It’s all about the storage

or, this week, the lack of it …

We have an opera company in this week.

This means the minimal amount of space we have onstage (not much of a stage left wing as there’s a public road just outside the wall, not much upstage because of the stage door entrance and not much stage right due to the goods lift and small dock leading the public road on the other side of the building) is taken up by the day’s show while the show not in rep is on one of the three trailers outside.

The trap room under the stage is our normal store for rostra, dance floor, meat-racks, flight-cases for our moving heads and scrollers, soft goods and so on. This show has one of the BBC channels in to record it so they’ve taken over around a third of the room. More of the room has also gone to allow the orchestra some storage for instrument cases.

We’ve squeezed the flightcases into the sub-basement around the seating rostra that normally lives on the pit (and which of course has had to move to allow for the orchestra).

The meat-racks were meant to be stashed in the lecture theatre but couldn’t fit under the new door frame by less than an inch …. so they’ve been moved to the outside courtyard that’s normally used for motor-bike parking (and we have quite a few bikers working for us), along with the ’scope, the Upright and the cherry picker for external use. Yes the lanterns have been tarp’ed before you ask.

We were going to have to move the racks out there in any case for the weekend as it had been booked (for lectures, who knew?) – we just didn’t want almost our entire lantern stock outside for a week.

So the stage, pit, trap, wings, dock, courtyard and lecture theatre are booked or taken. But in addition to the Beeb, we also have a TV company in to video the show. Where do they go? Well, in addition to the OB truck, they’ve taken over the sound control room with some serious racks (and a plasma screen).

There is also the issue of where the boxes go that hold the camera’s, lenses, stands and so on. Well, we do have three rehearsal studios onsite.

But they are all booked.

Luckily, one of those bookings is for the chorus for the opera so as they aren’t rehearsing at the minute, those boxes can go there. And we hope that they don’t decide that they need to rehearse again this week …

So we can fit the TV crew in, and the sound control room is built to accommodate a40 channel analog desk with full outboard (and being an opera is not in use in any case) but there’s enough TV kit to warrant moving all of our in-house sound boxes out to somewhere else – no space in the LX control room (in use by the opera) or the audio description booth (in use for the opera) by the way.

Our sound kit has ended up being stashed in the wardrobe for the studio theatre which does have a show on but fortunately won’t be needing the wardrobe. Our mixing desk, also luckily, has been on holiday having it’s innards serviced so we only need to find a space for that for a day before it is needed.

But the show it’s needed on has a lot of sound kit hired for it (that’s another post) and that’s all being delivered before the opera has left.

So the stage and it’s surrounds are packed, all the studios are in use, the courtyard is full (and wouldn’t be an option in any case) – where do you put a full monitor system?

As it happens, an event room which is being converted to an office happens to be free just for the few days we need. We couldn’t get the racks in (doors too small) and it is internally reached through a tight dog leg turn (cable trunks and sound desks need not apply) or externally through a single width fire door and that involves pushing stuff around the entire building.

This week, somehow, we are going to manage. And we even have a couple of opera flight-cases in the crew room (which is also the stage equipment room)
This time next year, if the same happens again …

Hell, the next time we have two big shows in sucession …

Anyone patent a flight-case shrinker recently? Please?

Good ole fashioned theatre

New week, new show.

We are currently hosting the ‘Godmother of Tanztheater’ (as one review has it) putting on two separate shows and, as always, the show is a sight to behold.

The first piece is set in a cafe and has hard masking on three sides with glass (actually perspex) doors in each wall and a multitude of tables and chairs to be danced into and thrown about. Then once that has finished, the audience get to make the choice between headed to the bar or watching a good ole fashioned live scene change.

The bar’s call is pretty strong but then watching a bunch of guys manhandle 20 foot flats always seems to hold attention. Then you notice the electrics crew around the edges  moving 2k and 5Ks on stands at about 12 foot (and every door has a couple of those). Then a floor cloth is nailed to the deck and the audience watch mystified as the crew stretch it out, clouds of dust coming off their steel-toed capped boots. The audience notice the six industrial bins (think recycling bank size) in one wing, with rakes and brooms sticking out of them.

