In the second part of our guide to moving lights control with the Cham Sys MagicQ, we take the previously patched fixtures and manipulate them into palettes while understanding what goes on inside the Programmer.

OK, so if you have followed the On Stage Lighting MagicQ tutorials so far you should have a pretty good understanding of how to find your way around the desk, patch dimmers and moving heads, save show files and create cues. We have also looked at using the built in effects engine and dealing with fade times.

Today we are going to continue using the show file we created last time, with the free Capture Robe Awards .exe file, to get to grips with manipulating the heads and their attributes such as Colour and Position. By creating some palettes, we’ll also get our heads round the business end of the professional based lighting console, the programmer.

I will warn you now, if you are into fiddling with effects engines, making big looks and banging them onto a playback to impress yer mates this tutorial ain’t gonna suddenly create top notch lighting for you. We are going to take it ultra slow to give you the knowledge to make that killer lighting on your own and avoid going around in circles.

Last time, we quickly created a Home palette as a fix for the Spots which are rigged “sideways” (default tilts on-and-off stage, not up-down stage). As we then altered the fixture personality using the Head Editor, our Home palette became redundant so let’s get rid of it. If you remember from earlier tutorials, to delete something on the MagicQ you hit REM(ove) [bottom right hardbutton], then select it and confirm. Delete Pos Palette 11 “Home” now.

Making An Intensity Only Playback

As the start of any programming session usually involves some palette creation or editing, we need to be able to see the fixtures as we work on them. You could set the fixture Dimmers to 100% every time you start a new palette but this kinda wastes time and, depending on what you are doing, impacts your programming. So what we want is a way of leaving the Spot1200s on, even when you CLEAR information from the programmer – a Spot On playback it is, then.

Hit CLEAR like a good operator should. This dumps everything from your most important tool, the Programmer, an area of memory used to build stuff to be recorded. If you need a recap on the function of the Programmer, check out our article and/or revisit the earlier tutorials.

BTW, you can see that there is nothing in there by pressing PROG and looking in the Programmer window. While we are here, why not send that window to your External Screen (with your Capture view on it) by pressing EXT in the window controls while it is active. The Prog window should appear on your external screen, adjust using the Size window button, mine is currently filling the bottom half of my external screen with the visualiser above it The Groups, Position, Colour and Beam windows fill the main MagicQ screen. Update this layout to the Palettes view by pressing REC, then CTRL + “Palettes” [top soft].

Select All Spot1200, then the top softbutton DIM @ FULL to see the spots on. Now look in the Programmer window, you’ll see that the four heads have their dimmer attribute highlighted in red, reading 100%. All the other attributes such as Pan, Tilt etc are not highlighted nor have a number in them. This is important to understand. Even though the heads are in Open White, No Gobo and all have a position, there is no data about these attributes and nothing but Dimmer will be recorded right now.

Note: If anything other than Dim data is highlighted, check Setup -> View Settings -> Prog -> Activate Chans/Head = Chans. While we are here, check that Recording to Palettes = All heads in programmer, it’ll save a ton of confusion later.

Record this data as “SPOT ON” on PB10.

CLEAR the Programmer again and raise PB10 to see the Spots fade up and down with the fader. We don’t need to press the playback Go (>) button because the default setting for playbacks should be “Playback Activates Stack” (found in the playback options by double clicking the softbutton or “S” button above the fader.) As the PB is also “Fader Controls HTP”, the Dimmer data adjusts with the fader level.

This SPOT ON state is not only a tool for seeing the heads as we create palettes, it is also a major playback used when busking concert lighting using subs – it can be a master intensity control to run the show with. Having faders that control just intensity, you can pull them down, adjust your heads to a new busked look using palettes, and fade back in again when you are ready.

Leave the fader up and create another PB9 – WASH ON and stick that up too so we can see all the heads.

Back to the palettes. CLEAR the Programmer if any data has snuck in there.

We are going to create a beam look in the crowd. First, select both spots and washes by shift+clicking both “All” groups. Activate the Pos window and wind the tilts outward toward the audience. Look at the Programmer, you only have Tilt information so far, RECORD that look as Crowd Beam on Pos 11 before pressing the top right softbutton View Palette. You can see that you only have Tilt information in that palette, the Pan field is blank – there is no Pan value in the palette. Hit Close Window.

We are moving along slowly right now because it’s important to hammer home some really basic concepts in moving light programming that can really mess your day up. They can make your life a misery as things you thought you programmed seem to appear and disappear by magic.

Let’s test this Tilt Only palette by first changing the Pan and Tilt values by hand, quick and dirty, big change. Now, select Crowd Beam. Erk, something is not looking right, this isn’t the look we had. Looking in the Programmer window, we can see “crowd beam” in the tilt value but the pan is unchanged.

Well, we did only record Tilt information didn’t we?

I’d reckon it is  safe to say that the number of times you want to record a palette with a Tilt but no Pan is pretty limited but that the number of times you will do just that is potentially limitless.

Sort this position out and make sure the Pan is also set in the Programmer by nudging the encoder a little. This has been a standard workaround on other moving light controls, a way to make sure that data is entered even if the value remains unchanged.

Note: The MagicQ also has shortcuts for making sure you have attributes “active” in the programmer, by holding COL and pressing SET for example. There are a number of cool shortcuts that involve press/hold moves (POS + LOCATE sets the position attributes only to default) but for the life of me I can’t work out how to achieve that on the MagicQ PC using the screen only interface.

Re save (edit) this updated palette with REC -> P11 and confirm the update.

Using The Fan Tool

While we have our beams out in the crowd, why not make up some fan positions while we are here. Select All Spot 1200, click and hold the FAN button [right] and select Asym and All before winding the Pan values so the heads form a knot, truss heads pointing toward centre. Make sure that both you have both Pan and Tilt values in the programmer.

Leaving the crowd beam from the previous palette creates nested data that can either be incredibly powerful or really ruin your day when you make a single palette update that changes the whole show. Do the same with your Washes, setting them maybe to fan outward, the FAN button needs to be lit to be activated.

Select all the heads, type 5 and select Magenta. You have now learned how to recall a palette over a time, in this case 5 seconds. If you have ready any of our articles on busking concert lighting, you might get how useful this is.

Save this brand new position palette at Crowd Fan. When that’s done, play about with the other Fan function settings and see if you can work out what they do.

Attribute Masking and Nested Palettes

So far, with our two Position palettes and our Dimmer playbacks, we’ve seen the effect of recording specific data in different places.

You will notice that all the Position palette slots have a P in the top right hand corner, the Colour slots have a C and guess what, the Beams have a B. This is because the MagicQ, by default, sets an appropriate “mask” for the palette type and only records this information, ignoring others. We know that we set our Crowd Fan to magenta but Pos12 still only shows a P. Turning all the heads back to Open White then recalling Pos12 does nothing to the heads in terms of colour.

This shows that, when recording palettes, attribute masking controls what goes into the palette regardless of what you see on stage. By default, only the relevant attributes (and then only those in the programmer at the time) get recorded. But we can change that so to illustrate that, let’s go a little of piste.

Let’s say that we want our Fan position palette to include magenta. So we don’t mess up our original, we’ll make a copy of that palette COPY -> P12 -> P15. Make all the head magenta using palette C10 then Shift+REC opens a window with all possible attributes listed, select those that you wish you record, in this case : Pan, Tilt, Col1, Cyan, Mag, Yellow,

Hit Close Options [top softbutton] then overwrite P15, you will see a C appear as well as the P in the top right corner. Now we have Colour and Position information in what was a Position only Palette.

Rename that to Mag Fan with SET -> P15. OK, so a position palette with colour forced into it is not going to be your most useful go-to but while we are off the beaten track, let’s use it to demonstrate the concept of nested palettes.

Selecting P15 and hitting View Palette shows us that the Colour data is the Magenta palette, not simply DMX values. Let’s decide that the Magenta palettes needs a little tweak, a bit more blue for example.

Hit INC [bottom right] then pick the C10 Magenta palette. This loads all the data used in that palette into the programmer, ready for editing. Crank up the Cyan value using the top left encoder and reduce the Magenta a bit, to create a much bluer magenta in the visualiser, one that is markedly different to the original.

Now set the heads into Open White etc. before picking Pos15 again. You will see that, not only did we edit the magenta palette but that the change has been reflected in any palettes created with it, in this case our Mag Fan “position”. You can start to see how it might be possible to build memories, using layers of palettes within palettes, that can be easily edited console wide at base level, in this case the magenta palette.

If you are using your desk in a non-theatre stack environment (using “tracking” to achieve show wide complex edits in a single shot), this concept could prove useful.

But…

The real reason for illustrating the concept of nested palettes is to help you avoid accidentally creating them within your show. Suppose you set your CMY fixtures to Red using the pre-programmed colour palettes for speed, then tweak the magenta encoder to make the result more amber. You currently have an Mag value in numeric form, but the C and Y values in the programmer still relate to the palette Red. If you save that as a new palette now, any changes to Red will also be reflected in the new palette.

To avoid doing this, you should be looking to set your colour palettes from scratch using the encoders or the colour mix facility on the MagicQ but selecting Col Mix from the top left softbutton and choosing a library item from Lee or Rosco or even using the rainbow field to pick your colour.

