How to program cues effectively

[Sparky2012]

Hello, I'm new to the forums and a little bit of a newb at lighting, so if this a stupid question then im sorry, but please take the time to answer it.

At my school we have a etc express 24/48 lightboard. Now right now, we run the shows by just setting submasters, and then having the lighting op manually move the submasters during the show(I know its silly). Some of the shows can get a little complicated, so I am trying to change the standard method to using cues. I'm posting this to maybe get some tips on how to program cues for the next production. I know the keys to press to program the cues, so I know HOW to do it. But is there anything i should pay particular attention to while programming? Just general tips.

Thanks so much in advance

Gareth Ellis

 

[CrazyTechie]

This is one thing that I've taken from one of my professors: always start the show at cue 10. That way you have lots of room to play with if you need to add a cue before the first cue of the show.

 

[Sparky2012]

This is one thing that I've taken from one of my professors: always start the show at cue 10. That way you have lots of room to play with if you need to add a cue before the first cue of the show.

thanks, what should i do if i need to add cues in somewhere in the middle of the show?

 

[CrazyTechie]

The Express will let you number cues with one decimal point. So if you need a cue between say 20 and 21 you can record a cue 20.5. One good practice with inserting cues between existing cues is to split the difference that way you can still insert another cue if needed. So if I needed a cue between 20 and 20.5 I'd record it as cue 20.2 which still gives me room on either side of this new cue.

 

[SamUpdike]

On top of that I always record my cues in increments of 5, so the first cue of the show is normally 5, then 10... then 15... then 20...

And so on and so forth. That leaves me a lot of wiggle room in between cues.

 

[Les]

This is one thing that I've taken from one of my professors: always start the show at cue 10. That way you have lots of room to play with if you need to add a cue before the first cue of the show.

Good advice. Though, usually my first cue would be House Preset, followed by House to Half, Black Out, etc. That of course varies from venue-to-venue depending on who has control of the house lights and how.

One good piece of practical advice I have for you is to not accidentally hit the C/D Go button if you're wanting to run the cue stack on A/B. The board will 'act' like it's going through the paces after you switch to the correct Go button, but nothing will happen on stage (and that will confuse you). I think you have to either hit [Clear] and start over, or run the show off the C/D stack if that's the case.

It's mostly just a problem when you have someone else running lights and they call you up to the booth because the board 'stopped responding'. Anyway, I was in that situation with an Expression 3 back in my high school days and it held the curtain for a bit, so I figured I'd pass that info along.

On top of that I always record my cues in increments of 5, so the first cue of the show is normally 5, then 10... then 15... then 20...

And so on and so forth. That leaves me a lot of wiggle room in between cues.

Alternately, you could also number your cues in even or odd numbers only. Since you can have cues 4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, etc; even skipping one whole number gives you lots of room to add cues. I knew someone who numbered their cues by page number in the script. Interesting idea, but I personally hated it. Especially if you have several pages of dense cueing.

 

[chausman]

A new (for me) method I've started employing is to number cues based on the page number in the script. This doesn't work for some things, but for straight plays or musicals it seems to work well. You do end up with strange numbering though. Q7 followed by Q21.

I also like to make blackouts .5 cues, so when you look at the monitor, you can be sure if your next cue is a blackout or not. Especially useful if you ever find yourself in the wrong cue or are a cue ahead and know not to "Go" until you intend to blackout.

 

[Sparky2012]

Good advice. Though, usually my first cue would be House Preset, followed by House to Half, Black Out, etc.
One good piece of practical advice I have for you is to not accidentally hit the C/D Go button if you're wanting to run the cue stack on A/B. The board will 'act' like it's going through the paces after you switch to the correct Go button, but nothing will happen on stage (and that will confuse you).

forgive me being a newb, but what is house preset and house by half? and what are cue stacks on the A/B and C/D sliders? (i really dont know the use for the A/B and C/D sliders, but ill check the manual)

 

[Les]

House Preset is the look that the audience sees upon entering the theatre. There will be house lights up, and maybe a very small amount of stage lighting or curtain warmers. House to Half is a cue that I love -- instead of taking the house lights straight out and starting the show, you bring them down halfway (or usually more) and sit there for a while before then taking them completely out. It eases the audience in to it, and allows them to get settled if need be. Particularly useful in musicals during an overture, and coordinated with the music. Start the House to Half cue when the music starts, and start the final fade out somewhere near the end of the overture. I have also done 3-part sequences where I'll fade out any stage lighting or curtain warmers last (usually so that they fade out right as the overture is ending). So you would have 1) House to Half; 2) House Out; 3) Curtain Warmers Out (blackout); 4) Scene 1 Up.

The C/D cue stack is for running cues simultaneously with other cues. Here's a very basic example: Say you want a 30 minute sunset to happen on a cyc. Faders C&D can run that cue while other cues can happen on A&B during that 30-minute time frame.

Note: The dotted yellow line under certain terms will take you to our WIKI, which will explain the term (and probably do a better job at it than I can).

