TheatreFace
Putting a Face on Theatre
Cueing time
Lighting Designers:
How much time do you budget for writing cues in a musical. I find it can take me two hours to write a sequence for a big production number.
I try to use all of the proper tools; groups, palettes, magic sheets. Sometimes it just feels like my cueing is taking way too long.
I am a one man show. I hang, circuit, color, focus and cue the shows. No ME or programmer to help out.
Views: 192
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Nathan Kelley on -
I suppose it depends a lot on what kind of instruments (intelligent or standard) and how many you have. I have 70 conventional instruments and over 80 dimmer channels. My console is a Express 250. I have my students hang the instruments and generally point them in the right direction. We do that the week before we load in to our space. It's a multipurpose room that works like a black box. After we load in and put the set together I usually aim & gel in one evening/night. Then the next night I'll spend 4-6+ hours writing cues for the show. It's a late night. We generally have two rehearsals with the lights where I tweak positions & cues. Then we run the show for 3 nights.
Our time is limited in our space. Somehow I've figured out how to cram all this into a matter of two nights. I really wish I had more time to work on all of the stage lighting.
-
Permalink Reply by Steve Shelley on -
Hi Brian;
In my experience i've found that no matter how truncated the time allotted for cueing seems to be, getting initial memories recorded into the console is often directly related to document preparation.
I create what i call a Cue Master [which may be a spreadsheet, track sheet, or other formats] that allows me to pre-determine the placement, time, and change for every look. Collecting this information in one location also allows me to know in advance which looks or scenes will repeat, so that i can quickly record one cue as another [out of sequence, if need be.]
with a grasp of the overall number of cues that comprise an entire performance, i'm prepared to pace myself and know when it's time to stop lathering over a single look and move on, in order to be certain that the overall bulk of memories is recorded before the tech rehearsal starts.
hth, steve
-
Disclaimer: I only have conventional fixtures. To save cueing time, I generally record from stage settings during tech rehearsal. That means setting sliders and on my ETC board just hitting "rec-cue-#-enter". Editing is done later in blind. So I can generally run with the tech rehearsal and very few delays. Editing takes about an additional hour, and there are additional changes during rehearsals (even sometimes between shows).
But cueing from sliders is much faster than keypad programming.
-
Permalink Reply by Brian Miller on -
I agree with Mr. Shelley - you need to know what you want to do at most moments of the piece before you should sit down to create the sequence of cues. By whatever means you use, you need to be able to visualize the looks you wish to create before you try to actually create them. Depending on the complexity of the design, I rely on a variety of tools to organize my thoughts before I sit down in front of the console. I always produce a preliminary master cue sheet that indicates the moments in the script or score where changes should occur, with a short description of the effect I want to create at that moment. From there, I use a variety of tools to help me write the cues. These range from a specific list of channels to use for each cue, to a 'magic sheet' sketch for each moment.
Regarding the budgeting of time for actually recording cues, it all depends on the piece, and the complexity of the design. I try to come up with an estimate of the amount of time I will need to create each cue in my master cue sheet (this takes into account whether you have intelligent fixtures or not, and how many sources you have to use in each cue - and in my experience, can range from under a minute to as much as thirty or more), and it is a simple matter of number of cues x time per cue. Add time if you aren't confident that you can easily create each of the looks you have in your head. Subtract time if there will be a significant amount of consistency, and you can rely on duplication of previously recorded looks. Add (lots of) time if you are not fully comfortable with the equipment you are using. Finally, add a good twenty to thirty percent on to the total, for safety's sake. It is better to go home early, than have to scramble to find ways in a tight tech schedule to finish the job.
Keep in mind that sometimes, it does take thirty-plus hours and a lot of exasperation to cue a show.
-
Permalink Reply by John Kimball on -
When I get asked how much time I need for lighting cues I reply "How much time do I get?". This process varies a lot depending on the show, the director, choreographer, TD, producer, artistic director and venue.
I work in venues ranging from nontraditional warehouses and galleries where I do all the install, hang, focus and program; independent theaters and outdoor events where I have a crew that I can work with and full union houses where I can only work as a director. Each has pros and cons and each has different time parameters. Regardless it all comes down to tech time, this can be an hour or three days.
What I can do is be as fully prepared as possible with a complete lighting plot with focus points in a format large enough to read circuit numbers and room to make additional notes, color cuts and a preliminary cue stack, channels and groups ideally preloaded in my own console, Or next loaded onto a disc or drive for a know console. Or worst having to program into a plan B substitute for some unforeseen reason of course during the allotted tech time, this is where good paperwork makes a big difference.
Sometimes there's dry tech, sometimes not. In dry tech I get a little me time to set and reset looks and levels and other adjustments prior to proprietary comment. And then it's show time, once the director, stage manager or whoever is making the final decision is talking to me time is out of my hands. I hope to have all the control I need to to respond to requests and a fairly close set of cues and looks based on prior talks and rehearsals. In some cases like when I'm working with someone I have a working relationship with I can be right on and we can motor right through. In other cases when I have someone who wants to see everything possible and then go back to relatively where we started it takes a little longer. And then when it's all said and done the higher up voice shows up and wants to spend sometime revising, this is where backup discs are really handy.
For me the time I budget is all the time I'm allotted.
-
Haven't browsed the forum here for a long time so my reply might be be a little late. Anyway, I have worked for a long time as a lighting designer and have become fairly routine in my habits. I'm lucky in that I usually work with union crews so I have a programmer. I rarely cue much before tech. I prefer having the sets (usually musicals with multiple sets) in place and actors in place. I do 90% of my cueing on the fly. Any cues made ahead of time happen during a spacing or scene shift rehearsal where I sketch in a look or two for each set, and maybe cue through a few scene transitions. I absolutely have lost the patience needed to sit by myself or worse yet, with a director, and cue on an empty stage. To do this requires a few things:
1. Coffee, lots of it, and gummy bears.
2. Know your plot, know your focus.
3. Don't sweat the small stuff. The great thing about light cues is that they are always changeable, right up until opening. They are just electrons in memory. Cue it, record it, move on.
4. Whenever possible work ahead in blind. Know the scene ends in a blackout? Make the cue in blind. You don't need to look at it. Or, if it is something else, take a stab at it and then correct when you get there.
5. Don't be afraid to edit cues live. The best changes happen when you are looking at the scene live.
6. Take copious notes and develop your own shorthand. I typically end a tech rehearsal with between 3 and 10 pages of cue notes that are unintelligible to anyone but me. Make sure you put in enough information to jog your memory. All too often I put in some note like "Q 123 SUX" which tells me nothing when I am fixing cues the next morning.
All of this requires a fairly high level of concentration. When tech starts I am in the "zone". I'm so busy spouting channels and levels that for some time afterward it can be hard for me to complete a sentence. But seriously, develop the speed. It is a very valuable asset for a lighting designer to have. I have gotten a lot of work because of my speed. If I can design a good looking show in less time then more time on stage is available to directors and choreographers to finesse their work. They don't forget that.
-
As an addendum: when working with moving lights or LED's I do take the time to program focus points or color libraries before tech. This is imperative to me. Every moment saved getting through the technical issues is a moment that can be devoted to the art of the cue. Depending on the type of show I'm designing I can pretty much predict the color palette that I will be working with. For focus points I create a rather generic grid with additions for specific scenery needs.
© 2014 Created by Stage Directions.
