Genie Lifts

[Les]

Genies are great, but the odds that you will be able to convince your school to purchase one (let alone weather the actual approval and purchasing process) before you graduate are pretty slim. You might have better luck raising the funds to buy a scaffold. If used correctly, they are very safe and efficient.

If I had the storage space, I wouldn't mind hanging and focusing from one of these:

 

[CSCTech]

Les,

That is a great idea. I suppose we could keep it behind the rear traveler, not sure how I would get it through the doors though!

 

[MisterTim]

Les,

That is a great idea. I suppose we could keep it behind the rear traveler, not sure how I would get it through the doors though!

You tilt it to get through the door. We have one of those too, and it's nice for set construction, but not tall enough to focus at height, so you might as well just do it on the deck.

 

[HSSBO94]

Chances are that your school's insurance will not let any student anywhere near a genie lift. Just throwing this out there because as I know from personal experience, it's very easily ignored, and if the wrong person were to catch a high school student on a genie lift at my high school, the whole theater program would have been shut down. Or at least the 'students in tech crew' part of it.

This happened in our school for a while

We used genies all of Freshman year after two days of safety sessions with out teacher.
A month into Sophmore year the head of our department told us we couldn't use them anymore.
After getting a bunch of forms signed and the theatre needing to do a huge focus for the musical we were finally allowed in genies again about 4 months later.

While I understand how genies can be dangerous if they are not used properly, the ways we focused without the genies were worse (I'm not going to say funny since safety isn't a joke, but certainly worth scratching your head over) such as putting our 15 foot ladder on top of our rolling 12 foot set piece and just using rope to secure the ladder :shock:

 

[KeepOnTruckin]

I think most school systems expect that the lights will rarely ever need to be moved, and so they can just get a janitor to adjust the lights from the genie. No need to teach students how to use it properly or get a ladder or anything like that, right? (sarcasm)

 

[dust4sound]

Most of that is better then hanging lights from an A-Frame ladder like this:
Les should know, as we've been there done that, also incase the designers hide any mike inputs center stage behind the teaser.

 

[avkid]

Most of that is better then hanging lights from an A-Frame ladder like this:

A frame extensions are a tool of the devil.

 

[derekleffew]

A frame extensions are a tool of the devil.

You must be right avkid, as I saw one (with a castered dolly) last night on Glee.

 

[GreyWyvern]

...the designers hide any mike inputs center stage behind the teaser.

I wonder if we should make a Wiki entry for Mike as there seems to be some confusion. It could read as follows:

Mike is a shortened version of a name, not to be confused with Mic, a shortened version of Microphone.

 

[TEarlywine]

visions of summerstock dance in my head: straddling the top of a dollied a-frame extension at a 3am focus.

You must be right avkid, as I saw one (with a castered dolly) last night on Glee.

 

[producer]

Thankfully, I've never been subjected to an A-frame extension ladder. I used to demand a scissor jack lift as a student for focus days and generally got them. (my High school theatre was in reality a multipurpose room with no actual stage and only 35 feet high. 12 channel 1.2k dimmer. if that gives you an idea of how much overkill it was). Since my departure, the drama head got wise (heh heh) and purchased scaffolding that they shared with the maitnance dept. Oh, and the cursed extension ladder.

At the Church i work at we have a Genie and straddle. Sure the straddle works, but there's a reason we call it "Nick". To this day, no one knows how the scratches and notches in the wooden pews got there......