Hybrid cue on Ion

[alistermorton]

I hope someone can point me in the right direction here. We've got a requirement to simulate a follow spot in an upcoming show. One of the cast will start a scene stage right, then move stage centre, then move back off stage right, while a spot follows them. What I'd like to do is program one of our movers so that the intensity channel is controlled in the cue stack as if it was a conventional fixture, but have the position of the mover under manual control, say a fader, so that the two end points of the move correspond to the two end points of a fader.

 

Can this be done? We've only recently got the Ion and haven't yet had time to organise proper training, so I appreciate this might be really obvious.

 

TIA.

[J Pearce]

Yep, assuming positive pan moves your mover SL it should be fairly easy to do.

 

Record a focus palette for your start position.

Record the cue to include the mover at that focus palette

Recall that focus palette and then record a sub with the mover at your end position (change only the pan - edit it in blind using @ Enter to remove other parameters if necessary)

Hit Sub X Enter

Select Proportional from the soft keys, hit Enter.

Your sub should now add to the pan only.

 

It might try to override the tilt value, if it does try setting it to HTP over LTP.

 

You could also program each move into the cuestack and use manual timing to control the movement. This uses the faders next to the go button in a dipless crossfade style.

[vinntec]

Alister - I tried doing something very similar to that described by Jon on an ION for a musical a few years ago and it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. I am an amateur so I might not have had it quite right and obviously time for fiddling on an unfamiliar desk was short...

 

We ended up doing the whole thing as a sequence of linked cues because it was much easier to get the human actor to move with the light rather than the other way around. For both cases they needed drilling anyway on where to walk and how to stay in the light. When we tried the manual override method as originally intended, both actor and LX operator were trying to get him into the light and it was very difficult to get right. We found it much easier to get the actor to move to the "corners", focus the mover on there (a little wider than a follow spot would be), then play them back several times in a lighting rehearsal to match the speed with one the actor was comfortable with (different pace on each one I think and a pause at one point). He got the hang of it very quickly and the time spent doing this was worthwhile as the performances went without a hitch. Of course if he needed an understudy...

 

Just some food for thought to consider when you work out how best to do it for your show.

 

Peter

[alistermorton]

Thanks, both of you. Food for thought. I'll give it a try next time I'm in the theatre (I'm an amateur too) - we've used the actor follows the light in the past, too.