@WFair @Amiers Purely to
play the aging
devil's advocate. One of my last follow spot calls was to operate one of four really deluxe Robert Julliat (Sp?) spots for an international C&W awards show being broadcast live to air and simultaneously to 2" quad for a second airing two days later. I was one of four experienced
spot op's standing next to my lamp surrounded by a sold-out audience at the
edge of the second balcony. There were approximately 400 3200K incandescents and just shy of 100 movers at a time when movers were trendy new toys and having 100 on a live production was unthinkable.
Getting this back to follow spots and live operators.
The spots were xenons and they were gorgeous. The spots were being remotely struck up and dowsed by the LD hired by the
network crewing the video. I parachuted in from Stratford to run a lamp for a 16 hour rehearsal day followed by an approximately 12 hour final rehearsal and live to Canada and the U.S. performance and recording. Local Hamilton IA crew had been hired to hang and focus the rig several days prior.
When I arrived at 8:00 a.m. on my first day, the head
house electrician assigned me to a lamp with instructions to wear my
headset and not to touch any controls on the lamp. Over the course of the first day we learned our job was to stand beside the lamp,
point,
zoom,
iris and color it but
NOT to remove the several layers of disgusting
duct tape placed over the oh so conveniently located
DMX controlled
dowser which we were told was to be
EXCLUSIVELY controlled by the LD from his location outside in the main video production mobile parked in the
loading dock.
I remain TOTALLY impressed with the big xenon Robert Julliats (Sp?) They were arced up at 8:00 a.m. and down at midnight. In spite of spending the bulk of their time with their dowsers closed they remained wondrously cool to the touch. Over the course of the first day, I had a
system of cheat marks on the floor around me permitting me to accurately be aimed and waiting for my next pickup. I also had plenty of time to finesse the balance and drag adjustments.
By the end of the second day's rehearsals myself and the other three operators were confident and ready to rock.
Here's the truly DISGUSTING part that haunts my memory to this day:
We'd gotten through the rehearsals, what passed for a meal was brought to us as the doors opened and the sold-out crowd were seated. Things progressed smoothly through the warm-up acts with the floor directors explaining to the paying patrons how and when they were to applaud wildly and when they were to sit quietly on their hands along with why there were periodic gaps of silence in which prerecorded commercials were rolling live to air while silently unseen by our local audience.
Apparently while we were sitting next to our lamps eating our pizza, the crews in the mobiles were consuming their sustenance as well.
The crux of the problem came down to the exited LD inhaling too much mysterious white powder during dinner, inadvertently changing the the
page of presets on his board thus losing control of all of his wigglers and leaving all four of us poor innocent
spot op's standing next to our lovely spots with zero control of our remotely closed dowsers.
On the headsets the director in the main mobile was screaming his lungs out.
In the theater's lighting booth our local IA Head LX was doing his best to fake things along with his several hundred quartz lights, the talent was doing their best to perform in what felt like a comparative black-out. One by one us embarrassed spot operators brazenly ripped the multiple layers of disgustingly cheap
duct tape off our oh so conveniently located local dowsers but it was all too little too, too late AND LIVE TO AIR across the U.S. and Canada. I've no idea what the
network sent to air but inside things
ground to halt while someone from the lighting rental shop pushed the LD aside and got all of his presets back on
page one. The Robert Julliat xenons had been so pristine. It was sad to see all of their impeccably annotated settings torn off with the disgustingly cheap
duct tape.
Such was my experience with pointing a spot and not having control of my own
dowser.
I was close to retiring at that
point.
Some years later, ZZTop toured through the local
arena with a
system in which they each wore a transmitter which aimed movers to follow them around. Purportedly limits had been programmed into the
system to douse the movers out if they were ever to err and veer off into the crowd. This time I was one of four operators handsomely paid to stand beside one of the four
house xenons with my
headset on JUST IN CASE their LD needed us. I don't remember too much of the one or two performances other than we were only called upon once or twice when the production's lamps wandered off
stage leaving the performers in the comparative dark. The touring set was reminiscent of high
voltage towers and the tour was called 'Antennae' or something like that. Members of our local LX crew were given purple T-shirts to distinguish us from the box-pushers. I still knew where mine was right up until my head exploded, my
vision trashed, and a collection of bureaucrats forced me into what currently passes for my residence.
@Amiers Have I veered this more than sufficiently off topic?
Edited to correct a spelling error.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard