My Worst Mess Up

[ishboo]

This is a good one:
I was running sound 2 or 3 years ago for Beauty and the Beast. The sound designer put the sound cues in a dj/techno board. Used for replicating drum kits it has 15 buttons each one has a sound effect and plays as soon as you hit it (great for making techno beats, not sound) It also has multiple banks so Bank A key 1 is different than Bank b key 1 even though you're hitting the same key. With over 50 sound effects we used a lot of banks. A-1 was the preshow announcement ("Welcome to Town Hall Theatre") B-2 is a wolf howling in the forest during a creepy mysterious scene. I forgot to switch banks and instead of a wolf you hear our artistic director's friendly voice. The actor's next line was "That's not a nightingale (ironic huh?) The audience got a good laugh and unfortunately that was the night the show was video taped :-(

 

[Les]

Seems like that's always the way it goes doesn't it...

I remember our director in high school lecturing us about using the sound system for anything other than show purposes because he knew a theatre teacher who let her students play their favorite music through the sound system while on work calls. Well they were doing the show "Annie", and someone forgot to switch discs. So what is supposed to be a sound cue at the top of the show ends up being techno. I can just imagine the action in the booth that night. Sure glad I wasn't there!

 

[ishboo]

At least our sound cues are separate from out music (cd's or mp3)

 

[Spikesgirl]

At least our sound cues are separate from out music (cd's or mp3)

We just closed FULL MONTY and one night, our sound board op (who was also the designer) was supposed to use the car horn honking cue (for when Malcolm passes out in the car) - instead he wasn't paying attention and hit the door bell cue. Malcolm tips forward and 'bing bong'. It was very funny.

Another time, same op played a car crash instead of a refrigerator motor for WAIT UNTIL DARK...heh, heh, heh...

 

[ishboo]

In my early days of sound oping (I'm talking 5th grade here) First say of tech for Rapunzel and the designer had 2 cues out of order and when the two kissed there was supposed to be a love harp but instead there was a door slamming. Everyone got a kick out of that.

 

[lieperjp]

In my early days of sound oping (I'm talking 5th grade here) First say of tech for Rapunzel and the designer had 2 cues out of order and when the two kissed there was supposed to be a love harp but instead there was a door slamming. Everyone got a kick out of that.

I, too, almost fell off my chair laughing.

 

[Van]

This is a good one:
I was running sound 2 or 3 years ago for Beauty and the Beast. The sound designer put the sound cues in a dj/techno board. Used for replicating drum kits it has 15 buttons each one has a sound effect and plays as soon as you hit it (great for making techno beats, not sound) It also has multiple banks so Bank A key 1 is different than Bank b key 1 even though you're hitting the same key. With over 50 sound effects we used a lot of banks. A-1 was the preshow announcement ("Welcome to Town Hall Theatre") B-2 is a wolf howling in the forest during a creepy mysterious scene. I forgot to switch banks and instead of a wolf you hear our artistic director's friendly voice. The actor's next line was "That's not a nightingale (ironic huh?) The audience got a good laugh and unfortunately that was the night the show was video taped :-(

If that's your worst mess up, you're very lucky.

 

[ishboo]

If that's your worst mess up, you're very lucky.

Worst mess-up to date, I'm sure there's a lot in store for me

 

[bobgaggle]

At my old high school (yeah college, here I come!), we loaded all of our effects into Qlab on and old imac. Its basically, fool proof...just click the go button and nothing can go wrong.

 

[mbandgeek]

At my old high school (yeah college, here I come!), we loaded all of our effects into Qlab on and old imac. Its basically, fool proof...just click the go button and nothing can go wrong.

Unless the keyboard tray tips over and your thumb hits the spacebar. Actually had that happen on sunday.

 

[soundlight]

At my old high school (yeah college, here I come!), we loaded all of our effects into Qlab on and old imac. Its basically, fool proof...just click the go button and nothing can go wrong.

Wait...you just called an old computer foolproof? Hahahaha!

 

[ishboo]

We use Sound Cue System now with no problems to date *knocks on wood* The only problem I've seen with it was when a board op had an ICE moment (Inadvertent Cue Firing credit to Les) And thought that by hitting the Go again it would stop it and hit it repeatedly and went through all the sound cues for the rest of the show.

 

[midgetgreen11]

We were running Rumors, and in the script it says they're supposed to dance to La Bamba, so we got the song, had it all ready to go, and we hit play on our laptop, and Aerosmith's Dream On began playing. At that moment in time, our producer, laughing, says, "Oh, I love stairway to heaven!"

 

[ishboo]

HAHA! We did Rumors this past season and a similar thing happened to us, instead of La Bamba we had a car starting because our sound op switched the files around on accident.

 

[Les]

The only problem I've seen with it was when a board op had an ICE moment...

Shout out!

 

[HighWattageKid92]

My worst I can remember was Blacking out a scene by accident. In bye bye birdie. All the actors walked off stage and I forgot they come back on. it was a LOL moment which made it a bit better on the crew and everyone.

 

[Hughesie]

Wait...you just called an old computer foolproof? Hahahaha!

he said qlab....which runs on mac

those things are bulletproof if you have only ever used it for that purpose


Note: Macs may not be as bulletproof as hughesie89 states but damm their sexy looking.

 

[ishboo]

My worst I can remember was Blacking out a scene by accident. In bye bye birdie. All the actors walked off stage and I forgot they come back on. it was a LOL moment which made it a bit better on the crew and everyone.

In a performance of our Extreme Theatre (We put a show together in 24 hours therefore we were dead tired) A board op was out of it and missed the final blackout before curtain call so the actors say their final line and wait... and my friend goes "Maybe if we say it again the lights will go out!".

 

[leistico]

My worst was 18 years ago, summer rep theatre doing Grease. I was sound op, and had just left a high school where I learned and mastered the art of sound design and operation using audio cassettes. This was my first experience with cart machines and with reel-to-reel, and there was some dicey gear up there along with speaker on-off switches to route to different pairs of speakers.

The whole show was reel to reel, f/x wise. Middle of a run, we get to the scene at the drive-in. Audio of a hokey drive-in pic was recorded on the reel. Scene comes up, I get the go, nothing. Reel's playing, faders are up, no sound, for 6 seconds (felt like 6 years while I freaked). I saw the speaker switches off--oh, $#!t! -- I quickly rewind the reel to cue it back up, while *at the same time* bump the speaker switches on. The speakers BANG! on and emit a trail of ahllslkgjlksfdklgLSHGLKSJFHLSKJFGL!!!!!!! while the reel rewinds, I emit a trail of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in fast forward as the house starts laughing and Sandy and (the guy playing the Travolta part) sit there in the car, facing downstage, munching popcorn, passively watching the movie, staring almost right at me in the booth. The SM is trying to calm me down over the clearcom, I get the reel cued, playing, the show goes on, and I'm doing what I can to hide under the sound desk pretending I didn't exist.

I'm now in-demand as a sound guy, but back then I was seriously questioning my ability to do sound, my ability to do theatre, and my worthiness to breathe.

sean

 

[Edrick]

When we did Cinderella we had the big ben sound for midnight the first night we missed the cue. The second night we got it but you could hear it from the other side of the school. It woke the audience up at least....