Disney Again

Well, I didn't get the job I wanted with the Royal Caribbean cruise lines, so I've reapplied to Disney again.

I'm not getting any work from the union, so I had to get off my ass and stop waiting for them to call. I call every monday and give my availability (which is basically 24/7) yet still no calls. At least the one gig I did work for them looked good on the resume since Disney requires their tech employees to join that union. IATSE local 504.

Crossing my fingers again, and this time I brought home a valid phone number. Last time I tried to call to find the status of my application, I was only able to talk to the silly disney automated computers. Now I've got the business card to my interviewer and I can call him to see whether or not I get the next interview.

Wish me luck... again.

Weird Point in my Career

So I'm at this really weird point in my career. Do I give my resume to the cruise lines or not?

I just worked my first union gig last night, and I'm working another one tonight. It's really great working in a venue so large and insane. I thought I'd be totally unqualified and unprepared to do the job, but all they needed was grunts. Physically I'm not in the best shape to be doing something like this, but I managed. I even got myself quite dirty, dirtier than the boys even. ;-)

I think I'm kind of scared to turn my resume in. It means a huge change in my life. Leaving everything comfortable and familiar. There's still a huge chance I wouldn't even get the job, so I'm really only worrying about something that hasn't even happened yet.

My job at Knott's ends as of Thanksgiving morning when we hit the deadline to change the park over to Christmas. Halloween Haunt was like seeing if I could handle the cruise line (since I was working the same show 3 to 4 times a night per week) and I know now that I can. I just have to learn how to keep the music out of my head and my mp3 player fixed that ordeal.

I'm also learning that I need to take on a lot more responsibilities I've ignored. My mom always handled my car insurance since I was an honor student and she got great rates for me, but now I'm not living with her anymore and out of school. I started quote shopping and its so confusing. Plus I'm looking at taking over my dad's house payments from him which would be A LOT per month so I'd have to find a roomie. But if I got this job, I'd only have to worry about a place to live for 2 weeks every 6 months.

I've decided to hand in the resume, see what I can get. I can always turn the job down... only problem is, I've run out of options. I just haven't found where I want to be.

The Hills are Alive with the sounds of dinner theater

So I spent the last two days helping a friend (for a paycheck) at the Candlelight Pavillon Theater(The Sound of Music) in Claremont. She anticipated lots of problems and wanted to bring in someone she knew because of all the confusion in the pre-production process of the show.

It tooks weeks just to get a copy of their house plot from the house electrician, and when she did get it, it was a jpg file (she needed the CAD file). It was obviously done in CAD but they didn't seem to know how to get the original and send it.

So she dragged the jpg into Vectorworks and created her plot over that. She told the house electrician she would adapt their house plot so that's all he had to worry about doing before she arrived. We showed up on Monday and lo and behold, house plot wasn't finished. Plus, there were speaker clusters blocking the view of many lights in the first FOH position (not on the plot).

So...

-The house electrician took it upon himself to "redesign" the FOH and change the purpose and angle of some lights for her benefit (uncircuiting everything putting us off schedule)
-Their additional electrician actually cut one gel out of the center of a sheet of gel and threw the rest away
-The additional electrician also refiled gels we had pulled for focus time, so we had to redo that
-We asked for two or three floor mounts, and they brought us the bases of mic stands
-A base went bad on a 6X9 so I asked for the cap off an altman ers we weren't using, the house electrician brought up a cap with the ground wire actually dangling outside of the connector and said "don't worry, if it's out of the connector it can't hurt you, it's not carrying a current."

So sadly, I could only help two days, so when she should have been sitting down to start building cues, she was now sitting watching yet another rehearsal trying to figure out where she could cut cues tomorrow. She's gonna have to rely on their electricians to finish the focus and fix any other problems that arise. I felt so bad leaving her there, but we couldn't work while the rehearsal was going on.

And before I left, we both happily noticed, one of the speaker clusters had a blown speaker in it. Looks like the director and audio's gonna have some fun on this run.

Knott's Argh...

**Original first paragraph's erased**

OK, on to other issues. I'm working at Knott's Scary Farm right now. I'm the video switcher for the Ed Alonzo show and I"m hating it! I took some tv and film courses in junior college before I settled on theater, and now I'm back at the damn board wishing I had said I wasn't available for the month of October. I was told I was going to be a stagehand which is why I said yes, but the day I walked in, they informed me (well, the TD informed me) that I was the new video person.

I think I used a switcher maybe once at Fullerton? And it was a lot easier since it was programmed by someone else so all I had to do was move the lever up and down, not push buttons. Sigh...