Don’t forget that this doesn’t just apply to colour palettes. Using any palette as the basis for another can spell trouble. Remember that the data displayed in the Programmer window is more important than what you can see on stage when it comes to understanding how you are storing attribute information.

If you head is completely pickled by all this and you just want out, we’ll finish by getting rid of that pesky colour data in our lovely position palette using Record Remove.

Record Remove – Get Me Outta Here

Record Remove is a quick tool for targetting specific data within a palette or memory and deleting it. In this case, we want rid of the colour in our Pos15 palette so let’s start by loading that into the programmer: INClude -> Pos15. Now the palette is there, simply Shift+REC to get the Record Options window back, choose Rec Colour from the top (which auto selects all colour attributes) and also Rec Remove option, top right. Close Options with the softbutton and click Pos15, confirm. Check your work with View Palette. Only Pan and Tilt information remains, we just told the Colour data to take a running jump in a few button pushes.

Enough, already.

OK, so I did warn you that it might get tough around here today. Unlike earlier tutorials, we have not simply followed a set of steps to create a nice look and save it. By now you should be familiar enough with the basics of the MagicQ to be able to do that, with a bit of practice to remind yourself of the workflow.

How about a recap?

• Attribute data active in the programmer is available to record with, despite the look on stage.
• It’s important that you are aware of which attributes are active and if palettes are going to be accidentally nested.
• The Col, Beam, Pos palettes select their own data type from the programmer when recording, but you can override this.
• You can select which attributes are recorded back out of the programmer using Shift + REC.
• Use Record Remove to easily dump specific data from a recorded memory or palette.

To lighten things up a bit, it’s your turn to go nuts and play with stuff rather than getting bogged down in the grubby detail of programmers and attributes.

If you’ve been following along, you have more than enough knowledge to set up some looks, create some position palettes on stage and even try to get the effects engine up and running with the moving lights. Here’s a few ideas to try out.

• Try to get all your Spots on the singer using different selection tools such as Nxt Head highlight or manipulating pairs using Fan.
• Try out the Odd/Even selection button and experiment with the different Fan settings.
• Have a go at creating some palettes that spin the current gobo at Slow, Fast or Stop – only spin, not reload a new gobo.
• Create In or Out selection groups or experiment with using the Fan function on attributes such as colour.
• Create a look, then see if you can pull data from a memory and turn it into a specific attribute palette.

Or you could just get the big looks out and try to impress yer mates.

Next time we’ll look at recording different kinds of memories and how they relate to multi parameter fixtures such as moving lights. See you then.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

• Moving Light Control Tutorial MagicQ Part 1
• Moving Light Control – Palettes – Lighting Desk Basics 4
• MagicQ Tutorial Part 3 – Cues, Timing and FX

In the first of our moving light control tutorials using the Cham Sys MagicQ, we find out how to patch and wrangle intelligent fixtures and follow our progress on a virtual stage using the Capture visualiser.

The On Stage Lighting MagicQ tutorials are designed for readers to get to know the console and learn a a few general programming tricks along the way. All the material is planned for use on the free MagicQ PC software so you can try it at home, but everything learned is equally applicable to any of the real consoles from Cham Sys and many other professional desks too.

This tutorial assumes that you have the knowledge gained from the previous MagicQ 1,2 and 3 including navigating the desk and the basic skills to patch, program and manage show data. If you’ve forgotten (it has been a while) you might want to go back and revisit but just to be clear we are going to be working on a totally different rig with a brand new show file than the previous tutorials.

In these moving light sessions we will also be using a free Capture .exe file that Cham Sys have made available for learning purposes. The file consists of a virtual lighting set up that is executable on your PC without the need to have Capture installed or licenced. Using the MagicQ’s visualiser link, we can easily run both the MagicQ PC software and the visualiser on the same PC although it is handy to have more screen area to accommodate both apps. To create these tutorials, I am using a pretty old XP laptop with an external monitor – MagicQ on laptop screen, Capture moved to the extended desktop on the external.

So, assuming you already have the MagicQ PCsoftware installed (this tutorial was prepare on 1.4.6.0) , you will also need to download and unzip the Capture .exe file called Robe Demo, also available from the Cham Sys downloads site. I am using the Robe Demo Artnet version but I think that using the visualiser on the same PC, it doesn’t really matter. Cham Sys also have a MQ show file that goes with this rig with the patch and basic programming done but this doesn’t matter to us today. We are going to start a clean show, patch up a very small part of the rig and concentrate on the basics without too much desk clutter.

Start A New Show

Start the MQ and a New Show using SETUP -> New Show [top softbutton] (Remember, don’t worry that the desk asks you if you want to erase the current show, it’s a kinda scary prompt box that means you are making a clean start. If you have saved the previous show file, it doesn’t actually erase that show file).  Select Normal (live).

While you are in the SETUP window you might usually take the time to adjust the desks setting to your liking, for me that often means setting the windows colour scheme to High Brightness ( I like yellow, so ner) but there isn’t much you need to worry about in apart from the visualiser connection.

SETUP -> View DMX I/O [top] takes us to the I/O spreadsheet. We aren’t actually going to use an real outputs (like Artnet or another device) but we need to set up a connection for our Capture .exe file so looking right along the sheet, we need to find the column marked Visualiser, Shift + select universes 1 – 3 and hit Enter until Capture (same PC) appears. Alternatively you can double click on an individual field and choose from the prompt that appears. When you are happy, close the SETUP window with CLSE [top right]

Patching Some Moving Lights

Open the PTCH window [top right, next to SETUP], this is a brand new show so you should get a blank window, we haven’t patched anything yet. First we are going to patch four Robe Spot1200 ATs to Universe 2, starting at DMX address 097. If you remember the basics of the procedure to patch dimmer channels from previous tutorials, this is simlar but we first need to define which moving light personality we are going to use. Check out more about fixture personalities if you are unclear what they do.

With the PATCH window active, Choose Head [top softbutton] opens a the file that contains personalities for different manufacturers. Scroll or cursor down to Robe and click once to open the Robe list, then find Spot1200 and select Mode 4 (24) at the prompt. If you hadn’t guessed, 24 is the number of channels used for Mode 4, a manufacturer setting that defines how the fixture behaves.

Having selected your head personality, the next step is to patch 4 to Universe 2 starting at DMX 097. If you remember the syntax at the command prompt is 4 @ 2-97 Enter (quantity @ Uni 2 starting at DMX 097) -> Patch It. That patches our first moving lights and they appear in the PATCH window. Before we move on, let’s just just tidy something up.

The four heads we have patched currently have been allocated Head Numbers 1 – 4. These numbers are the unique identifiers, independent of DMX addressses, that the console uses and that we can select individual heads at the the keypad. The Capture .exe file Robe Demo, doesn’t display these heads as 1-4 but rather 55-58. In the interests of clarity, let’s change ours. In the PATCH window, shift select all four Hd No and type in 55 Enter, that renumbers the heads. This is a good reminder of how easy it is to make changes in the spreadsheet view, a godsend when you are working with hundreds of fixtures.

OK, so before we leave the PATCH window we are going to patch up a couple of Robe Wash 575s too. Starting at Choose Head [top], find Robe and then Wash575, selecting Mode 4. Now patch 2 heads on Uni 2 starting at DMX 21 ( 2@2-21 Enter -> Patch It). As above, change their Head Numbers to 91 and 92 to maintain show continuity with the Capture file.

Note: As you are a keen eyed sort, you might have noticed that there seems to be four wash lights on the deck downstage, not two. There is a reason we are only going to patch two for now, stick with me and you’ll find out why in a later session.

Connect to the Visualiser

Before we go any further, we want to be able to see what we are doing by connecting up the visualiser. On your PC, navigate to the unzipped .exe Capture file and start it. You should see a stage and rig in wireframe. We want to be able to see better than that so click on the spanner icon in the bottom right and choose views 4 and W. If you want to move the view around, try clicking and dragging on the zoom and directions icon until you are happy. Then move the Capture screen somewhere where you can see both it at the MagicQ interface at the same time.

Now for the moment of truth. We’ve set up our visualiser link in the PATCH window, we’ve patched up some heads. I wonder if we can make them work?

Switch to the default Palettes view by holding down CRTL on your keyboard and selecting Palettes from the top left softbutton. Group 1 should be an auto generated group called All Spot1200. If there is nothing in your GROUP window, go back to PATCH -> Auto Groups [top] -> Head Groups [prompt]. This creates the main head groups for you.

Back in the Palettes view, select All Spot1200 -> Locate [top centre] and watch the vis. Four overhead spots should fire up in open white, pointing straight down. If not, check your settings in the SETUP -> DMX I/O window, “Capture (same PC)” and try hitting the Restart Visual softbutton, usually a combination of correct setting and rebooting the show and the vis does the trick.

If you have the spots, try Locating the washes too:  All Wash575 -> Locate.

Checking The Moving Lights

Another frequently used check is to see if your heads are uniquely addressed and appear where you expect them. In our case we could do All Spot -> Locate then hit the NXT HEAD button centre right of the screen. That should bring up only Spot 55 on it’s own and kill the rest. Hitting NXT HEAD again moves us on to Spot 56 and we can quickly chase around the rig, checking that there are no duplicate DMX addresses and that the fixtures are ordered in the way we expect – in an ideal world from left to right when viewed from the desk.

