New to GIO Programming... Steps to a speedy success?

[jjdrummer]

Dear Control Booth,
I am aware that you can't rush programming; To do it right takes time. That being said, I am a high school student, and my director jokes with me (half joking, sometimes) about the fact that I am a slower programmer than some. We're upgrading a lot for our upcoming show, from a ETC Element Console to a ETC GIO running 2.2, (which I've used in the offline editor before,) and adding Mac 2k Washes and Profiles (Color mixing, electronic ballast). I am so very blessed to be working with these insane (for high school) fixtures and console, but it brings a whole new kind of programming into the picture. I have worked with intelligent fixtures [Mac 350s I believe] before but, being a naturally slower prgrammer, I'm looking for tips on working quickly.
Currently I'm planning on having macros for the water effect I will be using a lot, and focus macros/palettes for getting the intelligents focused to convenient locations quickly. I will also start really using color palettes and other palettes (which I haven't used too much before), for quicker scene creation. Along with these things for the intelligent fixtures, and submasters of areas and looks I like for the conventionals, what big things (or little things with big impact) should I know how to do? I'm hoping to narrow my time down to 20-30 hours of programming time, but I'll only have a week or maybe two.

(The show is Big Fish. I designed the lights, and it will be hung in the next week, it opens on the 16th for previews, but I am also interning assisting a lighting designer for a production of Othello, that opens the 4th. My time will be full.

 

[derekleffew]

[HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG]. Stop calling them intelligents. They are moving lights, or automated lights if you want to sound haughty. Only techies call them intels. Ain't nothin' 'telligent about them.

[HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG]. Prepare at home offline as much as possible before you get into the theatre. The patch, palette s, views, magic sheets, fader assignments, even cues should all be built ahead of time. Yes, we know they're going to be wrong, but it's easier/faster to edit something than to create it from nothing.

[HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG]. Read (or see) how some top programmers create their setups. Brad Schiller's The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook. The attached doc by Christian Choi on palettes, although written fifteen plus years ago for a defunct desk, is still 99%, or more, valid.

 

[RickR]

Document and label everything!
It's a truism for all programming. It takes some extra time up front (preferably at home when you have lots ) and pays off big when the pressure is at its worst.

Oh yeah, learn the desk as thoroughly as possible! Do all the lessons, read the WHOLE manual. It won't all be useful at first, but it too will pay off big later.

 

[jjdrummer]

Thank you! I will definitely label everything, make as many palettes as possible and read those. I'm planning on playing around with the board for a while just to learn it, since that's better than just being told, but I've started watching the videos, and will read through the manual.
Anyone else have suggestions? Dos OR Don'ts...

 

[ScottT]

The Tea Break Tutorials are a pretty good way to learn the basics.

http://www.etcconnect.com/Support/Tutorials/Eos-Family-v2-2-Tea-Break-Tutorials-Series.aspx

And be sure you're watching the videos that correspond to the console version that you'll be working with. While many of the concepts are the same, there are things that behave differently between versions.

 

[MNicolai]

Thank you! I will definitely label everything, make as many palettes as possible...

Amateur mistake. The more you have, the more you have to choose from. You have so many to choose from that you have to flip between pages to access them. Now you've got more keystrokes every time you record a cue.

If you absolutely need more palettes, make sure all of the core palettes you need are on your top page, and any others you may need to reference sporadically are on the next page or two. Keep your focus palettes simple. DSL, DSC, DSR, etc. Just because you've designed for 18 zones of lighting doesn't mean you need a focus palettes for each. At some point, the vast number of palettes you've created makes your ability to get to each of them more complicated than they're worth.

Remember on a Gio you have two touchscreens to take advantage of. I like to have two external monitors. On the left monitor, I have my cue list, on the right monitor I have my levels. The two touchscreens are purely for tabs I need to touch. Anything I'm only referencing goes on the externals.

To ease my ability to access things quickly, I put my groups into the direct selects into the 5x5 selection grid as they geographically exist on stage. For example...


Cool Pipes........Down LED........Down O/W........Warm Pipes........Special X...
3E Cool Pipes...3E Down LED...3E Down O/W...3E Warm Pipes...Special Y...
2E Cool Pipes...2E Down LED...2E Down O/W...2E Warm Pipes...Special Z...
1E Cool Pipes...1E Down LED...1E Down O/W...1E Warm Pipes...Kilroy was here...
Specials............FOH LED..........FOH O/W..........Gobos.................Warmers

How that gets laid out is different for every type of show, but something like that makes it very easy to access your lights quickly. Prioritize what you'll need to touch quickly. Anything you only touch infrequently gets put in whatever slots you have left over or on a second page.

My general rule of thumb is if I ever have to type a channel number in (except for specials), I'm doing it wrong. I should be as few keystrokes away from getting lights turned on or changed as possible. Exception here is I'm fine adding one or two keystrokes in order save myself from having to pick up a plot or chart to find the channel number.

Other thing I like to do that I see very few people do is I'll name all of my cues in the cue stack with names relative to the GO command. "Gonzo enters" "Ted @ CS" "Laser Mouse" "Honeybear Exits" The names don't really have to make any sense to anyone but me, but it makes it very easy to look through the cue stack for the cue I want, without needing to pick up a piece of paper to find the cue number on it for the cue I want to go back to.

In no particular order, here's what you should focus on:
+ Minimize unnecessary keystrokes
+ Minimize unnecessary referencing of other documents when anyone (cast, director, etc) is waiting on you. If you're the programmer and the designer, set your workflow up so you only reach for a light plot or channel list when you absolutely have to.
+ Give yourself an appropriate number of building blocks (palettes, groups, etc.). More is more, not necessarily better.
+ Keep a notepad and pen handy. (see next point...)
+ When at all possible, program complex looks/sequences/effects when no one is waiting on you. If you're not able to get an effect to your liking when others are waiting on you, take note of it, move on, and come back to it when you're not holding up a rehearsal. ******SEE BELOW FOR EXCEPTION***
+ Get yourself and your director into a mental state where you don't mind flipping back and forth between cues to edit them on-the-fly during lulls in rehearsal. If I come upon a long scene where the lights don't change, I have no problem flipping back 5 cues to make some updates and catch back up to the rehearsal as is appropriate. It's as much my rehearsal as it is the cast's, and I will milk every minute of it for everything it's worth.

***The exception to this rule of moving on is: If you know you need the cast on stage to program your cues, or for stagehands to be moving things around, and that if you don't take the time to program your lights for this sequence with those people available now, you won't have a better opportunity later --- take the time and program the cues. You're lucky each and every time you can get away with blocking out 5-15 minutes of rehearsal to bring everything to a grinding halt so you can get your cues locked in, so use this sparingly.

For whatever it's worth, I try my best to let the director keep the rehearsal moving and only stop when I absolutely need him to. When I do, I yell "HOLD" immediately. Time is invaluable, and you can't beat around the bush when you need to pause for a brief moment to get your cue locked in. Holding for more than 20 seconds though is generally unacceptable. A pause in rehearsal is distinctly different from an interruption. Anything that takes longer than 20 seconds is an interruption.

Godspeed, and good luck. This is only one of the ways you can do this, but I've found it to work pretty well for me.