Oh well, October 31st isn't that far off. So I'm using this time to siphon all the info I can out of people about working for the cruise lines. Another girl, named Kaycee, just stopped working for them, and has given me loads of info. She didn't like it, but she said some people do. I'll never know if I'll like it till I try it, so... yeah.

Princess Cruise Lines

Carnival

Royal Caribbean

Disney Cruise Lines

Links to all of these and a couple more

senior project finished

Monday, Christina and I finished our senior project. It's official. It's all over.

We took it in to the copy & mail place (which should also now be known as we charge up the butt for slow ass service) and had it bound. I'm hoping to scan the cover and post it when I get it back from my dad. He's going to try and read it when he returns from New York next Sunday.

In the mean time, I am focusing on work, and planning a weekend trip to Vegas when one of my girlfriends comes down from San Francisco. It's gonna be a girls road trip and I'm so looking forward to it!

PS Lisa, I'd really love a response. I think your criticism is worth pure gold since Christina and I were robbed of the traditional post mortem with the theater department.

Roxanne prepares for the Real World

So here I am now. A college graduate. Out seeking for that job. I spent two hours at Disney today applying for a tech services job. The people at the front desk didn't understand what I meant. They kept grouping me with kids who were there to work in the park as ride operators and food services. It was rather annoying.

So after spending a lot of time working on a resume, I decided I need to create a personal webpage. I have one that links to this blog and my little Tech Theater website on geocities.com, but I'd like to actually own my own URL. It's just the tech geek in me. I'm gonna spend my free time messing with Dreamweaver and Flash for a while, hopefully I'll get better and have another skill to add to the resume.

This is my resume, not the actual one, just a compilation of the items on it. (Some additional jobs that did not fit on it). I'm posting this just for my own benefit, but if you have any experience in a template that works, please let me know.

Roxanne Rosas

teksalot@yahoo.com

Professional Experience

The Bus Stop Journals 6/05
Light Designer
Production Manager: B Morse

Knott's Berry Farm 8/04 - 12/04
Seasonal electrician
Supervisor: T Nelson

Fullerton College - Theatre Arts 7/98 - Present
Board Op, Stage Hand, Followspot
Supervisor: S Pliska

Fullerton College - Fine Arts 3/99 - Present
Maintenance (Facility and Equipment), Board Op, Followspot, Stage Hand, House Manager,
Concessions
Supervisor: Ed Huber

OCPAC - Founders Hall 98/99
Set-up and Strike crew for the black box theater
Supervisor: C Fisher

Handless Man Theatrics - 98/99
Basic Carpentry, Set-up and Strike
Supervisor: Jim Book

Target Fullerton - Hardlines Sales Floor 6/97 - 7/97
Target Tempe - Hardlines Sales Floor and Back-up Cashier 8/97 - 11/97
Handling money, helping customers, organizing products
Supervisor Fullerton: J Gagnon
Supervisor Tempe: S Price

Marymount College - Financial Aid Office Assistant 9/96 - 5/97
Answering Phones, Office/Clerical Work
Supervisor: Les Butler & Ana Saucedo

Educational Experience

Growing Up Johnny & Stosh - Master Electrician
Twelfth Night - Light Designer
Hopscotch - Director (10 Minute Scene)
The Importance of Being Earnest - Master Electrician
The Crucible - Light Board Op
The Laramie Project - Follow Spot
No One Is Alone: A Cabaret (ADDY G Foundation Fundraiser) - Light Designer
Gross Indecency - Co-Light Designer
Tommy - Audio 2
A Midsummer Nights Dream -Co-Sound Designer
Blade to the Heat - Assistant Light Designer
Sly Fox - Light Designer
Much Ado About Nothing - Rehearsal Stage Manager/Head of Backstage Crew
A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley - Sound Board Op
West Side Story - Rehearsal Stage Manager/Light Board Op
Scenes from an Execution - Wardrobe Crew Head
Assassins - Follow Spot
The Crucible - Light Board Op
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - Stagehand

Skills

ETC Obsession II, ETC Expression, Strand Mini-Pallette, Strand 550i, Dove Light Board, Strong Gladiator II Follow Spot, Maintence for ETC Source 4, Strand Leko, Altman Light fixtures, Soundcraft and Mackie Sound Boards

Awards

2005 Outstanding Graduate Cal Poly Pomona
2003 - 2005 Honors all quarters while attending Cal Poly Pomona
2001 Special Achievement in Design and Technical Production - Fullerton College
2002 - 2003 National Dean's List - The Association of Educational Publishers
1996 - Cultural Arts Commission Scholarship - City of Placentia

Education

Cal Poly Pomona 2005 B.A. in Theatre - Tech & Design Emphasis
Fullerton College 2001 A.S. in Computer Information Systems
Fullerton College 2001 A.A. in Theatre
Valencia High School 1996 High School Diploma

Zimbabwe Meets Pomona CA

The senior project for Twelfth Night was completed on schedule, and is still waiting to be graded, in the mean time, I began working on my first professional light design. The Bus Stop Journals written by Bernardo Solano as a community based theater project debuted June 18th at the Downtown Center in Pomona, CA. It was a great success.