Across a bit from the NXT HEAD button are some selection option buttons with HIGHTLIGHT and SINGLE currently lit. Hitting ALL gives us back control over the group. During programming, this can be used to switch between adjusting and individual fixtures focus or position, before grabbing them all again to make a group wide change. You might remember that the trick with moving lights is to herd them like sheep before picking off individual fixtures to adjust, then herding them to the next point, a new colour, for example.

So, the heads are responding uniquely and appear where we think they should.

An important check for a moving light programmer early on is that the Pan and Tilts behave uniformly, fixtures have not been rigged incorrectly or have Inverts set at the heads themselves. So let’s do that with our Spots.

Clearing the programmer with CLR should dowse all the heads.

All Spot 1200 -> Locate -> POS window active (click the window chrome or POS button) then adjust the Tile encoder to lift the heads up a little, before checking the Pan to see if they all move in the same direction. They do but there is something bugging me, the spots are rigged “sideways” and tilt up to Stage Left, instead of Up Stage as I’d like. We are gonna fix that right now, it’ll annoy me for the rest of the programming and slow me up hugely. There a few ways to fix it and we’ll look at two of ‘em.

Using A Palette

The simplest way, with any lighting console, is to create a Home palette that points the fixtures straight down with the correct Pan, let’s do that quickly. Hit Clear.

Select the Spots, Locate and then, using the encoder, bump the Pan value to about 168. Save that position as Home in Pos Palette 11 by hitting RECORD (REC), typing in “Home” and clicking P11 in the Position window. Now check your work. Locate the fixtures again, tilt up to see them going sideways, then hit Home palette and tilt up again – they should move upstage. Yay, order is restored once more, we just need to remember to use our Home palette as well as Locate.

But there is another way we could sort this out, by using the onboard fixture personality editor.

Changing The Locate Values Of A Fixture Personality

The Locate function is used to wipe the slate clean with a fixture, clear colours and gobos, set effects to defaults and point the fixture 50/50, ready for more programming. On the MagicQ it also serves another useful purpose relating to the programmer, but we’ll talk about that more later. Right now, we have spots that are rigged sideways on to the stage and we’d like it very much if the Locate function corrected that. We can do that at personality file level.

Opening the PATCH window, we need to choose the head personality file (.hed) we are going to edit using the Choose Head method we used while patching. Having selected Robe Spot1200 etc. click on Edit Head and check in View General – > Names that we are working on the correct one (Spot1200). Opening the View Chans window in Edit Head, we can see a lot of fixture personality information, the one we care about is the Locate column and the Pan field in particular.

If you remember from our Home palette, we want Pan to be 168 or so, not 128, so change that field (leave the Pan Low value as it is) by selecting the field, typing 82 Enter. You have now altered the locate values in that personality file and you can check your work by Locating the Spots then winding the tilt, hopefully now straight up or down stage.

There are all kinds of ways you can alter, Save and Save As the personality file data but we won’t go further into this right now. At the moment, we have just made a temporary change in this show file to help us out with this rig.

Changing Pan and Tilt Inverts

In our article covering the use of Inverts, we sketched out different situations that a moving light programmer might make use inverts to sort out problems and speed up workflow. In order to understand the Fan function better using this rig, we won’t set any inverts today but changes to this parameter are made in the PATH window spreadsheet again. P Inv, T Inv and Swap (Swap Pan/Tilt, used to align fixtures hung on their side with the rest of the rig) can all be set on or off using the fields.

Right now, all our heads, Spots and Washes all move toward or away from the stage in unison, handy for creating those outward beam structures quickly.

Save Your Show File

OK, so now we have some heads patched and the virtual rig responding as we’d like, if you haven’t remember to already, save your show file using SETUP -> View Settings -> Save Show and type in a name.

It might seem that we haven’t covered much ground today, simply patching and organising the desk to fit with the rig we have. But, we have learned how to select personality files, patch up heads and change their Head Numbers, create a position palette, adjust a fixture personality file and set inverts at the desk. We’ve tested the fixtures are correctly patched and that the Pan and Tilts are behaving themselves. This is all a vital part of early programming, often being worked on while the crew are still slinging trusses and the reason that a programmer needs to be at the desk early on.

Check Other Attributes

As part of pre programming checks and to get a chance to play with the rig a little, why not go through all the other attributes: colour, gobo and effects etc and check that the desk and the rig agree. In a real situation, this is very important to do this to check that all the fixtures are set to the correct mode (if the Pan/Tilt check hasn’t already flagged a problem up) and you are using the right personality.

Select heads, hit palettes and fiddle about with encoders. Don’t forget that the function of the encoders changes with the active window, as do all the softbuttons, so if you don’t see what you expect, check which window you have active.

In the previous tutorials, you learned enough to be able to have a go at recording and naming memories, so why not have a go at that too. REC -> type name -> Playback S button. Right now, it’s advisable for you to Locate your heads before recording looks for reasons that we’ll uncover at the start of the next article when we continue our anti quick start tutorials through the MagicQ and program some tools and looks while discovering features of the desk.

See you then.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

• MagicQ Tutorial – Getting Started
• MagicQ Tutorial Part 3 – Cues, Timing and FX
• Moving Light Control – Groups – Lighting Desk Basics 3

Today, on our third birthday, we take a look at the past three years, reveals some top secret statistics about this site and have some very exciting news too.

So, On Stage Lighting is now three years old.

Finally toilet trained, feeding self and able to stand for significant periods without falling over. But enough about the editorial staff, what’s been going on under the hood at OSL for the first three years of life, and what does the future look like?

Brief History of On Stage Lighting

After a few years of amateur dabbling, making and marketing web sites and, more importantly, making mistakes, I read about ways in which content writers were creating websites, attracting visitors and stimulating conversation while often paying for their work by selling targeted advertising. These  professional bloggers often used the free blogging platform WordPress to enable them to set up a professional and easy to administer web property on their own domain. They often choose a niche subject, often a specialism that they could build a brand around, and found both enjoyment and employment in writing online.

That interested me and I decided to try an experiment while developing my web marketing skills. It made sense to write about the subject that I had a lot of experience and and a passion for and as a stage lighting professional, the subject choice was obvious.

After a fairly quick set up, the first article was published on the 9th July 2007, a brief rundown of considerations when hiring lighting equipment. It was simple to follow advice from a professional written for anyone with little stage lighting experience, a template that is still the mark of an On Stage Lighting Article today.

As time went on, awareness of this site grew and visitor numbers climbed, I was no longer writing into a vacuum but had readers, subscribers and now even a few reeeeeealllly big stage lighting names that I know follow this site (erk). Oo er, better make a go of this experiment then…

Learning from the pros in the blogging world, as a content provider, I do quite a bit of research into what visitors are looking for when they come online. This takes many forms such as the comments sections, a  simple poll or question, but also research into what users are searching for, both at the main search engines such as Google, and our internal site searches too (they tell me that many people are trying to find article on “Concert Lighting Techniques” but also “Curtain Tracks”, not something yet covered). Content that is popular in terms of sharing, linking or even the amount of comments (nearly 1000 comments in total so far), also shows areas that stimulate the interest of readers.

The main requirement for any On Stage Lighting article is that it is not only informative and enjoyable to read but that the on site Signal/Noise Ratio is favourable. This means that the bar is pretty high for what I consider writing, and why the possibly surprising figure of only 106 published articles makes sense, especially as we try to avoid duplication.

Personally, it takes me most of a day to get just a written piece together, much longer for  tutorials and that’s excluding time coming up with ideas or the 20+ years of lighting experience behind them. The posting schedule is often dictated by the amount of work it’s taking to make a living in the lighting business (which recently has been a lot) but also on the availability of good content, having something to say. It’s been fairly quiet here at the site in the last few months for reasons that will be revealed further on.

But On Stage Lighting has never been about one person and a lot of ideas and advice here is a result of input from other lighting professionals. We’ve been lucky to attract some really high quality guests in Lucas Krech (with a great piece about lighting for  dance) and  Richard Cadena (about getting to the top in lighting). Publishing a wider range of writers at On Stage Lighting is something that I’ve been working toward for quite a while, whether it be big names or readers with new experiences, and it’s definitely something we are keen to encourage.

Looking Back

Over the last three years, On Stage Lighting has published a range of articles from how-tos such as Lighting An Orchestra, introductions to RDM DMX and Media Servers plus practical guides on fault finding, PAR Lamps or focussing like a pro. There has also been plenty of information on working in the entertainment business and the state of the industry, something that our large number of undergraduate readers have found useful.

Some pieces have turned out to be faintly amusing, particularly the  Guide to Lampie Slang, and on occasion a little ranty,  Dr Mr Speaker…, a piece on the importance of visibility based on years of bitter experience. We even got a glimpse into the world of teenager Josh and his  first experience on the lighting crew at Glastonbury Festival.

In September 2010, I am hoping to be able to continue the tradition of the PLASA London reports as in 2007,  2008 and 2009, getting around the halls and avoiding the press release police while picking up the real buzz from those in the industry.