 

[NickVon]

One good piece of practical advice I have for you is to not accidentally hit the C/D Go button if you're wanting to run the cue stack on A/B. The board will 'act' like it's going through the paces after you switch to the correct Go button, but nothing will happen on stage (and that will confuse you). I think you have to either hit [Clear] and start over, or run the show off the C/D stack if that's the case.

A Snapple or Gatorade bottle cap is just thing thing to place over the "bad" go button and gaff tape in place

 

[NickVon]

A new (for me) method I've started employing is to number cues based on the page number in the script. This doesn't work for some things, but for straight plays or musicals it seems to work well. You do end up with strange numbering though. Q7 followed by Q21.

I also like to make blackouts .5 cues, so when you look at the monitor, you can be sure if your next cue is a blackout or not. Especially useful if you ever find yourself in the wrong cue or are a cue ahead and know not to "Go" until you intend to blackout.

I like number my Sound Effect cues this way, as it gives the board op a really good sense as to how quickly or far off a given set of effects are.

 

[jhochb]

Good Morning Sparky2012

the A/B & C/D faders are for cue play back. ETC gives you 2 sets so you can run 2 cues at the same time. like a chase/subroutine or whatever.
The faders allow you to take manual control over a timed fade if some one enters too soon or misses a line or.... I always leave my faders full.

You can go to etcconnct.com & down load EOL ( express-off-line ) for free. This will let you write / edit your show on you computer.
you can play with writing & playing back Cues, subs, efx etc.......
you can also LABEL your cues & subs; DSL speaker, door , dim to half , lightning.....

remember to save often & label stuff.

 

[Les]

A new (for me) method I've started employing is to number cues based on the page number in the script. This doesn't work for some things, but for straight plays or musicals it seems to work well. You do end up with strange numbering though. Q7 followed by Q21.

How does that work out when you have ten or more cues on a page, or worse yet, for several pages (ala Les Miserables)? I guess I just like to also use my cue number as a homing device relative to how many cues I have left, so I just never really got the page number thing. Especially if you're one to follow along in the script anyway.

I also like to make blackouts .5 cues, so when you look at the monitor, you can be sure if your next cue is a blackout or not. Especially useful if you ever find yourself in the wrong cue or are a cue ahead and know not to "Go" until you intend to blackout.

That's always a good idea. Especially if you didn't adequately label your script or cue names in the console. I'll make that another tip. Don't label your script Q4, Q65, etc. Take some time and write the description, or at least the blocking in there with it, but preferably both. When labeling my console cue stack, I often prefer to write the technical description (Light Behind Window Up) and leave the blocking or action notes for the script. For the love of God, don't mix them (Blackout; Lights Up; Red Wash; Walks to Dresser...)

 

[cbrandt]

I like to save my point cues for anything that is linked or autofollowed. That way a stagemanager never has to call a point cue, and you know where those sequences start and end. Also lets me get really messy with follows and not give anyone a headache on the paperwork.

As for paperwork, especially working with an express, a cue sheet is indispensable. A nice spreadsheet that lays out cue number, page number, what triggers the cue (action, words, whatever), and a basic description of what the cue is doing is a really great way for your board op and stage manager to be on the same page.

 

[JChenault]

Hello, I'm new to the forums and a little bit of a newb at lighting, so if this a stupid question then im sorry, but please take the time to answer it.

At my school we have a etc express 24/48 lightboard. Now right now, we run the shows by just setting submasters, and then having the lighting op manually move the submasters during the show(I know its silly). Some of the shows can get a little complicated, so I am trying to change the standard method to using cues. I'm posting this to maybe get some tips on how to program cues for the next production. I know the keys to press to program the cues, so I know HOW to do it. But is there anything i should pay particular attention to while programming? Just general tips.

Thanks so much in advance

Gareth Ellis

First of all, running your show with subs is not necessarily silly. Sometimes it is a very reasonable approach.

A few tips that may be useful.

You need to decide in advance if you want to be in preset mode, or tracking mode.

If you press the 'Record' button to save a cue, you will be in preset mode. This means that when you record the cue, you will record the look of every channel. Some people can understand this way of thinking about cues more easily than track mode.

If you press the 'Track' button to save a cue, you will be in tracking mode. This means that you will only save the values in the cue that have changed from the prior cue. This is usually a more powerful way to think of the lighting, but can be harder to understand.

Consider a sequence of cues. It is nighttime in the cabin which has 10 cues in the scene. In the first cue you bring up your lights including a special on the table. You write all of your cues. The next night you decide that the special is a bit bright and you want to take it down 10 points. You change it in the first cue. If you are in tracking mode, you are done - and the change will track through subsequent cues until you have a cue that tells it to go to some other level. In preset mode, you have to change each cue as the original level is part of each cue.

If you work in tracking mode, you will have an issue with things like blackouts. IE you want to be able to write a cue where every level gets recorded. To do this you have to set the type of the cue to 'All Fade' ( I believe the sequence is 'type' '2' but I am not in front of a board and it has been a while )

It is usually a bad idea to mix tracking and preset in a show. The internal logic of the express when you do this is not intuitive. I used to tell my board operator that 'If I say record I always mean track'​

Up times and down times

You have the ability to set a different time for channels going up - vs channels going down. This is a very powerful feature you will probably want to use. Frequently you will set an up time of ( say) 3 seconds and an down time of 4 or 5 seconds. This can remove a dip in intensity as you move into the new scene.

