its done, we do a new one every year, so just getting
feedback on what we did this year, and any general ideas to keep in mind for next years show.
So, full disclosure: I hate this type of show as a general rule, not due to the individuals doing them, but rather the concept goes against most everything I have ever been taught/believe about a decent show, that being that the lights highlight and accent the performer, rather than become the show itself. That was possibly run-on sentence, so you should probably take that into consideration when considering my commentary. That said:
I think if you are going to do this sort of show, you need to choose one song. I think the cuts almost always sound abrupt and odd to my ear. I probably would have gone with the linkin
park song, mainly because I like that song a lot, and it has some nice variation. I also think rock and
roll songs tend to be better for this type of show than electronic, hip hop, or orchestral music, mainly because there is a decent mixture of vocals, driving rhythm and generally some nice variation. Also, I nearly punched the
screen at the TSOroll in there. Might as well have been our friend Rick from 4chan.
I totally agree with
Thelightinggal about the necessity of having floor units. You totally lacked variety in the air, and the patterns were repetitive long before
Thelightinggal bothered to
call them out. At least with floor and side units, you can make more interesting sculpture. I thought it was a cool thing to see a light show with all
conventional units, but you seem to have taken that to mean you can only do a couple of things again and again (and again). This is boring and makes me sad. Since you seem to lack moving heads (which is not an issue, I tend to be more impressed when there are not a ton of ML effects thrown in my general direction, but some real planning happening), I would like to have seen at a minimum a
ground row of blinders, a
ground row of x crossed lekos, and perhaps a fan
pattern of lekos in the same position. Some sidelight would also have been awesome. Think of how sweet that opening would have been if you have maybe 6 really narrow lekos on the sides, scattered at different heights and depths, and
throw those out there first each on its own, building with the chugging to all of them at once, or something like that. Also maybe more lights pointed into the audience? I really wanted to be more part of the show, and having some lights thrown into the audience (the
ground row would have helped with this,
point them at the ceiling to avoid getting people
blind) might help with this a lot. Just make sure I dont need to come over there after you
point a crap ton of 1k PARs into my
face, because I will fall off the
deck or trip on something because I wont be able to see.
Thelightinggal has a good
point about Gobos, but be careful with them, I think they tend to look better in rotations and sweeps. If you had some booms (like 6?) across the back, and crossed those in x patterns straight into the audience at the back wall, that always looks really cool
thru the
haze, and Im more willing to run with it than
PAR cans in my
face. Heck,
throw some PARs on there too maybe. One thing to consider is if you can come up with scrollers. These can be used in the way they were intended, which is to change colors in the same light. However, you can also make fake ML effects with them, by putting 2 very different colors in front of the beam at the same time (like, the seam in the middle), and moving it back and fourth. Or you can fling it into a rainbow, which looks silly unless your OK GO singing the treadmill song, which you are not, but maybe silly is what you want (thats up to you).
I would take your
stage,
haze the ever loving s*** out of it, and treat it like your sculpting looks in the
haze with as many systems as you can possibly make, obviously planned to make interesting sculptures. I would almost treat it as kinetic sculpture rather than a light show. This is how I would do things, and you (hopefully) are not me. Im a
bit of an oddball artist, and I am not anyone really worth emulating (at this
point in my career). Now if Derek says it, you best do that...
And another hat in with
Thelightinggal on the timecode issue, obviously you were not running timecode, and thats fine. However, it looked really sloppy and unprofessional without some sort of synchronization thing. When I have made shows with that many cues, I either find someone to make timecode happen (usually the
programmer, that being their job or something), or I
hand the
LBO or SM a sheet with my cues like so:
1-2-3-4-5-
6-7-8
1-2-
3-4-5-6-7-8
1-2-3-4-
5-6-7-8
1-2-
3-4-5-6-7-8
and so fourth, with the cues being the bolded numbers. Perhaps with a "Verse 1" and so fourth over each section, so the Op can orient themselves easily should you need to stop for a heart attack or something and start right back up again when the EMTs
clear out
... The operator can then tap their
foot on an 8 count (another benefit to using a single song, the 8s are easier to grab on to) and
button press on the cues. Course, I would probably also have a layered
track to the LB with a countoff or something, but Im anal retentive like that. Blue Man Group uses something similar when their timecode goes down. Of course, their SM is also calling Projection, Sound and Motion cues, so thats a
bit of a different beast. That might help you in terms of synchronizing the whole thing a
bit better, and practicing for a real show when the timecode bites the dust in the 2nd act.
And a final note. I just threw a lot of commentary and thoughts your way. That is NOT to say I hated what you did or think your a bad person or anything. As
Thelightinggal said (I really need to befriend that gal, we seem to think similar... maybe a "we are students and we will gladly comment on your work" group...), critique, commentary and basically trashing your show is the best way to get better. However, and I hope I did an OK job, when you rip into something, you should get some ideas to make it better.