Some articles are more popular than others, often depending on search demand (our quick DMX guide or pieces about  lighting control software being particular examples), and ones that attract more comments, such as LED Lighting. Sometimes pieces that I really like or think will attract more feedback perhaps don’t perform as expected but every one plays it’s part in the evolution of the site ( Live Lighting, a piece on my favourite approach to performing with light, put me in touch with Nick Hunt at Rose Bruford and his work on the subject including a fascinating contraption for lighting performance)

Some readers like the technical tutorials (yes, I know, MagicQ Moving Light Tutorial, still stuck in the pipes), others the more abstract concepts in pieces such as Concert Lighting Programming in 30 Mins. My personal favourites sometimes stem from my own enjoyment of thinking about the subject, such as new ideas in Fixture Personality Files.

The Stats Behind the Scenes

The geeky part, let’s have a nose backstage at some site stats.

Getting up to 20,000 unique visitors per month from over 120 countries worldwide, an average reader looks at 2.2 pages per visit. That’s good engagement by today’s online standards as much of the time, visitors are looking for one specific thing, not to browse the entire site at their leisure. This is particularly good as over 80% of On Stage Lighting visitors come from a search engine (search visitors are not always the most engaged on the planet) and 74% are what we deem to be new visits, rather than returning ones. So, in a nutshell, the site must be doing something that people are finding attractive when they arrive.

The core readership, and the most important to us, is the regulars. Those include the 1000+ RSS or email subscribers (40% email, still a popular way to recieve the latest article), plus those on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, where links to new stuff are published. It’s the core readership that I take most interest in because their needs are most aligned with what we are trying to do. I know that it’s is often the same readers that I am in contact with personally via social networks or email and who often inadvertantly give me ideas for new articles.

All these visitors come from somewhere. Apart from search engines, On Stage Lighting has a number of regularly referring sites, Facebook being the biggest. Many of the Facebook referrals are not connected to either my own FB profile or the OSL Facebook Group, suggesting that these social networks really do promote sharing of ideas and content on the outside. Other big referrers are Wikipedia (aaah, one day a Wikipedia editor will write an entry for On Stage Lighting….) and the Blue Room Technical Forums plus the popular US lighting industry blog iSquint.net.

All these visitors find what they are looking for, not only in terms of content here, but also in our range of advertisers, sponsors and affiliate merchants. Some visitors that see the value in so much free lighting help donate direct to On Stage Lighting and this, combined with the advertiser revenue keep not only the servers paid up, designs done but also enable development and writing to continue on the site.

And the story continues…

Exciting News and the Future

OK, so I said that there was exciting news. It’s personally good news for me but also for On Stage Lighting.

Earlier this year I came off the road, after 15 years as a freelance lighting professional, to explore possibilities for me in the education of the next generation of technicians. Richard Cadena  recently told us that everyone in our business under the age of 30 is trying to work out how to get in, while those over 30 are wondering if it’s ever possible to get out. Well, I just turned 35, I dunno what to tell ya….

Anyway, although a bit of a risk, things worked out particularly well for me as I managed to secure a new post as a Lecturer in Theatre Production at  Bath Spa University which starts in September this year. This is obviously a great opportunity for me to progress on my new path doing something that I love – helping others interested in our business. I might also add that On Stage Lighting as a body of work played no small part in securing that gig.

The reason that this new role is good for On Stage Lighting is that it will enable me to spend more spare time writing and creating, and less time loading trucks at 0300 and generally living life on the edge as a freelancer. Working with students day to day will give me more ideas, create more content and generally improve on the last 3 years of work while maintaining On Stage Lighting as a free resource for current readers and future ones. I will also have the opportunity to research new things and continue my own learning while maintaining my links with the professional lighting world.

The thing that writing has given me is the opportunity to think about the subject, something that is not often the case when you are stacking Martin cases in the back of a forty five footer at silly o’clock in the morning. Trying to interpret for others that which you know by instinct is a great way to a better understanding of your subject.

So, Happy Birthday everyone. On Stage Lighting is a product of everyone here, readers and contributors alike so buy yerself a drink (or see if you can spot me at PLASA London this year and remind me that I owe you one).

Here’s to the future.

PS. Though On Stage Lighting is unlikely to receive any birthday cards, you can celebrate the occasion by writing something really nice about the site in the comments section, tell us about your favourite stuff so far or how we’ve helped you.

Candles image by TheRainbow on Flickr

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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On Stage Lighting looks at the workhorse of gaining employment as a lighting professional, the Curriculum Vitae, and considers how you can create a killer CV.  But first, how does your CV actually fit into the recruitment process?

As a lighting professional, either freelance or looking for permanent employment, at some stage you will try to gain access to people and places that don’t know you from Adam.  It could be an advertised job or simply an attempt to create an “in” with a company you would like to work with.  Let’s focus on advertised jobs for today, you’ve seen an ad inviting CV submissions and want to make sure you give yourself the best chance of securing an interview.

Even when you have a few years behind you in any industry, you’ve met new people and have the beginnings of a contact network.  As time passes, those contacts move about, find new roles themselves and you slot into new areas of work, and meet even more contacts. But remember, that ideal gig might just be around the corner,  and you may still be facing a cold start to get it.

Note: Modern Curriculum Vitae are often shorter versions of a more traditional CV, with some emphasis on personality as much as a list of employment history and qualifications.  These are more like the US “Resume”, but as I’m sitting here in sunny England, we’ll use the term CV for today.  We also aren’t going to look at covering letters or application forms, also important tools in the process.

Many On Stage Lighting readers are in the early stages of their chosen path. As a student or budding lampie just starting out, applying for jobs and pitching yourself in amongst a gaggle of other doing the same, your CV is vital.  While there are a number of ways in which employers invite applications, including standard application forms and personal statements, the CV is still probably the most common way to make that first contact with a potential employer in our business.

What does the CV do?

Simple.  The purpose of the Curriculum Vitae in this scenario, is to get you in front of the employer, the next stage of the selection process.

The Recruitment Process

Before we dive into what you need to do to get that job, it’s worth understanding the process from the employers point of view. Be the employer for a moment.

As an employer, you need to hire someone to fill a role.  You want to make sure that you have the best chance of finding the right person, the person that fulfills your requirements – the person specification.  That spec might be laid out in a document, be set down by industry convention or just thoughts in the head of the hirer.

As an employer, you try to reach many possible candidates by placing advertising in places that are the most relevant to the industry – perhaps in The Stage ( in the UK), Stage Jobs Pro among others.  In the job advert, you want to give enough information to reach only the most suitable candidates, a hands off weeding out process.  The next part of that process might be to invite prospective candidates to apply for more details / information pack, where they can read a detailed version of the role and the person that you are looking for.  The second weeding, if you will (?!).

After that, you as the employer will want to shortlist a choice of candidates for interview so may invite submissions of CVs.  Sifting through CVs can be an onerous task, especially with a large number of applicants who, due to the first two stages of elimination (advert and information pack), all basically fit the vacancy based on qualifications and experience.

The CV Sorting Scenario

As the employer you have a stack of CVs that have rolled in since your advert went live.  It’s time to start shortlisting but you are busy and don’t have all day to study CVs, you do have a business to run.

From 100 CVs in the pile, you and a colleague are looking to find ten, just 10 CVs, to discuss and consider more fully with a view to shortlisting five candidates for interview.  For one job.  That means you have to bin 95.  Let’s hope that at least 70% of applicants make it easy for you…..

Tips for creating that killer CV

Ok, that’s enough of being an employer.  How might you attempt to make sure that your CV isn’t in the 70% that are hardly read before losing out in the first cut?

Making your CV attractive and readable

I don’t mean making your CV possible to read, but making it seem easy to get the information the employer wants.  This is where formatting and first impressions counts.  Maybe you only have 20 seconds before your CV is put on the “nah, not today” pile.  (20 seconds is an age these days, I reckon you have 3 seconds to keep a web visitor interested in an article enough to read it!! )

If an employer feels that getting to the information is going to be hard work, they may not make a special effort to drill down into your experience or outside interests long enough to keep your CV in their hand.

How should I layout my CV?

In the first instance, this could mean good use of headings, groups and columns alongside other formatting such as bold text or horizontal lines.  I personally wonder  about the wisdom of straying so far from CV convention that the reader has to work out your own personal UI before getting to the information, particularly in this scenario against 99 others.  Whacky and unique is not always an asset.

If it looks easy to read, it’ll get read.

Note: In a sea of white  floppy printouts, you might even want look at the paper you present with, remembering that in the end, paper is not going to actually get you an interview.  I find I hold on longer to documents on thicker than normal paper, but that’s just me

Attention to Detail

Anyone ever seen a person spec or job of any kind that doesn’t require attention to detail?  Ever?  No, thought not.

Spelling and grammatical errors on a CV don’t suggest attention to detail but they do make it a great deal easier for your CV to get “passed over” – i.e. canned.

The Right Candidate

The CVs on the pile should be from people who actually qualify and are suitable for the job,  after all, that’s one function of the advertisement.  So how might you make your CV stand out from the crowd in the suitability stakes?

For me, this means understanding that “your” CV is not a static entity – something that you create once and send out with every application.  OK, so you are you.  But, how do you fit into the job for which you are applying?  A busy employer would like an easy-to-spot clue that you fit the person specification for this job, a clue that’ll keep your CV in their hand long enough to make your pitch.