The show featured former Cal Poly Pomona Alumni and community members. The play was written by conducting interviews with many bus riders, asked questions that began with "If a man approached you, told you he was from Zimbabwe and asked things like 'How could I contact Oprah?', how would you react?"

The responses were from all sorts of people you meet while either sitting at the bus stop, at the bus depot, or while riding the bus. A man named "Africa 'Thembi'" arrives in America with his band, but when it's time to leave, he stays behind and winds up in Pomona, CA. He thinks he will make it big with his Mbira (An African musical instrument consisting of a hollow gourd or wooden resonator and a number of usually metal strips that vibrate when plucked), but has lost his ability to play it because of his loss of faith in God. When his mother passed away recently, he was unable to say good-bye because he did not see her soul pass on to the next world.

He makes friends with new people, Carl (a teenager who offers him a place to live) and a blind woman named Nancy (she lost her sight 3 years ago from a gun shot to the head). Her insight is stronger than her blindness and she reminds Thembi of his mother with her wisdom. A month goes by, Nancy has become Thembi's friend and Carl has managed to contact one of Oprah's personal assitants. While taking the call Thembi hears the mbira music of his soul, and he sees Nancy dancing toward him to the African rhythm, he knows she has died and he is watching her soul pass on. He takes this as a sign that he must return home to the family he left behind, because he has regained his faith and ability to play the music he loves.



Thembi (Nehemia Chivandikwa) meets Donald (Michael Sartain), a drunk who attends Mt. SAC. The ladder is from the set designer (Bill Morse who also plays the bus driver) still hanging a map during the last dress rehearsal.


Thembi meets (Oz), a goth who hangs out on 2nd street and tries to convince Thembi to seek politicial asylum to stay in the U.S. legally


Nancy enters the stage and Thembi is shy about talking to her at first


Thembi has forgotten the phone call temporarily and dances to the music as Nancy (Sandra Fogler) passes on to the next world. Images of Thembi's home flash on the back drop as he remembers what he has left behind to come to the U.S.


This summer, several of the cast and production crew will travel to Zimbabwe to tell the second part of the story. An American student (Courtney Rowan), enters the exchange program, but when she arrives, she is left stranded alone in a part of Africa and we see how she views their culture. The play will be constructed in much the same way as it was done here. Several Cal Poly Students were interviewed as to how they would react to being in that situation.

I wish I could go, but alas, I have graduated from Cal Poly and this was my last venture with them. I have to enter the real world now (damn!) and get a real job (double damn!). So traveling to another country to do a project for free (plus pay my own way there) is just not possible at this time. But it sure was nice to be involved on this side of the project.

backdrop pic

research paragraph... incomplete

In order to begin my research, I needed to create a list of things I would need. Because I already had a good idea on the colors I would use, I decided to focus on the time of day each scene would take place in. Any time I would feel lost or uncertain about where to go next, I would always return to the script. The play, for me, was the one constant among all the changing circumstances and provided the clues I needed to start researching. Historical research did not seem to be of much use to me. But curiosity drove me to research the meaning of the play’s title.

Twelfth Night refers to the end of winter festivities that begins on All Hallows Eve. A common theme during the celebrations is reversal. Shakespeare wrote the play Twelfth Night or What You Will to be performed on the twelfth night using mistaken identity and gender role reversal as part of the story. The play’s title mimicking the date of celebrated misrule only compounded the importance of the main character’s reason for adopting a masculine appearance.

I searched the plays words carefully looking for ideas on what time of day each scene would take place, and then I tried to construct a timeline for the entire play so the transitions would make sense. Unfortunately, this idea was ditched as I began to receive rehearsal reports from the stage manager explicitly stating that the director wished certain scenes to take place at morning or sunset. I decided to follow the director’s wishes rather than dissect the script any further.

