Theatre Etiquette

A quick post to put up this link from the Daily Telegraph of the golden rules of Theatre Etiquette. Please not that, despite the articles’s tone, these rules are compulsary and shouldn’t be broken on pain of, well, pain:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article6535773.ece

Goodwill and purity

I know I said I was working in my last post – this time I really have been working.

You know things aren’t shaping up well when a weeks’ worth of shows requires counting by using more fingers than available on a normal human hand and the first couple of weeks of June showed a very full work calender.

We started with a couple of days on a new opera piece – that had the lighting, video and dsm controlled from positions onstage on a set that was Dharma foundation and Dr Strangelove in Ikea. Remotely controlled camera’s for close up shots to flatscreens facing the audience and  numerous Pixeltubes in parallel lines hung over head made for a set that was not opera traditional, and while I don’t remember the critic’s response, I don’t think the purists were too favourable – something that will re-occur later.

Once the opera had gone, it was the turn of a contemporary dance company. Their main set was a white dance floor flanked on three sides by constructions that linked Angel of the North with oil pumps. The long thin ‘wings’ were used as projection screens at heights from stage level to several metres up. There was a barrage of side light light and several Fibanocci inspired geometric design gobo’s projected onto the floor.

Wasn’t around for either show but the visuals were fairly impressive of what I saw.

My time was mostly being taken up by the next couple of shows – two in two days, with the first then being repeated a week later with a new cast and after a third show had been in and gone.

The first was a large children’s show showcasing dance and singing. Bringing together eight different performance schools from around the country, the first half was based on Motown hits, each school providing a choir for two numbers and dancers for two more in a looping fashion while the second half was a loose version of the classic Blues Brothers.

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Staging first – though it was a standard black masking and white cyc set-up, there was a fair amount of steel deck onstage, giving five levels of platforms for the current choirs to stand upon. These were arranging in a U shape with the base towards the audience with a professional band in the gap between and solo singers from the schools along the base facing the audience. Of course, it wasn’t until the steel deck arrived that it was discovered that no-one had hired any additional crew to help put it up …

Lighting was a little non-standard – four fly bars (one each upstage/downstage and one each side) boxed the dance floor and were full of Parcans. Our Mac 500s were out to provide pretty patterns and there was a little overhead light – but not as much as would be expected.

The band consisted of two trumpets, one trombone, one sax, two keyboards, electric bass, electric guitar, drum kit and percussion (conga’s, small marimba, and some toys) plus an MD.  Most  mics were and were the expected AKG/Shure models, though we did try out the operators Shure Drum Mic Kit which seemed to work fine. Drums, brass and MD had Max12 for monitors and the electric instruments used their own amps.

As well, there was a Sony wireless handheld for the MD’s final speech,five vocal mics for the solo singers (another Sony handheld and four SM58), four SE300 bluelines to help pick up the choir and five PCC160 along the front to help those dancers who also had speaking or singing parts. Our usual EAW/Midas/Mediamatrix rig in place.

The video recording was done from an OB truck from a company who specialise in remotely operated camera’s and have done for a number of years. Cables didn’t take any longer to run in for these than for fixed or operated camera’s, apart from having our newest security guard attempt to find the key to open the door to the OB route.

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The show itself went well, once the choir finally started singing, though one of the keyboardists didn’t make it through the show, thanks to a touch of flu.

That show took it’s leave and we were in early next morning to start on the next one (number four for those keeping track). This was for a pop artist to promote a new album as part of a small tour. The initial site meeting had said to expect a black box, string quartet, piano and not much more. All backline would be done by the company.

As you can guess, it proved to be a little bit bigger.

The truck arrived late, which was a good start. Lighting was mostly done already – an overnight crew had taken down the kids show and put up the rig for this one.

After the driver had found his way, we started on the stage. Soundwise, a Midas Heritage 3000 took it’s place stage right next to a whole heap of IEM racks while lighting began to place over a dozen lanterns from 500w to 5kw on stands around the musicians for the main artist – including baby grand, synth, large drum kit, guitar, electrix bass, backing vocals, 6 violins, 3 violas and 3 cello’s. Just compare that list to the first list. Every person had in-ear’s and there was a mix of wired and wireless mics supplied by Brit Row and John Henry’s.

A stack of EAW 750 and allied subs went up each side and had to be aligned to our system which was staying in also.

I’m going to note here that the company had only asked for one sound from the venue, alongside their monitor engineer, backline/effects guy and FOH operator who also had a manager role. By 9am, we already had 3 in-house staff working on this just for sound.

The stage crew (all one of them) started to bring up all our odd rostra and old blacks which over the course of the day were artfully designed into a ‘mound’, unevenly starting at stage level and rising to a few metres high behind the musicians platforms.

Meanwhile the  single fly man was beginning to program moving sequences with every empty flying bar going from just over head height to high up in the fly tower.

