I want to start off by thanking everyone at ETC West for having a great open house this past week. I really enjoyed the few hours I got to spend checking out the variety of ETC boards and other products, in particular the debut of the Ion. The food was also exceptionally good, and there is nothing better than a Wisconsin bratwurst on a roll and a cold beer when you’re really hungry. I met a lot of people at the open house and in particular want to thank Tim for walking me through the building and answering a lot of the questions I had. Phil, one of the other interns at the Opera, also stopped by for a bit and we got to sit down and mess around with the Ion for a bit. It’s basically a baby Eos, which is pretty accurate description of it. ETC had a virtual stage and lights setup to test out the Ion, and the computer program had really great rendering qualities. Phil and I are both pretty new to the Eos board, so we struggled a bit, but worked our way through the syntax and tried some simple tasks we were interested in. Our main goal was to see how clever the board was. The board provides numerous pre-defined gel colors as well as customizable CMY mixing which you can name and place in your color palette. What we wanted to test out was if we could just type in the command line [Channel Number] [Color Pallete] [Color Name/Number] and see if could convert text to a numeric value. We had some mixed results. We created a Neongreen color, which we labeled appropriately and called it color pallete #555. We were hoping if we type ‘Neongreen’ in the command line it would replace it with ‘555’, which it seemed to actually do, but was then unable to actually change the color of the light. Basically, it would be nice to just type L201 and have it find the correct light blue.

Another thing we worked on was recording submasters. We tried to record submasters on the Ion by the standard method of hitting record followed by the submaster bump button. We were assured that it was fixed or going to be fixed in the Beta software release. I have no concerns about this, but Phil and I sat there for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to do it.

One other quick note I should mention is for anyone in the Los Angeles; ETC provides board ops or really anyone interested the option to book a programming suite, for FREE, with almost any of their current boards to brush up on some skills or pre-program some future shows. It sounds totally worth it, and I hope I’ll have some free time to go work on learning the basics to the EOS this Fall.

I haven’t had time to look into the cost of the Ion verse the Eos yet, but for smaller theatre companies and universities, this might be an excellent choice. Both the Eos and Ion though are going through constant software updates, so it is only a matter of time before things start running smoothly. The best example of this is that the next day at the Opera, I saw a few of our “ETC friends” from the day before working on a glitch we had with our new EOS setup. The problem seems to have been resolved, which is good, because we have a tight schedule at the Opera.

This past weekend I helped out on a light rig at school for one of the undergrads for their show Las Meninas. It is one of the many mid-sized productions done at CalArts and is in our E-400 spaces which is a small black box. There was a good turn out for the hang and everyone had a good time it seemed. Music, bagels and coffee kept most of us happy throughout the day. I personally would have enjoyed some fresh donuts, but not this time.

The space is interesting and has a dead hung grid that is about 15 feet or so off the deck. It’s a good spot for small shows and any student designer to work in. The biggest problem with the space is there are only 3 ladders that can reach the grid, which leads to some time-management problems and ladder stealing. The inventory for the space is a mix of conventional fixtures old and new, and if needed, some color scrollers.

We also installed 6 booms into the space which went smoothly for the most part. We had a good system down of using a laser level, installing the pipe with a fixed cheese-borough to the grid and then sinking the flange base into the floor. I was pretty content with installing the flanges with only 2 good sized lags and a washer, but for some reason the booms ended up having 4 lags on each flange. Considering they were fixed to the grid and only were going to have 3 instruments on each, I thought lagging this much just meant more holes in the floor. I’m just a lighting designer with a technical direction background, so what do I know? Overall, it was a good hang and we finished it in about 6 hours.

I was sent a YouTube link today from our ME at CalArts, Jacqueline, who I have not officially met yet, but still get group emails from. As an undergraduate, my final project in my lighting class was to create an interesting and educational lighting video to teach people the basics of lighting. As most people know, there are no good lighting educational videos out there, because they are out of date or way to corny. I didn‘t fail horribly at my final project, but it wasn‘t a blockbuster either. That being said, this video goes old-timey on us, but it is enjoyable at least and has some point to it. For reference, my undergrad mentor gives this video an A+. So props to WUT. Enjoy.

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As I enter my 3rd week of grad school things are going really well. I thought it was going to be really difficult juggling school with my internship, but it has been working out well so far. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that my class schedule is so compact. I certainly don‘t have a ton of free, but to make sure I have some time to myself to relax, I have had to be strict about working on projects and assignments well before they are do. Time management is definitely a virtue in grad school.

I am starting to get settled in at the Opera finally. The tech for Jenufa, which transferred from the Metropolitan Opera, just finished and will be opening soon. Since that is over, I have a week off before I have to be back. When I get back we will start work on Wagner‘s Ring Cycle and more importantly be working with our new Eos desk. The biggest thing I‘ve learned so far at the Opera is about the collaborative process between everyone.

As far as school goes, Don was out of the country this week and couldn‘t make it back to teach class, so we had Kevin Connaughton fly in as a guest lecturer. He is the Lighting Supervisor for the San Francisco Ballet and discussed how the ballet works, lighting design and answered any questions we wanted to know. I always find it interesting to learn about why other designers got into the industry and what influenced them. The SF Ballet uses a repertory plot with flexible alterations when needed by a designer. It was really enjoyable to see the plot, paper work and magic sheets that Kevin uses. The magic sheets and channeling were the most useful paperwork to study as they have had such a long time to be perfected and really make sense of the plot and theatre space. We also talked a lot about concept statements, which has really helped me in rewriting my own concept statement for my Jitney project due next week.

Coming into this lecture, I wasn‘t really aware of what a Lighting Supervisor was responsible for. It‘s an interesting position because it is a cross between a designer and a professional assistant. Basically, when a new ballet is produced Kevin designs it. If it is a restored piece he is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the original piece, and if there is a guest designer, then he assists them as needed.

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I went and saw a dance exhibit the other night during a rehearsal break at the Opera. Some of the dance professors at CalArts had mentioned that there was a dance performance by this group Slow Dance in downtown LA. It sounded like it would be interesting, but they neglected to tell the class that it was not live dance. It was really convenient for me to go check it out, since it was being held on the square between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, home of the Opera, and the Mark Taper Forum. Bridget joined me on the break and we went to explore it. It was a bit of a let down to be honest. Slow Dance is basically four really large projection screens that have super-slow motion projections of dancers doing jumps, turns and other movements. At a quick glance it didn‘t even appear that they moved, and then after about 5 or 10 seconds, you understand why they call it Slow Dance. I think part of my dissatisfaction is that I was excited to see what I had hoped would be live dance, but I was let down. But you get what you pay for; the event was free. My suggestion is if you are in the area between 6pm-midnight any time this week, go and check out Slow Dance, but it‘s probably not worth your time to make a special trip to see this exhibit. The exhibit runs until September 26, weather permitting.



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