David Ripley

Hi Bryson I've a dwg full of ancient lanterns, amongst them is an S-Batten - 4 Cell with Colour Attributes Drop me a line: david@cad4theatre.org.uk David

May be no longer relevant but my fairly old Humax FoxSat (Satelitte) PVR 'encodes' HD recordings and you have to fiddle about to transfer them off the box. There are plenty of websites detailing how you do this and modding the boxes to add storage, FTP servers and whatnot to them David

About the only solid bit of advice I've seen is the BFC Shooting guide: 'When considering the use of atmos/smoke, discuss the use requirements with the manufacturer in advance to help assess any potential COVID-19 related risk' Section 28 f Special FX Full doc here Early versions said don't use haze as it suspends particles and this would include CV but further work has been done. Good ventilation should also be used in any case, including ensuring air is not recirculated David

Bananas was a fairly common name for the P263/4's. Tpots for the T-Spots, obviously, which are essentially a straightened out 264. Whilst teaching at Guildford we had several ancient lanterns - Patt 143, for instance, a monster. Our 264 finally exploded on one show, emitting a marvellous mushroom cloud and pitting the reflector as the lamp went, making it even more useless had I been inclined to try and repair it. Someone mentioned Jubilees earlier, I think they meant Pageants (Patt 50's) David

'Proper' Patt 263s are Fresnel lensed with one set of shutters, Patt 264 PC lens, two shutters - blades (straight edged) and Combs. The order in the gate is important. You can make either a wider angled unit by adding a 23 lens IIRC to the back of the lens tube (It's what the clips are for) and reversing the gate assembly. As people say, no light came out of them and those that were sprayed gold for venues like the Albery (now the Noel Coward) the shutters were immovable. The alternative to the Patt 263/264 is... pretty much anything else David

If you have AutoCAD, one of the providers of additional Apps is a company called AADB software, which have various plug ins, some free David

I don't thinks so as clicking on the links takes you straight to Eventbrite for booking Just as in the show the seminars are all free in any case David

Although the show at Ally Pally is not going ahead, the ABTT are running Seminars online next week A wide range of topics, much of it unsurprisingly CV19 focused More info here

I've got some Selecon stuff, you are welcome to Drop me a line David

Ours used to wander when I was in a venue, many years ago, with a few Amateur/Light Operatic shows a year. Their sets were hired in, with stage weights but ours used to get either swapped or removed I then sprayed all our weights DayGlo Green and the problem stopped overnight David

Yes - It's a legal requirement under LOLER - Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 Specific info on Inspections:LOLER Inspections David

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Technical & Production Department are looking for AV/Media Technician with projection experience to work in the Technical & Production, Media Department. PAY £34434 pa DATES to Start January 2020 to end of July 2020 initially LOCATION Swiss Cottage, London DESCRIPTION You will interact with students, staff and visiting professionals in ensuring their projects are realised using our in house and hired equipment. We cover a huge range of projects through live performance to small films plus learning support. As well as technical skills and experience you will need to be able to speak to individuals and small groups, running inductions into kit and software Experience in Presentation set up, live streaming, projection and media servers would be required or most of the above. APPLY david.ripley@cssd.ac.uk with CV

No problem Alister, just give me a shout David

Hi Alister In January we opened our new building here at Central. We have 2 performance spaces and a sound stage, all LED - no dimmers! We looked around and in the end went for the Chauvet profiles and fresnels as well as ETC and Arri kit. We have a range of kit for teaching purposes We found the optics on the Chauvet profiles excellent as well as the colour range on the various versions On the fresnels we have a mixture of the '1/2K' and '1k's' One feature that is very clever about the fresnels is the ability to turn them into a dumb unit so anyone with a bit of experience can use just like an old TH unit, which is advantageous for us Price wise it also made sense for us in terms of value for money. Support from Chauvet has also been really good as well If you want to PM me for a chat, please do David

Hi Ollie Don't forget when you've got your degree that this industry needs people with those qualifications to design the kit and tools that we'll need in the future. Just because you do a non performance related degree doesn't exclude you from this industry. We need people who have an understanding of what we do and have those skills and qualifications to help us to do them. To anyone else who has the same thought as Ollie, we also need software engineers, marketing people, sales people, HR and H&S experts and so on as well as the end user technicians and creatives.This industry isn't just about what happens onstage and immediately around it, it's much broader than that David

Try this Check Employment status for Tax Half the time, though it comes back with 'Please Ring us as we can't quite figure it out' We use the following 'indicators of Self Employment' after advice from our Tax people. This makes sure we aren't using 'disguised employment' for our Visiting Professionals - No expectation of further work at the end of the engagement - Termination at any time by either side (Alternative arrangements to be in place except in the case of Gross Misconduct etc) - No eligibility to sick, holiday, maternity/paternity pay - No entitlement to pension - No overtime (Fee only engagements although we stick to Equity minimums etc) - You must provide equipment to fulfill your specialist service (generally meaning this means the equipment needed to provide a design, for instance, not the set/rig. A laptop, a scale rule and so on) - You must have Public Liability Insurance either personally or via a trade association or organisation (Easily the most contentious, Agents hate it and often argue. I've been a bit of a recruiter for Equity since we brought this in) If anyone wants a look at our Provision of Services Agreement, which all this is held in let me know. As we are a drama school, there is a lot of extra stuff those in the industry don't need. David