Rehearsal reports also clued me in to a new obstacle. The director had rearranged the script’s opening sequence which made my primary resource into a variable instead of a constant. I began re-reading the play for a fifth time trying to imagine the storm that begins the story, but is not scripted out in detail. We only learn about the storm through exposition and now I had to work with the sound designer to actually create it.

It was also at this time I began to question how to deal with the director. I interviewed several members of the department and asked how previous encounters had gone with her. The majority of answers led me to believe that designing this show would be easy, until the last few weeks, which was correct. I’ll address those issues later.

I turned to the High End AF1000 strobes for lightening. I had just seen them in the previous show’s main stage as a lightening effect for The Foreigner and loved the color temperature and wash they created. I considered using PAR lamps to hit the high points of the scenery, but I really wanted to use an instrument I had never used before. I also wanted the chance to try to learn some DMX technology.

I continued searching the script for clues and began scribbling notes in the margins about how each scene should look. My analysis of each scene had already told me the mood, but my final decisions were all based on keywords by characters or the ends of scenes into the next ones.

My first actual encounter with a text clue to the time of day was in act I, scene 3, when Maria says: “By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights.” I figured it was after sunset by then, if Sir Toby is being scolded for returning home so late. I learned from some of Christina Russo’s research on the Caribbean that the streets were developed in an array of mazes to confuse attacking pirates at night. Sir Toby’s late hours would put him in danger if he were out and about in the dark. The idea of the corridors was scrapped later though because the director felt it looked to urban.

I continued in this fashion for the rest of the script, finding keywords and deciding on the time of day for each scene. When I was done, I was better prepared to being color testing. I started with my cast because of the wide range of color tones. Searches on the internet led me to R54, R05, R35, R51, R62, R60 and R33. I began tracking down cast members and quickly lighting them with the gel book and my trusty Maglite.

As for the rest of the colors, I relied heavily on virtual light lab version 1 and version 3. I own a copy of version 1 which is severely limited in options, but version 3 allowed me color test a jpg file of the cyc sent to me by the set designer. I narrowed my selection to a range of purples, blues, and ambers to the cyc; pinks, blues, lavenders, and ambers were still the main choices for back, down and side washes.

Awards

Last night was the awards party for the end of the year. Seniors are recognized and the Alpha Psi Omega organization on campus awards the "best of" people. I was honored last night to receive best light design for Twelfth Night.

I also received a plaque for being a graduating senior, and to my shock I won outstanding graduate. I so thought Lauren was going to win for all her community work with peer theatre, but she was given a separate award for that and a scholarship. To my advantage though, Bill forgot the Dr. Seuss book that is tradition for the outstanding graduate to read from. Unfortunately, the department will not forget, and I'm sure I will have to read it at some future time.

I'm continuing to work on the research portion of the senior project, I'm focusing on the numbers I went over on color temperatures of lamps and sunsets. I wish I had saved and documented that portion better, but I just glanced over it and scribbled notes on post-its. I'm noticing that Christina's research is a lot more thorough than mine, which is probably why it's so much easier for her to type it out.

Analysis

When I read a script for the first time, I analyze the scenes by the colors that best suit the mood. My first impression of the script led me to pinks, oranges and lavenders. It is the romance and setting of the Caribbean Illyria that formed these images in my mind. Psychologically, I see nothing dark about this play, but I have to remember the title is still a part of the play. The words “Twelfth Night” creates images of blues and dark colors which really does not go with the selected concept, but after reading the actual text I began to agree more with the chosen locale.

Viola’s (Brittney Kalmbach) journey is one of love. It begins with the decision to come to a new world, where her brother has good intentions of marrying her to someone who can care for her. But a storm changes their plans and separates the twins, forcing Viola to fend for herself in a man’s world. She takes on a new role and finds Orsino (Leo Barrales), a man in love with Olivia (Tori Ugarte). Olivia is in mourning for the loss of her father and brother and has turned her back on all courters, but eventually falls for the cross-dressed Viola. Viola’s twin brother Sebastian (Kevin Gonzales), who is assumed to have died at sea, appears in Illyria, and because he is Viola’s twin, they are mistaken for each other.

All of this is the set up for comical adventures with a sea captain, townspeople, Oliva’s servants, and Olivia. There are also subplots involving tricking a grumpy servant named Malvolio (Matt Guerra) and provoking a duel between Viola and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Christopher Gelvin). The struggle of power is a major theme is these three story lines causing Viola’s change in gender appearance, Malvolio’s awkward behavior, and Sir Andrew’s idea that he has to fight for Olivia’s attention. The director decided to focus primarily on the first theme of masculine versus feminine by dividing the stage through scenery.