Lunchtime came and went with another sound tech joining the fray to get it up and running for the delayed sound check (issues with the IEM’s and a very long look at how to artistically arrange 75kgs of mylar confetti on the legs to turn the black mound into a silver mound)

It was about this time (mid afternoon) that we were informed that the support band – who we were supplying all the sound kit for – would not be sharing the main sound desk, despite that having been what was agreed the previous week.

Thus at the point at which the in-house sound team was expecting to start taking staggered breaks, and while a lifesize wooden artists doll was being given the instruction to look ’surprised’  we had to both keep an eye (ear) on the ongoing sound check, we also had to work out how to run in an additional desk to control the system without affecting what was already going on.

The main sound check over run, in part due to a runaway (flyaway) helium balloon with a 4m diameter and at the point at which the house was meant to be opened we had just about squeezed the support act into a narrow strip in front of the main set-up. As the main act had borrowed a couple of our monitors for their own use, it turned out lucky that we still had the additional hired speakers from the previous day.

We didn’t get much of a sound check for the support group (a great band called Blue Roses who are worth checking out) and unluckily their gig suffered a little for it – somewhat ironically as one of the band had mentioned as we were setting them up that they weren’t certain going into this one that it was a good idea …

Under-crewing and not staying to schedule are never good …

The main act had a good show which the audience seemed to enjoy greatly (no IEM issues for those concerned) but a couple of the strings clip mics failed right before the start for no particular reason – one of which was the spare.

It took several hours to get everything out the door afterwards, which included having to reclaim as much mylar as possible. The mess from the two large confetti cannons (didn’t I mention them?) we kindly left for housekeeping …

I was disappointed in this show – not for the actual performance but for the organisation. We never saw a sound channel list for the main act, the lighting plan turned up with three days to spare, and while lighting had half a dozen people, both stage and sound were severely under-crewed. Only the fact that we had put extra people on the day out of our own pocket allowed them to put the show on and only then at the expense of the support band.

If you ever work alongside or for Metropolis music, be warned. They may be fine with you, and I hope they are, but they can also cut administrative corners if they think it’ll save them a little money.

Trying banking the goodwill instead …

Anyways, with that show gone, I took a couple of days off as two days into my working week I had worked over half my  contracted hours and spend them finishing the End of Course Assignment for my Open University course.

Of course, I may have been away from the theatre but the theatre was still going and another show was taking it’s place upon our stage.

Another contemporary piece, it was a revisit for a pair of dancers who have performed several times. This time, the addition was a film crew for DVD release. I’ve talked about this show previously  (though I seem to have misplaced the link …) so I won’t say much more about it. It was well received and the company know what they are doing – though the stack of CD’s for it gets bigger, the scratches in those CD’s get longer and it does seem as though some of the tracks’s should go back into the studio for the amount of EQ changes they make.

Then they leave and overnight the lighting went back into the rig for the schools show, back this time with the same running order but with eight new schools providing their versions.

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Though we mostly left everything the same, we did make a couple of changes. Firstly, we made sure that there was crew for assembling the steel deck.

One of the brass monitors was moved to provide some extra support for the solo singers, we dropped a PCC160 and swopped the cardiod heads on the SE300 for the choir with two rifle heads and two Beyer MCE shotguns for better coverage

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The band had some different members on guitar/bass and the choirs this time had better singing voices, though that wasn’t true of all the soloists … but on the whole the show was as it had been a week before.

Then that show was gone and we had the next company in, this time a ballet company with two programmes based on Diagheliv, who 100 years old probably turned ballet into the style as recognised today. These programmes have been making the news recently, though this has more to do with Coco Chanel being involved in the design and construction of some of the principle costumes than for any Ballet Russes related items.

We’ll tend to remember it for having a pre-show talk and a post show talk while being archived and having a separate film crew all on the same day(different strokes for different folks and all that).

And while the critics, and the patrons, have mostly been appreciative, I do remember one gentleman present for the post-show talk who took offence at one piece that was a re-interpretation rather than a revival and spend a good five minutes or more haranging the post show panel for their choice of including this in the programme.

Purists …

How would one like work today?

I’ve actually been working this week.

That’s not to say that I don’t work normally (contrary to what Wife Number One would have you believe)

Having squeezed in an Open University assignment around the hip hop festival, we took a few days holiday and went to visit the in-laws.

I say visit – Mr Best Man et al will be pleased to learn that this holiday up to my normal standards – that is to say it was spent doing things that aren’t covered by the terms ‘relaxing’, or ‘leisure’ or ‘free-time’

Travelling up via train (and failing to get Virgin’s free-wifi to work, despite being in first class), one of the first things I did was a site visit for work.

Not an excuse to oogle dancers, instead I got to view the insides of a self store facility. The facility I looked at was fine on the whole but I did find this little piece of careful building design.

Complete with addded pillar support dead centre …

I’ll explain more about why I was up north in storage cages later on in the year …

God forbid actually doing work during holiday days is enough, we were also handed a list of things that needed doing.

