Tech continues

Last night we teched Act 1, and it went pretty well. Writing cues with moving fixtures can be a real pain in the butt. You have to keep close track of when they move, when they turn on, and make sure they don't move in the cue when they turn off. Then you have to make sure you aren't trying to bring the same light up in the next cue, and if you are, you have to add a cue to make the fixture move while it's off. What I'm doing isn't overly complicated, but I can just imagine the mess I'd make trying to do fancier stuff. To sum up, a regular light has one channel, to turn the light on and off. These fixtures have 25 channels, each doing something different, including intensity, pan, tilt, fine pan, fine tilt, color 1, color 2, gobo 1, gobo 2, gobo function 1 and 2, iris, strobe, focus, frost, etc. I'm only using 6 of them, and they sometimes twist my brain into pretzel. The annoying thing is that everything in the theater is CRAP, so I have at least 2 fixtures where the dowser gets stuck so the light won't necessarily go all the way out when I tell it to. Ugh. I'm going to have to do all manner of extra work to try and fix this stupid problem which wouldn't even exist if the fixtures were properly maintained.

Adding to my confusion, I'm using a light board that I've never used before, the ETC Obsession 2. It works very differently from the Expression line, mainly in the tracking, which I am starting to really love as I get used to it. (I won't even try to explain tracking here. If you care, ask me in person sometime.) I would be so screwed if my board op didn't already know what he's doing. He has been extremely helpful. I should buy him some beer.

Today we went in at 10 to do notes. We started at noon and finishing teching Act 1. Then we ran Act 1. We got done early enough that I had an hour and a half to write cues for Act 2. We probably spent half an hour on one sequence using all 6 moving lights, even though they aren't doing live moves. It just takes forever to move each light, adjust focus, get the right template in, and make sure you didn't screw anything up. After dinner we teched and ran Act 2. Tomorrow we're going to go work again at 10, run the whole show at about 1, and if all goes well the evening rehearsal will be cancelled. My fingers are crossed.

If you want to come see this thing, and I would like it if you did, sometime this week would be best. We will most likely be running Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Thursday and Frday are previews, at 7:30, and Saturday is opening night, also 7:30. I will be at all of these, so you can join me. Don't make me come back after that, come to one of these. Please? :)