It sounds to me like you're trying to make your improv show work from a compromised situation. Your board
layout isn't optimal because of the way you were thrown into the design position, and you had to make the best with what you have. Your
channel layout is a mess because you didn't have the time to
layout your channels in a way that made sense to the operator (also you). And with the main show being open, you can't make big changes because that show takes precedence. With those constraints, you're trying to make running improv shows easier, and give yourself the ability to do more for the improv than you can now.
Some questions:
1 - Did I misunderstand any of the above?
2 -Is the main show running off of cues,
channel faders, or
submaster faders? Or some combination of all three?
3 - How much time do you have between the main show coming down and the improv show starting? Are they one after another with an
intermission? Different nights? Improv as
encore?
In a best case scenario, to run an improv show like the one you're describing, I would want lots of good
submaster and
channel sliders. I wouldn't want to be grabbing cues or individual channels (except those on hard sliders), and I would do all I could to avoid macros, the keypad, and the need to reference paperwork. Having a smart physical
layout that lets you run everything on sliders means you can keep your eyes on the action.
And, like I said before, it handles everything you've asked for. If you've built a look from subs, it lets you pull back the parts that you don't want. Mood changed? Pull the reds down a
bit. Focus shifted locations? bump the
stage left acting area a
bit above the rest of the
wash. Need a crazy
effect? You've got several at a
button press.
Can you get to such a situation if you:
A - rewrite the submasters? This assumes the main show is running on cues and thus the submasters are available. You could also create a new
page of submasters. If you haven't used Pages yet ( [page][#][Enter] to move to a new set of subs. The default that the board loads when it opens is 1) then read that section of the
manual and see if it's helpful given your circumstances.
B - Create a new show file for the improv show? If there is enough time between the end of one show and the beginning of another, you could load your improv show from a disk. For this you could re-write your soft patch to
lay out all of your channels sensibly -- grouping your
cyc colors together, your
house lights in another place, and your area lights in a third. Then you can use submasters for looks and effects. When improv is over, you load the original show back into memory.
Regarding other suggestions: Two scene
preset mode is great, especially if you know which game is next, or if you want to edit a scene by going to a color
wash or
cyc instead of a total
blackout. The latter is how I used to run improv shows when 2 scenes were available -- A just had a color on the
cyc or backlights, and B was where I played live, never having to worry about how I would reach every
fader when a scene edit
point presented itself. When it was time to edit a scene I would
throw the AB faders and then quickly
clear B. If you don't care about this then the grandmaster is just as effective.
Macros and cues... I really don't like this idea for the kind of show you're describing. They are ways to get the job done, but I think they would demand too much of your attention and focus when compared to a good physical sub and
channel layout. You don't want to be referencing a
cheat sheet during improv; you want your eyes on the
stage. You don't want your
fade times to fit into one of the several macros you've written, you want it to be fluid.
Fade times. You're absolutely right here. I would say that 80% of the time in improv you probably want a zero count
blackout (or an immediate physical pull of the faders). But those other 20% of the time it's a terrible choice. A half second
fade out in improv can feel like an eternity, especially if the actors haven't noticed the lights dimming (they haven't) and start a new
line.
When pulling improv I almost always move the
fader from 100 to about 20% as fast as possible, and then adjust my speed to approximate the
fade time I would have wanted if I was ending a scene in a scripted show that just happened to end that way. That way the actors and audience can perceive the change happening right away, but the light move can still feel appropriate.
Here is the
current layout of my submasters, with which I run improv every night:
1, 2, 3 are Red Green and Blue
stage wash (
LED).
4, 5, 6 are back lights red, green and blue (
LED)
7, 8, 9 are red green and blue in the windows built into our set. (again,
LED)
Those are all under my left
hand.
Then 10 is empty.
11, 12, 13 are Left, center and right spotlights.
14 - 18 are areas of the
wash, from
stage right to
stage left.
20 is my full
wash. This is at about 80%. That way if I have a full
wash up and I want to brighten up a particular area with one of those subs. Maybe an actor is singing far
stage right, or I want to redirect attention to center left where somebody has started a subtle
bit of object work.
I have more subs above those (on an
Element with 60 subs) that I rarely touch. They have effects, practicals, and scene looks in them, and it's nice that they are there. But I'd rather lose all 40 of those subs than the 20 I just described. With my 20 I have color and mood under my left
hand, and editing, specials and areas under my right. I can run a fast paced show without ever looking down, and I have lots of control of mood and shape at my disposal.