Cueing in lighting for a musical

[joeb]

I've searched and haven't found this exact question, so I thought I would start a new thread. Perhaps a poll would be beneficial, but everyone's situation is unique so I wasn't sure of the best way to write it.

A little background - I had a colleague interviewing to be the lighting designer for a production. He was asked how long it takes him to initially create and record all of his lighting cues. When he told them it would take about 16-18 hours on average, he was told that was "bologna" and that any musical could be cued in three hours. Obviously, cueing is highly dependent on the style of the production and how much/what level of technology is being used. This answer was in respect to using a mostly conventional inventory (100-120 instruments), 25 or so LED fixtures, two automated fixtures, and various automated accessories - roughly 20 scrollers, under 10 Right Arms and/or ICues, and a few other things.

That being said, how long does it take you (obviously a rough average) to write in your cues for a full scale, 2 act musical - once again I realize there is no "typical," but an average would be interesting. How much/what level of technology are you using when it takes that long?

To start, using the same inventory mentioned above and an ETC Element for programming, I've realized at the end of the day it takes me about 3 minutes per cue - 20 per hour. Therefore writing a musical of 240-360 cues (the typical low and high side for what I end up with), it takes me 12-18 hours. I'm curious to hear other's thoughts.

 

[cpf]

Everything is super quick when your entire inventory is conventional and changing focus or gels requires a 2 week lead time with a lot of beuracratic wrangling

On anything large scale I've done, your time sounds about right - maybe 30s to build the basic scene, a minute to set up any effects, special timings, auto follow, etc, with the remainder of the time spent tweaking levels while insisting to the LD/director/band that yes, that really is all the light I can place on that area of the stage.

 

[MNicolai]

Are we or are we not including the creation of a cue synopsis in that time? Or does this instead refer to purely the amount of time it takes to program the show once the designer has already listed out their cues for the show?

If the designer walks into the programming session with a fully formed cue synopsis, the act of cueing has more to do with the programmer's ability than with the designer, although if the designer is indecisive or has trouble communicating with the programmer, then every cue may take longer to program. As far as programming is concerned, there is a difference between someone who is a programmer and someone who can program. For designers, there is also a wide variety of designers -- some who can get their ideas perfectly on the first or second try, and others who need to tweak the same thing five different ways before they cast it in stone.

I'd start by saying that I think your assumptions are off. I don't think anyone is kicking out 240-360 unique (or mostly unique) cues in 3 hours. If some cues appear multiple times or the programmer really knows what they're doing, it makes a difference, but I suspect whoever the designer was being interviewed by had a very different interpretation of what they were looking for than your colleague did.

I see it all the time -- the director thinks it's lickety split simple because it's been lickety split simple in the past. Maybe it's because they're not used to their designers writing that many cues or because their previous designers have made writing that many cues look easy. For example, next week I load in Nutcracker Ballet. I have pre-programmed 80% of the show. The director will only see me tweaking cues I've already roughed in and recording a couple scenes from scratch that I couldn't do until the choreography was finalized and rehearsed further -- the director sees 20% of my actual time spent working on cues.

Sometimes the disconnect is not with the director so much as it with the designer though. It's possible that the interviewer was trying to communicate to your colleague that they only have 3 hours allotted for programming and if he can't create his design that fits into that constraint, then he's not the right person for the job. I have a friend who is notorious for this -- a 6-minute dance piece will have 40 cues, and he's earned himself a reputation as being too much of a hindrance to work with as a result of his "attention to detail".

I doubt the interviewer and your colleague were on the same page about what they were talking about. I don't think any musical can be programmed in 3 hours from scratch. I also don't think you should be spending 16-18 hours on stage with performers on stage waiting on you to record or tweak your cues. If that's how much you need to program, you should have more of it programmed in advance to reduce how much time other people spend waiting on you.

 

[xander]

I don't think that the information you are looking for is possible to find, and even if somebody makes up a number just for the sake of it, that information is going to be useless to you. Every, and I mean every production is different. Every designer is different. Every director is different. Every stage manager is different. Every programmer is going to be at least slightly different. All of these things have a large effect on the cue writing process.

Could a musical be done with a 3 hour tech period? Yes. I personally designed a musical with over a hundred called cues, 100+ conventionals, two moving lights, dozens of scrollers, and an Express for a show with a 3 hour time frame in the space for tech. It's called NYMF. That means I spent a whole lot of time with the OLE and had all of the cues written before I ever set foot in the theater. I didn't end up actually getting to see all of the cues onstage before there was an audience. Was I proud of my work? No. Was the producer happy? Yes.
I am also a programmer where I am in tech for a week before there is ever an audience member, and then another 3 weeks of previews before the show is "done" and locked. How many hours is that? Well, that's 58 hours of tech the first week and another 48 hours of tech rehearsals during the preview period, plus 24 preview performances. Is all of this time necessary? Not for every show, but I have done shows where every single minute of that (plus some) has been utilized by the LD. Are either of these two extremes typical? Who's to say? If I only worked with one specific combination of producer, director, lighting designer, and stage manager, then maybe the results would be similar.

I also don't think you should be spending 16-18 hours on stage with performers on stage waiting on you to record or tweak your cues. If that's how much you need to program, you should have more of it programmed in advance to reduce how much time other people spend waiting on you.

I'm not sure what part of the business you work in/are talking about as they are all different and have different needs, but in the professional theater world I have been a part of at least a hundred productions, and I can't even recall how many (if any) didn't spend at least 20 hours in tech rehearsal. I'm not going to mention Broadway because we all know that is a world of it's own.

EVERY show/person is different. Worrying about how much time it should take you to cue a show is not going to lead to anything productive. 99% of the time you as the LD get no say in the matter. Somebody will tell you how much time you get, and it is your job to make it happen in that amount of time.