This might be in the way the headings are titled, a tag line in the header or simply the order in which you present things.  Some categorise CVs as Chronological or Functional (Skills Based), either a list of employment history or a precis of skills and experience – and the two can be combined. (I assume that we all tend to scan a document top to bottom first time round and it’s silly to put your most relevant experience half way down a second page just for the sake of chronology)

The employer isn’t looking for a CV to shortlist, they are looking at pieces of paper to find a person that fits their requirements.  If you are the right person, make sure they see that.

How does a CV get me an interview, anyway?

Right, so you’ve passed the spellchecker, the layout test and have demonstrated that your skills and experience fit the person specification.  What is actually going to get you from the final ten CVs, to the shortlisted five for interview?  Still hangin’ in there in the final 5%…

The employer feels that you would be a suitable candidate by now, else they wouldn’t still be considering you.  Each job, person and CV is different but getting to interview comes down to one thing:  They want to know more about you.

Interviewing can a hard process for employers, especially if they are not professional recruiters.  They have to think of questions to ask, how to interpret the answers and base what could be a big decision on a short meeting.  And then do that four more times or more.

While there are some stock questions that are popular with some interviewers in all industries, the trouble with stock questions is that they can lead to stock answers. So, at some point, this interview is going to be more specific – not about your ability to deal with stock questions but about that which is unique to you.

The employer might see something in your CV that will make their life easier as an interviewer, something they could ask about.  It could be a gap year doing something particularly interesting or relevant, or maybe just a bullet point in your Skills and Interests section.  It might be that you have had two recurring roles in particular that seem wildly opposed.  Asking about those things is what makes an interview, both for you and them.

I’ve recently spent some time reviewing CVs of Technical Theatre graduates, people starting to make their way in the business.  As your work life move on, things get more diverse, skills and roles held become unique.  At graduate level, your skills and experience are very similar to those of your peers – CVs can look pretty much the same.  At this time, it is even more important to highlight those unique parts of you that makes a potential employer wonder and to want to know more.

Make sure there is plenty to wonder about.

Take Home Points about your CV

To wrap up, here are four stages that you poor little CV has to go through during the shortlisting process before you get that call for interview.

• Don’t get binned – Errors and formatting can effect your chances of getting much more than a cursory glance.
• Make me want to read – Look like you’ve got something to say and I won’t have to struggle to find what I’m looking for.
• Let me know – that you are suitable for the post and fit the person specification.
• Find out more – Make me want to ask you more about your Unique Selling Points.

On Stage Lighting readers will often find themselves pushing to get that next gig .  Graduate or a seasoned pro, looking to make a life in an industry that is suffering as much as any.  Using a CV to get access to a potential employer, from a cold start, is hard and potentially daunting.

Hopefully, we’ve managed to nail the important points and given you an employer’s point of view, to help you create your own killer CV.

Now, go do.  Guess you could always get a T shirt printed up instead … (image from Blackbird Tees)

While OSL has a lot of student readers, we also have a lot of more mature lighting peeps around here too, many of which are employers.  So guys, if you have any experience or insight on what makes a good CV for you, comments as usual please.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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In the run up to the season of outdoor concerts and music festivals here in the UK, On Stage Lighting looks at a reality in concert lighting, the benefits of having different information and asks you “Which is more important to you? Knowing the music or knowing the rig?”.

It’s a secret kept from the Billy Bunters, but a large proportion of concert lighting is the product of the unknown. Wrangling a lack of information is the stock in trade for many techs in the concert and events business. A lot of shows are done on the fly by people who really should be paid more for their talent and creative techniques.

I was recently called in as “house lampie” at a local venue. The band to play that night had all the usual, sound crew, backline techs but no dedicated LD as such. For lighting, I checked and prepared the house rig in anticipation of either having to run the show myself or hand it over to their regular Tour Manager who was arriving later in the day. A bit of busking programming done, palettes checked and tweaked, faults sorted.

An hour or so before the support act went on, I’m stood the desk and feel a presence before seeing the familiar sight of a hand to be shaken, names to be exchanged – the aforementioned Tour Manager. Standing there, between the TM and myself, we had the full picture: I’d used the rig a few times before and had programmed a few pages of subs for busking, he knew the show and the music, down to the last beat.

The usual conversation takes place, more often in a leaky Kwikform FOH tower as sounds of rain and crowd anticipation filter though the earplugs. I run through the kit, the programming I’ve done and we discuss who will run the show. He’s not the band’s LD per se and is a bit rusty on the desk, so having listened to what I’ve created for him work with, he requests a couple additional tools to be programmed and we leave the question of who is running the show open for now.

Show time. I run lighting for the support act, of course. They are OK, pretty dynamic and I busk some decent looks together with movement and accents when it’s obvious. I know where everything is on the desk, so can play along quite well. Having worked there a few times recently, I also know the rig well enough to know all those little things that can add up to a good stage picture, angles that work well and nice balances between fixtures. But I don’t know what they are going to be playing or what is coming next The result is good, however.

Time for the main act. TM decides that he fancies running the show and will see how it goes, I hover to field questions. It goes well, the lighting is obviously a different style, not just because everyone has different eyes but also because there is a limit to what you can do having only just walked up to an alien desk and rig. He excels in knowing every song, every beat and every break – dynamically right on the money.

It started me thinking about the nature of busking concert lighting from different perspectives. So, why not look at those perspectives and break them down to analyse their strong and weak points?

Knowing The Rig

Give me a rig for a second night, and I will create better lighting than last night. Last year I was depping for a friend of mine for two days on an indoor festival. His rig was nicely flexible and the focus good (really can’t over emphasise the importance of a good focus, eh?) – I created a page of subs for my own use even though he and I use a console in a similar way. The first day went well, you can feel your command of the stage growing as you get used to the kit and programming – after all, this is your instrument. On the second day, I added some of my own “hey, I’ve got time” special palettes and tweaked a few things. Result? Really kick ass lighting!!

So, what’s good and bad about knowledge of the rig and the programming?

• This is your instrument – it’s helps if you’ve played it before.
• Able to concentrate without thinking about the technicalities of doing stuff – heads up, looking at the stage.
• Understanding of what really doesn’t work with what you have.
• You have found those happy accidents: good positions or angles, fixtures that catch something nicely or colours that work well.
• You have more time to see.

But

• Never quite sure what song is coming up, in order to choose colour combinations and nail them every time. Erk, this isn’t a blue song?
• While you can react to dynamics and a lot of music is pretty predictable, you are always slightly following.

Tactics and Techniques?

Use time you save looking at the desk to constantly evaluate the stage picture, you don’t need to mentally compute what you are doing so use your energy to keep looking and keep up with what’s happening visually and musically. Line up your best base layers (like decent colour washes), use them to underscore more complex stuff and to return to when you need to “stop all that a-wagglin’ and a a-strobin’, like, yesterday!” Always know how to stop stuff like chases and movements instantly. If you don’t get the beats, do something that isn’t a rockin’ out bump fest, movement speeds or even shutter chases that are more textural and less beat dependant.

Knowing The Show

Just like the previous perspective, give me a second show and it’ll be better than the first. In the world of concerts and events, many shows only happen once and often with little rehearsal. After a while you get used to the idea that you all do your best as professionals, what happens happens. But doing a rare show for a second time helps you remember how much better it can be and the luxury of rehearsing.

• You know the set, you can be ready for the next thing. Colours parked up, specials ready to go.
• Hardly miss a beat and aren’t surprised by a sudden stop (there is nothing worse than moving lights still moving when they obviously shouldn’t be)

but

• May be not aware of all the tools available or the capabilities of the rig
• Haven’t tried out different combinations or looks
• You may spend more time looking at the console than the stage

Tactics and Techniques?

Your show is made by hitting that beat, so make sure you have the ways and means to bump like a demon. Three intensity subs work for me, or split the blinders into two sets. Keep them on your free hand (left hand on many consoles) so you can select and adjust other fixtures while keeping the beat.

Concert Lighting – Ideal vs Reality

Obviously, in an ideal world we’d all have the rig of our dreams, plenty of rehearsals and everything would be just dandy. But like we said at the start, a lot of concert lighting is created using the only information available. That may be a knowledge of the kit or of the show but often, it ain’t both.

Geek Out: Lighting Techniques  – What submasters were used?

As an aside and for your interest, here is the recipe for the secret lighting sauce that night. All submasters are programmed as attribute only faders (not whole fixtures) to retain flexibility. A rundown of the subs used in addition to the usual fixture selection tools and palettes that would do the bulk of the work.

Generics

Not may generics in the rig: Front fill light, Specials Intensity (Source Fours with Apollo Right Arms, position set by palettes), House Lights.

Intelligent Intensities

Get those fixtures on: Washes, Spots, Scans, PixelLine intensity on individual subs
Make those fixtures chase: Same deal, shutter chase, fader position controls speed.
Strobe: Make some of the rig strobe. Different strobes according to fader position, strobe released on fader out.

Bump Splits

Intensities, splitting the rig into three sets: For beat bumps and kickin‘ that beam structure around the roof.
PixelLine: PL intensities, split across 2 bump subs.  All together now, Flip, Flop etc.