The obvious question is answered a moment later when every bin is tipped up and fresh peat spills onto the stage. The stage crew pick up the rakes and start to evenly spread a 12 metre squared box of the stuff while more floor lights are wheeled into position. The bins go, the black box masking drops in, a final tweak of the focus and the stage is set for the second piece. Checking your watch, you find only 20 minutes have passed.

The scene change always gets a round of applause.

The second piece, set to one of Stravinsky’s finest, is also one of the better dance pieces you are likely to see (and remember they are dancing on peat).

And tomorrow we’ll do it all again!

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For those paying attention to these sections, we tried out d&b F1222 for this one, a pair ground stacked to each side with a single B1 supporting them. They are very nice speakers but the recordings going through them (vinyl re-recorded) are not doing them justice.

The desk this week is a Midas Verona (the Legend having a holiday at the service centre) with playback from a mix of laptop, CD and tape(!) – we had to hire the tape deck as we just don’t have any tape machines in the theatre anymore (excepting the odd boom box

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First Honda, then Guinness, now …

I’ve just stumbled across this link whilst catching up on the Stagecraft Mailing List

http://producten.hema.nl/

Just open the site, switch your sound on and sit back. After a few seconds …. well, I’m not certain how you’ll purchase anything after it’s finished.

(no, it’s not a virus, just some clever programming)

A little bit of this, A little bit of that

The last couple of weeks have seen us working on all sorts.

Having finally waved off the Christmas show as they started five months on the road, it was an immediate re-imagining of Tchaikovsky that came in next. Produced by a French Canadian company, the music of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty underwent a modern arrangement for a ‘modern ballet’ that divided the critics.

Our involvement was little more than unlocking the door and switching the power on – the production was totally self contained.

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They did of course need our help to get the show in. Sound wise, the brief sounds simple – a piano, cello and two violins. Each musician was mic’ed using a Sennheiser radio pack and using  IEM for foldback. The PA however was the companies own MSLs – four hung in two pairs to cover the second circle and four more as a pair to each side on top of a 650P for the stalls and first circle. A pair of UPA1P served as front fill, with two more pairs of UPA1P providing foldback for the dancers.

The in-house rig was barely used – a single row of delays for the rear of the 1st circle where the overhang got in the way.

Everything was controlled through a DM1K and the result sounded very good.

Lighting was mainly from VLs (I didn’t notice which model) hung at different heights and used mainly in open white with one or two providing all the light for a given phrase.  This simple usage was the contrast to the German masking black box, although three circular screens for rear projection and ten broken columns (with ink insects outlined) flew in and out.

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Everything was efficiently run, though we did have to play roadcase Tetris to fit all the empties into the wings once the trailer departed. Even the get-out ran smoothly (which with a full truck pack and the return of our Midas to the stalls, was very much appreciated)

The next day was very much in contrast. Rather than being a show, this was an opportunity for a Kathak dance/choreographer to experiment on a bare stage in a large-ish venue with two or three other exponents of that dance style.

It was a welcome change of pace – tying hemp to fly bars as decoration then playing with float and head mic positions and EQ, just to see what happened.

So often we are so focussed on trying to get the show/performance/piece as good as we can get that we don’t get the change to try something out just to see (hear/feel) what the result is. And that is as useful for us as it was for the dancers.

The next group on the stage the following day was a hip hop dance troupe who were more interested in rehearsing the next piece than playing – yet even they spent some time working on the lighting states and finding new looks – exactly the kind of thing that these one day rehearsals are meant to do.

It’s a chance to rehearse with the technical departments that doesn’t have a curtain up time looming overhead – something that everyone working in theatre should get the chance to do every once in a while.

Then we returned to the normal reality.

Moving from dealing with several dancers to several hundred children is one of those mind switch things that sometimes you just have to deal with.

A concert of junior and secondary school pupils with a few extra solo musicians is always going to have it’s challenges – putting the whole thing together in a day more so.

I’m going to have to admit something here – I just don’t get the point of children’s showcase performances. No that’s not right – I just don’t like children’s showcase performances.

I fully support getting people involved in the arts from an early age but watching children trying to sing in costume while trying to remember what the next move is is really not my piece of carrot cake. I’ve had people say ‘ah, that’ll change when you have your own kids’.

Well, no.

I am a little spoilt, remember. My day (and night) job is to help people who make a living singing, dancing and playing. Watching little Susie try to sing the title role in an excerpt of Annie really doesn’t do anything for me, except possibly reinforce that I don’t want to see that musical (or Oliver, Joseph et al).

