So when someone asks how was your weekend …

For me, it was One Hell Of A Weekend – men and women literally cutting the clothes from my body, nurses giving me a good soaping, the fastest journey along the Pentonville road since the  F1 did that stunt through London, drugs on demand, all it needed was Richard Branson* on a pogo stick and I’d be joining Keith Richards in the ‘done it all’ lounge

Okay, maybe the weekend was not quite as debauched as I’m implying (I didn’t play a guitar off a naked navel or anything) but it certainly took an unexpected turn at the end of last week after I inadvertently shock-tested my leg with half a ton of access equipment.

The word you are looking for at this point is -

 Ouch

For those of you who watched the Youtube video I posted not that long ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kkIdaDSuI) and noticed the MEWP zipping about the stage, it was THAT one.

Yes, I got the registration,  officer.

We had been attempting to move it into the studio space for a post summer party clear-up / maintenance thing at the time but the rest of the day I seem to remember being looking at a sucession of ceilings on a sucession of trolleys; the main discussion I remember being the debate of kilos against pounds.

Not an odd choice when you consider this was for the weights that were going to be hanging off of my (now broken) leg – I had some personal interest in getting the right result to this (it’s 2.2 pounds (lb) to the kilo for the record). Web search skin traction for more details.

Friday was more complicated x-ray positioning (at least once, I was holding the plate for my own x-ray) and then a longer surgery than normal as I had managed a clean break so the trauma team didn’t have any jagged edges to align my bone back together. I think it went okay though. And I did end up with morphine on a stick (along with my third valve sticking out of a vein(artery?))

Saturdays come down was pretty rough but here’s the bit you all want to know – I am now officially the first person across the majority of my family tree to have used (and to have needed to use) a zimmer frame. They wouldn’t let me put go-faster stripes on it though.

Sunday passed like a Sunday does – slowly but the general outlook on life was improving (getting the complete West Wing on an indefinite loan will do that). There was the ongoing question of the thick bandage on my knee that had been there since the op, which the nurses refused to touch (surgeons brand … student practice on knee assembly … small pygmy tribe … who knew at that point?)

Monday had the excitement of progressing to crutches – I’ve lost my wheels but can now poke people at a far greater range than I ever could of before.

Tuesday was looking to turn into another sunday when I finally met one of the doctors when not high on morphine and enox (me – not them). A quick check of my clips (that’s staples to the layman – yes, metal staples that I normally thought were for paper and fabric), the answer to the knee bandage question (more staples) and then the look as wife and mother both arrived arms full of shopping to find me sat on the bed properly dressed (my credit card is now about as healthy as I was last thursday afternoon).

There was just time for one last quick trip to the bathroom with a physio (!) before back home to my own bed (and internet!) and the beginning of a potentially longish recuperation. I have partial mobility and can even manage stairs (with a run-up :}) but it’ll probably be a while before I’ll be on that pogo stick chasing Mr Branson* down Pentonville Road.

 Many thanks to the good folks of University College Hospital for getting me home in pretty damn quick time – in particular the nurses and physios of T7 south – far too many to list (enjoy those M&S treats I left – sorry about the calories I’ve just added to your diets). Thanks also to the responding paramedics, everyone down in A&E and x-ray, the trauma team who put me back together, and everyone else who at UCH who played some part in allowing me to be at the keyboard right now this instant.

Supporting the NHS has gone up a few notches on my charity list

Arcola Energy

Some of you may already be aware of this one but the Arcola Theatre has recently announced it’s intention to become a carbon-neutral theatre

 WOO-HOO!

 I tried to begin our theatre on having some kind of environmental policy about a year ago and it keeps getting lost in bureaucracy.

 Good for them.

Have a peruse around their site here 

The links to the Guardian articles make for interesting reading, if only for the list of theatres who have, in their own way, started doing the same.

Less talk, more do

In something of a change to my normal modus operandi, rather than just talking about what I’ve been doing, I’m going to show it instead.

One of our fellow techs had a camera set-up at the back of the 1st circle and set it to talk one second of footage every minute. 14 hours later, we had 5 and bit minutes of video.

A whole days work compressed into less time than it takes me to brush my hair.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded it to Youtube. It is low res, it doesn’t have music (play your own) and it is unedited – the Upright 25 MEWP does move that fast. Really!

And yes, I am on there and no, I’m not saying what I was wearing that day.

Thanks again to Martin for making it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kkIdaDSuI

Projectors for days

So we get the triple bill piece out the way and the next show just rolls on in.

This show (from the guy who did the choreography for the opening of the last Winter Olympics) looks at shadows and light as a basis. As such it’s a pretty tech heavy show. (this is a jargon heavy post – though I have pulled the sound into a shop talk section)

Setwise, the main point of interest are the two raked platforms (with pneumatic brakes) with white marley that stands out from the black box masking of the rest of the stage. A cyc is upstage of the full blacks and is revealed or hidden as the action unfolds – both by a traveller and by a (not always level) border. Several translucent gauzes are flown in and out.

