Control/Dimming TD in Hospital, Lighting department dead in water

[adangelo]

Hey, all. I've been lurking for a while, finally decided to register and post because we have a pretty major crisis at my school's theatre. Our TD, who gave instruction in lighting, sound, construction, rigging, etc, had a stroke this weekend and probably won't be able to do any work for our show on which we're starting production this week. He's our handbook for basically everything, so the whole program is kinda flipping out :/

I'm the student lighting designer, so I have to worry about a few specific problems including finding rental contacts, budget stuff, etc. which would normally be dealt with by our TD; most importantly, though, I have to deal with our new board. The touch screen on our console broke last year so we planned on replacing it with the MA onPC Command Wing this summer. We have the control wing sitting in the theatre now, but we don't have a computer on which to run it, nor the two touch screens we planned to set up with it. Our TD had plans for the whole setup and he handled the finances, but I'm sort of in the dark on how to set up (let alone operate) the system.

If anyone here is familiar with the MA CommandWing and its setup/config procedures, it would be great to get some advice/suggestions. We're also looking for online resources to learn the system. We don't have another board to use as of right now, and we want as much time to tinker as we can so that we can program by late October.

Thanks everyone. Any help is much appreciated.

 

[gafftaper]

What part of LA are you in? This is the sort of situation that it would be awesome if we could find someone to donate a couple hours to come help you guys out in person.

 

[Footer]

What part of LA are you in? This is the sort of situation that it would be awesome if we could find someone to donate a couple hours to come help you guys out in person.

My thoughts exactly. In that kind of situation, there are more than enough people that will help get you back on track. Learning GrandMA is not something that one can do over night. Hope your teacher comes back to full health, strokes can be very scary things.

 

[DrPinto]

You might want to see if a theater instructor from another school or even another town can help you out. Maybe ask a professor at a nearby university. If you get a current educator, at least you know that he/she has gone through some kind of background check.

 

[chawalang]

You have two options I would recommend for you since you are looking to go with an MA system.


First you can go to ACT Lighting | Training they have a lot of youtube videos on the series 1 and 2 MA.


The second thing I would recommend is you may want to contact A.C.T Lighting. Their main office is in Agoura Hills so I believe its north of L.A, they are the distributor of the Grand MA in this part of the world.

 

[ScaredOfHeightsLD]

What part of LA are you in? This is the sort of situation that it would be awesome if we could find someone to donate a couple hours to come help you guys out in person.

Agreed! I might very well be able to be that person. Feel free to shoot me a PM with your location and we'll see if we can figure something out.

-Mike

 

[adangelo]

We're located downtown. The theatre is an extracurricular activity, so our TD isn't a teacher per se, but he organizes crew and he knows how to do pretty much everything that needs doing for each department. We have an interim TD coming in soon, but he doesn't know much about lighting. One of our alumni is a designer on World of Color, so he's agreed to come and teach some operation, but before he does that we'd like to get the board up and running, and his time is very limited.

I contacted ACT yesterday- we're trying to get some information about what we might need... again, the whole board situation was being organized by our TD over the summer so I'm not quite sure what we need to do. We're working on getting all the necessary info on the setup.

Again, thanks everyone. We're grateful that you guys are willing to help out!

 

[gafftaper]

Do you know where the MA wing was purchased from? They might be willing to come do some training for you.

I've got a friend who used to work in LA. He may still have connections down there willing to help you. We also have several connections here on CB who may be willing to help such as ScaredofheightsLD who just hinted he might be willing to help.

 

[gafftaper]

Does anyone have any friends/connections at MA? What about at the IATSE local in LA? Colleges and Universities? There has to be a way to help these guys.

I suppose this could be considered bumping this thread and that would be wrong. However I'm on the senior team and I consider it drawing further attention to a situation that really needs the support of our community. Feel free to post your complaints here so that I can delete them.

 

[museav]

You might want to see if a theater instructor from another school or even another town can help you out. Maybe ask a professor at a nearby university. If you get a current educator, at least you know that he/she has gone through some kind of background check.

+1 and you may want to consider this first. It's great if you can find some local manufacturer reps, techs or whatever to help but if there are any issues or requirements related to their being on campus and working with students it might be good to know that in advance.

 

[ScaredOfHeightsLD]

Gaff,
I've been speaking with adangelo outside the post, he is passing along my info to the higher ups at school. Evidently it's slightly more complicated than me just stopping by. They are right around the corner from my job site for the next week and a half so I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out to get them up and running.

Does anyone have any friends/connections at MA? What about at the IATSE local in LA? Colleges and Universities? There has to be a way to help these guys.

I suppose this could be considered bumping this thread and that would be wrong. However I'm on the senior team and I consider it drawing further attention to a situation that really needs the support of our community. Feel free to post your complaints here so that I can delete them.

 

[gafftaper]

I've been speaking with adangelo outside the post, he is passing along my info to the higher ups at school. Evidently it's slightly more complicated than me just stopping by. They are right around the corner from my job site for the next week and a half so I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out to get them up and running.

Yeah there are likely to be issues. Thanks for being helping Mike, let us know how it works out and if we need to pursue other help.

 

[gafftaper]

What Rigger? tells me that the school has contacted a former coworker of his on their own. He says they are in great hands. It sounds like school officials made some calls on their own and found a guy and they don't need you ScaredOfHeightsLD. Thanks for being willing.