As someone who spends a lot of time looking at plots, I really wonder what you feel you get out it. For the most part people draft in the standard where the units are always in a 90˚ orientation to the hanging position. Look at the plots posted, all the info you get is
template, color and sometimes purpose. I don't mean to be so cynical, but what do you do, look for the blue downlight
system and say: "Hey look its a
system of blue downlight"?
A
light plot doesn't really tell you much except where to hang the lights and what accessories they need. It doesn't tell you WHY that blue downlight
system is there. It doesn't tell you WHY anything for that matter. That is the big thing about design though, the WHY. It is about the choices.
Look at the plots posted in this thread, does it really show you any angles? Why does knowing what colors some other designer chose help you? When you design a show do you choose your colors because they worked for someone else or because they work for your show?
Now lets move on to
instrument choice.
Instrument choice is 80% technical and 20% art. Why? Well that
system of 19˚ frontlight probably has to be 19˚ units to get the correct coverage. As a designer, you know where the position is, you know what you need the light to do, so you draw up your section from the light to where it hits, and you take out your protractor and say "ok, that's a 17˚ angle ideally, so I will put up a 19˚ since that is the closes match." However, the
plot doesn't tell you why the designer chose to do his top
wash with fresnels instead of PARs.
Note, that I am not trying to say that you shouldn't look at other people's plots for shows, but I think that you have to remember to take them with a grain of salt. You need to be careful that you are learning and not copying (i.e. "oh that worked for so-and-so, so it should work for me" OR "well so-and-so used 10 19˚ source fours for a front
wash, so will I"). You also have no idea if the
plot you have in your
hand is the final that went into the show, things continually change through the tech process, but you may not actually have the final
plot.
The
plot itself is just one small part in the design process. Most of the art happens when the designer is sitting in tech writing cues (that is also often when things on the
plot change!). Just remember that the
plot is a tool, and knowing what someone else did is very different than know why they did it. If you can, the best thing to do is to talk to designers, have them walk you through the
plot and the choices that went into making it and the rest of the show.