Movement/Position

Moves with speed controlled by fader position: Circle, Tilt Saw for both Scans and Washes. Could have used simple Pan Only Saw and Tilt Only Saw and mixed them but it uses up too many subs on several fixtures types, so Pan Saw was left out for the rig layout in question.

OUT: This is my all time favourite sub and one I use on most concert shows. It’s a position only Crowd position controlled by fader. Fade in, the heads all move out from their starting point on stage, fade back, they return. Move position by fader means that you can also do quick moves DJ style especially with scanners. In this case, there were no dedicated blinders.

So, there you have it. A hand full of subs for a truck full of shows.

What do you think?

During the show, I asked the question on Facebook and Twitter : “Which is more important to you? Knowing the music or knowing the rig?” which received a range of responses. Some came down on the side of knowing the instrument well enough to be able to play along while others suggested that knowing the show was the better option, being able to hit every beat was desirable.

This is an interactive so let us know what you think. In that situation, would you rather know the setup or the show? And what are your own approaches and techniques in these different situations? Come over and put your comments in the box below as usual

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Many On Stage Lighting readers are young aspiring lighting designers, keen to get into the industry and begin their journey to the top of their chosen profession. In this guest article, Lighting Designer, Author and all round stage lighting guru Richard Cadena tells it like it is.

How do I get to be a top lighting designer, then?

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How can I get into the lighting industry as a top lighting designer?” or something similar. It always reminds me of the punch line, “I don’t have to outrun the lion; I only have to outrun you.” (Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that joke.  OK,  it’s at the bottom of this page)

But in this industry it’s not a lion that’s chasing us; rather, we’re chasing the lion and we have to outrun everyone else in the industry if we’re going to catch the prized position. If you want to be the one that chases down the king of all lighting positions, you’ve got to be prepared to put in some extra effort to prepare for a long chase. Here are some of the things you need to know.

You’re young and don’t know any better

That’s good because most people I know in this industry who are over 30 years old are trying to figure out how to come home off the road without giving up the salary to which they have become accustomed. And most people I know under 30 who want to be in this industry are trying to figure out how to go on the road and earn the kind of salary to which those over 30 have become accustomed. It’s a cruel trick of nature but it’s for your own good. If you knew what you were in for you might not be so anxious to go on the road. I won’t bother to tell you about all the missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays, first baby steps, new teeth, broken arms, tonsillitis, first days of spring, report cards, quiet nights home with the family, not-so-quiet nights home with the family, graduations, and beautiful sunsets because you won’t listen anyway.

You don’t know how good you have it

Back in the day, there was no such thing as off-line editors, visualizers, the internet, social networking sites, smart phone apps, online user manuals, specialized books on stagecraft, lighting design software, or computers, for that matter. Nor was there Starbucks, Red Bull, cell phones, iPods, MP3s, or noise-cancelling headphones. We were lucky to have airplane travel and land lines. But here’s the reason I bring this up. There are lots and lots of resources to help you make your way up the industry ladder. All you have to do is put down your Wii, Nintendo, television remote control, and your texting down long enough to put the ladder against the wall and start climbing. Spend some quality time putting your brain in overdrive and learn the stuff. But don’t expect it to happen overnight. I hate to be the one to break it to you but it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to master the fine art of being a master.

It takes more than automated lighting and a console, and less money than you think to create compelling lighting

Just because you can lay out dozens of automated lights, call them up on a console and record a scene in a console doesn’t necessarily make you a good lighting designer. The best lighting designers are the ones who can make a piece of wire, some gaff tape, and three sheets of gels sing like a songbird without resorting to the use of an effects engine. How do you think the great masters did it before the days of automated lighting? I’m not talking about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, I’m talking about Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt. They did it all with shadow, light, and color. No effects engine required.

It’s easier than you think to be a part of this industry

Half the job is knowing how to get along with people, half is showing up on time, and the other half is bringing a great attitude. You don’t even have to know much math.

There are times when it’s okay to take chances and there are times when it’s not

The times when it’s okay to take chances include: moving to a different city to be close to production centers like London, New York, Paris, Chicago, Dallas, Munich, Los Angeles; taking on a project that requires you to stretch your skills and imagination; peppering the industry with resumes; asking a local production company if you can train on their console in exchange for sweeping the floors. The times when it’s not okay to take chances are when someone can get hurt: climbing without a harness on and clipped in; lifting a safety ground in an electrical system; rigging heavy objects over people’s heads if you’re inexperienced… You get the drift.

Have fun

If you really enjoy what you’re doing it shows and it’s contagious. Then people want to be around you and they’ll call you back again when they’re putting together their next crew list. You’ll be even happier when that happens and it turns into a vicious (but happy) cycle. If you don’t really enjoy this business then do us all a favor and get out. Chances are you won’t be making a terrible financial decision.

Read Rob’s On Stage Lighting blog

There, I said it. Now do it.

Richard Cadena has been in the lighting industry since the time of the bag phone.

He is the author of Electricity for the Entertainment Electrician & Technician (which is also available at in the US at Amazon.com ) and Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light in Theatre, Live Performance, Broadcast, and Entertainment
(now in its 2nd edition) (Also available in the US at Amazon.com).

As an ETCP Certified Entertainment Electrician and an ETCP Recognized Trainer he conducts seminars about electricity, power distribution, and controls. He is also the editor of PLSN magazine and he has missed his share of weddings and funerals due to circumstances beyond his lighting control.

The Lion Joke

Two guys on a photo safari in South Africa far from their vehicle or shelter with no means of protection. All of a sudden they realize that a lioness has crept up behind them unexpectedly and that they are in grave danger of being attacked. One of them immediately takes off his safari boots and starts to put on some trainers.  The other says  “Are you crazy? That’s just a waste of time – you’ll never outrun a lion.”

The guy replies “I don’t have to outrun the lion, I only have to outrun you….”

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Quickie – Just a heads up about a potentially interesting webinar on modern lighting technology.

Creative Stage Lighting is hosting a webinar at Friday, March 26, 3:30pm-5pm EST called “The ABCs of Lighting A Green Show”.  Hosted by Richard Cadena (him wot wrote the book on automated lighting) and with Rush LD Howard Ungerlieder, the blurb says:

In this webinar, we navigate the unchartered waters of lighting the stage of the future. We’ll explore the newest technologies and how they compare to conventional sources in terms of light output, color and rendering, dimming, flicker, effects, and cost. When the smoke clears you’ll have a better understanding of what you can and can’t do with the newest lighting equipment, how it will look, and what the payoff will be.

Thats sounds pretty interesting to us, and so probably does to the On Stage Lighting readers.  There is still time to register and find out more about this subject that is growing in importance in our world.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Like any workplace, a theatre or other live performance venue, presents hazards to those working and visiting. A two-part guide to Health and Safety and how it relates to working in the theatre,before we go into the detail, this first part looks at some big picture safety concepts. Next time, we’ll look at the specific safety issues in our own backstage world.

On Stage Lighting regularly gets asked questions relating to ‘Elf N Safety in a theatre environment: What is the law about this? What are the rules on doing that? Is it true I have to wear a harness when working over 2m from the stage floor, on a Tuesday, if there are less than 2 qualified electricians within 50 metres of the work area? That kind of thing.

Now, while these are all valid questions, they often are seeking some kind magic “law” that gives absolute clarity over what and what isn’t acceptable working in a theatre or other venue. Instead of getting bogged down with rules, regulations, codes of practice and other guidelines, let’s just cut to the chase:

If it’s unsafe or unhealthy, it’s not acceptable!

As On Stage Lighting is read in over 120 countries around the world, we’re going to avoid getting too muddled up in different legislation and instead take a good look of the reality of a maintaining a safe working environment in the theatre.

Show business has always had a reasonably good safety record, which is mainly down to the people who work in it, and many areas of the business are really getting to grips with health and safety in the modern world.

It’s everyone’s responsibility to do everything they can to mitigate the risks of working on stage, at crew level this means an awareness of hazards and your duty of care to your colleagues.

I ♥ Health and Safety

I have a confession. As someone who has spent my entire professional career at work on stage (?!) – I love health and safety.

I don’t mean I love clipboards, men with dodgy moustaches and nasal voices going around spouting spurious bits of legislation. I mean, I love being safe at work and knowing that I will be able to come back tomorrow. Being self employed, your biggest workplace fear is injury.

Health and Safety – What’s it all about?

The H and S phrase has, certainly in the UK, become a bit of dirty word. Often used by Jeremy Clarkson and Daily Mail journalists who don’t have to work for a living, health and safety has become synonymous with killjoys, The fun being taken out of children’s playgrounds and the halcyon days of of our youth, when the long summers were spent dying of asbestosis and other work related diseases. When planning of large construction projects, Human Resources factored alarming death rates into their recruitment policy.

The purpose of Health and safety at work legislation is to protect those in the workplace, to defend them against a lack of care on behalf of others such as unscrupulous employers, who would rather get things done quicker or cheaper while putting people in danger. In countries with developed safety legislation, the basic requirement is to be able to demonstrate that you and I did everything we reasonably could to reduce risks.

To create a safe working environment in a theatre obviously has to start with an awareness of what dangers present themselves, with generally or specific to a particular show. In order to understand the risks, those in charge need a plan of how the work is to be carried out.

