Have you heard of this?

[CharlieH]

One subtle but very clever example (well, so I thought anyway) of 'movers on a fly bar' is in this show in "Electricity" - the bar starts off on the deck and gradually glows and flies out as Billy sings, but in order to maintain the right angle the movers compensate for the ascending flying bar ... I'm guessing the Pirouettes were picked for this purpose as they're the only mover that looks vaguely like a conventional fresnel (a bar full of Mac 600s wouldn't really pass for conventional lights of the period :P)

I noticed that and was very impressed, it must have taken a lot of trial and error to get the speed of the movers to synchronise with the speed of the fly bar.

 

Having said that, my favourite song from the play from a LX, musical, dance, and blocking point of view was the angry dance! I have searched for the West End version of this on youtube so many times, as I would love to see that dance again, just to analyse it in even greater detail than I could when I was seeing it live! :P

[Joe Bleasdale]

I noticed that and was very impressed, it must have taken a lot of trial and error to get the speed of the movers to synchronise with the speed of the fly bar.

 

It depends... if the bar was done by Automation, and was hence the same speed every night. The Automation crew could tell you it takes X seconds to fly out so you can update your cue timings to match. Alternativly, if the flyman was flying the bar out, you could watch closely in rehersals and record how long it takes the bar to go out, then take an average and update your cue times accordingly.

 

Hope this helps,

[CharlieH]

It depends... if the bar was done by Automation, and was hence the same speed every night. The Automation crew could tell you it takes X seconds to fly out so you can update your cue timings to match. Alternativly, if the flyman was flying the bar out, you could watch closely in rehersals and record how long it takes the bar to go out, then take an average and update your cue times accordingly.

Put it like that it wouldn't be that difficult, but if the fly bar was flown manually then even an average wouldn't be ideal, and if something went wrong with the fly bar, and it got caught somewhere, or the flight cue was missed, then the movers would end up pointing out into the audience!

 

I guess I am just looking for things that could go wrong, and the chances of any of them happening are minute! :P

[Smiffy]

Programming cues like that is not easy, but neither is it particularly difficult, and for 10 performances, it probably will go wrong at least once. Whether the Audience ever notice is another matter.

 

If a show is going to have a few cues like that, then your choice of console might be affected. If I was going to do a cue like that knowing it was manual lift, then I would want a console that would allow me to cross-fade moving light cues manually, and I'd talk through the whole cue with the Flyman each and every time it's run.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[CharlieH]

Programming cues like that is not easy, but neither is it particularly difficult, and for 10 performances, it probably will go wrong at least once. Whether the Audience ever notice is another matter.

 

If a show is going to have a few cues like that, then your choice of console might be affected. If I was going to do a cue like that knowing it was manual lift, then I would want a console that would allow me to cross-fade moving light cues manually, and I'd talk through the whole cue with the Flyman each and every time it's run.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

I didn't think of manually crossfading, but thinking about it that would make much more sense! I've never heard of this on a desk though, can you give me any examples of desks that can do it?

[Smiffy]

A properly programmed MA (my desk of choice 99.9% of the time) will happily do it. Although not strictly a true X-Fade, in that Cue A and Cue B would require two separate faders, both moving from 0 to 100 (cue B) and 100 to 0 (cue A) although given as it's essentially an LTP move, Cue A doesn't need to come to 0.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[J Pearce]

The strand palette will also allow you to crossfade attributes on a two fader crossfade setup.

[CharlieH]

although given as it's essentially an LTP move, Cue A doesn't need to come to 0.

If it's LTP, surely Cue A doesn't have to move at all? IF Cue B has all the attributes and intensities for the next cue saved in it, then wouldn't you just have to move fader B by a millimetre, to transmit all of the new DMX values? Granted, this wouldn't be a fade, instead it would be a snap, but I can't see how dimming fader A to 0 (or nearly 0) will change anything? I've probably missed something majorly important, so please let me know if I have; the whole HTP, LTP thing is kind of complicated! B-)

[Big Jay]

If our interested, the show is running on a Strand 520i with a 510i backup, im not sure but I think the bar is Automated but dont hole me to it

[rossmck]

I believe the bar is automated, interesting to know the console though if for nothing else other than curiosity B-)

[Smiffy]

although given as it's essentially an LTP move, Cue A doesn't need to come to 0.

If it's LTP, surely Cue A doesn't have to move at all? IF Cue B has all the attributes and intensities for the next cue saved in it, then wouldn't you just have to move fader B by a millimetre, to transmit all of the new DMX values? Granted, this wouldn't be a fade, instead it would be a snap, but I can't see how dimming fader A to 0 (or nearly 0) will change anything? I've probably missed something majorly important, so please let me know if I have; the whole HTP, LTP thing is kind of complicated! :D

 

Hi Charlie:

 

That's what I meant by the text in red in the quote above. My explanation rather over complicated things.

 

With the MA I would probably assign the cue I wanted the manual move time in to a TEMP fader and do it that way in a separate stack. However I could also assign the fader as an A/B X Fade, which would be a case of fader up = cue A, fader down = Cue B, Fader up again = Cue C and so on.

 

LTP and HTP is really very simple. Latest vs Highest Takes Precedence. If its an HTP channel, it's only interested in the highest value of the data (0 to 255) whereas with LTP a channel is only interested in the Latest value of the data (anywhere between 0 and 255). With some consoles you can switch HTP channels to LTP and vice versa, but that requires a good idea of what you will need from the console for the show you are attacking. One of the reasons that I love the MA consoles is that I can make a dimmer HTP or LTP on a cue by cue basis, but it's not something I have the need to do often, other than with Dimmed Items such as Molefays or the Band / CVox Keylights that I will need access to quickly, and so I always force the MA to make those stacks HTP and bump the fader priority to high, thus overriding anything I might have included in a songs cues.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

 

As we are heading a bit off topic, feel free to start a new thread for anything that's been said that is utterly unrelated to what we are really talking about here (moving lights and moving trusses) that you might want to ask more questions on. There's loads of us here (I think) that have had to program enough oddities and weirdness in our time that we should probably be able to answer B-)

 

Cheers

 

 

Smiffy

[CharlieH]

LTP and HTP is really very simple. Latest vs Highest Takes Precedence. If its an HTP channel, it's only interested in the highest value of the data (0 to 255) whereas with LTP a channel is only interested in the Latest value of the data (anywhere between 0 and 255).

Brilliant, thanks. I thought that was the case, but that just cleared it up a bit :D I've only ever used an LTP desk once, and it took us 16 hours to program (over a 2 day period) as me and the other guy programming had never used the desk, a cue stack, movers, or an LTP control before! It was a hell of a learning curve!

 

As we are heading a bit off topic, feel free to start a new thread for anything that's been said that is utterly unrelated to what we are really talking about here (moving lights and moving trusses) that you might want to ask more questions on. There's loads of us here (I think) that have had to program enough oddities and weirdness in our time that we should probably be able to answer

Yes, sorry about hijacking this thread! I think I understand this now though, so thank you very much, and I will let you get back to the topic in hand B-)

 

Thanks,

Charlie