Technician in a Can, essentially a spray that convinces potential students that they want to work tech. This stems from the fact that I am working in a very large High School theatre program, essentially with one other technician that can be there as much as me. After that, everybody is a volunteer that is almost never there. How exciting. But I would also love a teleporter that takes me from the four lighting booms and the catwalks, and stage electrics, to the booth, and vice versa. I hate walking up and down the catwalk stairs with S4's, especially when your moving 30 of them at a time.
Your Biggest Problem
- Thread starterdvsDave
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TheLightmaster
Member
There aren't any affordable movers! 
Anonymous067
Active Member
I would LOVE a way to fly between the stage, booth, and ante pros! I spent 3 hours today walking back and forth through catwalks between left and right ante pros getting lights in sync for the same areas. ARRGGGHHH.
then I had to fly the out of weight 1st electric probably 50 times. Lower adjust raise, lower adjust raise, etc etc etc.
then I had to fly the out of weight 1st electric probably 50 times. Lower adjust raise, lower adjust raise, etc etc etc.
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Anonymous067
Active Member
Very well put...
Do you mean Ante Pros?
C
Lee Filters still sells Gel Files for full sheets I believe, otherwise any good scene shop could make them easily. Architects drawers I would think would work great but the height of the drawer verses amount of smaller drawers might lead to confusion or gells getting lost. Perhaps some 1/16" hard card board or plywood sheets/veneer for them so as to be able to more neatly lift a stack of gel above and pull out what you need without all above going haywire. See below in pre-cuts for the concept in dividers. Perhaps even make the intermediate parts slightly larger or book marked so you can more rapidly find which gel you want in lifting pages of book marks.
At work they have like a 16' wall of gel files for stock sheets, above, below and to the sides of this is rolls of gel in various sizes. Corner to that is like a 12' wall of six drawer file cabinets that stores the pre-cuts no doubt in much the same way with file folders. Much gel is tossed out after shows. Don't remember what's on the third wall of the gel cage... there is something there possibly more file cabinets. (Gobos are stored in another like 8x8 area.) On the front of the gel cage is a 3' x 78" shelf that stores pre-sorted gel files ready for use with what other colors of gel are considered "stock" for gel file. Than bins for returned gel and follow spot frames. Hanging along the front of the cage on hooks is a bunch of the absolute cheapest and worst kid's type back packs we can find, (so they don't get swiped.) - Backpacks no proper adult stage hand would takwalk out the door with, or if they did, someone / anyone might question that and might perhaps ask what's in it. At least one would think assuming the overall joke no doubt about those climbing the truss to their follow spot with say a Hannah Montanah backpack. Such backpacks are for the follow spot positions and normally they carry the Clear Com gear and gel frames for the follow spot.
Anyway that's with a lot of room for gel, cage must be like 16x16' and is only for gel. Doesn't even store other than follow spot gel frames or overstock Gam Wrap.
I would never make it in such a cage by way of pre-cuts in how its laid out or done. Than of course I wouldn't throw out just about any gel if it still has a use. I often garbage pick gel even if I don't have a use for it or it's even too much volume for what I could ever use. Gel is still cut in it with a wall paper knife and frames individually on a cutting table in the center of the room. Paper cutters pre-marked for size for some reason over the years have not worked out as well for the gel area. Sharp paper cutter... Reduce time by at least half. Blades can be maintained and re-sharpened and even if a brand new cutter per year, given the labor lost in cutting by hand each gel from MR-16 cyc size or Inkie to 8-Lite gel stream for a scroller, the paper cutter or something else up to some form of water or plazma cutter would pay for itself.
Again, I don't work in the gel area... rarely go to it other than in at times dropping off show returns. Remember back in like 94' cutting all the gel for LalaPaluza or something like that in name and it took me hours even with a sharp paper cutter, can't imagine our gel person's time spent there when not being shipping clerk. Takes her a week to inventory her gel, this even with computer tracking.
