Pictured above, Myself line mixing a dress rehearsal on the Allen and Heath dLive S5000
Overview
This year I was working specifically in studio A, first show being Musical Theatres Pippin. I had a various mix of roles and responsibility’s the main one being Audio 2 but I will look at everything in a bit more detail below.
Audio 2
Get In
During get in, I was in charge of setting up mic world and the mic fitting area. This involved also running all the digital danate, network and analogue lines to the mix rack, ops, the pit and the amps as well as all the RF for the Sennheiser Radio Mics.
The image to the side shows a basic networking plan created by nathan.
The Role
My role as A2 was more of an operations role, I hadn’t done much musical before and it was a way for me to shadow Nathan as A1 as well as support the show as A2. I also got the opportunity to line mix one of the dress rehearsals which was a really great learning experience.
I also had lucy one of the first years working with me as A3/ASM so it was also my responsibility along side the A1 to manage and supervise her activties.
Some of my roles responsibility’s included:
- Fitting Radio Mics
- Resolving Mic issues when they occurred
- Monitoring and levelling mics
- Micing and monitoring Instruments
- Supervising the desk when A1 was unavailable or busy
WaveTool
To ensure we had effective communication and monitoring I reached out to WaveTool and arranged a rental licence for 30 days free of charge. This was an amazing industry standard tool to have available for this production.
Pictured above, Mic world & mic fitting areas.
Associate Lighting Designer / Production LX
While not directly lighting designing for this show their was a ton of overlap and collaboration between shows due to the short amount of turn around between rigs. This meant we shared a lot of ideas between shows. Such as the ladders, pendants and mover placement.
More design areas will be covered when I talk about dissocia.
Above is a early vector works plan for Pippin LX, it features a circular truss I envisioned to fill a gap in the rigging positions as well as follow the semi circle layout of the seating which could also be used in dissocia. It would have carried 4 Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 700s as well as upto 6 ShowTech SunSunstrip Actives. The structure went through many iterations including the full circle to semi circle and in other positions. Unfortunately although the design made it far in the planning stage it was eventually cut due to rigging restrictions and budget. I believed it would have been a really nice visual piece however we had to be realistic.
I was also highly involved in preparing, testing and rigging the lighting fixtures and equipment.
This included:
- Building and testing the S4 SeaChanger Modules
- Testing & Repatching Power & DMX Panels
- Setting Up 3x Universes & Patches
- Building Dimmer & Splitter Racks
- Rigging Truss & Ladders
- Labelling Fully SOCAPEX ways, DMX Runs, 16A Runs
- Managing 3 Phase & Single Phase Distros
Video
As part of my Swing title I was also given the responsibility to design and install two video systems. One of these being an overview camera for the MD, SM and myself at mic world. The second being an MD cam for everyone in ops and also a wide screen TV to be seen by the performers on stage.
The system consisted of some longer HDMI runs with boosters and splitters to ensure the signal reached its destination.
STI or HDBaseT would have been a much more ideal choice of signal transmission however I didn’t have the equipment available to me at the time.
To the side shows a video signal plan I created. Plan was changed a little during instal.
Swing / PreProduction (Schedule&kit sheet)
As you can already tell I had my hand in just about everything on the project which is why I was given the role of swing. As well as working on Sound, Lighting and Video I also had a hand in working on some of the preproduction documents with stage management.
Pictured above, The Pippin Get In Schedule produced by myself while the SM was away. This details day by day time slots, jobs and peoples assignments including breaks and staggered timings for sound checking. Although not always completely followed was a good base to work from.
In collaboration with the SM, I also contributed to the Equipment Request Sheet ensuring things have been confirmed and checked off.
I also contributed to the show risk assessment adding and amending fields as needed as there was quite a lot that needed to be assessed as part of the show.
Conclusion
In conclusion Pippin went extremely well, the operation was really smooth and we sorted issues as they occurred.
Everyone we spoke to always had something positive to say about the show.
