PM will go to the local Steward and say, "I need 12 of your best lighting hands to go inside and build truss/lay feeder." I'm almost one of those persons, but sometimes if I'm behind a truck out of the eye of the Steward, I get missed, and end up pushing speaker cabinets in and then get assigned to sound. It's no big deal, no matter how horrible it is, I know it will be over and I can go home within 6 hours.

Logo--I know you, STEVETERRY, and allthingstheatre are older than I am. (Some might say older than dirt, but I wouldn't.) But SteveB, me, and now MusicTom are all approximately the same age. Then I think ship, whose lamp knowledge should place him older than all of us. Of course at the other end is Padawangeek, the CB baby, but wise beyond his years. If only we got an elementary schooler, we could be "all ages, 7 to 70."

[What Rigger?]

[QUOTE=charcoaldabs;79160]March straight to the board of directors and slap this image down on their desk. You'll want at least 50.

Mmmmm...Showgun....mmmm....

[Chris15]

Welcome Aboard. I see you've already encountered the first round of chaos and oddball questions.

Originally Posted by derekleffew

Logo--I know you, STEVETERRY, and allthingstheatre are older than I am. (Some might say older than dirt, but I wouldn't.) But SteveB, me, and now MusicTom are all approximately the same age. Then I think ship, whose lamp knowledge should place him older than all of us. Of course at the other end is Padawangeek, the CB baby, but wise beyond his years. If only we got an elementary schooler, we could be "all ages, 7 to 70."

Derek, I'm pretty sure you're off the mark there. Something in the back of my mind puts Ship younger than you...

Australian Division, Phase II

[gafftaper]

Welcome to the booth Dude! Lot's to learn here and a great community that really enjoys hanging out together. Jump in and join the fun.


As for the Hijacks:

Hijack #1) Derek to help Charc with his fascination of the Showgun we have to get him a picture of something bigger. I remember seeing a couple of monster moving heads that were about 4' square at LDI 2006. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I'm sure you've worked with them.

Hijack #2) I believe Van, Ship, and I are all in the... gulp... closing in on 40 club.

Hijacke #3) Charc we'll just see how long it takes you to post for another male new member.

[Chris15]

Originally Posted by gafftaper

As for the Hijacks:

Hijack #1) Derek to help Charc with his fascination of the Showgun we have to get him a picture of something bigger. I remember seeing a couple of monster moving heads that were about 4' square at LDI 2006. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I'm sure you've worked with them.

Hijack #2) I believe Van, Ship, and I are all in the... gulp... closing in on 40 club.

Gaff, I must see if I can track down a pic of the moving light we had on Carols in the Domain here in Sydney. I believe it was DMX controlled. It had to be tied into the three phase on the nearest switchboard.

And yes, I thought that the ages at play were in that region...