It always seems like I go missing for a while.  I guess helping keep the theatre going keeps me busy....  So for our December Show - "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play" adapted by Joe Landry, we brought all of the light and sound equipment down stairs and are doing our best to use no digitized effects.  Every sound effect will be made live, right in front of the audience.  So we have a table full of glasses, and beans to spill on metal cookie sheets, and a wind machine, a thunder sheet, and my favorite a bucket full of water and a plunger.  There will always be 3 of us, and at times 4.  It takes a lot of hands to make foley work out with a live show.  We have a couple of weeks and things are coming together, with a couple of things to go.  Having a hard time doing a good 1940 car noise.  I also would like to see us improve our door noise by using an actual door.  Mostly for the visual as much as anything else.

I'll put more up here as we get through Turkey Day and closer to opening on the 2nd.  Maybe even whatver we do to make a car noise (we tried a trombone, a little too much).

Stay Techie my Friends!

​Brian

Hi there my tech friends!

So I mentioned in my last blog that I have been playing around with lights aimed at the audience in our small venue, to bring them into the action.  The dance scene in our 3 Musketeer production was a perfect time to try it.  The picture on the left is a light cue that doesn't have anything up on the audience, the pic on the right has a crosshatch gobo, rotating and pointed at the audience. 

​It's a subtle difference, and these pictures don't show it as well as I'd like, but you can see the more complete coverage of the space on the right.  I need to go sit in the audience and have someone run through the cues to really see if I'm getting the experience I am shooting for.

We've got a grant request out for a few new cyc lights and a couple more movers, I think if we get them I'll have enough lights to really get this enveloping the audience thing going.  Of course, how many more lighting fixtures do you need, just one more.....

Hope you get the chance to see this show if you can, one more weekend and then it disappears into the books.

Stay techie my friends!

​Brian

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything up here.  So let's see, there's been a global pandemic, a war in Ukraine, Monkey Pox, yeah that's a thing, we lost Betty White, and I could keep going on but I'm not.

What has been the bright constant in life?  That theatre has survived and we're coming back at the world swinging!  One of my favorite things I saw this week - when life gives you lemons, you make a lemon vodka cocktail, come on people we are adults now.

So for the technical side of life, one of the things that happened before the pandemic was that our light board got drenched from a leak in the roof of our building.  We sent it out to get repaired, but it hadn't been right since.  So we applied for some grants and purchased an ETC Element 2.  What an amazing upgrade!  A little bit of an adjustment to move to programming a true tracking board, but we're getting the hang of it.  Slooooowly getting better at programming effects as well.  Give me about 5 more years and maybe I'll get about 1/2 of the things this board can do under control.

Equipment is nice, but it's nothing without some awesome people to help make it work.  Marty G is quite frankly the best ever at all areas of theatre tech.  He's on stage in almost every performance also!  It's nice to be able to call out that, "the 5 pin dmx needs an adapter to go to 3 pin for the dimmer pack and you won't be able to run power con to it because there's not inlet to daisy chain it so you'll need an extension cord", and have him know exactly what I mean.  He's pretty  good at aiming lights also, building sets, and a bunch of other stuff to boot.

Well our show this month is 3 Musketeers, we're doing it with The Gasoline Gypsies' music, so another medieval rock show.  If I can snap a couple of pics tonight I'll talk about a new idea I came across reading other people's blogs.  How in small venues you can use the lights to make the audience a part of the look.

Talk at cha later!  Stay techie my friends!

​Brian

Hello there tech friends! 

I wanted to add this to the blog, even though TECHnically it is a producer note and not a tech item.  But it's on my mind, and I'll talk a little tech at the end to make me feel better.  :-)

So last night we did our one performance for Charlotte's Web - Live from Home!  About 25 minutes into the show the feed on the live stream was killed for "violations".  Something flagged our show and after review it was determined we were violating copy write policy and the feed was stopped.  Knowing that we had paid the people who hold the rights to the show $105 (plus another $120 for their scripts), and worked closely with their rep to be sure our broadcast method was good (thank you Ivy at Dramatic Publishing), we re-spooled the feed and finished the show.  After the show we filled out a form protesting the violation, and this morning they put the feed back up.  Which we immediately deleted as part of our agreement with Dramatic Publishing.

