I worked at a
LORT B
theatre as the AME for the 2014-2015 season. My duties included anything that related to the
console (
ETC Eos Classic), and many things that didn’t. It’s probably more information than you’re looking for, but I figure I might as well write it all up:
The ME would
dimmer the
plot and then input the
dimmer into Lightwright. I’d deal with any additional
DMX and
power runs as well as
fitting the
DMX devices for that show into the
console outputs. Those would then go into Lightwright as
point units so that I can patch them easily later. At this
point, I would save a private copy of the Lightwright and work off of this for my
console import.
I use query a lot. It’s a huge timesaver for a large number of things, and it’s best used in conjunction with a Lightwright import. First things first in this private Lightwright file is cleaning things up, and shortening names for the
console. It’s unnecessary to query “
ETC Source 4 36 Degree
SeaChanger”, when “S4 36*” or “SC” works just as well. (As a side note, I assume that every show I program will be worked on by someone else. Consistency, labels, and simplicity are incredibly important!) Positions get changed from “LS #6 3RD
ELECTRIC” to “LS06”. Currently in
Eos 2.2 you can only import 4 queryable textfields, I typically picked: Position,
Instrument Type, Purpose, Color.
The private Lightwright is exported (there’s some magic that goes into making this work, that I won’t go into because
Eos v2.3 changes all of that) and things are imported. At this
point, everything has the proper start
DMX addresses, but the profiles are wrong. Remember those
point units from two paragraphs ago? Those come into
play here - I query those and change the
unit type. Typically it was SeaChangers, ML #1, ML #2,
LED tape, strobes. Import any
stock things I want for this show (macros, effects, snapshots, macros, magic sheets, have I mentioned macros?). Run a test (any MLs get hung backwards?) then go out for a beer.
Next, are palettes. Have I worked with this designer before? Great! Import color palettes from the last show file and move them to the 1000 range. They can get moved easily later. Oh, I’ve never worked with this designer before? Email time - Macros, snapshots, any other
console things they’d like imported or created. Saves tech time, and everyone likes that.
For MLs I will create focus palettes for the designer’s focus points (either from the Lightwright, or the
Vectorworks file) and make them absolute palettes so I don’t start nesting things. (Remember where I said I made things consistent and simple? No tricks!) These palettes go on a MS so they’re easy to find and use.
Above is the prep I did. Tech is a whole different beast.
If you have any questions about this specific process, let me know.