In the UK, this usually results in two pieces of paperwork – a Method Statement of the work to be carried out, followed by a Risk Assessment of any possible hazards arising. As well as identifying hazards, the Risk Assessment also goes on to detail how this risks can be managed. Reduced as far as is reasonable practicable, in other words.

The other key point about risk assessments and their associated documentation, is that the process does not end with the printing out of a .doc. Risk assessment is a continuing and evolving process over the lifetime of a project.

A lot of questions about health and safety are focused on the details of what people perceive it to be – fall arrest harness, hard hats, hi-vis vests. Here’s some news, these are just the finishing touches to a safe working environment.

Let’s take a look at some of the really big tools of good safety practice, anywhere.

Good Management

Management and a clear structure is the key to safety planning. At the top level, an understanding of the chain of command and competent handling of the flow of information, as well as proper understanding of the risks.

At crew level, clear guidelines of your responsibilities, how and when the work is to be carried out plus and understanding of your place in the hierarchy.

Management doesn’t just mean paperwork and calling instructions, it means providing appropriate supervision for everyone. Crew chiefs, senior techs and other experienced team members provide the supervision for more junior staff.

Good Training

A big phrase in H & S is “adequate training”, a right to be provided with the training and for those working around you to be trained sufficiently for everyone’s well being. The level of training varies with each task, a crane operator will obviously need more training than the most junior crew member, but each needs to be sufficiently trained for their task.

As part of the Risk Assessment process, many measures to reduce risk include using only operatives holding “X” training certs, licenses etc. It’s a way of being able to demonstrate sufficient training. Of course, there are many experienced staff that may well be much better than their certificated juniors – that is sometimes a judgement call for those ultimately responsible and how their Risk Assessment demonstrates training. It comes down to what you feel you can prove about their levels of competence. A certified plant operator that causes an accident doing something unspecified in the training, they have been negligent. If the operator has no certificate/proof of competence, it could be shown that the management failed to ensure they had adequate training.

Anyway, enough about criminal proceedings, we’re here to talk about safety.

Good Scheduling and Separation

Probably the biggest weapon in the health and safety armoury is scheduling. It’s a huge tool to mitigate risk, so simple that there’s not a lot to say about it.

Scheduling activities on stage so that the risks are reduced to those not directly involved, keeping physical separation between two tasks and not having everyone working on top of each other. This can be laid out in the main production schedule but it also comes down the different departments what share the same space, choosing not to work at height with loose hardware while those underneath build the set, for instance.

The Professionalisation of Show Business

The growth of show business, particularly the backstage and technical disciplines, in the last 30 years has led to ever greater professionalism in the industry. In the 70′s, rock concerts were being staged and staffed by mavericks in a toddler industry just finding it’s feet. Today, we have job descriptions, centres of education and professional bodies all geared toward working in a theatre or show as a profession.

All this has led to better training, more skilled staff and a greater awareness of health and safety issues. Several friends of mine are now specifically engaged to manage safety on large sites, as ex-technicians they are the best people to genuinely understand the risks.

It would interesting to know if this will have an impact on actual statistics of safety in our business, one that already has an enviable record. But there are places that still lag behind on the awareness of even the basics of legislation. In my experience, the best parts of the concert and events business lead the way in the application of modern safe working practice on stage, while some theatres continue on with a less formalised approach which seems to work for them (whether they are complying with all their legal obligations, I wouldn’t care to say).

Next time in this two part series, we’re going to look at some specifics of safe working in a theatre environment, particular hazards and how they can be avoided. Hopefully this has given you something to think about in the meantime. There is some useful Q and A style information on health and safety in the Performing Arts here. 

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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An up to date look at stage lighting iPhone apps and what they do.

July 2008 saw the start of stage lighting’s entry into the world of Apple’s iPhone apps – lighting themed software that you can use with the iPhone (or iPod Touch) and now, the iPad.

Since the first few iPhone apps became available, the market has become awash with beam calculators, DIP switch thingies (seriously, just read our article on how to work our binary DIPs without all that technology) and other goodies. Luminair were early on the scene with V1 of their  iPhone based DMX controller and have continued to develop the product, while tradtional console manufacturers have added remote functionality that can be controlled via your phone.

Image by William Hook on Flickr

Gel and Gobo makers have created catalogues and and references and serial iPhone developer Michael Zinman has launched his Genielux platform, a sort of worldwide lighting equipment hire database.

We can safely say that the market for lighting calculators is well and truly saturated. The addition of hardware like the Seachanger Color Bug, could bring some extra usefullness to the iPhone in your pocket. DMX testers and continuity checkers are things that spring to mind, not so sure about measuring 415v or using the iTouch to clamp meter yer PowerLoks but anything is possible.

Here’s what we know about stage lighting specific iPhone apps, grouped into a few sections with links through to the relevant Apple Apps Store page.  You can click on the image and find out more about each app.

DMX Control and Lighting Control Apps

Luminair DMX

Luminair enables you to wirelessly control, view, record and manage intelligent DMX lighting fixtures, dimmers, consoles, other software and media servers straight from your iPhone™ or iPod™ touch. Using Artistic Licence’s Art-Net protocol over your device’s built-in Wi-Fi connection, Luminair communicates with other compatible hardware and software nodes on your network.

A Lighting control interface on your iPhone, the Luminair software boasts the ability to control DMX lighting fixtures. The wireless DMX signal from the iPhone is sent using the open source DMX over Ethernet protocol, Art Net. This can be routed via a Wireless Access Point/Router into your DMX universe / ArtNet node. The app also has file management capabilities and colour mixing control.

“Right, can I have channel 47 @ 50% please”
“Where’s the desk?”
“Hang on – I’ll call it, what’s the number?”

Get Luminair at the iTunes Store

Zinman TCP/IP Remote

For IT professionals, systems integrators, and anyone looking for customizable control of any software or hardware capable of TCP/IP communications.

A general iPhone application that can be used in stage lighting situations. The software enables customisable remote triggerin of TCP/IP and UDP capable software. This includes professional level lighting consoles like the Grand Ma and media servers. Sounds like the kind of thing that developers dream of

Get it at iTunes

Grand MA App

The grandMA consoles are the core of the fully integrated MA system. The grandMA consoles are able to control – in the most elegant manner – moving lights, conventional lights, and effects, as well as LEDs and video. The reliable and proven operational philosophy allows a direct, flexible and intuitive way of working.

The Grand MA app is free at iTunes

Martin Max Remote

MAXRemote is your personal assistant to remotely control lighting devices straight from your iPhone or iPod touch. It is the ultimate remote tool for your Martin Maxxyz™ lighting console and Martin Maxxyz PC™ with a beautiful user interface and original features.

Martin’s Max Remote is free at iTunes

Other lighting consoles

Other desk makers including ChamSys, Avolites (Titan platform) and ETC have their own personal system for remote control of their products, some of which are browser based rather than actual apps.

Lighting Information and Catalogues

Lighting Handbook

Lighting Handbook is a new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it provides detailed information about Moving lights, LED fixtures, Scrollers, and more DMX fixtures.

It also provides access to the manual.

Get the Lighting Handbook at iTunes

Wybron iSwatch Gel

The Gel Swatch Library by Wybron, Inc., lets lighting production personnel browse, search, and compare more than 1,000 gel color filters made by the following manufacturers:
- Apollo (included in Version 1.4 release)
- GAM
- Lee
- Rosco

Buy this app at iTunes

GenieLux

Genielux is a user-friendly application that helps you find the exact model of lighting, audio, film, video, or other production gear that you need. It searches local vendors inventory for rent or purchase and returns a list of results based on your current GPS location. You can also provide an alternate location to search for the nearest vendors who can provide your gear.

Genielux is free for users, hire companies pay to list their inventories

The GenieLux app at iTunes

Wybron Moire Gobo Library

The Moiré Gobo Library from Wybron, Inc. lets lighting production personnel browse, search, and experiment with more than 3,600 different A-size gobos from the following manufacturers:
- Apollo
- GAM
- InLight
- Lee

Lighting Calculator Apps

ShowTool LD

Simple. Powerful. Comprehensive suite of Lighting Design and Electrics utilities for theatre and film.

Showtool LD is a bunch of lighting design related calculators : Beam, Gels cuts, Power Law, DIP switches and DMX all one app.

Buy ShowTool LD at iTunes

DMX Color Mixer

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/dmx-color-mixer/id349839425?mt=8

Colour mixing app that you can pick colours and cross reference against dmx values.

Get it

Wybron CXI Calculator

The CXI Color Calculator from Wybron helps lighting production personnel find and program colors for the CXI dual-gelstring color changer. Scroll through two overlapping gelstrings of cyan, magenta, and yellow to blend the ideal shade, then plug its numerical values into your lighting control console to have a CXI color changer move to that color. The Color Calculator also gives you the values needed to replicate several colors from the GAM, Lee, and Rosco

Get this app at the iTunes store

Zinman Pocket LD

PocketLD is a photometric database and calculation tool for stage lighting and TV/Film lighting professionals. Simply enter your throw distance, than select manufacturer, fixture and a lamp to calculate beam/field diameter and fc/lux.