So our show was stopped, our audience and artists alarmed, and our reputation took a bit of a hit because it appeared that we didn't "pay the light bill" as it was.  Even though we did.  As we've looked into this, it is noted that this happens a decent amount to people on YouTube.  We'll have to think twice about live stream on YouTube.  It is a fine platform for videos, but for live theatre, might need to use our own website.  Lessons learned.

So on the tech side, doing a show via zoom and then live streamed over YouTube is really challenging.  The way the internet transfers packets of information and the way Zoom filters out background noise to focus on the active speaker make for a lot of lost nuance in a show.  Don't get me wrong, these are amazing developments and without them none of video streaming would be possible at all, I do like the technology.  For theatre though, we need to figure out a way to meld what we offer - a live presentation that has the life and spontaneity you can't get from a recording  - with the platforms that exist to move our message out to a large number of people.

Gotta think on that one.  We'll figure it out, one thing the theatre isn't short on is creative people!

Until next time, stay techy my friends!

Brian
AKA: The Man in the Pit

Ya know those moments when I think I'm doing good, but really create another problem that needs to be solved.  I think I'm learning that this theatre thing is complicated, and a lot of stuff has to fall together correctly for something to be fabulous.

What am I blabbing about?  So back in the day I put together a sound system for the theatre.  I spent the right amount of money on a board, cables and speakers.  Good system, should do most anything we need.  At that time I was using Regina's lap top to run a cheap sound program Aaron Rose helped me find for 50 bucks.  Then Domtar had some old computers on sale for $40 each, so I grabbed them and wha la, a permanent sound effect system.

But $40 gets you $40 worth of computer stuff.  We'd been using the on board sound card and every now and again it has some issues.  So I finally got an external sound interface to upgrade and remove the 60 Hz hum that has been plaguing us.  Yeah no more hum, buuuut every once in a while we have these weird thumping noises and interference.  I incorrectly (I think) blamed it on the computer again.

What it ended up being (I think) is that in a 2' radius around the sound board we are an electromagnetic field nightmare!  Any cell phones, wi-fi, wireless mic, or other signal that intermittently transmits causes a pulsing in the sound.  All of our cables are shielded, but there's such a massive amount of power coursing through a 2' area, that any signal gets picked up.
The only signal I'm leaving alone is the transmitter for the light grid, cause that's a whole 'nother can of worms.  We'll see if I'm right, last night I kept the signals away and there was no interference.  Time will tell.....

Here's a neat quick primer on EM problems in audio:  https://itstillworks.com/eliminate-electromagnetic-interference-12281784.html
Maybe someday we'll go to the future and do optical sound transmission.  Probably should make sure the rent is paid first.....

Stay Techie my friends!

Brian

So remember before the show I mentioned some light effects that I wanted to try, not on the ground but in the air?  So the pictures below show the effect of the breakup gobo.  The ground gets that speckled light you see when light pours through trees in the forest.  In the picture on the left you can see the rays coming down.  If I had it to do again I probably would have loaded all of the lights stage right and staggered them so they didn't cross.  The crossing lights made it hard to see the actors and I eventually ended up having to drop the intensity and change the color, lessening the effect.  However it is still cool.  We do have to keep a light layer of fog in the air to keep the mid air effect, but for $10 per gobo how can you go wrong!  I'm looking forward to growing our gobo collection.

The light through the trees is easy, I need to start thinking about how to bring these into our Christmas show.....

Anywho, stay techie my friends!

​Brian

No time, no sleep, but we get lions... :-)

So this is definitely the most sound cues I've done for a show, and crazy amount of light cues!  One of my favorites combining the sound and the light cues are the dun dun duuuuns in the first act.  So truth be told we saw something like this in another show and had to do it at the Citadel.  It's corny and kinda dumb, but it makes people laugh.  Ok, it makes me laugh. 
​From a techy stand point it is cool because it is lights and sound working together closely to enhance the show.  It's almost like our monologue, we don't get the spot light very often even though we are on the stage the whole time.  Big shout out to Jenny Julio for being my partner in crime on the light board.  Come see the show if you want to experience this effect first hand.  I'll call it a dad effect.