Stage right became Olivia’s world, lush in foliage and curved architecture. Stage left became Orsino’s world, very masculine and domineering over the rest of the stage with it’s second story. I retained this information and decided it would best be supported through color washes from opposite angles, but those final selections came later when I learned color schemes.

I really didn’t want to create light cues just for the sake of creating light cues, but the division of the stage made it feel as if every time we switched locales I had to change the focus. This kind of design always reminds me of a tennis match which fortunately, it really didn’t mimic. Lisa’s blocking took characters all over the stage regardless of where they truly were. Olivia chases Viola all over, even downstage of Orsino’s; Orsino, supposedly watching Olivia from a distance, wanders far downstage away from his home; Malvolio, Olivia’s servant, takes a seat on the steps of Orsino’s without leaving Olivia’s backyard.

Although I hate heavy isolation, I did want to really emphasize one part in particular. Viola seems to make a statement that I felt needed attention. Her aside sums up the main story line in two lines, much like the couplets at the ends of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Straight and to the point she says:

“yet, a barful strife!
Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.”

The two lines preceding these are directed towards Orsino and are the start of the light cue that sweeps in towards her. And as soon as she’s said the next line, I began cross-fading to the next scene.

The first time Lisa saw this cue, she immediately came to me at the tech table and said the infamous phrase: “Roxanne, I think this cue is beautiful, but it’s a bit to theatrical. I think we need to cut it.” My first thought was to point out the historical inconsistencies on the stage or the fact that we were in fact sitting in a theater or the fact that she had described Illyria as a mystical place, but I remained calm and simply asked if there was anything I could do, because I really wanted the cue to stay where it was. She replied: “Maybe we could use it somewhere else, but it’s really… just… too theatrical,” then she walked away.

Later, we re-inserted the light cue in another place, it gave Viola more to say, but at this point in the script, I had grown weary of listening to Viola’s constant questioning of her abilities and actions in the story. Pointing out the foibles of the main character showed a weakness in the feminine though, creating the necessity to take on the masculine role for survival and I think it worked out fine in the end.

[picture inserted here]

Senior Project

We (the set designer) are now working on writing our senior project thesis so that we may graduate. We have already written an introductory paragraph, but it needs to be edited.


Below is my second section which deals with my first impresions of the play, which will be edited to go with hers. It is incomplete but it's a start.

I first met Lisa Wolpe in the movement class in spring of 2004. My first impression of her was one of amazement and intimidation. Her approach to teaching was one of Socratic Method, placing students in on-the-spot performance situations and answering in tones of skepticism and disbelief. She was not one to tout her own resume though, and I learned later from others of her very impressive list of qualifications.

During the winter quarter of 2005, the quarter when I took on Twelfth Night, I enrolled in Lisa’s directing class as part of my bachelor’s degree requirement. When I attended Fullerton College, I was able to design for a director while participating in their acting class. From that experience, I learned how to anticipate the director’s needs by seeing how they approach a script; I was hoping that would be the case again here, but it was not. Instead I was given a set of guidelines in Lisa’s class that plays should be directed with, but with Twelfth Night I witnessed the extreme disregard to those set rules.

My first meeting with the director, along with Bill Morse and Christina Russo, made me feel a bit unprepared. I had read the script, but was not given any information on the concept at this point, leaving me a bit in the dark when the set designer began pulling out photos of Caribbean architecture. I quickly had to begin rethinking my initial ideas due to the new information I received. My reading left me with a feeling of a romantic comedy that evolved into a television sitcom. Later miscommunications also had me confused on the final choice in time period; the director and costume designer both had about a century’s gap between ideal settings for the play.

After reading the play again, with more information to take into consideration, I began seeing the stage washed in pinks, oranges, and lavenders. I also had keywords straight from the director that I contemplated: “Life force.” Illyria is a mystical life force, lush with tropical foliage and femininity. Olivia and Viola take priority in the story, along with the gender change in casting for the role of Antonio, the Pirate King. The idea of life force immediately made me think green (a rather scary color for many light designers). Green is affiliated with many bad concepts (illness, envy, inexperience) and I had to try to position it in such a way that it would enhance the foliage and cover a wide area, but not affect the rest of the scenery or costumes and make-up for the actors.

Preview Night

Last night was preview. Basically, there is an audience, but they didn't pay. So the designers are free to touch up as the show goes on and take pictures. I spent it running up and down stairs in order to fix some problems. We didn't have the tech table set up anymore so I couldn't just call on clear-com to fix stuff. Then I made two cues at the end of the show (Cues 900 and 901) for Zach to photograph. They were cues I wanted in the show, but the director said they were too dark. So I re-created them for my portfolio's sake.

