Behind the Stage

Old fashioned light board…

Over the last week I was learning the ropes of being a technician for live theatre. The picture above, is of a pretty old light board. New ones are touch screen and all that, but first: above the stage.

What everyone sees is the stage and a little booth behind the audience. However, on the series of catwalks above the audience and stage, is where some of the lighting, and all of the follow spots (spots) are. The spots are the hardest to use, compared to everything else a technician has to do. They are big and bulky. When the director wants the spots to be opened, they have to be opened at exactly that time on whoever needs to be lighted. That means that the spots have to be aimed before opening the cover (in front of the spots so they can be easily doused and used). Aiming is pretty much guessing, then lining up the front of the spots to the person. It all happens so fast that there is no time to properly aim before opening the cover. Sometimes the spot doesn’t open where you want it to be, and it looks really bad.

This is it, a follow spot.

Anyways, the other thing that’s cool is a light with a couple of mirrors. The mirrors can be moved using the sliders on the sound board, thus moving the light. Newer light boards can actually be paired with an iPad, and the light can be moved be dragging a dot using a finger. Where would we be without technology huh? Speaking of lights, everything on the catwalk is secured with aircraft grade steel safety backup cables. Those cables can support cars! One time at another theatre I heard the safety cable wasn’t secured and the light went tumbling right down. Luckily it landed in a aisle, but if it was a bit off, it could have easily killed someone. Safety cables are also used on all lights above the stage. Some of those lights on stage actually have multiple coloured films (gel) that can be changed to easily be able to light the stage in different colours.

The light boards controls which colour to use. Again, the old ones rely on a system of numbers and sliders, but the new boards can change the lights’ colour by using a finger to tap a colour on a colour wheel on an iPad. The light boards regardless of their age can also be programmed to do different things at different times. That way everything can be pre-configured prior to the show. During the show, simply tapping a button will activate a series of lighting effects.

But what’s more complex than the lighting boards are sound boards.

Old fashioned sound board…

Modern sound board… Thank god, less controls.

Ok fine, the sound boards do more things, but really is only a teeny bit more complicated than light boards. The sound boards allow technicians to combine multiple inputs into one speaker. Not only that, but it allows the technicians to mix the sound. That means adjusting the pitch, gain, volume, etc of every individual mic, cd, etc. based on each individual person’s voice, instrument, etc.

Well, the show is next week, stay tuned to see is I succeed or fail…

 

UPDATE:

It was a success!!!

New and Noteworthy Gadgets

These are absolutely the funniest things ever! Have you ever abused the “snooze” button? Well, you will no more with Clocky or Tocky. These adorable robots developed by MIT will allow you to snooze only once. After that, it will jump down from your bedside table and run around the room beeping. Next, it will find a hiding spot and keep on beeping until you actually get up and close it.

I stumbled across it several times, it seems that every time some crazy gadget goes in to the market (or even before), the news goes crazy over it. Well of course not the formal ones like CNN, but rather the unofficial news/rumor sites.

The link is here.

This is only for the ones who love gadgets, I mean, who would risk getting fired just to sleep in? At least, not me.

Here’s another interesting gadget, the Disney AppMATes.

It combines a physical toy with the magic of the iPad. For $20, you can buy 2 Cars 2 Hot Wheels size vehicles which are made to be able to  run on the iPad. With a free app, children can actually use a physical toy to interact with the digital world. The cars can talk to other characters, they can race and run on race courses, plus fly, jump, etc. With add ons such as wings, it is another creative idea coined by Disney.

The only problem I can foresee is toddlers thinking any car can be paired with the iPad and scratching the screen, or landing a jump too hard.

What a difference between the carpets with roads we had back in the times of the dinos!

The video is below.

Update: To see my review, please go here

Post a comment! Do you like them? Why or why not? Really, someone had to make these sooner or later.

Oh ya, and by the way, “New and Noteworthy” was totally not from Apple. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, hope you don’t mind the sarcasm.