I didn't want to hijack the other thread, so I thought I'd create my own.
So I've been supplementing my theatre education with Controlbooth and the internet. I was going over some ideas for an upcoming show and decided to poke around the theatre to get a better look at our (under used) fly system. Well when I did research on fly systems I had this sinking feeling our fly system wasn't a fly system. My poking around confirmed this. We have a "hanging system". So basically when the theatre got renovated, this was a few years ago, before my time, they didn't hire a theatre consultant. They had some alumni that said "I'm good at this stuff" or something. Apparently the original plans were just upright whack. Luckily the theatre dept. head was able to get some say when some new guy came to the project, but some things remained. Among these, the hanging system. So instead of a traditional counterweighted fly system, we have a bunch of winches on BSR. Major problems with these winches: 1. They are not counterweighted, so weight is a pain. 2. They are honestly slower than a crawl. I don't know how I can accent this. I'm talking a solid 3 minute of hardcore winching to bring something in. 3. When going up, they use one of those systems with the teeth and a metal "catch" that will stop the pipe from dropping should it fail. Actually come to think of it, the catch is the only thing stopping it from falling. anyways, this is all housed internally, and impossible to stop from CLANKING REALLY REALLY LOUDLY KIND OF LIKE WHY I'M WRITING IN CAPS AND CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS NOISE FOR 3 MINUTES WHILE YOU ARE BREAKING A SWEAT FROM USING THE GODAWFUL WINCH? 4. It wasn't "double purchased" which apparently means we can only used 1/2 of our fly tower (correct terminology?). So we have only have a 5-6 foot flat in the air, as opposed to a 12 foot flat.
According those I've talked with "It's useless". Really it's a shame. It means we can't fly anything. Though we flew something last year. But it wasn't counterweighted, and it was pretty big. I am a skinny guy. Holding that rope myself, I would get dragged forward last year, so we had to have 2 people fly it out, and it was jerky, and terrible, as it was rigging on some hooks on the wall. Just not good.
So on top of that a lot of things in the theatre don't make sense. Like how we don't have house-lights. We have pars in the house... Though to my GREAT surprise today I noticed house-lights hung on the balcony. Granted they aren't hooked up yet, nor do we have any lights for the main part of the house, but its a start. So on top of that I'm annoyed with our cats. They built it so it can just clip your head in 4 spots. You can imagine how many times I run up there, and coincidentally how many times you'll random hear curses coming from the ceiling. I also don't like that the theatre used to be a church, and we still have the pews.
So ontop of that, a lot of stuff just plain doesn't make sense. They way a lot of stuff is set up, and how the old stuff is disconnected. I've noticed a bunch of ports that look like they could be IC ports, but some have tape on them, and I'm worried they are DMX512, and I don't wanna touch 'em. The theatre is just plain weird all over. The basement especially is crazy. It's like a labyrinth, the building has seen so many transitions. We do have 4 IC ports scattered around there though...
I'm saddened that there isn't any way (apparently) to have a trap door or elevator in our stage floor, apparently it was designed in a weird way. Though I found what appears to be an old heating grate that leads to the crawl space, and I plan to investigate it in my next free time.
Another weird thing we have going on. Our catwalks / circuits were all renovated 3 years ago. Relatively new. I think we got our board and dimmers then, though I found a dead circuit. This is a new development. I spent an hour trying to trouble shoot what was going on before I realized the circuit was dead. I've been meaning to ask one of the maintenance guys for a key to the dimmer room, but I haven't had the chance. I might e-mail him tonight about that, because it bugs me that we have a dead circuit... any thoughts on what to look for there?
Well I figured as long as I was complaining about my theatre (maybe this is better for the punching bag) I should post some pictures of it. These are old and from my phone, sorry.
P.S. No orchestra pit!
Post Post Script: And the booth! God, it's tiny, and just a box added to the house, blah. It gets so HOT in their during performances too.
So I've been supplementing my theatre education with Controlbooth and the internet. I was going over some ideas for an upcoming show and decided to poke around the theatre to get a better look at our (under used) fly system. Well when I did research on fly systems I had this sinking feeling our fly system wasn't a fly system. My poking around confirmed this. We have a "hanging system". So basically when the theatre got renovated, this was a few years ago, before my time, they didn't hire a theatre consultant. They had some alumni that said "I'm good at this stuff" or something. Apparently the original plans were just upright whack. Luckily the theatre dept. head was able to get some say when some new guy came to the project, but some things remained. Among these, the hanging system. So instead of a traditional counterweighted fly system, we have a bunch of winches on BSR. Major problems with these winches: 1. They are not counterweighted, so weight is a pain. 2. They are honestly slower than a crawl. I don't know how I can accent this. I'm talking a solid 3 minute of hardcore winching to bring something in. 3. When going up, they use one of those systems with the teeth and a metal "catch" that will stop the pipe from dropping should it fail. Actually come to think of it, the catch is the only thing stopping it from falling. anyways, this is all housed internally, and impossible to stop from CLANKING REALLY REALLY LOUDLY KIND OF LIKE WHY I'M WRITING IN CAPS AND CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS NOISE FOR 3 MINUTES WHILE YOU ARE BREAKING A SWEAT FROM USING THE GODAWFUL WINCH? 4. It wasn't "double purchased" which apparently means we can only used 1/2 of our fly tower (correct terminology?). So we have only have a 5-6 foot flat in the air, as opposed to a 12 foot flat.
According those I've talked with "It's useless". Really it's a shame. It means we can't fly anything. Though we flew something last year. But it wasn't counterweighted, and it was pretty big. I am a skinny guy. Holding that rope myself, I would get dragged forward last year, so we had to have 2 people fly it out, and it was jerky, and terrible, as it was rigging on some hooks on the wall. Just not good.
So on top of that a lot of things in the theatre don't make sense. Like how we don't have house-lights. We have pars in the house... Though to my GREAT surprise today I noticed house-lights hung on the balcony. Granted they aren't hooked up yet, nor do we have any lights for the main part of the house, but its a start. So on top of that I'm annoyed with our cats. They built it so it can just clip your head in 4 spots. You can imagine how many times I run up there, and coincidentally how many times you'll random hear curses coming from the ceiling. I also don't like that the theatre used to be a church, and we still have the pews.
So ontop of that, a lot of stuff just plain doesn't make sense. They way a lot of stuff is set up, and how the old stuff is disconnected. I've noticed a bunch of ports that look like they could be IC ports, but some have tape on them, and I'm worried they are DMX512, and I don't wanna touch 'em. The theatre is just plain weird all over. The basement especially is crazy. It's like a labyrinth, the building has seen so many transitions. We do have 4 IC ports scattered around there though...
I'm saddened that there isn't any way (apparently) to have a trap door or elevator in our stage floor, apparently it was designed in a weird way. Though I found what appears to be an old heating grate that leads to the crawl space, and I plan to investigate it in my next free time.
Another weird thing we have going on. Our catwalks / circuits were all renovated 3 years ago. Relatively new. I think we got our board and dimmers then, though I found a dead circuit. This is a new development. I spent an hour trying to trouble shoot what was going on before I realized the circuit was dead. I've been meaning to ask one of the maintenance guys for a key to the dimmer room, but I haven't had the chance. I might e-mail him tonight about that, because it bugs me that we have a dead circuit... any thoughts on what to look for there?
Well I figured as long as I was complaining about my theatre (maybe this is better for the punching bag) I should post some pictures of it. These are old and from my phone, sorry.
P.S. No orchestra pit!
Post Post Script: And the booth! God, it's tiny, and just a box added to the house, blah. It gets so HOT in their during performances too.