After the three days away, we had purchased and set-up two new LCD flatscreen TV’s, including one wall-mount; twice painted the ceiling in the spare bedroom, assembled two shelves (two times)  in a display of why you really should measure TWICE cut once, and even done about a third of my final assignment.

Coming back to my workplace was almost a relief from that holiday.

Well, until the Saturday night get-out …

This weeks show, from a regular company, was a mostly a mix of the new.

A triple bill, the first was a new work based around a circus mime family and was a nice gentle piece that even had the audience going “awww” at one point.

The second piece was a return of a work that is choreographically based on the movements of cockroaches. It premiered with a HUGE lamp shade which didn’t grace us this time around and which removed the piece of the scale that it needed.

The third piece was one of the largest pieces the company has done certainly for a while, possibly ever. Based on Bazilian movements, it had the entire troupe of dancers plus some extra’s from the associated dance school dancing to four percussionists doing their best samba thing.

[shop talk]

Lighting for the first two pieces was atmospheric general dance cover (sides, top, the normal drill) – the last was predominantly a whole heap of SOurce 4 profiles focussed to tight squares that covered the stage in a ten by ten grid and gelled with ‘disco’ colours. All up together it did mock a disco floor but was used to provide individual lights to individual dancers with quick snaps as the dancers moved around the stage (about two dozen).

The percussionists had a bunch of drums of all flavours with a Latin American theme and associated toys, including a berimbau. They were also fitted with DPA 4061 on Trantec and Samson radio packs for vocalised parts (first time I’ve used toupee clips sinxe starting here I worked out later) and had headphones for a click track.

The click was fired from a ProTools LE rig and the whole lighting for that piece was timed to the beat – whether by MIDI from ProTools or a timed cue sequence, I’m not certain. It was bang on everytime – though here was a vague thought that the dancers should be clicked up as well …

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It all worked extremely well – the first night I saw it the audience got four curtain calls … and that was without a full standing ovation.

The atonal structure of the middle piece is not to everyone’s taste but the big bang finish was very good and came together nicely.

Very distinct shapes under the duvet (SFW before you wonder …)

Our annual hip hop festival came around again – but for once I managed to mostly avoid getting (too) involved with it all – call it karmic payback for years of flamenco …

[Shop talk]

Most of the technical gubbins from last year applied again in any case for those interested in the shop talk sections (last years post here) – this year though SCS was up and running and a majority of pieces had their music controlled from PC rather than CD

No UHF 58’s this year (in fact no beat boxers at all) but we did have a small keys/tabla combo that had to be miked for one piece – not on the night I worked however so I don’t know any of the details. No sending people out on shopping trips this time though.

We did have to allow space for one company to add their O1V96 and Q-Lab playback, routed through our Midas.

Set wise, this years random items included a three seater sofa that I’d driven over to Haringey to pick up inbetween visits to Ikea Wembley and Ikea Blue Water that saw a lot of use offstage …; a couple of working traffic lights (American style); a DJ set-up on wheeled table as a prop (ignore how the music starts when the power gets plugged in – despite no audio cables attached …); a wooden chair,  and a camp bed.

Lighting was slightly simplifed from last year but with the addition of some MAC600 to our in-house MAC500 for some variety.

And then, because it would be too easy otherwise, we are in the process of switching from our old Strand 500 series lighting control to ETC Eos, though, of course, the subsequent tour has to be programmed for Strand.

But only after it’s been created on the Eos

I’m going to skip straight past that now …

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I’m going to mention the AV set-up outside of shop talk as it’s something that seems to be amassing interest in various places.

It seems that TV manufacturers and film producers alike are trying to get 3D vision up and running properly. Well, theatre is doing it as well as we handed out 1900 sets of silly looking paper glasses out for one of the pieces.

Rather than the old red and green colours, the improved concept of stereoscopic vision utilises polarised lenses – think your sunglasses but with one of the polarisations at 90 degrees to the other. This is replicated at the two projectors both showing the same image with the result that each eye sees a slightly different image and re-assembles it in your brain to form a 3-D image.

It works pretty well, and had appropriate gasps from the audience, though it’s a little more blurry and less 3D at the edges – something that I noticed when watching Monsters Vs Aliens.

The show went very well the night I saw, and got good reviews the other nights – I have to say though, I enjoyed actually having a bank holiday weekend off work – which means I’m tempting fate for a few days annual leave I have coming up …

How involving should theatre be?

Those who know me know that I was looking for skeleton model builders last week.

That’s builders of skeleton models and not model builders who are skeletons.

But why was I looking for such people?

And – I hear you cry – obviously for something theatre related, get to the specifics!

We are currently in the final part of a focus on an american choreographer based in Germany who has moved from his classic roots into exploring the fringes of contemporary dance.