Stay Techie my friends!

Brian

Soooo, we were up a little late last night, getting the light's mostly aimed for Robin Hood.  Regina and Daryl are awesome, slap happy, but awesome.  I'm trying to make the design for the show different, always looking to try new shtuff.  So in this show we'll have the traditional lighting and colors that we've always done.  I have stolen 3 elipsodial lights and inserted break up gobos with leaf and tree patterns.  These lights are actually at the BACK of the stage pointed towards the floor just in front of the audience.  The effect on the floor is cool, but what I'm really thinking about is the effect in the air above the stage.  I am going to be hazin' the theater during the whole run.

Actually Jenny will be hazin' -  I'll be running sound.

Additionally we borrowed a light boom from Roger (thank you Roger!) to mount 3 par lights that we stole from the grid.  1 of these lights will be focused at the east wall behind the stage.  The other two will be pointed at the north wall, but horizontally.  We're going to put one light at ~ 5 feet and another at 10 feet.  So I was driving in to work and the sun was coming up and I noticed the sky was light on the horizon but dark overhead.  Aiming these lights like this I hope will let me recreate some of that.  Yes they are the wrong style of light.  And yes, I'm gonna work with what I've got.

Last on the light parade we're going to put incandescent floods at the base of the set to up light a tower Regina has put on her set.  I bought a 4 channel DMX dimmer so we can finally put those pesky on stage lights in the light board program.

Taking a little risk on this one.  Hope it isn't a huge mistake!  So things will work out, some other things may not.  Come back throughout the process, I'll keep on blogging.  So many exciting things with sound - HTR.  I'll say more maybe tomorrow.....

Stay Techie my friends!

Brian

You've taken over the booth; everywhere there are notes, lights, and wires, oh my.
Thoughts are scattered everywhere like the pretzels, starburst wrappers, and water bottles that lay strewn about your work space. You've spread out over this area because what is a tech week without a tech, so this is your home now. You have a spare sweater draped over the chair, comfortable fuzzy socks waiting for you in the spare chair, and pizza patiently waiting for you to take a break.
As you look around you realize you've forgotten the cds that you need to be ripping (are they free domain?), as you're looking for them that you realize you were in the middle of setting pre-show lights (it's such a simple show, can I make the pre-show colorful and crazy fun?).
It's tech week.
Breathe, make sure you are taking oxygen in deeply into your lungs, you have several days to get everything ready. This is just day one.
It's a roller coaster sometimes, but it's a ride that you love. There's no great money to be made in a local theatre, but there's an abundance of love and untapped potential. You're here because you love it, there's no where else you would rather be. The world melts away as you aim your lights, set your sounds, and sink your invisible fingers into the script to create subtle nuance behind your actor's words and actions.
The clock is winding up to seven hours spent at the theatre already, three of that spent watching rehearsal and planning what you're going to be doing with your lights once your actors are off the stage. Which means at least five to six hours tomorrow that you'll be at work.
It's tech week, hectic, crazy, and there is no where else you'd rather be.


​Colie Gotcha

So as we rush into shows with all the craziness of tech week, we hardly ever get all of the effects and scenery and lighting and sounds together that we wanted.  Mostly because you give a tech person an infinite amount of time to tweak and they will tweak and add until you stop them.  For me, I like to add and change things up through the performances in week 2, but week 3, I don't try to change anything.  It's kind of a time to run the show and look at what you were able to do, and make notes for next time.
To me that's the great thing about Enter Stage Right, you know there will be a next time.  And next time isn't that far away.  A 12 month schedule let's us play and get better.  I'm trying to keep learning, keep growing, keep improving for the other company members and the audience.  I want to say I have 20 shows worth of experience, not one show's experience 20 times.  And I see that in everyone else at ESR.  I feel lucky to be around a group of people that not only do their best at  this theatre thing for the audiences, but for each other.
I'll probably only be doing one more post before I hand the reigns over to Colie, she's got the conn for Dancing at Lughnasa.  Enjoy the shows, life, and the opportunities presented to us, and I'll see you back here for one more until Robin Hood.  I'm so psyched for that!

Stay Techie my friends!

Brian