Rep Focus

As promised, I shall give you some insight into the process which we cal Rep Focus.

I work for a large regional theatre that produces 11 plays in three spaces, in rotating rep, over the course of 8ish months. Preparations for those shows happen year round. Your intrepid Illumination Solutioneers in the Lighting department are on contract from January to November (though our Master Electricians do work year round). The first two weeks of the year are spent prepping our Mainstage and Black Box theatres for the first four shows that will open in February. The mainstage will see 5 plays produced, with up to 4 at a time. We start with 3, then in April add one more. One will close in July and another will open shortly there after.

To accommodate the lighting needs of all the shows, we work of what are know as rep plots. Our department manager, with input from all the designers working in the space, designs a basic light plot that provides the most versatile and useful coverage for all shows. There are about 200 lighting instruments in the mainstage rep plot: A front system, a two color pair side system, and two down systems for all areas, along a cyc and groundrow system. This year we also added a backlight system using the Nexeras that are now discontinued and we have replaced with PL4s.

On focus day, we all gather round the donut box and divide up into groups of people who will focus and those that will be go-fers or continue any special projects we have. There are 4-5 people in the air focusing, one person running the light board and marking the plot, and one person onstage focusing. For most focuses, our department manager does the actual focusing, and one of the MEs runs the board. We start downstage and work our way upstage and out, attempting to hit every light in the air in 8 hours. This is not as much time as you would think. This year we went over by about 45 minutes, which is fairly typical. Last year we didn't finish, so the MEs stayed late to get it done.

What is focusing? Focusing is where we point the lighting instruments to the area they want to light up. The majority of the stage floor (and hopefully the entirety of the acting area, but with some of our directors you never can tell, or more truthfully, you know they are gonna stray) is divided up into "areas". For lighting purposes, to get the best coverage (there's a lot of math involved), we employ two sets of areas, a "numbered" system and a "lettered" system. The numbers get front and down light, the letters side and down. When we are going through the catwalks, also know as "the ceiling", we are aiming each light at it's designated area, making sure it is aligned correctly for best lumen output and even coverage, making sure the shutters move smoothly and can achieve the angles we need, and that the color and pattern holding accessory slots are easily reachable. As part of the changeover process between shows, we will change the color and patterns in the fixtures twice a day, as well as adjust the shutters to match the angles of the set, or any shape the designer specifies. For Rep Focus though, we leave everything "open". Here's a picture of an ETC Source Four for some reference.

This year we had a new beast the wrestle with: the Selecon PLProfile 4. 

You can't tell from the picture, but these things are long. Seriously almost as tall as me with the c-clamp. Therefore, if they hang straight down, they not only hang beneath the acoustical clouds, they hang directly in the path of some of the other ellipsoidal lights, most notably the side system. This meant a lot of fanangaling. And it is no small task. Moving these things around in our space is a two person job at least. Also, there were several that I was virtually useless for moving because I had no solid, safe reach. We had to go back at least twice and refocus a few lights that had already been done because we realized a few lights later that the PL4 had to be rehung. These shenanigans slowed the whole process down a bit. We made some very good discoveries though, and have info for making these instruments work better for us next year. 

The other interesting that we have discovered about the PL4s, and LED color mixing fixtures in general, is that they need delicate fine tuning when it comes to color palettes. Not every light in the system will mix the same way. These particular fixtures are calibrated to 3 onboard presets: Cool White, Warm White, and Daylight. Each LED is separately calibrated, and since there is no batch uniformity across the individual LEDs, when you go through colors, there can be a wide variation from fixture to fixture, and even LED to LED. We will have our work cut out for us getting them to all play nice. 

Onstage rehearsals start this week, which means show specific focuses. I'm up first!!! Go Cocoanuts!