Sorry about the delay posting this report. I just realized I hadn't done it. Dave is madly editing video hang in there more content is coming...
So I attended the conference session. Cirque Du Soleil Production techniques. These are the notes I took on the session. The focus of the session was much different than I expected. Each person spoke about a unique problem that they faced at Cirque and how they went about solving it. I had the feeling that what could be discussed in the session was heavily restricted by Cirque's stringent policies of non-disclosure agreements and trade secrecy. In the end it turned into "How to solve insanely complicated problems by spending lots of money or utilizing the talents and labor of some of the industry's best people", which was Still interesting, but not practical for us to take back to work and use. Below are notes I took from that session:
What a panel! TD of Zoomanity, TD of Love, Head of Rigging Love, Stage Manager Love, Head of Lighting Love, Head of Projections Love, Technical Systems Integrator Zarkana... He works in Montreal with the design department.
I found this comment really interesting. It's not an exact quote, but the guy from Montreal's design team said something like, "Cirque is not about producing the same show every night, it's about producing the same quality of show every night". Over time shows evolve significantly as the cast and production team discover how to best use the show. I know from a previous conversation I had with a stage manager of a Cirque touring show that they have a surprising amount of flexibility with the show on the road. The tent tour shows are amazingly flexible and are often different every night both in the order and in which acts perform and which have the night off.
Zarkana is "designed to tour" unfortunately it takes 68 trucks/4.5 cargo jets to transport. It's a huge truss rig with a triple trapeze. They realized that in reality its a little too big to tour. "Elvis" in Vegas wasn't doing well so they closed it and are moving Zarkana in to replace it.
Love Stage Manager: The unique problem with Love is that they don't have a live band to vamp if there is a technical glitch. The music is all recorded Beatles music and so they are dependent on time code for everything. They have the ability to occasionally stall by adding an extra verse or repeating a chorus but this is limited. It used to be that conversations between the SM and Sound about how to add a few more seconds here and there could bring the show to a halt. They developed a color coded light system for the SM. If there is an extra verse or some sort of loop available to add time in the next 30 seconds she sees a yellow light. When she only has 5 seconds to call it she sees a red light. If there are no loops in the music available the SM sees a green light. This system allows quick communication and adaptation of the music.
The Love Video guy talked about changes made to the lighting system software at Love. (Now Cool Lux). This section was heavy on pictures. The key point was all the complicated changes needed for the video department when the audio department of Love streamlined the audio loop system with the lights mentioned above . When changes are made to a song, the time code stops and so it used to be that the video froze. The new system from Cool Lux is highly flexible and the video operator can improvise the video when extra music is added to the show.
The TD from Zoomanity talked about their rehearsal recording process. They used to record every show on DVD for performers to analyze their work. It worked but it was clunky because of the massive DVD collection that quickly developed and the difficulty of finding the exact scene you wanted. Now they use iTunes to tag individual parts of files and then throw them on an iPad to show performers. They are now in the process of setting up Apple TV's around the theater so that groups of performers can easily gather in various places and watch any performance of the show. This was a really cool idea but unfortunately it's illegal for most of us to implement in our theaters.
Lighting for Love. There is one scene where the director wanted four strings of lights to swag all across the theater appear for one song then be gone. This simple task was in reality really complicated because the lines would tangle. They got inspired by the system used in swimming pools to roll up the strings of floating lane markers. They ran out to the YMCA on a lunch break to see what the spool looks like and then engineered their own version.
TD For Love talked about building a special surface for a promotional event so that a guy who spins on his head could try to set a world record on Good Morning America. What started as a simple idea turned into a huge last minute headache searching for the perfect surface, safety issues with the edge of the platform, tweaking the surface slope with shims, shipping it all to New York for the show, getting someone there to set it up, dealing with the slope of the sidewalk, dealing with an obnoxious director on the TV show.
In the end it was interesting, but it wasn't the conference session I had hoped for.
So I attended the conference session. Cirque Du Soleil Production techniques. These are the notes I took on the session. The focus of the session was much different than I expected. Each person spoke about a unique problem that they faced at Cirque and how they went about solving it. I had the feeling that what could be discussed in the session was heavily restricted by Cirque's stringent policies of non-disclosure agreements and trade secrecy. In the end it turned into "How to solve insanely complicated problems by spending lots of money or utilizing the talents and labor of some of the industry's best people", which was Still interesting, but not practical for us to take back to work and use. Below are notes I took from that session:
What a panel! TD of Zoomanity, TD of Love, Head of Rigging Love, Stage Manager Love, Head of Lighting Love, Head of Projections Love, Technical Systems Integrator Zarkana... He works in Montreal with the design department.
I found this comment really interesting. It's not an exact quote, but the guy from Montreal's design team said something like, "Cirque is not about producing the same show every night, it's about producing the same quality of show every night". Over time shows evolve significantly as the cast and production team discover how to best use the show. I know from a previous conversation I had with a stage manager of a Cirque touring show that they have a surprising amount of flexibility with the show on the road. The tent tour shows are amazingly flexible and are often different every night both in the order and in which acts perform and which have the night off.
Zarkana is "designed to tour" unfortunately it takes 68 trucks/4.5 cargo jets to transport. It's a huge truss rig with a triple trapeze. They realized that in reality its a little too big to tour. "Elvis" in Vegas wasn't doing well so they closed it and are moving Zarkana in to replace it.
Love Stage Manager: The unique problem with Love is that they don't have a live band to vamp if there is a technical glitch. The music is all recorded Beatles music and so they are dependent on time code for everything. They have the ability to occasionally stall by adding an extra verse or repeating a chorus but this is limited. It used to be that conversations between the SM and Sound about how to add a few more seconds here and there could bring the show to a halt. They developed a color coded light system for the SM. If there is an extra verse or some sort of loop available to add time in the next 30 seconds she sees a yellow light. When she only has 5 seconds to call it she sees a red light. If there are no loops in the music available the SM sees a green light. This system allows quick communication and adaptation of the music.
The Love Video guy talked about changes made to the lighting system software at Love. (Now Cool Lux). This section was heavy on pictures. The key point was all the complicated changes needed for the video department when the audio department of Love streamlined the audio loop system with the lights mentioned above . When changes are made to a song, the time code stops and so it used to be that the video froze. The new system from Cool Lux is highly flexible and the video operator can improvise the video when extra music is added to the show.
The TD from Zoomanity talked about their rehearsal recording process. They used to record every show on DVD for performers to analyze their work. It worked but it was clunky because of the massive DVD collection that quickly developed and the difficulty of finding the exact scene you wanted. Now they use iTunes to tag individual parts of files and then throw them on an iPad to show performers. They are now in the process of setting up Apple TV's around the theater so that groups of performers can easily gather in various places and watch any performance of the show. This was a really cool idea but unfortunately it's illegal for most of us to implement in our theaters.
Lighting for Love. There is one scene where the director wanted four strings of lights to swag all across the theater appear for one song then be gone. This simple task was in reality really complicated because the lines would tangle. They got inspired by the system used in swimming pools to roll up the strings of floating lane markers. They ran out to the YMCA on a lunch break to see what the spool looks like and then engineered their own version.
TD For Love talked about building a special surface for a promotional event so that a guy who spins on his head could try to set a world record on Good Morning America. What started as a simple idea turned into a huge last minute headache searching for the perfect surface, safety issues with the edge of the platform, tweaking the surface slope with shims, shipping it all to New York for the show, getting someone there to set it up, dealing with the slope of the sidewalk, dealing with an obnoxious director on the TV show.
In the end it was interesting, but it wasn't the conference session I had hoped for.