The pit, at auditorium level, is mainly occupied by a baby grand, a light tree and a  second musician with a gamut of musical kit. Cast members wander in and out during the piece so there are a couple of chairs under the light tree.

Eight projectors are located around the stage and overhead with 5 cameras all running through two video mixers and into a computer based playback/switching system [I'm wanting to say Doremi but I never got a close look]. Anything on stage is used as a screen – the gauzes, the cyc, small bits of set, performers, whatever.

[shop talk]

Sound was supplied by two musicians – one on baby grand miked with two Schoepps CMC6 set outside of a slight lid; the other with three decks, a small drum kit, a couple of keys controlling several effects units and effects pedals, all running into a Mackie mixer which split the signal half to the several guitar amps in the pit (including a genuine Orange Amp) and half to the DM2k controlling the PA. A Shure handheld was also in the pit for vocals along with two shure beltpacks – one with a DPA 4061 headset on one ‘narrator’ and the other with an ME104 as a body mic.

Picture frames used by the narrators to talk through each had a Neumann KM184 attached to the support pole. There were a few mics on the main musician – a couple of Sennheiser 506, another Neumann and a few C3000 dangling from their cables over the guitar amps. A Beta 91 was DSC as an additional vocal pickup.

The DM2k had five different cards in the slots, 3 analog outs, one ADAT and one multipin out – based on the multiple inputs form the pit, video, computer and CDs used to provide the soundtrack (and with Brian Eno, Hawaii 5-0 and Ennio Marriconi referenced, soundtrack is the right word)

The PA was mainly from our in-house EAW rig with pit foldback from our Tannoys. Onstage flown sidefills were E9s with an E9 and B1 providing upstage stacks – though not the zero line. E3s were used to provide surround for the auditorium so, as per the Taiwenese company from several weeks ago, the amps were located in different places to minimise cable runs (and, more importantly, the patching!). Not D12 though but the older P1200 amps (and I did miss the D12s during this)

We also had chance to test the HME DX200 wireless comms system which was added to our wired and walkie-talkie set-up. They sounded fine except for a delay in hearing your own voice which we never properly looked at. Coverage was to be expected – with the base station at stage level we could manage the auditorium and about two stories up and down before the concrete blocked the signal. If we could lose the speech delay and add repeaters to cover the rest of the building, it might well be a viable system to use permanently.

[/shop talk]

With the projection, lighting was more for illumination. I do remember a couple of states alluding to beach sun (the 5Ks probably helped there!) but I don’t remember much more from lighting, though it was from next to the sound desk for once (lucky we had a small digital desk then).

There were some clever moments – dancers acting as shadows is always good to look at if done well, a mock water skiing scene and some clever mixed shadow/video projections. If the whole thing had been trimmed by 10 or 20 minutes it would have been very good. As it was, there was too little happening to sustain it (and the show was under 90 minutes total running time)

My lips are sealed (for now)

Meh – I’m running a little behind with my posts

This  lot all dates back from the end of June when we had what was on the rota as ‘mixed bag’, a shorthand for several different events in one week.

The sunday opened with a rehearsal period – a chance for a choreographer used to smaller spaces to play on our main stage with his company. Most of the day was a standard (for us) look at projection, lighting and sound but there was the curious ’sauna in a bag’ idea. I’m saying no more for now but I’m hoping to see it again.

The next thing in was mainly a pre-rig for the end of week show but there was also another ‘play’ session for an event we are putting on at the end of September – I’m saying no more about this for now either but I’ll upload a video at some point that, if it works, should demonstrate a really neat trick

The show at the end of the week was a chance for dance students across Europe to perform three works from some of the leading choreographers in the world – Prelocaj, Forsythe, McGregor and Fremand.

A lot of the technical gubbins was dealt with in-house but 14 2.5k HMI fresnals are not the easier of lantern to source. Many thanks to all the companies who managed to help us out – you know who you are.

The hires for me were a little easier – 2 CQ1s as upstage source speakers and some extra EQs.

The changeovers between each of the three pieces was more hectic than the shows themselves (and in the tech run – longer than the pieces!) A large square of flourorescent tubes with floorcans uplighting aircraft cable in each corner with a solid row of svobodas stage right, a whole bunch of SL’s on stands at various heights and two bars of Chrome par64, one to either wing. Plus the overheads!

This was all then struck to pull up the gray dance floor to reveal white while a couple of projectors were added to the floor and spinable mirrors on wheels brought on stage for the second piece. Different overheads in use for this.

The projectors and mirrors were then struck, the white marley removed and twenty tables placed onto the black marley that remained. Playback was from several CDs and two laptops running different programs – with an Apple G5 controlling the projection on the second piece.

I really need to remember the camera more …