MZ brings us another neat little iPhone and iTouch app that does Lighting Designer type calculations with a comprehensive fixture database to make life easier. Free database upgrades, so you can get new fixtures for the software as they are added.

Get the PocketLD app at iTunes

PowerCalc – West Side Sytems

PowerCalc performs basic electrical power calculations with watts, volts, amps, and motor power factor.

A calculator for power law, resistance, inductance and other useful stage lighting stuff. Although you could do these sums on the iPhones standard calculator, this little app makes life easier. Requires the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade and is only a few pennies

Buy it at iTunes

Beam Calc – West Side Systems

Use BeamCalc to calculate the geometry and photometrics of spotlight beams. Position and direct three light sources (chosen from the included library) to determine lighting characteristics: elevation angle, beam and field pool width, illumination, shadow length.

A handy beam calculator to help you choose spotlight angles for your lighting designs. The BeamCalc needs just a few measurements such as trim height and horizontal distance from the subject. It spits out the beam width of a given angle or can reverse the calculations for you, helping you to decide if you spotlights will be wide enough.

Update:  The next generation of Beam Calc is now available with improved functionality and is compatible with the iPad.  More information at the the application’s iTunes page.

DMX Calc – West Side Sytstems

Entertainment lighting equipment uses a control system called DMX512. DMXCalc is a simple and elegant calculator which does address arithmetic for DMX equipment.

DMX Calc on iTunes

Zinman Gel Calc

GelCalc is an iPhone/iPod touch app for stage lighting designers, electricians, and stage hands.
Quickly calculate number of sheets of gel, best cutting direction to yield the most frames per/sheet and pricing.

Get GelCalc at the apps store

Zinman iSwitch DMX

iSwitch DMX is an easy to use binary DIP switch utility for stage lighting electricians, technicians and programmers. Selecting a DMX address updates the DIP switch graphic with the correct DIP switch settings.

Get the iSwitch DMX app

Zinman ML Finder

For the stage lighting tech addressing a light plot. ML Finder displays the DMX footprint for over 500 moving lights, LED’s and media servers. Know how many DMX channels each device uses, in any mode. Simple to navigate and FREE to download!

Zinmans ML Finder on iTunes

Seachanger Colour Bug

The colorBUG from the SeaChanger group at Ocean Thin Films, Inc. is a wifi enabled, handheld light/color metering device that works with your iPhone or iPod Touch running the colorBUG client app, allowing you to measure:

- Color in CIE 1931 x,y space
- Illuminance in lux
- Color Temperature in degrees Kelvin

This software requires a colorBUG light/color metering device for functionality.

The software is free at iTunes

DMX Ref

DMXRef is designed to take the math out of working with DMX lighting equipment. DMXRef includes DIP switch and auto addressing functions, conversion between local and global addresses, and Dimmer Doubler decoding.

Buy it at iTunes

Rigging with the iPhone / iTouch

OK, so the actual swaggering around wearing a greasy clutch chain like a scarf is still down to you. But rigging calcs are always something that are better made without mathematical errors, so here’s a few rigging calculators for the tricky stuff like bridles and load distribution.

Bridle

Bridle is the innovative bridle creation app for the entertainment rigging industry with a fresh perspective to the ancient craft of calculating bridles.

Get Bridle at the apps store

iBridle

iBridle is for use within the events rigging industry. It can accurately calculate bridle leg lengths, apex angles and load distribution. There are no set measuring units, so regardless of whether you work to metric or imperial standards you will always get the answer you need

Buy iBridle here

JR Clancy iRigging App

Rigging app that provides tools and reference data for many areas of rigging, including wire rope, battens, arbors, sheaves, stage ropes, motors, curtains, and fleet angles. Available in Imperial or Metric Versions.

The Imperial rigging app is free at iTunes

The Metric versions at the apps store

Other useful Apps, not lighting specific

Zinman Portfolio

Portfolio is the perfect app for Photographers, Illustrators, Artists, Designers and anyone looking for an intuitive way to showcase their work on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Includes the same look and functionality as Apple’s Photo app, with improvements relating to an electronic portfolio.

If you’re a lighting designer or have any kind of visual portfolio to organise and display on your iPhone, this takes care of it nicely.

Get Zinmans Portfolio

That’s pretty all the stage lighting iPhone apps we  know of. If you own any of these apps, let us know if you like them in the comments.  Perhaps you’re wishing for a lighting related iPhone app that you’d like to see the devs working on?  Funny or serious, stick it in the box as usual.

If you think we’ve missed some, just add them below and we’ll update the list.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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To kick off 2010 at On Stage Lighting, we thought it would be nice to point out six things of lighting goodness elsewhere online, maybe new to you. Oh, and to invite you to add your own stage lighting related finds online that you think other OSL readers will find interesting, in the comments section.

Why six? Well, lampies can only work in sixes can’t they?

Theatrical Lighting Database

Funded by the New York Stage Council For the Arts , the lighting database is a great collection of lighting paperwork for a few of Broadway’s legendary shows, designed by the a few of biggest names in lighting design such as Tharon Musser, Richard Nelson and Jules Fisher.

The paperwork in the database includes plans, plots and equipment schedules. The detail in the paperwork of theatrical lighting design, including focus notes and gel calls, is not only a vital part of planning and communication at the time, it also gives us a sense of what went on. Looking through the various sheets can also help anyone learning lighting, particularly theatre lighting, to improve their knowledge of how to present ideas and plan a show, as well as rig design itself. And using tools from an era before there was software to do it for you.

Learning stuff about lighting always includes a certain amount of staring at other peoples plans, well as squinting at the pictures in equipment catalogues. You can find the Theatrical Lighting Database here.

Theatre Freeware Lighting Plan Software

Talking of lighting design software, if you are looking for free software to create simple rig layouts and some lists in .cvs format, Karl Eaton’s Lighting Design freeware is great. It’s so simple to create an “old fashioned” lighting stencil plan, with bars, numbers and basic geometry and you can easily create custom fixture attributes and assign them to a symbol without having to wade through endless libraries and wondering if you have the latest version.

If you need to draw a clear plan, show where fixtures should go and how they should be plugged up and fancy something a bit more sophisticated than my frequently used “Biro and back of a tour schedule” method, this is great. You can’t “Save As” a crumpled paper schedule, for a start.

Spend more time doing lighting and less time learning CAD.

MQ Scroll Wheel for PC

On Stage Lighting is keen on the Cham Sys MagicQ, it’s a good desk, but also because of the free software version that allows a user to learn the concepts of a number of professional lighting consoles, while actually using a cheap USB DMX interface like the Enttec USB Pro as an output device.

The function that has always seemed frustrating, probably as a result of the PC software being a ported version of the console, is the difficulty with which you can manipulate the encoders without hardware – one of the most important bits of moving light programming.

The MQ scroll wheel is free 3rd party application that gives you scroll wheel control over an encoder as you hover over it on screen. It’s simple, just download it and run the .exe while running the Cham Sys software. The resolution of mouse scroll wheels are not always that fine but it does work and actually makes a difference if you haven’t got someMagicQ hardware in front of you. If you like it, don’t forget to donate too.

GAM Split Gel Guide

As a reader of On Stage Lighting, you know that we like to publish articles on different aspects of learning the trade, giving you tips, ideas and information in a unique way. A guide to using split colour (using a multi coloured filter made up of different gel pieces) is just our kinda thing.

But, the On Stage Lighting Guide to Split Gel is not coming any time soon while this baby is out there. The web page from gel maker GAM, tells you pretty much all you need to know on the subject and has some great techniques that you might not have thought of, even if you have experimented with two and four way diagonal splits. It even has comprehensive images of the filters plus the resulting light.

iSquint Flickr Group

iSquint.com is one of America’s fastest growing lighting technology sites. Justin has some great stuff over there, particularly his Rumour Mill column which frequently flags up things going on the kit makers trade. (I also did an interview over there, but wouldn’t dream of calling that a highlight)

Justin created a Flickr group for people to add the sexiest show pictures of lighting designs they have done. On Fridays, iSquint features one of the images as a showcase snippet for the LD. Get along there to see some inspiring images and some cool lighting, even add your own pictures and show them off.

Take a look at the details and visit the group

Lucas Krech’s Blog

You might remember that Lucas wrote a great Introduction To Dance Lighting for On Stage Lighting last year. We loved that piece and appreciated in particular the way that Lucas adapted his writing to fit with our “house style”, I’m sure you found the article useful too.

I’ve been following Lucas’s blog for a while now and he always has interesting things to say on a range of subjects including lighting design, the finances of the freelancer and even his passion, philosophy. He even wrote a piece on why he thought his blog would never become really popular, citing too broad a range of subject matter or writing a scholarly manner.

Recently, Lucas has started publishing some articles that I think will really be of interest to you. He talks through his design process on a recent show, The Sisters Rosenweig and has come up with two great Colour Theory Basics posts on Hue , Saturation and Chroma.

I really recommend you check out his blog, especially with the recent trend in posts on lighting basics. To get a taste al the interesting topics Lucas covered in 2009, take a look at his round up from last year.

You really should read this guy.

OK,  so hope there’s something in that lot for you.  If you have any favourite stage lighting related online discoveries, put them in the comments box and tell us what they are all about.  Happy New Year.

Image based on picture from Jus’ fi on Flickr

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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