And while the pieces being performed off-site include thousands of balloons, hundreds of pendulums and a little video  trickery, the onsite pieces were also a little different.

These included two video based works; one filming passers-by and employing a little morphing, the other testing senses of perpective.

The piece on the main stage was just that.

It was all on the main stage, or over it, including the audience.

With German precision, the audience was let in exactly at the time on the ticket and were escorted through a darkened auditorium to the stage where they were clustered into small groups and accompanied by one of our model builders.

The view of the stage was blocked by a angled screen with projected vague images from a ‘beamer’ in the auditorium – about the only element not on the stage.

Onstage were over a dozen tables with model skeletons assembled on them – only these models were contructed randomly from skeleton model parts, in no obviously recognisable shapes, held up by rods attached to the table tops. The audience were invited to add more parts to the weird and strange ‘models of grief’.

A script began to pan slowly across the screen as the audience set to with cardboard and split pins. Where shadows from the models fell across blank paper sheets laid out underneath, people were invited to sketch along those lines.

These paper sketches were then used by the trio of dancers who infiltrated onto the stage and began to dance expressions of grief. The sketches were vocalised and radio mics picked up the vocalisations and were amplified and went through all manner of funky sound changing effects.

Each performance lasted 52 minutes, leaving just 8 minutes to reset before the doors were opened once more for the next audience.

It’s not a piece that anyone could say they ‘enjoyed’ but it was fascinating to be a part of, being extremely involving – as much as for watching the reactions of people as they realised that this wasn’t a ’standard’ dance piece they had come to watch but something much more personal.

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For those interested in the technical side of things, 2k fresnals overhead provided a downlight washed in sections across the stage and two profiles per table lit the models.

These were controlled by subs from an onstage lighting board manually operated to follow the movements of the dancers, just about the only way to follow the actions and react to the requirements of the choreographer who was onstage for every performance, gauging the reactions of the participants.

Sound was next to lighting and had DPA lavaliers on Sennheiser radio transmitters which came into the M7CL controlling the sound and then went off into all sorts of MaxMSP madness. A G5 which dual screens, a Mac Powerbook and a midi keyboard were among the controlling sources and all three expansion slots on the M7CL were filled with ADAT and optical ins and outs to external pre-amps.

Max users may be able to make sense of what was going on – I’ve never used the program so I had little idea. It was a program for pitch shifting, ring modulating, delaying and generally effecting what the mics picked up during the perfromance, including breathes and taps.

Sound was played through Meyer UPA-1p hanging from overhead in a rough 5.0 set-up with a sixth acting as a reference speaker for the operator who was off to one side.

Two Meyer 650-P subs  in opposite corners provided the low end.

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I also have no idea how it ended – the last four minutes for me were spent moving into the foyer to get ready to open the doors for the turn around. I did get see the faces of the audience after the event though and there was a whole gamut of utterly bemused to slightly shell-shocked and absolutely captivated.

It does seem as though the majority of all the audiences came expecting to watch a piece, and not be in the middle of one – certainly the one or two ladies in their fine frocks and high heels missed any pre-show blurb.

The piece definitely worked on it’s own terms – and necessarily so – I just wonder what impression of ‘theatre’ and ‘dance’ the audience left with …

It’s my walking speed and I’ll travel at it if I want to …

Let’s use our imaginations for a moment.

It’s a Tuesday morning.

You didn’t sleep particularly well last night – a bout of insomnia – so you’ve had maybe five hours sleep.

You’re due in work for night and your train to London Bridge arrived a few minutes late, was sardine packed, has crawled along the line and you’ve just got off at London Bridge to find there’s no access to the Northern Line. From London Bridge to your work is 35 mins brisk walk and work starts in 40.

So a quick girdle of the loins and you set off.

Somewhere around Bank, well into your stride, somebody stops you, accosts you with a smile and hands you a speeding ticket.

“Sorry mate, you were walking too fast. Try life in the slow lane!”

I’m not certain a jury in the land would convict me …

From April 24th for a couple of weeks, the Go Slow campaign hits London. Well, not so much hits, as ambles into, admiring the scenary.

I do actually tend to support the ideals of Go Slow – it’s about taking the time to think things through, to take note of the surroundings, to take a few moments for yourself and not feel like you have to get to point B ASAP.

But there are times when going fast is kinda necessary – getting to work on time, getting to a hospital if your wife has just gone into labour, getting to a train station to catch the train that takes you to the seaside to catch up with friends for a day.

And those are exactly the times when having someone stop you are the most frustrating.

The idea of a Slow Down London festival  is great – but the idea of having that idea imposed upon you does seem to defeat the whole purpose of such a concept.

Years of living in tourist towns have given me a faster than average walking speed and an appreciation for not dawdling in the middle of a throughfare, or not stopping on a corner to check a map, or actually getting my wallet out before reaching the front of the queue.