By the 'Go' button on the console, there are two sliders. One of these is for the up time, one for the down time. Typically you push both of these all the way up. If you want to run a cue manually, you pull them all the way down, execute the cue, then move the sliders up to make the fade happen. This is slightly more confusing than it sounds - usually you just leave them all the way on. But if you cues are not executing, make sure they are all the way up.​

Inhibitive submasters are your friend.

A problem with the express is that is is not completely easy to modify the live look on stage during rehearsal and update the cue . The logic of the board is HTP ( highest takes precedence ) which means that if you are in cue 15, and channel 3 is set to 50%. You can take the slider for channel 3 and raise it to 70%, but you can't lower the level with the slider. You can use the keypad to select channels one at a time, but an easier way is frequently to set up an inhibitive submaster. For example, you might make an inhibitive submaster for your downstage and upstage area lights. During rehearsals if you decide to lower the level of the front lights, you can take the downstage area sub down to ( say) 80% and those lights will lower. You can then re-record the cue - but the sub back to 100% and keep working.

Not that you want to label your inhibitive subs clearly as they have no effect when they are at 100% which looks strange. You also probably want to remove them when the show opens unless you have a rock solid board operator.​

Hope this helps. If any of this is not clear, holler and I will try to explain more clearly.

 

[kicknargel]

Wow, we got deep into the minutia of cue numbering, and mostly failed to answer the OP's question.

BTW, I would start by thoroughly reading the console's manual. It's pretty good.

Here's one basic approach:
•set submasters to each contain one system of lights. (one for warm frontlight, one for cool, one for your blue wash, or whatever you have.) I like to also record a group that contains the same channels as the corresponding sub, so I can grab them via the keypad for later editing.
•Build your first look by mixing the submasters, and/or setting levels via the keypad.
•record cue 1 (or whatever number you like) and set a fade time.
•adjust subs, channel levels to create the second look, and record the next cue. Continue throughout the show.
•bring all subs to zero and hit [release] [release] to clear anything set by keypad
•hit [cue] [1] [go] on the a/b fader. This will playback the first cue. Subsequent hits of [go] will progress through the show.
•subs are pretty much only useful for that first level setting pass, because you can't use them to reduce a level. So to edit an existing cue, use the keypad.
•cue are recorded as whatever is visible on stage. So to edit a cue, play it in the a/b fader, make any adjustment and hit [record cue] (it should default to the current cue number, but double check) [enter], then [release] to uncapture the channels. Or you can make an edit, then save as a new cue number if you want a cue that's a slight variation on an existing one.

There's way more nuance, and feel free to ask questions, but that should get you started. Good luck!

 

[derekleffew]

I like to save my point cues for anything that is linked or autofollowed. That way a stagemanager never has to call a point cue, and you know where those sequences start and end. Also lets me get really messy with follows and not give anyone a headache on the paperwork. ...

How then do you insert a cue? I learned a compromise: point-odds were autofollows, and point-evens were new cues.

It might be noted that more modern consoles (not sure about EOS family) allow up to four digits after the decimal, "Standby electrics cue 1.0001, followed by electrics 1.0002."

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Sparky2012, congratulations on taking the initiative to move to a more professional method of operation. Submasters and busking have their place, but for scripted presentations, nothing beats the reliability and repeatability of a cue stack. Perhaps an overview of how lighting is designed is in order; start here: Lighting Concept/Lighting Statement - ControlBooth . Putting the cues in the board (aka setting levels) is actually near the END of a very long process.

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... One good piece of practical advice I have for you is to not accidentally hit the C/D Go button if you're wanting to run the cue stack on A/B. The board will 'act' like it's going through the paces after you switch to the correct Go button, but nothing will happen on stage (and that will confuse you). I think you have to either hit [Clear] and start over, or run the show off the C/D stack if that's the case. ...

If you accidentally press the Go-CD button, run the same cue in the AB fader; when complete, press Clear-CD, and you're back on track, with no change in the stage picture.

 

[cbrandt]

How then do you insert a cue? I learned a compromise: point-odds were autofollows, and point-evens were new cues.

I like to have a pretty agressive cue list going into techs or rehearsals. I'd rather be cutting/combining cues than trying to add things. Also helps to leave yourself some room (skip to the next 10 or 100) in places that you suspect are going to become cue heavy. I also buy my stage manager a lot of candy so they'll let me renumber my cues once or twice ::

 

[Aman121]

I'll echo what dereck said, it's great that your moving to cues for something like a musical or play. However, don't think that using submasters is always bad. I find submasters superior to cues in fast changing situations where few looks are needed, like band concerts. Since I end up going back and forth between 4-5 looks in random order, it makes more sense to use a few sumasters than constantly hitting go to cue x. I suppose I could try to program a linear order if I wanted to, but it seems like allot of unnecessary nonsense for a one time show.

 

[Sparky2012]

I would just like to thanks everyone who has answered my question so quickly, and to say what a wonderful forum this is!