Artistic control during a show

Glad to see I am not the only one with actor woes. Another problem with not fixing it is I get questioned when I don't fix something, could you have done this or that, could you have speed that fade up, etc. Its not actors that question, its the director or SM's in my case. So I just fix things as the night goes on, that way I don't have to answer 500 what if questions at the end of the night. I write everything that went wrong on a note pad each night. I then present it to the powers that be at the end of the night, or see the actor/s in question before the next show if its nothing to major. But I defiantly feel your pain charcoaldabs. Just hang in there and kept preserving, when you get to college, you have more freedom and are able to fix things then.

Icewolf, I am by no means talking about removing cues for any reason. Unless something major happens, like a mover goes down, I don't adjust the cues, just the timing. I had a mover go down twice before, and it isn't fun looking at all the cues ahead and trying to cover for a mover. I am talking about timing changing and actors who aren't on spike. During Ragtime, I had a few who hit there spike every night and didn't worry about it, others, like in charcoaldabs case, NEVER did. Still others hit it some times and other times did not. But when you have nothing but a pin spot mover on an actor, speaking, singing, whatever, and they don't land where they need to be, you can bet I moved it. Otherwise they wouldn't have been in the light, and that would have looked very bad on me.
 
I gotta chime in here. We had a similar discussion in a thread quite a while ago, but I think this is a good debate, and one that actually brings a lot of important questions to the table.

It is both fortunate and unfortunate that we work in an extremely diverse amount of fields, as "Technicians". In the theatre world, the designer writes the cues they go into the board. If a consistent issue crops up during the run of the show, then it is the SM's responsibility to contact the Director, who in turn may or may not choose to contact the LD and ask him/her to change the cue due to a dynamic change of staging that seems to work better for the good of the show. In most cases it is the Board Ops job to be a button pusher, and pre-show problem solver, if you don't like that, don't do theatre. In what I call the "Production World" which sort of includes, Improve, comedy concerts, Rock and Roll, Corporate Events, Parties and Dances, the "Board Op" is often the designer, or a very specialized form of operator, and thus is given much more leeway in the operation of the lighting console. When I was working R&R the LD would program several "Looks" and that's what the board op would scroll through, according to "feel". This is a very important difference. In a "Production" setting the action is going to change constantly, Heck a lot of times, such as a "battle of the Bands" as a Board Op you might never have seen what you're getting ready to light.
One of the reasons I find this an interesting debate is that I have been on both sides of it, and currently we are producing a sort of Christmas cabaret show. It drive the SM's crazy that the show changes, slightly, nightly. We have finally developed a good system for setting specific points during the show when things have to be consistent, in between those , anything goes.
As for Board Ops making uni-lateral decisions to change a cue because someone on stage screwed up, one simple answer, NYJ, Not Your Job. Period. If an SM asks a board op to sneak something that is their prerogative. When the Director and Designers walk away after Opening Night, the sole artistic control of a production is in the hands of the SM, and it is their "Sworn Duty" to maintain the Artistic Integrity and Intent, of any production entrusted to them. That's why they're so bitchy all the time. They have a lot of weight on their shoulders.
 
I straddle these worlds because of what I do. Oh and Van you want to try lightng Improv puppets sometime. Particularly when they pop in and out of *&*^&__* windows.
 
I straddle these worlds because of what I do. Oh and Van you want to try lightng Improv puppets sometime. Particularly when they pop in and out of *&*^&__* windows.

Puppets? Sir, I only do Legitimate Theatre !

:twisted:
 
When the Director and Designers walk away after Opening Night, the sole artistic control of a production is in the hands of the SM, and it is their "Sworn Duty" to maintain the Artistic Integrity and Intent, of any production entrusted to them. That's why they're so bitchy all the time. They have a lot of weight on their shoulders.

I don't want to hijack this thread by any means, but I feel this is relevant, and I would like the opinion of the board. I am part of a University theater company and we just closed a musical in a black box theater. The LD decided to use haze (water-based) to give beam effect during all the songs. We had several patrons complain that the haze bothered them (asthma, etc). Therefore, the SM decided to not use any haze except for the two songs which she thought it was necessary. I was board op/ME, so I really didn't have much say in the matter. However, I feel that she was in the wrong here, as I think the haze was important in many of the looks, as did the LD. What are your opinions? What is more important: the patrons or the concept? Poorly worded question- but you get the idea. :)
 
I don't want to hijack this thread by any means, but I feel this is relevant, and I would like the opinion of the board. I am part of a University theater company and we just closed a musical in a black box theater. The LD decided to use haze (water-based) to give beam effect during all the songs. We had several patrons complain that the haze bothered them (asthma, etc). Therefore, the SM decided to not use any haze except for the two songs which she thought it was necessary. I was board op/ME, so I really didn't have much say in the matter. However, I feel that she was in the wrong here, as I think the haze was important in many of the looks, as did the LD. What are your opinions? What is more important: the patrons or the concept? Poorly worded question- but you get the idea. :)

Patrons and concept.

I think it's a debatable issue whether she was right or wrong here. I know in the last event I did, the stage manager tried to stop me using a smoke machine for the actor's sake; she was told no. But when it becomes an issue with the patrons, I think the haze/smoke has to be rethought. Obviously a water based haze isn't going to affect their asthma one bit... but the patrons don't know that and they'll still complain. It is not the stage manager's decision whether to cut the haze or not because of this though - it should still go through someone higher.
 
This is a tricky situation. Often when using fog and haze, people see it, and their subconscious thinks smoke and natural instincts kick in. People feel like they can't breath because of fight or flight instincts. There are also people who are genuinely affected by the fog or haze (hence why AEA has fog and haze guidelines).

