TomHoward Posted April 19, 2015 Share Posted April 19, 2015 Evening all We have an am-dram group who use our venue who have the odd member who struggles with the odd line.They've picked up on Anglela Lansbury and Micheal Gambon and similar using wireless earpieces with a prompt, rather than the prompt shouting from the wings, and are asking about these systems. Leaving the necessity aside, does anyone have any experience of what's used in this situation? Is it a standard IEM pack with some kind of discreet earpiece? PMR with earpiece? And has anyone set up a system for similar application? I'm thinking a bunch of cheap IEMs on the same channel with one transmitter might be the most obvious solution - cheap pmr would be cheaper but I think the packs would be less discreet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azlan Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 I would go iem, you will probably be able to get a much smaller (and more comfortable, and easy to hide) pack thAn you would with pmr radio. The actual headsets are available all over the place, and are called 'acoustic tubes' or 'covert headsets', just make sure you pick the right connector for them, as a lot of the cheap models come wired for Motorola pmr radios Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emsgeorge Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 The earpieces themselves are made by Sonic comms, Phonak, and several others - canford sell them, but they are cheaper direct from Sonic (Birmingham based if you want to google) From memory, about £100 for the earpiece. You will also need a neck loop, which just looks like a flesh coloured loop of cable, which sits around the neck, below clothing. Off that is a single cable, usually to 3.5mm jack. Simply plug said jack into an IEM pack, and voila. There are lots of cheap Chinese sellers on fleabay, search for 'spy earpiece' - just make sure you don't buy the Bluetooth ones, as they wont work properly with iem packs. Just be aware that the earpieces pick up form inductive loop - that's what they have round their necks, so if the venue has a deaf aid inductive loop, then problems will occur. Same as dimmer rooms too close to the stage - the earpieces will pick up almost any interference if it is close enough, stay close enough to dimmer cabling and you can hear the buzzing in your ear as the levels go up and down. Can be quite distracting and takes getting used to. Oh, and managing to listen to someone prompting and talking at the same time is an art in itself. Don't go out and get the kit for their first night, and make sure the person doing the prompting ISN'T the dsm - they have far too much to do, and will (from experience) fumble with a mic, shout down it the word, and scare the living carp out of the actor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 "Stop touching your ear" -James Bond It takes a lot of practise to receive a prompt in-ear without it being very obvious, but if it helps the talent they will have to get used to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'm not sure this is sensible with amateurs, as if they can't remember their lines, then it's unlikely they'll be able to deal with the brain split required to react to in-ear instructions, and of course it also needs the person doing the prompting to be very good too - this all takes far more time and effort than it's worth. I used to train presenters to use talkback, and this would either be unstitched - as in they would hear all the production gallery chatter - some for them, and some for others, or switched where the feed the their earpiece was only for them, and normally silent. Oddly, they learned to use the unstitched one easier than the switched - and you could detect a little 'jump' when it was pressed, and they awaited the words - and worse still, their eyes would take on a glazed expression and they actually looked like they were listening. A few could not stop themselves reacting - with a nod of the head, or worse, saying ok out loud and not noticing. On stage, unswitched talkback isn't on the cards, so it's a button! Quality can be important - so radio comms style kit will be fine - many receivers are now quite small, but the audio is band limited - so quite harsh sounding, compared to IEM which is hifi quality. I use IEMs for this kind of thing - using radio quality receivers is quite painful after a while - but that is on an unswitched system, so I hear the lot! After a while you can easily discount what is coming in your ear and have normal conversations, yet still keep one bit of your brain on the words coming in - and I don't respond, or jump and people rarely realise I am listening outside the room. I'm just very unsure if amateurs, who after all are trying to act at the same time, can develop this skill quickly enough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'd agree with JM and PE above, the better amateur actors will probably only need a couple of prompts in the whole run and don't need in ears, those who need frequent prompts are probably working flat out just to get through the show and would be better off without the distraction of IEMs. It's another level of complexity for the cast and crew to deal with. Bear in mind as well that, taken to the logical conclusion, IEMs (as opposed to PMR style earpieces) isolate the performer from stage noise so a monitor feed would be required so they can hear the other actors, yet another thing to go wrong. This is an amateur production and, unlike the Anglela Lansbury and Micheal Gambon situation the audience haven't paid £60+ a ticket to see a top professional show and they aren't going to be asking