Tips for New comers

[sunray]

Excellent lighting can still be done with 24 lanterns and a two preset manual board.

 

 

 

Thats funny as thats probably how I lit my last show......

That just about sums up the kit I've been putting together in the last couple of years.

 

[vinntec]

Thankfully I've never heard of this before; so I'd say this piece of "advice" probably isn't something for OP to lose sleep over :)

Although the advice might translate to making sure LX is properly rigged while still at ground level - G-clamps are properly tightened, safeties on, gels properly fitted, barn doors safely fitted and open, shutters open on profiles (so you don't waste time trying to fix a lantern that is actually working!) and loose cabling correctly taped. If possible, each bar should be flashed before it is flown out as it probably won't come down again until getout and fault finding 6m high is a lot harder.

 

If you can't flash out at ground level, which you can't do at my local theatre, then you do it immediately after the bar is raised and connected to dimmers, hot power and DMX (while you can still bring it down again).

 

 

[GridGirl]

Learn how to read a score - even if it's only a piano one[/size]

 

I should have thought of this. Being able to follow a score is so, so, so useful. You don’t need to be able to follow the full orchestral score for the Ring Cycle, but finding your way around a piano score is a very valuable skill. You don’t need to know what every marking or piece of terminology means, just be able to find bar 67 when the MD says that’s where you’ll pick up from, and follow instrumental sections during a dance break.

[sandall]

Learn how to read a score - even if it's only a piano one

It's one of my regrets that I never learnt, but apart from having to learn G & S overtures by heart (& occasionally needing to ask the DSM "where the **** are we?" during more tedious operatic scenes) it was never a problem, either at work or "play".

[Junior8]

Thankfully I've never heard of this before; so I'd say this piece of "advice" probably isn't something for OP to lose sleep over :)

Although the advice might translate to making sure LX is properly rigged while still at ground level - G-clamps are properly tightened, safeties on, gels properly fitted, barn doors safely fitted and open, shutters open on profiles (so you don't waste time trying to fix a lantern that is actually working!) and loose cabling correctly taped. If possible, each bar should be flashed before it is flown out as it probably won't come down again until getout and fault finding 6m high is a lot harder.

 

If you can't flash out at ground level, which you can't do at my local theatre, then you do it immediately after the bar is raised and connected to dimmers, hot power and DMX (while you can still bring it down again).

 

 

 

To be clear I meant the ones on the clamps not on the tilting fork or the lantern. It was amazing how often you rigged a bar with some of them and found one or two hanging slightly loose at the other end. As of course it makes no difference to the angle of dangle you might never notice it but I found it had happened quite often when I went back along and checked before finishing it off. It may not happen with modern ally pipes but it definitely used to with other metals. There was still a lot of ferrous about when I was a youngster.

[Bryson]

Learn how to read a score - even if it's only a piano one[/size]

 

I should have thought of this. Being able to follow a score is so, so, so useful. You don’t need to be able to follow the full orchestral score for the Ring Cycle, but finding your way around a piano score is a very valuable skill. You don’t need to know what every marking or piece of terminology means, just be able to find bar 67 when the MD says that’s where you’ll pick up from, and follow instrumental sections during a dance break.

I wish I was better at this for doing Opera. I can just about follow along, but if I get distracted and need to find where we are...yikes.

[Junior8]

It is difficult at first especially if you have no practical musical experience but it does come with practice. I was in a church choir from seven and after a few years of that and cello playing with a bit of madrigal singing thrown in it was pretty well second nature - you get almost recognise where you are by the shape of things on the staves. But you do lose it. I can't do it very well any more having not had to read a sheet of music for over 25 years. There are tales of famous sideman with the likes of Count Basie who played the whole show without charts and were most put out when he decided to bring in a new arrangement or revive something from the distant past. (Martin Taylor in his book admits he was a poor reader and was frequently discovered to be busking rather than reading when with Victor Sylvester's band.) Always start with the piano score if available. I.m not up with this sort of stuff but no doubt it is possible to get software to produce a score from a recording if it is and it was possible with say a simple piano piece you could chose say a simple piano track produce a few minutes of it only and use that for a start off maybe even watching the notes appear on the screen as it's scoring it.

[gareth]

Wing bolts have a nasty habit of coming loose on the first lanterns as you work along rigging a bar.

 

Really?

I'd second this. Either you have no or incorrect washers on your bolts; or your wingnuts are on bolts that are too short; and should be rectified right away.

Thankfully I've never heard of this before; so I'd say this piece of "advice" probably isn't something for OP to lose sleep over :)

I'd guess you're referring to bolt-and-wingnut sets for locking the pan of a lantern - which, I agree, shouldn't work loose if they've been fitted and tightened properly. But I read Junior8's post as referring to wingBOLTS, as in the bolts in a hook-clamp which secure the lantern onto the bar - and I've never, in maybe 35 years of clamping lanterns onto bars this way, had one 'work loose' after being tightened down onto the bar.

[david.elsbury]

TL;DR ensure the lamp/unit/fixture is securely clamped to the bar/truss/pipe? :)

[sunray]

TL;DR ensure the lamp/unit/fixture is securely clamped to the bar/truss/pipe? :)

I helped pack up after a prizegiving evening and not a single wingbolt had been done up and for that matter no safeties either, one of the usual too many cooks scenarios.

[alistermorton]

I'd guess you're referring to bolt-and-wingnut sets for locking the pan of a lantern - which, I agree, shouldn't work loose if they've been fitted and tightened properly. But I read Junior8's post as referring to wingBOLTS, as in the bolts in a hook-clamp which secure the lantern onto the bar - and I've never, in maybe 35 years of clamping lanterns onto bars this way, had one 'work loose' after being tightened down onto the bar.

 

If anything I find that sometimes they're much tighter to undo after the show than they were ever done up, as very slight expansion and contraction (or the fixture weight if it was rigged off vertical for some reason) seems to dig the end of the bolt into the bar. Clamps with protector plates/leaves, and half coupler and trigger clamps don't suffer from this "phantom tightening".

 

 

 

[sandall]

If anything I find that sometimes they're much tighter to undo after the show than they were ever done up, as very slight expansion and contraction (or the fixture weight if it was rigged off vertical for some reason) seems to dig the end of the bolt into the bar.

I always just put that down to over-enthusiastic rigging crew :)- never found one that had worked loose.

[alistermorton]

IKWYM but I even find it on stuff I've rigged myself and I *know* I didn't do them up that tight.