When using fog and haze in shows the patrons should be made aware that it is being used, same with strobe effects. This is usually done with a sign in the lobby or a note in the program. Often, warning people that you are going to use an effect reduces the complaints because they are prepared for it.

If your show was receiving a constant complaints about the haze, the the SM probably had to do something. The SM may have had other options rather than just cutting the effect, perhaps first lowering the output would have been a better first choice. On the other hand, if the SM's decision was based on an isolated complaint it may not have been the correct choice.

In the academic world, an issue like the one you had may be something where you can just go to the department head and ask what they think. In school it is often more about the show, but you also don't want to loose your audience, so it is a tough balance.
 
As Icewolf stated above, whenever using fog, hog, pyro, and/or strobes, it should be noted with signs and/or in the pre-show announcement. That covers any and all legalities, and places the problem on the patron, not the house, techs or SM. Haze is a very important thing that can completely change the look of the show. If the design calls for it, and you made your announcements and signs, it shouldn't be taken out for any reason. Any problems with the actors and fire safety would have been addressed during rehearsals with the designers, director, and, in the case of pyro, fire marshal present.
 
I think that attention always has to be paid to complaints from the public. After all they pay our wages.
I recently (well last year sometime) did a show in which I used both haze (water based) and strobes during the finale dance number. The strobes were used in short bursts triggered from the lighting box manually because the dancers got pretty close to the pit doing some pretty wild things and I didn't want one to be blinded at the wrong moment. It was all pretty tame really. Just used the haze in the air not great banks of smoke. Anyway on the third night I turned round to find a complete stranger standing behind me in the booth. I was surprised until he handed me a piece of paper then I was stunned. He was the local council's environment officer handing me a cease and desist order.
The Producer followed it up talked to lawyers because we all felt that inside a theatre was not the purview of the environment officer, OH&S yes but environment? In the end we gave up it was only a short run. The order related to both the strobe and the haze.
I still don't think it was his business.
 
As far as the Haze question. The problem with what happened wasn't that you disregarded a designers intentions it was that your S.M. made the decision. In the academic world there is some sort of teacher who should have made that decision. In the professional/community theater world if there was something that was getting massive complaints there would be a discussion had by the T.D., Artistic Director, Board... some authority figure would have a meeting and discuss what if anything is the appropriate action. If a S.M. made that decision professionally they might be fired, even if there were good intentions... it's not your job. There is a chain of command to follow.

Going back a long way I have to disagree with comments made about high school students not being able to get timing right and that being a problem for cues. My first year teaching I had a nightmare of a show with several actors I wanted to kill. There were a couple times actors were late getting to the stage. My well trained stage manager/music op just held the audience in set changing light with music on until the time was right. Having manual control of fade times isn't going to help that situation. The console isn't important it's the Op and the S.M. Even Highschool and DEFINITELY college productions should be able to have precisely timed cues.

Allthingstheater... you made a comment about it being really boring to be a board op. That's really the idea. Over here board op is not something you aspire to become, it's just an entry level position. A theater pays lots of money to top people to design, hang, and program a console. But for the month of the run you don't have to pay top dollar for your board op... heck in a half hour you can train a volunteer to press go and have time left over to teach them how to backup if they mess up. I know several small operations where the S.M. often runs the light board if it's a show with limited cues. Heck a S.M. friend of mine once worked on a show that she did lights and sound.

Yeah I see the point of wanting a little creative artistic control. But the point is the designer has a vision and every audience will see that exact same vision come to life every night.
 
I can see a tech driving an improv show. I did an improv based on the court tv shows, and the beginning of each segment of the show was all driven by my decisions. No com between backstage and the "booth" so it had to be done that way. On a regular scripted play, however, I can't see where the timing would change. Only reason I would think to slow a cue down would be if the actor was moving on/off stage at a different pace than normal.
 
For some consoles, if timing absolutely needs to change, you can just hit the rate button and slow it down with the rate wheel on the desk.
 
In the case of the SM cutting the haze. In an emergency situation, it would be well within his/her purview to cut an effect, in the moment, to make a decision to cut an effect permanently is not. This should have been discussed with the designer, the house staff, and TD, and an equitable solution could have been reached. As other have stated, warning signs do a lot to alleviate an audiences' issues with effects that potentially affect them. It can also help to have information available in the Box Office that describes the effects, and their potential affects on people.
 
Going back to the original point, and after thinking about many situations over the years, it is my view that the ability to contour a fade in some situations just cannot be achieved with timed crossfades as against the sensitivity of a manual fade.I would, therefore not buy a desk where I could not do this.Those who only use timed crossfades may be missing out on some subtlety which is not present with timed fades, and in the same way that an orchestra follows the singers in an opera the lighting can change to follow the action.Timing is everything to get a response from an audience and I cannot accept the mechanistic method of timed crossfades are as good in many situations.
 
This is why points that need dramatic effect are broken into separate calls so that the SM can feel the action on stage and the reaction of the audience and call the cues accordingly. This is also why we have part cues and auto follows.

It is going to be increasingly hard to find a console that has an easy way to take manual control of your fades, so you best hold on to your Expressions, Obsessions, and Strand 300/500s. With the advent of all the new intelligent technology, console designers are catering to those things that generally handle better under computer control.
 
I'm currently looking for an upgrade for our Innovator and the front runner is the GrandMa which with all its hi-tech wizardry has manual crossfade as a standard option.In my case much of my work is touring and the long amount of time for intricate plotting is simply not available and there is no option to the lighting operator having some autonomy.Big venue, long seasons are different and fortunately I don't do those anymore.
 

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