Ok, time for me to jump in. Just got out of the second night of focus for our fist show of the season, and it is kinda nuts, but it always is.
To go back to the original question, who programs a show, I have to say, that in general, on the professional
level the designer isn't going to be the person sitting at the
console during tech. Community and academic
theatre and even summer
stock I can see that they may have one person to take care of it all, but in the commercial and regional world you will very rarely find the designer behind the
console. You will almost never find the designer behind a
console at a
union house. I can't speak for the corporate or concert world though, I don't have the experience.
In high school it was normal to find one person designing the show, leading the crew, programming, and pushing the go
button, but never did we have that in college. Ever lighting student was taught how to run the
console, and almost every one got to program a real show, but the designer always sat at the
tech table and there was always someone else to program for them, be it the ME or AME.
You may feel like it is faster now for you to sit at the
console and program your own show, but there are a lot of designers out there who never learned the ins and outs of todays high tech consoles and would be lost if they sat down in front of them. As a designer you will
pick up speed as you practice telling your op what you need. It lets the designer think about the design, and not worry about the computer. The Designer knows what channels they need and they don't need to worry about how to key that in. If they say
channel X at 80 they don't need to worry about weather they are hitting Enter or * or if they have to stand on their head because they are programming a Congo, the board op/progrmmer just get it in.
It just takes practice and getting used to. Speed doesn't come in a day. I had the good fortune to learn a lot of this in school. The higher up on the ladder you get, the less physical work you end up doing, this is true of all industries. The electricians are the ones who run around hanging lights and plugging them in. The ME is supervising and helping out as needed. Som places have a
lighting supervisor who usually deals with getting info and paperwork to and from designers as well as handling purchasing and scheduling, and office/
desk jobs. And then you have the designer, who is often in a completely different location from the
theatre until focus and tech, and probably rarely touches a light or board.
--
Now on to some of the other issues that have come up. Designers do need to know how to work within the limitations of a
venue, but by the same token, an ME needs to know how to work a
plot into the space. I will use my
theatre as an example. At the beginning of the design process I
send out an info packet to the designer. It has our entire equipment inventory from instrumentation to
templates, accessories to two-fers. It also has a
system overview which includes the number of circuits, dimmers, linesets,
etc. It is the designer's job to work within the inventory, we try to rent as little as possible, but I dont't tell them they can only have 30 channels on the
First Electric because it has 30 circuits. If the designer wanted to hang the entire
plot on two linesets, we would find a way to make it work.
Along with this is the fact that (and I believe it was Footer who said this) the designer only cares that if they say
channel 41 the right light turns on. They could care less what
circuit and
dimmer that is, and what it took to get it there.
Now, for the show I am currently working on we have run out of a lot of things, but we can still make it all work. So far we have run out of
pig-iron for the fly
system (I didn't believe my crew when they told me), twofers, 5' and 10' cable, overhead circuits (raceways and
drop boxes over the
stage) and fly space. The set pieces barely
clear the lights, it is just crazy. I am down to picking multi up from floor pockets to get enough circuits in the air to hang the show. Does the designer care? No. He only cares that by Thursday at 6 PM all the lights have the right color and
template, that they are focused, and turn on when he calls the
channel. It doesn't matter what me and my crew have to do to make that happen.
Look at the light plots from most professional designers and you will find a note on it that says something to the
effect of: "This
plot represents the artistic
vision of the designer. The designer is in no way qualified to asses the
practical and legal implementation of this
plot.
Etc...." Basically it is a CYA statement that says, "I sit in a design studio all day, you need to hang this in a safe manner that complies with local codes and regulations."
I am sure I missed things, but I thought that was all pretty important.