For me, and what I did in past theaters and still have at home is a bit less in scale but something I might expand were I more involved with gel at the shop. No reason that a file cabinet has to have 8.5x11 sized files on a rack in it to store something - I use such file cabinets also for scrap cable, 60A plugs, moving light lamps, Altman parts etc. A 6" Fresnel/Leko pre-cut won't fit as well into a file folder and at some point given a sleeve per gel, it adds up in space required, or short of it, it adds to confusion some given the nature of file folders by way or gels following gravity and folding up if not tensioned.
Instead I made four classes of gel size boxes which I "Japaned" and furnished with good covers following some travel with past boxes with them short of a cover where the gel fell out. So I have Inkie/3.5Q gel in one, 4.5" Box Spot thru S-4, or PAR 46 sizes in another. 6" Fresnel, PAR 56 or 6" Leko in another, than a last box for PAR 64 to 10" scoop gels in size. Easy enough to build further boxes sized to the gels stored in them. Such boxes were built to about double the size needed at the time and I added tensioning blocks to them and even store the gel frames in the boxes for spring tension when in storage.
Such boxes easily could be made for a file cabinet in getting side walls sized to the gel size and not costing money in file folders that don't store smaller gel especially well. For dividers I use cardboard boxes cut to size, laminate, up to scrap Luan that's sized for the box but a bit longer so as to book mark what gel is stored between it and the next. Say every five or ten gels for Rosco (I have more of), every ten or twenty gel numbers for Lee and every 50 or so for GAM. Easy enough to adjust your book marks to what you now have more of, really easy to hone in on what you have in stock for any size in a particular color. Given there is no longer a file folder and its' normal gravity problems in gels falling down from the top or moving to the sides, such gel flops over as one in staying straight instead of individual sections having a problem in folding or falling out of the file.
For me, gel storage even for gobos is not a problem other than if the gel is not marked. Abandon the file folder and size the pre-cut to the size of the gel. Imagine the past Ducy Decimal System or what ever it is called practice of library book card indexes if they were only in the index card file folders sized for 8.5x11 sheets of paper. Would you ever find the card for the book looked for? Size the storage for the gel size and problem solved and is even more cost effective. Don't need a trip to an office supply store with your account number and 501c3 in tow, just need some scrap plywood or cardboard to add to it. run out of room, build another box. If lots of file cabinets, store the boxes in them.
Lee Filters still sells Gel Files for full sheets I believe, otherwise any good scene shop could make them easily. Architects drawers I would think would work great but the height of the drawer verses amount of smaller drawers might lead to confusion or gells getting lost. Perhaps some 1/16" hard card board or plywood sheets/veneer for them so as to be able to more neatly lift a stack of gel above and pull out what you need without all above going haywire. See below in pre-cuts for the concept in dividers. Perhaps even make the intermediate parts slightly larger or book marked so you can more rapidly find which gel you want in lifting pages of book marks.
At work they have like a 16' wall of gel files for stock sheets, above, below and to the sides of this is rolls of gel in various sizes. Corner to that is like a 12' wall of six drawer file cabinets that stores the pre-cuts no doubt in much the same way with file folders. Much gel is tossed out after shows. Don't remember what's on the third wall of the gel cage... there is something there possibly more file cabinets. (Gobos are stored in another like 8x8 area.) On the front of the gel cage is a 3' x 78" shelf that stores pre-sorted gel files ready for use with what other colors of gel are considered "stock" for gel file. Than bins for returned gel and follow spot frames. Hanging along the front of the cage on hooks is a bunch of the absolute cheapest and worst kid's type back packs we can find, (so they don't get swiped.) - Backpacks no proper adult stage hand would takwalk out the door with, or if they did, someone / anyone might question that and might perhaps ask what's in it. At least one would think assuming the overall joke no doubt about those climbing the truss to their follow spot with say a Hannah Montanah backpack. Such backpacks are for the follow spot positions and normally they carry the Clear Com gear and gel frames for the follow spot.
Anyway that's with a lot of room for gel, cage must be like 16x16' and is only for gel. Doesn't even store other than follow spot gel frames or overstock Gam Wrap.