Having a chugger hand me a piece of paper (hear the trees cry out and the rubbish bins smile) that suggest that I should roll into work a few minutes late having inhaled a little more particulate matter almost makes me want to don the power walking gear.

Or sharpen the elbow pads at least …

What’s the Spanish for ‘this may get technical’ … No comprendo …

More silence from me in terms of blogging – but not more silence onstage as it was once again time for our annual flamenco festival …

Yet again I was not allowed to hide away (though I did try) but had to participate, though this year the preparation actually began a few months ago and the whole thing went that little bit smoother.

Let’s get the tech speak out of the way first:

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This is our biggie for the year in terms of sound hire.

While our Midas remains out front along with a little of our outboard, the vast majority is hired in, meaning we can order it to spec and use in-house for backup for the inevitable damages.

FOH control was all analogue again: alongside our Midas Legend were several models of dbx compression (166A, 160Xt and 1046); M3000, PCm70 and SPX990 effects; KT DN360 graphics; and KT DN410 parametrics. Playback was from our Sony CD-D12, supplemented for one company with the Minidisc equivalents (the first time we’ve seen Minidisc for a while here). Another couple of companies had an Avalon 747 tube amp.

Monitor control was digital – a PM5D-RH with only a couple more KT DN360 graphics for company. This was sat alongside Sennheiser Em3532 receivers picking up Sk5012 transmitters. A pair of Shure U2 receivers shared aerial distribution for a couple of handheld mics (Sm58 and SM87 heads). Monitors were all Max12 powered by lab.Gruppen amps while sidefills were two pairs a side of trusty C6’s (alas no lightweight E12 this time…)powered from P1200 amps.

Bss active splits received all the mic inputs and sent them to both desks. Mics were all fairly standard models – KM184; SM57, 58, 81, 87 and 98; C414’s and AR133 active DI on instruments and vocals for all the companies along with DPA 4065, 4066; MKE2, MKE-40 and ME-140; and the (slightly irregular for us) Sennheiser HS2 on the radio packs. Not forgetting of course the 25 PCC-160 under the floor …

A LS9-16 was also used as a sub-mixer for one percussionist on one night, as much for his Kaos pad as his selection of SM98’s

Of course, this all seems a bit easy so the final company brought a lot of their own monitor kit swopping the PM5D for a DM2000, adding 3063 radio packs and their own 3532 receivers, a bunch of Sennheiser IEM’s (I can’t for life of me remember the model numbers, outboard and MKH70 rifles.

And while we had two BTR-700 packs in, this company brought 8 of the radio comms in (we quietly retired the two we’d run in – which simultaneously deprived the lighting department of using their Pelican case as a footstool …)

The observant, and patient, reader will have noticed that I have yet to mention the PA system.

Indeed, that’s true.

it was again a line array system, it’ll be no real surprise to learn that it was a line array system but a few people may pay attention when they hear that we had the new T-series to play with.

I believe that we are only the second production to use them in the UK (after the Chicago tour) though I’m prepared to be corrected.

Eight T-10’s aside ground stacked with two T-subs and an additional B2 aside for some ‘ommph’ with another four T-10 flown to help out the second circle. All powered from D12 amps.

I’ll talk more about these in a minute …

Lighting wise, the rig was all conventionals and was a mix of PARs, fresnals and profiles covering all the usual requirements.

Staging was black box masking, and varied somewhat production to production but only in terms of where the musicians were. The flamenco floor was removed during the second week and replaced with a companies own version a little variation …

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The festival, as always, had it’s ups and downs. Loading in the day before was fun as myself and wife number one found ourselves travelling into the murky depths of rural Kent to load our flamenco floor into a truck early one friday morning. On the good side of things, it meant that we were forced (FORCED I say) to have bacon butties and a fork lift was available. On the bad side, the truck wasn’t supplied with entirely the right amount of securing  and it arrived at the theatre a few hours later with the heavy floor having turned some of our rustic wood and rush chairs into kindling …

Really.

I had to sweep the remains out of the truck and the truck didn’t look too healthy either.

Then with the floor out on the pavement, the sound kit boxes started to arrive and we were left under the clouds waiting for the matinee show to finish so we could get everything inside without crushing staff, patrons or the 100+ children who were due to perform that night.

Most survived.

Then sound were called at ungodly o’clock on a Saturday morning to start setting everything up, including a very nice man who was there to make sure the T-series speakers behaved properly.

He also proved most useful when the requested KK-105 handheld was found to not be in the mic case and was in fact in pieces back at the warehouse. After a moment of panic, 87 heads were deemed to be acceptable replacements and we all started breathing again.

Dan, many thanks again.

His help, along with everyone else meant that we went from bare stage to show in around 12 hours (18 if you count the overnight lighting rig).

A different company and show for Sunday and Monday, then another for Tuesday then the first Wednesday was a tech day. Possibly a little late but by then we were on company four and I finally had a couple of days off that weekend, something of a luxury for a festival set-up.