I decided to post the pictures next to some research I had been using for a while.



And here is a scene of virtual light lab next to the ending pose.




So does this look caribbean to anyone? I hope so. I posted just the first picture on LiveJournal for theatertechies and they loved it. I'm so happy (sniffle)

All this work comes down to this. Now I've done the happy pretty show, now I need to balance it with a dark dirty show. That should be great for my portfolio. But I also have to recognize that if there wasn't something beautiful for me to light, it'd be useless. Christina Russo's set design is amazing. After all that hard work, both of our projects won't exist in two weeks. And it's kind of sad.

I think I made some really good friends doing this and learned a lot. I know I definitely need to be more paper organized. And I need to learn how to delegate more stuff out. And somehow I need to learn to be more stern in getting what I want without stage managers thinking I'm a bitch.

Thanks to whoever reads this. I'm sure I'll post more when the show closes and post-mortem hits. (post mortem is a meeting with all involved to discuss how the show went, its not a morbid thing, its a constructive criticsm thing). ;-)

A night off

Didn't get to update yesterday. I was so tired. I've gotten totally drained, I think I'm coming down with something. (Damn telemarketers... where was I?)

Yesterday was the addition of the eigth practical and three more front lights (Porch Door, Porch walkway, USC). Also, Lisa asking for a brighter scene (again) and the introduction of the lightning effects. I couldn't get the effect to work by adding it to the cue (proper syntax used I swear). Cue 4 FX + 10 * should have started FX number 10. Instead I just have my board op using a macro designed by Ozzy.

Today, rehearsal was cancelled. Everyone just needs a break. And I need to catch up on homework. We spent two hours doing lighting notes. Most of the time was because its hard to get to certain lighting positions with the set in the way. The genie lift can only do so much. Poor Zach. At least he has longer arms.

The I had the master electrician touch up the bench focus on some lights and hang another light (Orsino's Platform).

Ahh... a night off. I think I'll do my art homework.

Yeah... Can we make that one brighter?

That was the catch phrase for my first night of cues with the director. "Can we make that brighter?" It's called Twelfth NIGHT! Night! Night as in dark. Night as in, it's ok to make the stage look like night time. As in, the audience won't have lights on a tech table in front of them causing their irises to open and allow them to see in the dark better.

Ugh!

She walked in as we finished running thru the show for the first time tonight. When we were ready to start the second run thru, she initially sat in the front of the house. But after criticizing my first two cues, she thought it would be better to sit right next to me so she could just "tell [me] what to change."

Basically, every cue's front light went up in intensity and the whole show is now a big tennis match. Every time a scene takes place on Stage Left, there is a cue, if it's on stage right... well that's another cue. And the two times I did actually focus on one part of the stage, she didn't like.

I should have bought a pack of cigarettes today. I only smoke when I'm stressed. This is my senior project and its completely unfair that I'm losing creative control. I was really starting to like the show and today, people were just looking jaundiced from the amount of yellow light to emphasize the "daytime."

Ever heard of establishing the scene? Yeah, the scene lights get brighter with an auto follow after I've established a time of day. She decided to start criticizing before the cue was even finished running its course.

So in conclusion: I have a lot of work ahead of me this week.

Tech Rehearsal One

Today started at 11am. With no crew.

Nobody decided to show up and rather than be hindered by my light board op, I decided to work alone. First thing, I changed my blue cyc color from R65 to R80. And I changed my warm diagonals from R41 to R339. This made such a big difference. I also added a gobo to an SL on the first and blind focused it to Orsino's platform (mental note: I don't blind focus well).

I set up the ground row of Par 38 striplights (4 of them). The center 2 have R23 in their center cells. All 4 have R86 in the first cell. I am not using the third cell as of yet... We'll see...

To my pleasure, when I came in, all of the practicals had been set up and wired. (I love my stage manager Seth). He also helped me by placing two mini-pars up above the hut's window. One R15 and one R23 pointed straight down to make the window glow just slightly.

The tech went well. The director still has not attended because she is in grad school. So we had to use a lot of self-restraint from goofing around. I think we did an ok job seeing as how we were done at 10:30ish instead of midnight.

I think tomorrow will go well.

Building Light Cues

So yesterday at 3pm, Teresa (my LBO) arrived so we could get ready to do light cues. We built groups and finished a little patching. Then at 4pm we started building cues. It was nice having some random painters and carpenters walking through once in a while because it gave me a chance to see what it would look like on actors.