So finding out that the first half has a choir of over 300 school children, supported by the rhythm section and an ‘advanced singers’ group; with the choir then swopping places to sit in the stalls while their class mates form an orchestra of 60 odd strings, 40 odd brass and around 50 woodwind, supported by percussion and dhol drummers, filled me with a feeling similar to biting into a piece of cake to find that it’s cappuccino flavoured. And several days old.

And it had to be recorded.

And that’s the bit I really don’t get. I don’t doubt that each child/teenager onstage is actually pretty good at their chosen instrument (and that includes voice). Obviously not a match to a professional musician but pretty good. On their own.

But I don’t think just playing an instrument well means you are a good musician (unless you specialise in solo performances) – you have to be able to play well in an ensemble. And children rarely have the experience to be able to do that. I’m sure Kieran is pretty good on the clarinet but can he play alongside Ruth, Ebony, Malcom and Kristof? How about all of Year 9?

Certainly there were good performances from individual musicians but the whole thing? As I mentioned, not my bag, baby.

It was a good chance to give pretty much our entire mic stock a good blast. I’m still not overly keen on hanging mics (particularly as we don’t have any mics in our stock that are designed as such) and we seem to have misplaced some of our signal cable in recent months.

Maybe down the back of the sofa? I dunno but we had pretty much used all the mic cable we could lay our hands on.

[shop talk](again)

For those interested in mic choices (deep breath)  -

The poor guy tasked with actually doing the audio recording had brought a few Schoeps along so we had a pair of CMC6 as a stereo pair with another Schoeps with an omni head (that I never did ask the model number of) doing an ambience pickup in the house.

SE300 (blue lines) as hanging mics (a pair each for choir, brass, strings and woodwind)

a pair of C3000 as extras on the cellos

a pair of C414 on the choir

a pair of AT4070 on perc (over glocks and toms)

an SM57 each on tabla, african drums,  snare and drum kit toms

two SM58 as onstage and offstage announcement

A Sony 807 handheld on one solo singer and a DPA4066 to a Sony 860 beltpack on the other solo singer (one in each half)

three C535 for each of the trumpet, trombone and sax solos from the rhythm section

an Sm81 overhead on the drum kit

a PRO 25 on the kick

active DIs on bass, and Keys

Before you question, the drum kit and brass were not played through the house PA and the solos’ were kept light as was woodwind. Mics were mostly to get a signal into the G4 recording it all.

Myself and the archivist shared our Midas – me claiming the stereo mix, 6 auxs (onstage foldback (at a very low level), monitors for bass, keys and solo singer 1 and reverb) and a single group out (for subs). The archivist got all the other aux and group outs, which took a little juggling to get a usable mix.

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The biggest problem we had was not sharing the desk but the layout onstage. The drumkit was placed far downstage left with the solo brass right behind. On the line of the choir. So if the rhythm section played hard (and they did) the childrens voices got drowned out.

The rhythm section stayed in place while the instruments set up and I was so busy keeping track (mostly) of the patching and the sound coming out of the mics that I only realised that the flutes had been placed right next to the strings as the second half started. As the only way to have solved that would have been to swop over everyone onstage (approaching 200 people) it’s maybe for the best that I didn’t notice. It did explain why the flutists were so pervasive though.

I also can’t believe how loud the children not performing were getting during the one rehearsal we had – aren’t teachers allowed to tell them to shut up anymore? If I ever have to do one of these again, I’m leaving the dB meter on record for a time.

The music was actually pretty good but the performances let it down (for me at least). I’m also not convinced by the arrangement – I’m not certain that there was any point where the strings weren’t playing along with the woodwind – while the brass, woodwind, percussion, singers, choir, tabla and drums all got a decent stab. The keyboardist did the whole thing and was a good note though I seem to recall that the bassist(s) weren’t as prominent as they could have been (though the lack of a bass amp may have had something to do with that).

But the strings definitely got a raw deal. Which, as the woodwind hadn’t quite managed the whole ensemble thing, was a shame. And the choir just didn’t have the presence to really shine (possibly because junior school age choirs aren’t taught to project over instruments?)

All in all though, I was very glad to close the door on that one (and not just because I spent 40 mins waiting for the auditorium to clear so I could start the out!)