Opinions: called show vs. visual show

[Diarmuid]

Personally, I spend most of my time as A Stage Manager and so that is where my viewpoint comes from. Personally, I think a show works much better when the SM cues things. Especially, after having done a show at a professional theatre, I know that the board op often has a lot to do, especially during all of the tech runs. I have also op'd both LX and SFX and even though I wasnt cued, I can understand how people must feel having what they see as their jobs taken away from them, in part at least.

I know for a fact, that as for all of my theatres, life, the board op had been self-Qing so to speak, that when I started cueing them, there was a large amount of problems with it, and in fact the arguments havent finished yet...

But yes, on the whole all professional theatres are cued by the SM and as such, in my theatre at least, I don't really see why we shouldn't do it... especially as the board op is the one who says how professional we are!!

So basically, I think it is worth doing, but I can understand why people dont want to... after all, we're all creatures of habit aren't we??

Anyway, great topic!

 

[leistico]

Wow...lots of varied opinions here. Glad I brought this up!

From my standpoint, the one that inspired the topic... I have two jobs presently. One is LD and board-op on a production of "Urinetown". I designed it and I run it. I've made live tweaks in lights before (dangerous, I know, but had to be done for an unnoticed dark-spot and an actor who couldn't for the life of him find his light), and I listen to the actors and the house and look at the script--I can feel where light changes (timing variations +/- 1/2 second) would pick up the pacing, or give the audience permission to laugh, things like that.

My other job is at a road house, as stage hand / deck monkey / go monkey / fly monkey / gel monkey -- whatever's needed, whenever, per instructions. In that place, I put my creative freedom and impulses away and follow whatever the road SM or the road LD/ME have to say. My job there isn't to question, but to fulfill the creative vision of whoever designed the show, simple as that. I trust the road folk to know what they're doing, so I follow what they say, to the letter, to the second.

I can see both sides, but I do admit I like the freedom given to me when I design and run (it's a community theatre production, and I'm the on-staff building engineer, as well, so I've earned some trust amongst the board and the creative teams, and I don't abuse that--I give 'em the best I can come up with)

 

[Footer]

I follow the arguements on both sides. But I have a few questions on a professional show if the SM hasn't called standby for a lighting cue where they normally do is the operator allowed to say "standing by cue no". This being just in case the SM has got distracted.
Also over there do you never have cues where the SM hands it to the board operator as they can see a visual more clearly. Such as a sudden blackout cued by an action of a character.
What about follow spot cues where the operator can see the actor is not in the right spot such as a late entrance but the SM has called it. If the operator waited until the character is there the audience wouldn't notice. But bring up a followspot on an empty stage the audience definitely will notice.
I am not saying anyone should try and over-rule or second guess the SM but do some SM's allow a slight variance to allow for the variance that can happen in a live performance.

Depends on the SM. I was ME for a theatre recently that I doubled as a board op when the show was up. Our SM was a 20 year AEA SM, and has worked at this theatre for 14 of those. We had one show that had a 30 min pause before a cue was called again (1776, longest break in musical theatre history). Usually I got my standbye and I would then wake back up and get back on the console, and check to see if the spot ops had done the same. By the end of the run of that show I knew where about the next cue was. On one of the final performances I did not hear my standbye, so I gave an "LX standing" and the SM soon called the cue afterword, but I would have not gone enless the cue was called. On another show we had about 120 sound cues, and durring one of the sound sequences (telephone call) one of the characters ran around the room turning light switches on and off. The SM decided to let me hit those cues on my own, and gave me a copy of the prompt book for that sequence. I always recieved a "standbye LX 65-70 visual". I would then call a complete when the sequence was done. Basicly, you SM will tell you when you should take a cue visually, and with 6 shows I did recently and over 150 to 200 cues per show I only had two visual cues the entire season.

 

[Van]

I follow the arguements on both sides. But I have a few questions on a professional show if the SM hasn't called standby for a lighting cue where they normally do is the operator allowed to say "standing by cue no". This being just in case the SM has got distracted.

Also over there do you never have cues where the SM hands it to the board operator as they can see a visual more clearly. Such as a sudden blackout cued by an action of a character.

What about follow spot cues where the operator can see the actor is not in the right spot such as a late entrance but the SM has called it. If the operator waited until the character is there the audience wouldn't notice. But bring up a followspot on an empty stage the audience definitely will notice.

I am not saying anyone should try and over-rule or second guess the SM but do some SM's allow a slight variance to allow for the variance that can happen in a live performance.

You are correct in saying that if an S.M. misses a stand-by. I beleive it is perfectly correct to give a ," Standing By for LX 127" S.M.'s are people too, they make mistakes < Please don't tell my wife I said that, she's AEA> How ever to go on a cue without first saying something to the effect of ," Is that a go ?" is Wrong. Period. If we are talking about live theatre the S.M. is the only person who decides on a go. Unless the S.M. / designers have designated a que as a "visual" or Operator controlled, such as a Pyro Op have final safety say over the firing of a pot. To take a little longer for a fade or hold a second more because you think it's whats right, is a dereliction of you duty as an op.
In answer to saxman, I think it's great that you are as invloved in the production as you are. When I was first learning I felt much the same way you did . You're also young and still learning. You should be making notes following what others are doing, But most importantly you might want to listen to those that have actually been performing these jobs and working in this enviroment for as long as you have been alive. I will finish my little opinion the same way I did before. My references are to Live Theatre. R&R is different and is a much more Collabaritive form of the craft. If you feel you can't take standbys and go's from and S.M. and perform those duties nightly go into R&R. It's Fun, It pays money! You can take all the personal satisfaction of a job well donebecause you decided to hit the go button when you did and it made the entire concert the best it ever was. The Rock Stars' are still gonna get the groupies.