A very quick post this one. A lot of you have probably seen this video before, but I stumbled across it the other day and found it quite interesting so thought I’d share it.

The video is a brief look at how Lee produce their gels and filters – a chance to see where our money goes!

Please ‘Read More’ to view the video as it is an autostart

The video can be found on the Lee Filters Website

This post is for Wednesday 25th March, 2009

The main reason for my blog not being updated recently is BUSMS’ performance of Little Shop of Horrors. Although I was only the LX desk op, it meant many hours in the theatre (including 40 hours solid to do a pre-plot before the tech), however, even if I do say so myself, the show was fantastic.

From a performers point of view it went really well – no major problems during the dress or any of the performances and even the band didn’t seem to mind too much about being put in a cupboard (the small area forming the outside of the shop).

From a Backstage point of view everything seemed to go well. The set was mainly our new set of flats, which popped up and down really quickly (great news for a quick de-rig). The plants and some of the props, were a good purchase to save some time and the rest of the props seemed to be sourced elsewhere.

Lighting wise, although we had a reasonable number of generic fixtures up in the sky (3 different washes plus a reasonable number of specials), there was nothing particularly complicated (no scrollers, or heads to mess around with). This made programming nice and quick (the pre-plot of just over 100 cues, although done in the very early hours of the morning took about 4 hours, including listening through tracks etc.). By doing this pre-plot, it meant we got through the tech even quicker, with any modifications being easy to make. The only problems we really had were with the booms which unfortunately landed in the path of the additional tab track we fitted.

Sound seemed to have the most problems and seemed to take longer to set-up. The band wasn’t huge but were put inside a wooden box. We used 8 radio mics – 2 or so of which were swapped among different performers. The reason it took longer was probably due to us put a fair amount more into it than usual and it did result in it sounding pretty good when it was all done – not bad considering they were mixing from the gallery at the side of the theatre, rather than central like they usually are!

With this all in, I think it resulted in one of the best shows I’ve seen in the last couple of years at Bath Uni. I do wish all the audiences had been like the one on the Saturday (closing night though). They got really into it and it was obvious they were enjoying the show, leading to everyone else enjoying it a lot more too.

Read more for some photos.

Here is a collection of photos from Little Shop of Horrors – some were taken during the rig, others on the nights of performances.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

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There was only a couple of us working on the event and it reminded me the importance of keeping things simple and how well it could work.

The venue we were working in was University Hall, which is not a frequently used venue (this is the third time we’ve used it since September). As there was only two of us present we decided to meet the client’s needs and keep things sensibe: 6 1K Fresnels to wash the stage area, 2 spots created using source four juniors (one for the piano, the one for the other performance spot) and four par 64s to act as uplighters either side of the projection screen.

That was it. It took us less than half an hour to rig and with so little, programming each peformance on the Jester was effortless, yet in my opinion it was one of the best looking events we’d carried out in Uni Hall.

Chaos Recital - The Lady Choir

I think it’s very easy to over complicate events like this, especially when you’re given pretty much free reign from a design point of view. Yet, by planning in advance, keeping things simple you can get something that is easy to work with and looks fantastic.

In most of the events we’ve used in this venue we’ve always used projection and have always had problems – until now. Perhaps it was because we didn’t have an external group coming in, but with a minor bit of editing of the powerpoint presentation we were given, we managed to get it so it didn’t hit the performers or the lights we hung, but with no noticeable difference to the client.

A few more photos of the event can be found below. Click to enlarge.

I found the following video whilst looking through Blue Rooms:

When budget strikes it gets to this…

Seriously though, I can’t ever see me seeing these on a stage near me. However, it seems a nice project to play around with, I’m sure there are quite a few people with the parts around to make something like this – All we need now are some instructions!