if "XYZ" is losing it 'cos they needed a couple of prompts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'm not sure this is sensible with amateurs, as if they can't remember their lines, then it's unlikely they'll be able to deal with the brain split required to react to in-ear instructions... Been there, done this. Frankly, it was like a 90 minute car crash happening live on stage with you being unable to do anything about it. For reference, I used Trantec body-pack VHF receivers and gave the additional prompt a hand-held VHF radio mic. But really, no, don't do it. Or if you do make sure you have a deputy who can take over when you leave the building mid-performance to go to the pub and drown your sorrows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjadingle Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 If you need a solution why not get them to buy hands free kits for their phones - then ask them to dial into a conference call. They might be more inclined to go with traditional methods when they see the phone bills, plus it's a no-cost solution for you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomHoward Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 Leaving the necessity aside....The solution doesn't need to be low-cost, (well not zero cost anyway) and it's no cost to us (the group are looking to buy), and it might be nice as since they only use this venue they'll probably leave the IEM rack here anyway. We'd probably give the prompt either a headset or gooseneck mic and a talk button, with silent IEMs outside of that time - I haven't worried too much about the feed yet - or whether they can prompt quietly enough into a mic from the wings or would need to be elsewhere. I was trying to avoid saying anything in a public forum (especially as I use my real name) but I totally agree with the above, but that doesn't stop them having asked us to look into it. I realise the prompt will probably be indiscreet to the audience, but considering our last show included someone breaking character, saying sorry to the audience and then taking a prompt, I'm not sure how much worse it can be. They are afraid that if they can't come up with an alternative to this then some cast members might get embarrassed about taking prompts and will stop going on stage - whilst that could be considered a solution rather than a problem, unfortunately I've got to leave necessity of the system aside and just concentrate on the 'how' than the 'why'..... They get good enough audiences though (usually around 600 audience over a 4 night run in a 200 seat venue) and their local audience are faithful enough (we're in a small town so there's not exactly competition) that they've deemed looking into this to be worth their while. Personally I would just run some workshops on trying to feed each other lines though rather than rely on a prompt - as noone else on stage ever seems to help out, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Perhaps the idea to run the workshop is the best solution - let them try before they buy, and it's a guaranteed result really. Tell you what, if they want an impartial person, I'll pop down and run it for you. It could even be a fun evening for them, with lots of laughs - easy to do some experimenting with them to see how it works for real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GR1 Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Tom your last suggestion is the one to concentrate on. A workshop to train the other actors on stage to feed prompts to those who dry. That and more work as a group to drill the script into the actors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandall Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 talkback ... this would ... be unstitched....As in "falling apart"? - reminds me of Lime Grove Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomHoward Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 I'm going to keep pushing the alternatives but I think to be honest they're going to want to try the IEM solution as well. I've proposed an Thomann IEM100 (£130 for first set, each additional receiver £70) and a cheap induction neck loop system for about £60, or a discreet-ish looking wired unit from Canford and they want to order the lot just to try them all out. Some of the cast members are pushing 80 (and beyond) and that doesn't seem like an excuse to me but at the moment they seem to be thinking it's the only way around it. I think we'll still purchase one system just to try it out, but it's not my favoured route so I am going to push that we also try non-technical solutions. We can still make use of the IEM pack though as we often used wired cans for pit bands so even if it doesn't fly (which I'm hoping for - I think feeding lines onstage would be more natural) it's not entirely wasted but I get the feeling that it's not going to get dropped unless they can see first-hand how fiddly it could be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 We are an amateur company, and have cast who may range from teens to 80's and yes, occasionally they dry, but in many cases, as suggested, the other cast members feed them a hint or work round the forgotten line. It's comparatively rare that the prompt actually has to feed a line. Interestingly, the members in their 80's are often the best at remembering their lines and working around a dry patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I'd also worry that if they think technology will "save" them, then they may actually make less effort to learn their lines in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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