Planning

Staging:

I positioned the staging quite far forward in the floor space as the rear of the stage felt too far away and I tested this with the dancers during rehearsals. To comply with the risk assessment I applied white lx tape around the perimeter of the staging and a corner piece leading to the lower level so the actors could see the edges of the stage to reduce the risk of falls.

When designing the stage positioning and layout there were a few factors to consider specifically for cabaret. Firstly the amount of space needed for the dances, these had already been choreographed and some needed more space than others. Secondly I found that many of the stages used were small but effective in using the space and were able to highlight individual dancers.  They were also quite plain with nil or little scenery and props. I chose to use a small stage and to use levels to make the stage feel bigger than normal.

I chose to use steps at the corners of the staging to make a more fluid transition between the stage and the floor. The steps are large so they can be used as a secondary raised stage and I chose half height staging because they are a regular size but half the height.

I chose a single Martin Mac 700 as the centre spot for the raised staging as my research found that a single white follow spot is used frequently to highlight key people in cabaret. A moving fixture was pre-set to an exact position, colour and intensity automatically within a cue so was reliable and did not need an operator during the live show. It was positioned in the centre of the Unibar and was a good distance away so that it didn't leave any eye shadow. I wanted to use this as it is the highest quality moving fixture in our rig.

The cast wanted a haze machine to create an atmosphere and to make the room feel more like a cabaret style show, during my research I found that it is common for people to smoke during cabaret. To remotely control a haze machine from the console it needs to be DMX programmed, this involves addressing the haze machine a single channel number and a channel type, for example 4 chanel or 6 chanel mode

 (look at patching new fixtures to see how we manged to get it to work).  I choose to position the haze machine in the centre of the raised stage so that the haze would fill the staging area and not where the audience sits.  

I used light haze fluid because I didn't want a fog effect. The haze highlights the light beams from the floor standing movers and they appear like towers. This is effective at adding height and depth to the stage.

To power the Mac 700 I used 13a to 16a adaptors and ran two individual power feeds to each moving fixture, I did this to reduce the amps in a single socket.  I ran a DMX 5 pin cable from one of the stage boxes on the ground floor and daisy changed the moving fixtures together, this allowed me to remotely control the fixtures from the consule.  I readdressed the moving fixtures to 300 and 330 as there was a space between the LED's on the patch. Each moving fixture is 24 channels which is why there is a 30 channel gap between addresses.

microphones - postioning

Console:

Palletes:
Palletes are a great help when programming quickly, there are a few different types of pallets, each pallet can help with specific tasks. rather than using sub masters for the most receptive cues a pallet can hold lots of spefic presets, for example if a workers state is used a lot then you can make a group pallet with all the fixtures needed to a workers state and then an intensity pallet depending on what intensity they are wanted at.

Above are effects and marcos in a palletee style format,for the show i didnt use macros alot as there wasnt much need for them. when i was making the magic sheet for our collehes default show file, i used them to lamp on, lamp off and home for each indurvisial models fro the movers. this is helpful alot becuase it saves having the lamp control tab open and is really helpful when programming in a short amount of time as its quick and easy to do quickly.

the effects pallette was used alot during this show as i inbedded many effects into cues and sometimes effects within effects, having the pallete made adding an effect to the show was alot quicker becuase rathe than doing the following [1 thru 5 ] [+] [effect 5] [@] [100%] [ENTER] using other palletes you can do [ group 1 ] [Effect 1] [Inten Pallette 1] [ENTER]  using other palletes make programming wuickly alot easier.

Above is one of my default touch screen displays when i was programming the show, i have groups, colour palettes, intensity palettes and focus palettes open. the reason i have these palettes open are as whenb programming a show i use these the most, i have made groups for the most common lighting fixtures i use, for example the two mac 700's on the floor i had made a group just for those movers.

i also used the focas palettes because when programming specific potions for the movers, so i added them to the focasd palette.

lighting Effects

During this shwo i wanted to increases my knowledge and skills when using effects, effects are a great way to add rythm and feel to a piece, there are ltos of really helpful videos online that go through all the indurvuisal steps to making and implomenting effects into cues and shows. to enter the effects edit page o nthe etc gio which is the consoel we have at college you can either go to the effects page using the display options or yo ucan double tap the effect button.

There are 5 standard types of effects, the most commonly used affects in a music theatre show at my level are step-based or absolute, these are used alot becuase they are the most offeous to see.

a step based affect is an indurvial fixture rotation effect, an absulte is kinda the same affect with indurvial steps but u can add a palette or effect within a step, an abslute effect is great when adding foca palettes with in it, this can make a mover move in a contous line to various places without any human help.

in the picture above you can see two steps within an absolute effect, it shows a focas palette added to a single step within the effect. this was used alot in my show as i wanted to add an atmosphere to song, this will draw the audience in and makes them feel like they are part of the show.

Patching haze machine and patching fixture

when we were trying to get the haze machine to work we couldnt find a correct fixture with the correct paramamtors, this is important becuase without the correct paramamtors red could be blue and it would be all over the place. to overcome this adam and i researched how to make our own fixture paramenters, we found a great video on youtibe and after following the video and doing it whilst we watched it helped us have a good undertsanding of how to do it.

once we had made the fixtute we patched it into the patch and then addressed it, this worked very very well, this was helful but we still had trouble with the haze machine having a delay on the commands we sent to the haze.

Making your own paramameters is a really helpful skill as if we ever made custom fixtures i have the skills to finish the product.