Company five started on a monday which doesn’t bode well and indeed it was one of those days.

Selected highlights for me included waking up with a head cold and blocked sinus’s, getting into work to find we were missing legs for the musicians platforms and going to our other venue a half hour bus ride away while arranging to hire more SM98  mics as we were missing a couple. I was wondering what people were going to make of me catching a bus while carrying 40cm long scaff poles but was spared that as I found the only legs the right size were already in use for a platform for a tango band. I figured they might notice if I dismantled the platform and returned empty handed to the festival fit-up to find the crew cutting long lengths of scaff into short lengths and that we need more SM98, of which we had two in the theatre I had just come back from.

An hour later or so, I returned carrying said mics from theatre, having confirmed the hire of additional mics (and having had the bus driver miss the stop) in my travels.

Sinus’s still blocked and mics still missing, I carried on through the day to the high point of having one of the Max12 get dislodged from it’s perch and come crashing to the deck. Fortunately a stage box and those extra hired mics stopped the floor from getting damaged.

Ho-hum.

Surprisingly, everything had coped pretty well – a couple of pop rivets vanish, a little bit of insulation on one lead and a connector on another was the extent of the injuries.

The missing mics showed up and I was partly to blame – in repairing a couple of issues arising in the first week, I’d left those mics separate to everything else. It took four of us to locate them in the second most obvious place to put them.

That was Monday.

Actually the rest of the week was mostly fine, though the sinus blockage got worse during the week, nothing else did, until I was left with the final treat of myself and the truck driver loading all the sound kit back onto the collecting truck on the next monday by ourselves.

And I was left with the thank-you gift from the company of a metal book mark … words fail me

This bit may surprise some of you – I actually liked bits of this year’s festival.

I’ll give you a minute to  pick yourselves up and re-read that.

To be fair, that was mainly a pre-recorded track used by the last company which was nicely epic in scope and some very good guitar playing. The wailing and stomping, I liked not so much.

As always, I’m left with the impression that flamenco in general, and I include all the different forms that it seems to take these days, wants to turn everything up to 11. There is this urge that ‘louder is better’ and I’m not the only one who thinks, “actually, no, it isn’t”.

There are some great musicians who play at this festival – but all you are aware of is the sound level and not the level of playing. At the sort of levels that seem to be the norm, you may as well use a CD …

It’s a shame as, as proved with the flamenco section during a show earlier in the year (this post here), when the volume isn’t loud, you notice the playing so much more. Flamenco, at least what comes through London, does seem to be very focussed on the technology and does seem to be forgetting the art

Talking of technology, those who read the shop talk section will know that we had a pretty brand new speaker system in and are no doubt wanting to know what we thought. This next bit is going to be talking broadly about speakers – consider yourselves warned.

Firstly, we never had time to spend more than a few minutes actually just listening. And our first impressions actually weren’t all that good.

The T-series is lovely to work with. T-’are just 11kg and have all the fixings in the unit – none of this faff with different pins that plague v-DOSC array’s. And the rotatable horn without removing the front grille means these things can be used for different purposes very easily.

That being said, I’m not certain that the current flamenco sound is the right application for these. The first listen we properly got left us underwhelmed. The first time we listened to a stack of Q1’s we were very happy. The first time we listened to the T-10’s, it just seemed a little lacking in every respect.

Then we took off all the system EQ that had been applied for the flamenco and added a couple of bits on the D12s ([shoptalk] made sure CUT on all T-10’s, played with the CPL; [/shop talk])

That vastly improved the sound. It is a very nice system and I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again. This is nothing against the settings that our man Dan plugged in on day one – it’s as much about the ‘flamenco sound’ as it is about not having quite enough time to check the nuances of a new system.

But it’s not quite as plug in and play as I would like and the sound doesn’t seem to have the same warmth as d&b speakers normally have. We tend to find that American based speaker systems (Meyer et al) tend to be a little more clinical than the European equivalents (d&b, …) and the T-series seemed to be more crisp than I would expect from d&b (some of those handclaps could take your head off with these!)

I think if I had to between say T-series and Q-series, I’d choose the Q-series. While the T-series are easier to work with physically, the Q-series seemed to be a little more appealing in sound quality. And last time we used them on flamenco, they were pretty much plug and play, involving less set-up time (for us, at least, YMMV)

I’d really like to hear an A/B test of the two (and the next one in London is, of course, on a day that I’ll be elsewhere in front of a computer monitor trying to grasp AutoCAD 2008).

Still carrying on the shop talk theme, there are hints that next year it’ll be digital desks at both ends, which could mean that the only analog bits will be the microphones and the speakers themselves.

I do like the idea of not having to carry heavy outboard racks to the front of house position and being able to sit anywhere in the auditorium and be able to tweak any setting … of course, I’d have to listen to flamenco to do so …

Still, we do still get issues with having two languages being spoken in the same department (the English guy does one thing to try to rectify a fault, just as the Spanish guy tries something else to rectify the same fault …)  and going all digital should help with this, as long as it’s all set-up correctly.