-Tim

 

[MNicolai]

I'm not sure what part of the business you work in/are talking about as they are all different and have different needs, but in the professional theater world I have been a part of at least a hundred productions, and I can't even recall how many (if any) didn't spend at least 20 hours in tech rehearsal. I'm not going to mention Broadway because we all know that is a world of it's own.

I should've been more general in my statement. The point at which you are getting into more than two or two tech rehearsals worth of programming, pre-viz is your friend. It's not perfect and not everyone has it as an option, but better one person spend more time on the front end so the rehearsals go faster than the performers and crew having to sit through multiple days of the LD recording cues. Recording cues in pre-viz or even roughing them in blind are a more efficient use of everyone's time at that point.

Situations where programming takes 58 hours and the LD uses every hour of that, while I believe that it happens, I don't believe that it ever should happen. That tells me that someone wasn't as prepared as they could have been to go into rehearsals or that the production was too much of a moving target (LD or director making drastic changes that should've been in concrete before programming began).

EVERY show/person is different...Somebody will tell you how much time you get, and it is your job to make it happen in that amount of time.

Yes.

 

[tyler.martin]

Ive done 45 minute musicals that have taken 4-5 weeks to cue because the rig is fairly automated fixture heavy (Color Changers, Movers, Mirrors, LED) and tech takes that long... or to an all conventional musical that can be done in 8 hours.

My current venue, we are all conventional with Ion, iCues, Scrollers and other little effects, and a designer is given 8 hours to do the initial cueing, and during our q2q and initial stumble through, and into previews they are allowed to make changes. If i throw 4 moving fixtures into the rig, the designer still only has 8 hours... We turn around productions in a week, our designers are instructed to have their cue synapsis ready, and some even bring in a Ion showfile for me to patch into...

 

[JLNorthGA]

I'm an amateur (I don't get paid) and I do this for a community theatre - but I do have an Element (and a lot fewer instruments). I would vote for 16-18 hours or more. I usually copy the script double sided so I have wide margins and put it in a notebook binder. I sit with my pencil and my indicator tabs and go through the script for cue places. I then meet with the director and go over the script to make sure that I haven't missed anything and to determine what the director has in mind. That's before I even look at the board.

Maybe I'm a slow reader or super picky - but that takes me a few hours right there - when I finally get into the light booth (with a lot fewer instruments) - I'd say it takes me a few hours there also. So from my perspective - I'd say your 12-18 hours is reasonable.

 

[NickVon]

I was a last minute LD for a community theatre production of Oliver where our tech Loadin started the Saturday before Hurrican Sandy. The show was in the theatre I work in with the rep plot i've set up so I had that advantage. But i had never seen a rehearsal because of the last minute nature. I sat for about 5 hours with the SM Saturday night and did a rough cue through the whole show. By the time Tuesday rolled around the next change we had I had spent another 5 hours adding and filling out the design, once i saw the staging of a number of the songs. Show ended up with about 200 cues in it by the time i was done tweaking Thursday morning. I was running 43 channels, with about 62 conventional, 4 Martin 518's and 8 CXI scrollers.

To sum up, it's certainly possible to program an entire 2 act musical in 3 hours (provided you aren't walking in with a show file and just tweaking) But i think with the inventory you are speaking of, a "from scratch' 3 hour program i would think would be a very "bland" show.

 

[icewolf08]

We are a large regional theatre that produces fairly large scale shows on a regular basis. We currently run a Gio control system (formerly Strand 500s) and we average around 250-300 comventionals, plus MLs, scrollers, icues, and various other devices on each show.

For a musical we get the following for tech time: 6 hours dry tech with no actors, 3 10-out-of-12 rehearsals, usually an 8/10, and then a couple previews with an afternoon block before hand. All told, it is a lot of hours that the LD has for creating, fixing, changing and tweaking cues.

On the show we just opened, which is a 90 minute musical, we used about every minute of tech time available. There are almost 300 called cues in the show. For the first time in my theatre career we also are using multiple cue stacks to handle some of the effects. On average though, it typically takes at least 20 hours to tech through a musical. This may not be because of lighting, but most LDs will use a hold for scenery to keep working, we won't just sit idle.

Now, with the OPs question about 3 hours, that seems unreasonable for a full blown production. However they may be referring to dark time with no one else on stage. If you had that you could probably lay down a good foundation of cues in three hours. But there is no way you could tech a whole musical in that time. You can pre-viz and pre-cue all you want, but you can't account for when the director changes something or you just wrote down that the actor is SL instead of SR. Not to mention teaching in the scenery, respacing the actors, etc. I agree with what has been said, there must have been some kind of gap in the communication of ideas in that interview.

 

[derekleffew]

We are a large regional theatre ...

Alex, how often, if ever, does a designer hand you a disk with anything roughed in (pre-vis or other)? To your knowledge, is there anything in the USAA contract prohibiting this?

 

[icewolf08]

Alex, how often, if ever, does a designer hand you a disk with anything roughed in (pre-vis or other)? To your knowledge, is there anything in the USAA contract prohibiting this?

I have never been handed a disk with a pre-cued show on it in my seven years with this theatre. I don't think that any of our LDs have logged very many, if any, hours in front of a lighting desk/OLE since they started making a living as an LD. I have done one show that was a co-production with another theatre, so they send us a disk and all we had to do was tweak the show. And later this season we will be re-mounting a show from seven years ago which we should also be able to drop a disk in for.

I don't know if the USA829 contract says anything about pre-viz of a show. I can't see why it would matter unless the theatre were to pay an LD less because he pre-vized the show, which in my mind makes no sense.