We would have been done by 8pm but I forgot an important thing. I forgot to turn off tracking. So after running through the cues again, I finished at 9:30pm and went on a set dressing adventure with the stage manager and assistant scene designer. They proceeded to pull a lot of practical lighting devices which I began to fear would out number the standard lighting instruments.

They wired one up and it looked great, so I didn't fear them so much anymore as I did the amount of work it would take to wire all of them up.

Dress Parade

We used the lighting class today to try to finish focus the lights, but unfortunately not a whole lot of people showed up. But luckily I got a hold of the program and started crossing names off so :-P to them!

So now I have the flippers done. My paperwork was kind of screwy. Still haven't figured that out. Just labeled them wrong as SL for SR and vice versa.

I'm noticing the reason I had so many problems when the set moved, was that it didn't just move downstage, it flattened out to be parallel to the stage. And the balcony on SL isn't drawn correctly for me (I think). I might be reading it wrong, but I thought I was going to have some opening on the DSL of Orsino's. So my high side light on the farthest part is useless. But I'm sure I'll find some use for it. ;-)










The set designer and I also went shopping. She purchased two light poles that resemble Bamboo. They're very cute. And she also bought some tiny lanterns that were very cool. But the theater manager pointed out their size would be lost by the back row of the theater. So I believe the set designer is going to return them and we'll use some other lanterns that the theater manager will convert into powered flickering lamps.

Today was also dress parade. It was a very nice chance to see what my lights look like on the actors and the costumes. I turned on my front, side and back lights to help the costume designer and took the opportunity to ask a friend what he thought. His only advice was to add top hats to some fixtures out of courtesy to the people in the first few rows. Not that they were being blinded, it's just as though they were getting quite a bit of ambient spill. I think he's right, so I'll do it.

Tomorrow at 8:30am, an asst. stage manager will let us in so we can finish focusing. I'm just going to rip through these as fast as possible. Then at noon, everyone should start showing up for dry tech, I'll build my cues and do a paper tech thing with the stage manager.

Moving scenery wasn't planned

One week to go till the show opens

Today the director decided to move the SR scenery downstage about 5 feet, and she flattened it out, so now it runs parallel with the proscenium and not at a 45 degree angle. So that screwed me over... A LOT!

My front light is affected so much as architectual lighting I specifically place for the scenery. I created 2 new electrics in the theater using drop boxes, but now those positions are no longer capable of making the shots because of masking. So now I am in a rush to work on refocusing them tomorrow. (Not like I got a whole lot done today).

Today we finished focusing the proscenium pipe and then we got 3/4 of the first electric done. It was a mess though because I didn't know how to focus them. So now I'm back on vectorworks changing the scenery and re-doing the purposes for lights. Some lights that would have been down or back lights are becoming set toning.

Although as I type, I'm wondering if I should just delete lights, re plot them, and rehang partially in the morning.... hmmm.... Although that would cut into the whole 3 hours I have to focus tomorrow. Damn!

And knowing Bill, he'll probably take up the first hour trying to lecture. Damn! Damn!

And on top of all that, I have a shitload of art homework tonight. Lots of painting to do.

I wish I could take a break. I wish I could get away.

half an electric

Class started at 10am, we only had 2 hours today and the first hour was spent listening to Bill lecture. He set my trims on the masking so that was nice. (I hate that part)

Then I focused one light.... that changed after he pointed out some issues with it... so I moved Olivia's set upstage, flew in the first, moved the light back to its original position, added a fresnel to it, changed the circuit of a Data Flash, flew it back out, had the guys flag the electrics on the lock rail, and searched for missing paperwork.

When that was all done... I sent Rich and Keith (master electrician) up in the genie lift. Junior was dead so Ryan couldn't focus at the same time. And he wasn't up for focusing on the A-frame (pussy... just kidding... my trims are way fucking high) Damn set (oh did I say that outside of a parenthesis?)

We started with the proscenium pipe, the numbers were wrong on my paperwork. I couldn't understand why the dimmers I called out were coming up wrong. I assumed it was my fault (bad job at transferring numbers from the plot to vectorworks then to excel). Then I decided to check on my rookie light board op (maybe she was doing something wrong). She was doing fine as far as I could tell. Then my master electrician started calling out numbers from up above, looking at the labels on the connector. He called out 222 so Teresa brought it up, and a different light came on.

BINGO! The socko cables were plugged in wrong upstairs to the back of the rolling dimmer rack. There's no reason for those to be changed. Why would someone unplug the socko connectors? Socko that's permanently labeled for specific circuits. (Am I spelling socko right?)