I would never make it in such a cage by way of pre-cuts in how its laid out or done. Than of course I wouldn't throw out just about any gel if it still has a use. I often garbage pick gel even if I don't have a use for it or it's even too much volume for what I could ever use. Gel is still cut in it with a wall paper knife and frames individually on a cutting table in the center of the room. Paper cutters pre-marked for size for some reason over the years have not worked out as well for the gel area. Sharp paper cutter... Reduce time by at least half. Blades can be maintained and re-sharpened and even if a brand new cutter per year, given the labor lost in cutting by hand each gel from MR-16 cyc size or Inkie to 8-Lite gel stream for a scroller, the paper cutter or something else up to some form of water or plazma cutter would pay for itself.
Again, I don't work in the gel area... rarely go to it other than in at times dropping off show returns. Remember back in like 94' cutting all the gel for LalaPaluza or something like that in name and it took me hours even with a sharp paper cutter, can't imagine our gel person's time spent there when not being shipping clerk. Takes her a week to inventory her gel, this even with computer tracking.
For me, and what I did in past theaters and still have at home is a bit less in scale but something I might expand were I more involved with gel at the shop. No reason that a file cabinet has to have 8.5x11 sized files on a rack in it to store something - I use such file cabinets also for scrap cable, 60A plugs, moving light lamps, Altman parts etc. A 6" Fresnel/Leko pre-cut won't fit as well into a file folder and at some point given a sleeve per gel, it adds up in space required, or short of it, it adds to confusion some given the nature of file folders by way or gels following gravity and folding up if not tensioned.
Instead I made four classes of gel size boxes which I "Japaned" and furnished with good covers following some travel with past boxes with them short of a cover where the gel fell out. So I have Inkie/3.5Q gel in one, 4.5" Box Spot thru S-4, or PAR 46 sizes in another. 6" Fresnel, PAR 56 or 6" Leko in another, than a last box for PAR 64 to 10" scoop gels in size. Easy enough to build further boxes sized to the gels stored in them. Such boxes were built to about double the size needed at the time and I added tensioning blocks to them and even store the gel frames in the boxes for spring tension when in storage.
Such boxes easily could be made for a file cabinet in getting side walls sized to the gel size and not costing money in file folders that don't store smaller gel especially well. For dividers I use cardboard boxes cut to size, laminate, up to scrap Luan that's sized for the box but a bit longer so as to book mark what gel is stored between it and the next. Say every five or ten gels for Rosco (I have more of), every ten or twenty gel numbers for Lee and every 50 or so for GAM. Easy enough to adjust your book marks to what you now have more of, really easy to hone in on what you have in stock for any size in a particular color. Given there is no longer a file folder and its' normal gravity problems in gels falling down from the top or moving to the sides, such gel flops over as one in staying straight instead of individual sections having a problem in folding or falling out of the file.
For me, gel storage even for gobos is not a problem other than if the gel is not marked. Abandon the file folder and size the pre-cut to the size of the gel. Imagine the past Ducy Decimal System or what ever it is called practice of library book card indexes if they were only in the index card file folders sized for 8.5x11 sheets of paper. Would you ever find the card for the book looked for? Size the storage for the gel size and problem solved and is even more cost effective. Don't need a trip to an office supply store with your account number and 501c3 in tow, just need some scrap plywood or cardboard to add to it. run out of room, build another box. If lots of file cabinets, store the boxes in them.
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zuixro
Active Member
+1
I'd take that over just about anything else.
But I would like it without the psychotic sentient computer.
Now don't talk about me like that!
I'd like Owner's that get it. Even just little things like realizing that the cost for a facility does not end when construction is complete or that venues don't run themselves (and that's it's nice for the people responsible for running them to be involved in decisions).
I'd also like to see the prices at Radio Shack, Best Buy, Guitar Center, etc. increase tremendously so that people might create more realistic budgets.
An end to entitlement. Just your wanting something does not by itself make it realistic or practical.
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TheatreImage
Member
Just what I was thinking!! It must be chronic.
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