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.

Sound lessons

After a week of early starts to rescue mannequins and a weekend of four shows followed by an overnight get-out, rather than relax, we though we’d put on our yearly festival that puts samples of different dance types onstage.

Readers of the previous years (2008 here and 2007 here) will doubt recall previous issues with archiving. We solved it this year by not archiving it – not actually much of a solution but it did help make it run smoother.

Day one was spent removing the last vestiges of the winter show and getting all the in-house kit up and running, including getting the Midas back in place after it’s sojourn re-installing the magic smoke.

At least, it did for everyone else. I spent the morning trying to fit a square show into a round building … totally different project … but I’m starting to get back into the habit of production meetings … and coffee on account is A Good Thing (TM)

Came back in the afternoon to find that most of it was in (hired kit not having arrived yet) and we switched over to installing an updated audio description setup.

[shop talk]

Previously for audio description we had a Beyer gooseneck (or two) plugged into a Spirit mixer, along with show relay, which sent signal to the infra-red system and a couple of headphones taking a feed from the auxes – which was a little awkward.

We’ve recently purchased a pair of Beyer DT290 headsets and a Samson zone mixer – the headsets so that the describers can keep their hands free to turn the script pages and the zone mixer to route the audio in and out. There’s a compressor alongside it to help keep the show relay feed a little more controllable and it’s all now in a rackmount case so it can be moved about to provide the maximum space for the script.

We’ve yet to use it in anger for description but have had no complains yet …

[/shop talk]

A last sound check to deal with some spurious rattles and we had the evening to ourselves.

Day Two sees the hired sound kit arrive – mostly, again for the flamenco section.

[Shop Talk]

With only one live section and no recording, we again chose to keep it simple and used our standard Midas/MediaMatrix/EAW set-up. Playback was from a rackmount PC running SCS9 with a pair of Sony CDP-D12 as backup. Sidefills for the performers was from two pairs of E12s, stand mounted in the wings (I do like these speakers) and powered by D12s. A single Beta 58 on a stick was there in case of announcements.

A DVD player running through a Panasonic MX-50 and projected through a 5K Mitsubishi on the circle front for pre-show and interval video formed the entirety of the sound we needed.

Until we add the flamenco.

The rider we were working off asked for 7 Max 12’s (Lab Gruppen and Yamaha amps); a wireless 58 (Shure U4D); two DPA 4066, two Sennheiser HS2 (headset mikes on Trantec S5000 wireless); 8 PCC160s for the floor stomps; SM57’s on congas, snare, cello, guitars; SM58 on flute and cajon; Beta 87 on vocal (actually a KMS105 but the 87 was acceptable substitute); Neuman 184s on Hihat and Perc Overhead Beta 91 on Djembe and a selection of DN360, DN410, TCM3000, DPR404 outboard.

The company would also supply a couple of WL93/Shure wireless for more foot action miking.

Accepting the Sennheiser headsets, no real surprises in that list, if a little more rock and ready than we might expect.

And of course, we had to supply all the backline as well (guitars and cajon excepted).

[/shop talk]

With the flamenco channel list and the playback we expected to need, we were already at 39 channels used on our 48 channel desk. Still, we aren’t expecting more channels to be needed, right?

And the first day of rehearsals supported us as that was just playback from SCS giving us time to get all the wireless plugged up, though we didn’t quite get to the outboard rack on Day Two. We’ve had a new sound technician join us so this is proving a good time to running through all those little lessons that help to keep things running smoothly.

Had a day off on Day Three (one of those perks of being employed) and came back on Day Four, three rehearsals to get through and while I was lounging on the sofa watching bad TV and throwing pixelated characters off cliffs on the PS3, the day three rehearsals had seen two more projectors appear on the circle rail, a whole ‘nother mac based playback system taking up residence at the control position and 6 more channels eaten up on the desk.

Ah. Well, we still have 3 spare channels (with a little moving around to utilise the stereo channels)

The first of the days companies were playback – easy. Swan Lake duet – no worries.

The second of the days companies – circus  – were playback  – eas- oh wait, we’ll need to playback from two CD players simultaneously.

That’s fine, tha- oh wait you need to mic up a piano? Which has to move about the stage and get played? (not at the same time). And the wireless handheld needs to go where? Wait, what wireless handheld? (48 of 48 channels for those keeping count). A quick dash to the mic store to grab a couple more PCC160 for some taped action on the upright (not the best positions sound wise but for non-visibility from the audience …) and one of our Sony handhelds and we’re good to G.O.

Let’s hope flamenco doesn’t need any more channels …

Which …

they don’t. Phew.

Day five rehearsals start with a brief run through of traditional ballet (as it happens, another version of Swan Lake – this time not with two gentleman) then the Flamenco machine arrives.

I can hear the regulars to my humble scribblings smiling and settling down to a whole gamut of woes.

Not today.

