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Well-Known Member
I am currently working as resident tech at one of the venues for the Adelaide Fringe Festival. I am sharing operating duties for the 6 in house shows as well as helping out visiting companies.
It's a mixed bag in many ways. One of the shows is all timed cues stacked on a programmable board with a go button most of the others we program cue states to subs and run the show that way.
I was however presented with a fascinating and throughly enjoyable task by a Japanese Company called Theatre Gumbo. They gave me cue points and some states and a couple of specials and after the tech more or less told me to busk the show. I loved it amd apparently so did they as they have asked me to light them again next year when they return and I may even go to Osaka later in the year to work with them.
This brings me to my point. As an LD I love much of the new technology. The ability we now have to store hundres even thousands of cues for a show allowing for subtlety that was much more difficult before and of course ensuring the same look every night is a godsend. The use of moving lights is amazing, but ...
What about the art of the operator? I grew up operating boards in situations where we had to make a great many more decisions than we do now. I love "busking" a show and (with modesty) I'm good at it. But the opportunities of doing that are dissappearing or are they? Are we doing the new generation of operators a disfavour by not allowing for more "busking" or are the opportunities still out there.
I reckon I learned more about Lighting Design by live lighting shows without a plot than from any other situation.
What do you reckon out there in techie land?
Love to hear from you.
It's a mixed bag in many ways. One of the shows is all timed cues stacked on a programmable board with a go button most of the others we program cue states to subs and run the show that way.
I was however presented with a fascinating and throughly enjoyable task by a Japanese Company called Theatre Gumbo. They gave me cue points and some states and a couple of specials and after the tech more or less told me to busk the show. I loved it amd apparently so did they as they have asked me to light them again next year when they return and I may even go to Osaka later in the year to work with them.
This brings me to my point. As an LD I love much of the new technology. The ability we now have to store hundres even thousands of cues for a show allowing for subtlety that was much more difficult before and of course ensuring the same look every night is a godsend. The use of moving lights is amazing, but ...
What about the art of the operator? I grew up operating boards in situations where we had to make a great many more decisions than we do now. I love "busking" a show and (with modesty) I'm good at it. But the opportunities of doing that are dissappearing or are they? Are we doing the new generation of operators a disfavour by not allowing for more "busking" or are the opportunities still out there.
I reckon I learned more about Lighting Design by live lighting shows without a plot than from any other situation.
What do you reckon out there in techie land?
Love to hear from you.