We were finally able to get focusing steady at about 11:45.

So at 12:15, class was way past over, and we only had HALF OF ONE ELECTRIC focused. I can't believe I'm supposed to be building light cues on Friday. And Zach's show opens this weekend so he'll get priority, but he only has some circuiting problems to deal with. The theater manager doesn't like the way some cables were ran I guess.

Humf.

So now I'm dealing with bad transfers from Vectorworks to Excel. Vectorworks paperwork publishing is awful. So I copy and paste into Excel to make it pretty, but Vectorworks only publishes stuff it thinks is important. If you decided to use a specifically created symbol, as opposed to a symbol created within the resource browser, it doesn't list the name of the "instument" and creates something really confusing to look at. (It's kind of hard to explain). Basically, the theater manager's template for all designers to start off with has buried symbols that conflict with the light design. I wound up copying and pasting lights just to avoid some of the confusion. (And convert to instrument didn't help this situation).

Maybe I'll get some work done tomorrow, but doubtful. I'd only have the theater from 4 to 5:30, not a lot of time to get stuff done. Especially with a limited supply of manpower.

Light Focus Tomorrow

Production Meeting today:

Very short, very nice.

My only concern: the change in color for the upstage hut on short notice. Went from a greenish oceany color to a purple and orange wood hut. Why? Budget. Reusing mixed paint from old shows and because the building on SR is very green.

Walked through the scene shop to see this little change of color. Not bad. Wish I would have known sooner. That's the only thing.

Talked to the sound designer regarding the opening light cues and sound cues. We have to communicate clearly about the start because of the lightning and thunder that starts the show off. Plus I pitched my idea about the preshow cue that will run as the audience filters in.

I want the stage to look very happy and "Caribbean" and over the course of 30 minutes get darker and become more storm like in appearance to get us ready for the show. He will be playing upbeat caribbean music anyways and no storm sounds will appear until we start to dim the house lights.

Now I leave you with some virtual light lab photos:



Opening Picture downstage




Opening Picture upstage




Malvolio in his cage




Sunset


Pictures created with Virtual Light Lab 1

Load In Part 2

Well as usual, things were not organized at Cal Poly. We arrived (we being Zach and myself) to the mainstage at noon because we were not allowed to work in the studio right away. The set designer worked on painting the floor for the third day, then enlisted us to help load in her scenery.

After all that, we were able to continue focusing lights. We had to get it done today because tomorrow is the first tech. Yesterday the tech designer kicked us out at 6pm promptly. Today she was kind enough to give us an extra 15 minutes to actually finish.

Now we didn't get finished, but it was focused well enough for the first tech. We will definitely have to do a lot of notes. My show got the front lights focused (I love having Zach to watch my back).

Our master electrician didn't show. He was supposed to be late, but instead he allowed himself to be kidnapped by his fiance for valentine's day celebrations. Which sucked because the only people we had were Connie and Teresa. Connie left early and Teresa arrived late so it was as if we only had 3 people to do all the work all day long. I still can't believe we got that much done.

Tomorrow I will have my patching and circuiting done. And Tuesday is the light focus with the class. That should be interesting...

Twelfth Night Load In

Ok, I guess this will be my online journal of the progress of my show.

Yesterday was load in. When we first arrived half the plot was already hung, so my master electrician, assistant M.E. and myself started working on the flipper sections. My light board operator was no where to be found. (Basically, she hasn't inspired any sense of ambition yet)

When that was done, Zach (the L.D. for the studio show arrived) needed us to help on his show because his opens first. So I switched gears from L.D. to crew and we did as much as we could since the floor was being painted. I (in my own little way) made it clear to the set designer that when she runs behind, she makes other people run behind. (She didn't like that)

So 5:45 rolled around and the technical director wanted to leave so we had no choice but to stop working and go home. Or as she called it "return to your lives people."

Today will be fun because the set designer requested the first 3 hours of the 6 hour call to keep painting. So I guess we'll work on my show for that three hours, and have to rush to get Zach's show working because IT OPENS FIRST. God I hate all crew load in days.

skool sux

I hate my life... No wait, I hate school... No wait, I hate school schedules.

How am I supposed to take a MWF class next quarter when festival season runs FSSun? Imagine all the money I'll be out because one fucking class goes on friday mornings. Fuck this shit. I hate school. I'm so ready to turn and run and just try to get by in life without a fucking bachelor's degree.

And then I see my parents and go... Oh wait, I can't do that.

Damn't! Damn Cal Poly and its fucking budget cuts and its stupid class scheduling.