November has been a very busy month for me at both the Opera and CalArts. I feel that I missed out on blogging about a lot of things, so I hope to catch up a bit now.

The Strike:
I do not have a position on who is right or at fault over the Broadway strike, because I have not stayed informed enough to judge all the facts. I particularly feel bad for families that can’t see a show this holiday season and spend some time together. Closing down Broadway is kind of like canceling Christmas for kids. On that note, at least The Grinch reopened last week for the holiday season. Broadway is part of the entertainment industry and unfortunately affects a lot of people who have nothing to do with the strike. The writers strike has also done the same thing for film and television. There is something off in the industry and I just hope it gets fixed soon.

Watercolor:
I have never had any reason in the past to work with water colors, but I had to paint a few landscapes for class this past week. I will have to admit that is was rather enjoyable and relaxing, even though I lack a lot of drawing and painting skills. It is something I hope to continually work on more as a hobby now. Below are some of my first attempts…feel free to judge as you wish.

LDI:
I was not able to go to LDI this year because it was in Florida, and I was working at the Opera the entire week. I didn’t have that much time to really check out what was happening, but since it will be back in Las Vegas next year, I plan on going for sure.

Opera:
The Opera has finally slowed down now that our final two shows for the fall are opened. I have been working for almost 2 weeks straight on Don Giovanni or La Boheme. It was certainly a lot of work to get both of those shows up and running, and I’m not exactly sure how it happened still, but it did. Everyone at the Opera certainly deserves a lot of credit for their hard work to get the shows open for the public. There were lots of minor hang ups in a lot of areas that led to the productions needing a lot of tender loving care. One of the lighting departments biggest problems was adjusting to the EOS. It is a great board, but with minimal training on everyone’s part, a lot of time could have been saved. This will get better though as time goes on.

Shows:
There are only two weeks of classes left at CalArts for the semester, which means it’s almost time for me to pack up for a month and fly back east to spend some time with family and friends. It will be nice to be home, but I am not good at doing nothing, so I have a few gigs to work on while I’m back East. There is a great children’s theatre that I grew up going to and working at about 20 miles form my house. It has certainly been a second family to me in many ways and I am glad to be designing two children’s shows in rep there. The shows are the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) and also A Midnight Cry. A Midnight Cry was a play I designed last winter at this theatre and is coming back for a limited run it seems. The BFG will be new and should be a lot of fun to work on. I also might get to spend a few days working on a tour of True West in early January that my undergrad is working on.

So like many other bloggers, I have been overtaken by the amount of work needed to get done in the past few weeks. The Opera is in full swing; opening both La Boheme and Don Giovani this week. It has been 10 out of 12 days almost every day for the past 2 weeks plus school. For the most part I only return to my apartment to sleep. I’ve still managed to get through my projects and assignment at school luckily. Once this week is over I hope I’ll be able to come back and talk about working on the productions at the Opera, classes at school, up and coming shows I am designing. And in other news I hope LDI 2007 went well, and since I was not able to attend this year, I’m certainly already planning on going to Vegas in 2008.

Here I am at my first LDI.  There is too much to take in all at once.  It is just too much eye candy (which is never a bad thing…)  It feels great to be amongst the leading professionals in the industry.  Were else can you tell a manufacturer what you think of their product face to face. (good or bad)  I love the fact that I was able to talk to Monty at Apollo and bounce a few ideas off him.  Everyone is very approachable here.  I guess that’s because they want to make the sale.   Regardless, so far its been a great time.  Like USITT, this is another excuse to see some great freinds that I have lost touch with over the years. That to me is more important than any VL3500 or Crazy Rain machine that doubles as a projection screen.  (seriously you should see this thing!)   

ROCK ON!

 John H

The Crown Point Festival has become one of the most daunting design tasks I have ever undertaken. A tech week that lasted a non-stop. Monday from 8:30am until the following Sunday at midnight. Because of the limited budget we are working with I simply haven’t been able to find a competent board op/production electrician that I could trust to run the show from night to night and so that person has been me. Sleep has become a rather foreign concept as I have spent my days here with Tirschwell and Company and my nights at the Crown Point Festival. More to come soon, including art and a brief retelling of what it was to tech this monster.

Fundamental to any use of media in a design is playback. Kinetic media necessarily must ‘play’, and so therefore there must be a way !

And of ways, there are many.

Some of you might have seen my recent Blog Post about creating live. In this case the playback system would hopefully be attuned to quick preview of media and FX; coupled with equally quickly accessible controls to get that media into the channel, and doing something beautiful. This level can include some of the most imaginative, cost effective, DIY, and innovative methods for playback. But we’ll pick up that thread in a moment.

First we need to go back and examine what some might call an older world paradigm, the use of hardware playback devices like disk drive based HD decks (think Doremi, or FFV), production quality DVD players (shudder), or even decks using media like tape or (yes they still exist) Laser Disk Players. This is analog. It has the benefit of being known. It’s also surprising in the degree that it is still used.

More recently we’ve seen a proliferation of multi head playback environments that are hardware/software based. Systems like Watchout and AVStumpfl’s Wings Platinum spring to mind… But this category also contains some of the newest solutions, things like Q-Lab…

And then of course, the core of most conversations about playback among serious geeks is the computer based Media Servers able to interface with lighting or show control systems. Axon, Catalyst, Hippotizer, Maxxedia, M-Box, Pandora’s Box. These are to be found out on the majority of concert tours. They work via a methodology that their control can be unified with lighting control, and that they can serve as a combination of playback solution and media management device.

What you will use will be, must be, driven by a balance of what you absolutely need to meet the design requirements of the show and how much money you have in your budget.

And it is a balancing act that will continue throughout your career. Shows with limited budgets often provide amazing creative opportunities. Shows with bigger budgets allow you to use robust gear, and have the comfort of redundant backup. But both scenarios allow for satisfying the design, satisfying yourself, and even breaking new ground.

I’m going to finish this discussion at LDI, in the Projection Master Classes… Why don’t you come and check it out ?