Recent content by rochem

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    Cable management with chain motors

    One tried and true method is to run a rope through one or two loft blocks on the ceiling, tie your cable to one end of the rope with an appropriate amount of swag, then weight the other end of the rope with sandbags until the line is just barely sandbag-heavy (cable wants to go up). As you fly...
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    Hiding Lift Lines for Hard/Soft Portals

    Thanks for all the replies, guys! I guess I wasn't very clear in my initial post, so I've attached a quick 3D model I sketched up. I know I've seen this done a handful of times, but perhaps it's not as common as I initially thought. Basically, there's a relatively narrow hard portal, around...
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    Hiding Lift Lines for Hard/Soft Portals

    Hey all,I imagine many of us have dealt with combination hard/soft portals where the 3 or 4 feet surrounding the portal opening is a hard dimensional flat, and outside of that is a soft surround masking. Usually when I've done this, the soft goods want to sit just upstage of the hard surround...
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    3D CAD

    You hit the main ones on the head. Once you get used to drawing in 3D, everything just becomes easier. I work at a major scene shop in New York, and we do everything in 3D (I use Inventor primarily, but I bounce into 3D AutoCAD occasionally depending on the project). The biggest change for me...
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    PRG Best Boy vs VL3515

    If you've never used a Best Boy, you're in for a treat. They're really well-made and well-designed units, are relatively bulletproof, and are basically built to do everything when cost isn't an issue. The only real drawbacks is that they're very big and very heavy, but if you were already set on...
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    Tipton, Binkley, Holder, Pilbrow. Jan 14th in NYC

    I went a number of years ago, but I haven't been able to go back since. For anyone on the fence, I had a great time, and even though I went in expecting that I wouldn't learn too much, I got a lot out of the day and was able to have some long in-depth talks with major players in the industry...
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    Moving lights as front light

    Yeah, I can't think of a single fixture that would fit in that budget and still serve as an adequate frontlight that won't make you life hell. Perhaps if you described why the fixtures needed to be moving lights, we'd be able to help you more? For example, if this is just an inaccessible FOH...
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    Eos Programming Workflow

    I don't have time to go into it now, but I've written one or two lengthy posts about my workflow and macro usage on the Eos on these forums, which you should be able to find relatively easily by searching my name. They're somewhat dated as I wrote them before magic sheets, but much of my...
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    Securing Pipe to Channel Iron Grid

    Looks great Footer! Without knowing how your theatre operates, is it necessary for the clips that you've made to be independent from eachother and the pipe? It would seem to be safer and faster to semi-permanently attach the clips to lengths of pipe, then you can easily place the pipe where you...
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    College College Help! - for Stage Management GA

    As you can imagine, this question has been asked in various forms dozens of times over the years. To start off, be sure to read the megathread on college choice, https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/faq-recommendations-about-college-education.21801/. Once you've done that, the article at...
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    Teach @Dagger Rigging.

    As I mentioned in another thread, go and buy Harry Donovan's Entertainment Rigging RIGHT NOW. It's expensive, but if you really want to learn this stuff, it's the single best investment you can make in your personal education. Other books such as Glerum's go into more detail about the theory and...
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    Your opinion on this rigging

    Why not? The hoist would land slightly below the level of the low steel, but assuming that you're not extremely limited by trim height, that's an easy bridle to make. And if you do need it tight to the low steel, you may be able to DO ALL THE NECESSARY CALCULATIONS AND POSSIBLY make a slightly...
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    What type of plastic is used for led columns in sets like these?

    Most likely frosted Plexiglass Acrylic.
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    Teach @Dagger Rigging.

    Agreed, I've been watching these with steadily increasing concern. Almost makes me miss the old days when any threads like this would be shut down instantly. Not that I'm advocating going back to that point, but it makes it very clear why that was the policy here for so long.Dagger, I think...
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    Good Moving Heads for Front Light

    As others have said, it entirely depends on the purpose. Taking a stab in the dark here, I'd guess that this is a high school looking to have a refocusable special at FOH, both for show usage and just to put frontlight on a talking head for assemblies. If that sounds like you, I'd actually take...
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