I’ll let the shock fade before I continue.

The company was pleasant, we didn’t have to chase them to start the sound check, setting the layout was easy and bar a couple of patching snafu’s, everything worked first time. And the snafu’s were not keeping on top of the paperwork, as if often the case.

It wasn’t all plain sailing of course. The requested 4066’s should have been 4061 or MKE2 – it’s a little hard to attach headset mics to acoustic guitars and the engineer and musicians simplified the piece a lot – in the end cutting all the hired wireless, a couple of the Max 12’s, all but two of the floor mics and a couple of the percussion mikes. And the djembe. And most of the outboard (final desk score 38 of 48 channels used).

The stagehand in me, who knows that a swift scene change is coming up, says woo-hoo.

The venue tech in me, who hired the kit, refuses to work out how much money was wasted.

Ah yes, the scene change.

Most of the acts used a black box with black marley, or a black masking with cyc set-up. Flamenco, of course, doesn’t have quite the impact (literally) on marley so we were going to have to switch from laid dance floor to wood floor at some point.

For running the show, the musicians were all set-up on or next to, two platforms on wheels. They performed their section and then the tabs came in. All the mic and speaker cable ran as short a distance as possible to multi’s just upstage of the platforms.  A quick unplug at the stage boxes and placing chairs, speakers, mics and instruments on platforms means that the whole backline is struck inside of a minute including coiling the multicore.

Then the rolls of dance floor upstage of the musicians platforms were rolled in sequence to just upstage of the tabs. A quick bit of  atmospheric lighting then the tabs go out so we can get the dance floor down.

I think that’s it likely the first live scene change most of the audience had seen. The initial smattering of applause dies out and you could hear 1600 people watching a dozen people work in low light to smoothly tape down the 9 rolls of marley we need to cover the stage on a up/downstage arrangement before the tabs return so we can finish setting up the next piece out of sight.

We got applause both nights – if they thought that was good, they should have seen the turn around on this show

I have to say that I actually enjoy live scene changes, when they run well. There’s nothing worse than being onstage and it all going ankles over bottom and it’s great feeling to feel the audience as spellbound as if it was a performance (which, I suppose you could argue it was, in some respects)

The whole weekend went well, with a different lineup of acts across two nights – the hip-hop group who finished act 1 the first night and act 2 the second night particularly going down well. The circus group (them of the extra mikes) also closed the first night well – despite one of them cutting their head open and giving us a chance to practice the first aid skills we had just picked up the week before. See, you never know when …

And the flamenco group, to me, actually sounded pretty good – mainly as it wasn’t amplified to the sky and back. Keeping it at a reasonable level that wasn’t all about getting it loud meant you could hear the musicians playing, as opposed to just hearing them, which made the piece much nicer and enjoyable to watch.

I live in hope that our forthcoming Flamenco Festival will be treated similarly, but I highly doubt it.

In fact the biggest challenge of the whole week, apart from a little nerves over the potentially full sound desk, was the mountain of single cables that linked the inserts to the desk (yep the ones that weren’t used) and left the sound department on their own coiling and taping after everyone else had gone home. It’s that whole cable propagation thing that I have mentioned in the past.

Repeat after me: Looms and multi’s are not bad things …

One more Lifesaver …

Why’s it all gone quiet on the blog front?

Well, last week was holiday time which I spent checking the computer, the sofa, the TV and the PS3 for faults with extensive usage (the fridge was fine also, in case you were worried).

And this week?

Well, this week has gone by in a flurry of dressings, bindings and sausages.

Not something costume related, before you drift too far off-topic.

Instead work paid for me to spend several days in a chilly hut somewhere near Archway.

Not as punishment (I think) but actually a First Aid training course.

Some of you may well have a fairly good idea what that involves but I’ve actually had a fairly minimal contact with First Aid – some one else has either been applying it while I was left with covering the absence, or someone else was applying it while I was left with clutching  the break …

Now I’m sure that many readers will have a good idea of first aid but for those whom have minimal contact:

Taking place over four days (as of Jan 2009) attendees start with minor injuries, then their conditions deteriorate on day two and become severe on day three.

We had all recovered by day four to spend the morning practicing first aid in the most dangerous supermarket in the world, following by the assessment, followed by a soothing drink in the local pub.

The course covers a whole range of ailments but concentrates on fractures, bleeds, shock and cardiac arrests with a side line in allegic reactions, strokes, seizures, poisons, sprains, strains and abdominal pains.

And while it covers the theory and reasoning behind first aid techniques, it’s wanting, rightly, to train your responses so that you’ll automatically know what to do in a first aid situation from initial arrival to handing off to the paramedics.

We were trained by St John’s Ambulance whom I fully recommend. And they support their training enough to provide full public liability cover for the life of the certificate.

But, as one of our trainers said: “It’s not about getting people to pass. It’s about getting people who can save lives.”