Easy moving

More holiday time and regular viewers will be glad to note that I’ve reverted to type and assisted in another house move during time away from work.

Of course, as this was family it was a darn sight easier than the normal house moves.

Technically, it was a flat move and it invovled going from the 6th floor in my Dad’s apartment block to the 9th floor.

Up a lift!

Sorry, this time there will be no stories of manhandling kitchens up flights of stairs or standing in the rain with a damaged leg loading a trailer.

Instead I sauntered along around midday, disassembled the large furniture, moved the large furniture along to the lift (which is just around the corner from the flat), moved it out of the lift, and reassembled the large furniture in place.

No blood spilled and barely a sweat raised.

Of course, my Dad was still getting over a heavy bout of man flu so he was sweating for the both of us.

But I got to leave before 8pm, three cups of tea, 1 sandwich, 1 chocolate eclair and two pieces of his wife’s homemade flapjack heavier, and the only step I’d gone over was onto the balcony.

It’s left me slightly worried – that’s several holidays in a row that have had no more than light work attached – I suspect that there’s a future holiday inbound that’s going to return to form and have me moving a shed from one side of the country to the other.

In the rain.

With TWO damaged legs.

Uphill. Both ways.

Or something.

Of course, I could be a little cynical …

It’s all about the equipment … this week

My work focus has shifted over the last couple of months as I take on more office based duties, hence the declining number of backstage show posts.

But this week has seen two fairly big shows both see opening nights in the same week – both shows co-produced with different companies, no small feat for a theatre that still has a strong receiving house bias.

And particularly as two of the full time staff have been absent for most of February.

They claim that having a newborn daughter and taking a show to Australia count as valid reasons to be absent from work (not the same excuse for both of them!) – I mean honestly, where’s the work ethic?

One show is the Choreographer’s cut, almost a test to see if a dance show can evolve into a percussion and string concert while the other is the result of a collaboration between French dancer, English choreographer, Canadian director and English fashion designer, with a little Japanese dance and European history for good measure..

It is, as the theatre folks are already thinking, the stuff of nightmares.

Actually, no it’s not but it does provide a good example of the changing focus that has been instigated.

Switching back to the choreographer’s cut, this is actually a continuation of a production I’ve worked on several times in the past (try here for the most detail).

This time around it took place in the Roundhouse, a lovely building if you get the chance to visit. I had originally been volunteered to mix the sound on this one – until the collaborative piece turned up in the same week and my colleagues announced their upcoming disappearances.

While it meant that I had to take a step back, it also meant that I could watch a show evolve.

The seven musicians from before morphed into 19! Drums grew from 14″ and 16″ floor toms to 7′ taiko drums, a guitarist appeared, and  the final gong was taller than a tall man (and I’m including basketball players here). The musicians platform started at 4 metres and had seven different heights. From the original 11 dancers, we now had 17 and the audience capacity grew from 1500 to 1800, standing room only.

[Shop talk]

The size of the band (and the size of the drums) all but necessitated headphones for all the players. I believe it was 16 mixes to the band members from a PM5D.

It was a somewhat different collection of mics this time around but it was all the usual suspects – DPA clip mics on all the strings; KM184 and C414 on overheads and cymbals; MD421, SM57, M88 on perc and DI’s for guitar amps and for the greatly named Electro-dude – one man, one table and a host of hard- and software based synths.

Headphones were mostly musicians own with signal from 8in – 8out headphone amps.

Another PM5D ran the FOH sound through a Meyer MSL system. System processing was done by a Galileo box and alongside the live sound, a Macbook running Qlab sent out prerecorded track, click track and MIDI for the lighting desks.

Lighting was down from a Hog and a Pearl and lights were a PAR64 heavy rig with a mix of CP60 and CP62 lamps. Various 1kW fresnals, and Source 4 and SL profiles filled the rest of the conventional lighting overhead and on the booms and Vari*lite spots were used for subtle effects – no disco strobing here.

[/shop talk]

Squeezing all the kit and a false pros into the Roundhouse proved to be something of a challenge but we managed and the show went up bang on schedule.

The show also went with a bang – and was well-received by critics and audience alike.

Meanwhile, our international collaboration has been causing a little more perplexion to watchers – as much as it’s not quite what people were expecting as any thing else.

A devised work, it mixes dance (obviously), drama and physical theatre – more than our dance-centric audiences expect.

It’s also not quite what we expected – and all the little issues that a new devised piece will throw at it’s crew have been a reminder. Whether sourcing teflon sliders, right angle bolt mounts or brown gaffa tape, there’s always been something to keep us amused …

In my case, this seems to have been equipment issues.

Firstly was the Great Sound Desk Hunt – I think a goodly number of people are aware of my quest for a shiny O2R96, which including checking Montreal and which finally came to a successful resolution in North Wales – thank you Theatr Clwyd.

Since then, when I haven’t been shoehorning a show into the Roundhouse, I’ve been getting far too acquainted with the innards of Vari*Lite 3500Q.

It’s seems to be one of those things where most VL’s that come in seem to suffer from temperature issues – these so-called silent running moving heads have been no exception and I’ve got from having no idea on how to dealing with them to being able to strip out the shutter module in in minute or so.

I wonder if I should charge service tech callout rate …

Exhibitionist for a day

There’s not much that will get me out of bed of a Saturday morning … voluntarily.

Needing to go and work will get me up, but that’s not voluntarily (I don’t call the choice between getting money and getting a P45 much of a choice …).

Despite popular belief, neither chocolate nor cake would work … not in the morning at least.

PS3 or Wii? Not any more. After all, the console isn’t going anywhere … I hope.

And nothing made me get up voluntarily this saturday morning.

However, I needed to make a visit to the Science Museum and I’ll certainly choose to get up earlier to avoid some of the crowds.

The Science Museum currently has the JapanCar exhibit on display and as my current OU course module is on transport, it seemed to make sense to visit and see what the proposed future of the car was.

Mostly white, it transpires.

Having paid the money, I wondered into the exhibition which starts with a indoors bonsai garden. Very nice, of course, but the trees didn’t seem to have much to do with the deforma models. The next room was a three projector screen showing an animation of a journey from rural to urban Tokyo. Made by a Japanese studio called WOW (I wonder how many hits I’m going to get now from MMORPG players … sigh), it was a nice little film spoiled by the centre screen being a different resolution to the ones flanking it. So rather than a smooth transition, the graphics jumped from one screen to the next then again to the next. That and the sun shining on the left hand screen kinda spoiled the whole thing.

Next was the actual cars – actually vehicles rather than cars – all 11 of them.

And while it did include some new designs, such as the iReal mobile chair (as shown on Top Gear), it also included an MX-5 – for no discernible reason. And one of the cars exhibited was designed around an eleven speaker system and seats that laid down really flat – an odd choice for an exhibit marketed as designs for a crowded world. There were a few filmed interviews with architects, Science Museum curators and brain scientists about their thoughts on the future of the car and personal transport, split across three screens in each case and with at least one screen out of sync with the others – so as the interviewee waved their hands in the middle screen, the top screen showed their shoulders not moving in time with the hands. And the volume was at just the right level so that you could hear they were talking but not the actual words.

And the barriers were these lovely looking cardboard tubes on chopsticks which were really in keeping with the Japanese theme and a attendee would knock one over about every 15 minutes.

Apart from the obvious AV issues, the exhibit as a whole ‘almost’ worked. The overall theme was very good but not being able to examine the cars up closely and the lack of any technical information that you could find with a few minutes online (and I’ve just checked) meant that paying for this was a little disappointing.

From Japan Car, I stopped for a moment at the ‘Listening Post’ – the so called sound of the internet. A darkened room with 8.1 sound (yes I counted) and pixel screens showing snippets of web chat with an ambience background. It was on an introductory theme (I am from Chicago, I am on my chair, I am listening to Portishead …) but it made a nice little chillout room for a bit.

I also passed through the Energy exhibit. Designed more with the younger audience in mind, it does contain a lot of interactivity and was busy while I was there. That it was sponsored mainly by BP, with BASF and Vodafone means that it was a little more fossil fuel friendly than might be expected for an exhibit looking at the state of energy in the world today – I’m going to say that BP aimed for the younger market to avoid having to go into too much technical detail in the science.

Giving up on the Science Musuem, I wondered down Exhibition Road and turned into the Natural History Museum. My goal here was the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards.

Yet again, this exhibit is by paid ticket only, which is a little disappointing, but Shell don’t seem to sponsor this any more so I reluctantly paid (I’m certain that only two years ago, that this was a free exhibit …)

Of course, the photos are brilliant. You can get a taster at the website but obviously they look better in the exhibit – which is touring later in the year.

My main gripe is that they choose what photos go on the inevitable merchandise – surely in this digital age (and most of the camera’s are digital) we should be able to select which photos, for example, make up the calender shots, or go on the mug.

That concessions were half price, rather than a cursory amount knocked off (Science Museum I’m looking at you here) was also a good thing.

A bad thing though, was the lack of signage for closed exhibits in the Natural History Museum. I had wanted to go through the Plant Power section – this was sealed off but there were no signs saying why or even saying ‘closed’.

I very nearly continued on to the V&A as I’d seen a poster of architectural art and had never been to the V&A for a look – I got distracted by the though of Mocha and Lemon cake with wife number one.

See, now that’s it the afternoon, the chocolate and cake thing switches on …

Overall, while individual exhibits were not all they could have been, it was nice to do something sight seeing based for a few hours, at my own pace.