Starting from my last post on the role i played in Joseph it has indeed helped boost my confidence on what to do. 

• Lighting: Lighting has been just about completed with the only thing to do left is to complete the LX effects that i have gone through with Scott. The lights will be installed tomorrow. The list of the lights are as follows: 

Lighting Equipment

·         4 Profiles with decals for audience

·         2 Moving lights for dance floor  2 Profiles on a Crystal (disco) Ball for dance floor

·         2 Profiles for walls, on paintings for example

·         2 Fresnel’s for the stage

·         Lighting Board  

• Sound: Sound is Gartner’s job and it seems as though we should have that by tomorrow. He seems to have it on disc already but we need to somehow get that to an ipod and connect that to speakers.

 As you would probably know last night was the finale were i (finally) got to bow. It was a glorious 3 seconds of fame but well worth the wait. In a sense i thought the last night would be done with a little more professionalism by the cast and crew but i have to admit even i wasn’t paying too much attention to detail, either way we got the job done and thats all the matters. 

untill next time,

moondy

 But thankfully today all went mostly according to plan and i learned a lot by having to trust people i never talk too to help me to my job. And now i have a day off to recoup my thoughts and prepare myself for Sunday, its going to be a real audience and you know that by making one wrong move will get the whole Jewish community ranting on how so and so’s son did this and that. Yes what a wonderful world we live in.

Until next time,

moondy

Now for the low down on my part. Lighting looks like its going to be very basic with little to no effects which will make my job a little easier, but then again i want this too be a challenge! Still i think i need to have one final meeting with Kim and Scott so i’m able to finally negotiate if we all really want to have the ‘mock’ band with flashing lights. So far i’m not happy with the level of response im getting on ideas as i have no idea whether its final or not because my ideas do need a bit of participation of a few other people and if they’re gonna come back saying “when did you decide to do this?” then i dont want to start inputting out of the box ideas. This needs to be delegated and discussed with the rest of the gang in order to make sure we have no pointless arguments.

As an added note i recommend we get onto writing down every little piece of info somewhere in the studio so we’re able to look at each others progress (vineblogs doesn’t seem to be working in my opinion, if i even get 1 view or comment besides one from Scotty ill be happy).

Moving onto Stage Management and it seems like my job will become a lot more utilised when the performance period comes along. At the moment its getting a basic jist of every scene and marking off where, when and how people enter and exit. Further ill be making sure the light and sound ques (when gartner starts making some) are on time. Sound effects might be difficult (eg. the slap) when working in synchronization with actors as im not sure how the sound will be controlled. Ill probably have to talk about that with Scotty.

My two -sub- roles, Multimedia and Acting appears to be on track with nothing further to add besides the fact i think i would like to get the Waiter a little more involved. To me it would be a waste of an opportunity considering how much effort the girls put into trying to receive the waiters attention. I personally would like to add a little bit of character to the waiter in showing what a real prick this guy is and how poorly he cares about the treatment of his customers. I could see him as chatting with other members of staff while walking along oblivious to all his surroundings. Maybe adding a smoke (somehow replicating a real cigarette with out the added 40,000 chemicals) to my mouth while walking right along the tables. The idea of having a bar on the side with my serving drinks (quite literally) could be a good idea if im able to control my Que calls from there.

Now to my main point of writing this blog, my involvement in the school musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. My role, as suggested by Scotty, would be to get a good idea of what exactly the backstage is like in a major production and to see how the staff and the technicians are utilised behind the scenes. Of course this will be mainly contributing my knowledge of my job as Stage Manager and to a certain extent Lighting. However, i dont intend on standing their all night watching 3 hours of madness before and after the show. My actual job seems to be pushing more to helping getting backdrops on and off the stage as there looking for big strong men to push them around (i hardly fit into that criteria but hey who cares im sure its gonna be fun…).

I’ll keep you guys posted on my upcoming run throughs as being apart of the staff.

Well until next time,

moondy

I have completed a small number of tasks that will allow to me continue working on a bigger scale throughout the long weekend. Much to the delight of Kim i have finally feasted my eyes on what looks to be a final draft of the floor plan. There are still a number of issues which i might arise with her during the course of the next week. That basically sums up my progress for the lighting as i will now be able to have a decent idea where and what to set the lights on or around. However there is still the issue of exactly what our director Scott wants me to perform, something dramatic as the play looks to be or should we stick with simple fade on fade offs.

Ill do a sum up for the rest of the cast and crew (except Kim and Scott):

• Goofy: My homie seems to be going along well, ill be collaborating with him to work out what sounds (FX) he’ll be wanting to incorporate. Of course as stage manager goofs my main man for the technical stuff and he needs to begin working on his FX soon so I’m able to put down which scene i need to call the shots in.
• Mel: I haven’t seen many props from mel as of yet but i’m not complaining as she has plenty of time to get what little things she needs to obtain. However, Ill be needing to get a full detailed list off her asap to add those to my running sheet.
• Elise: Elise has awesome acting ability and she really does show it when people give her a go. Make-up isn’t really related to any area of stage management. As long as she can get it done before the play begins ill be happy.
• Naomi: I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff from her lately and she sells herself when she is playing Monika. So far i can safely say she has just about everyone costume and has successfully made me get my own waiter costume.
• Yaniv: Yaniv is very funny when acting and it seems as though the character role was actually made based on his real life attributes (not in an offencive way!). Not much to add about his role other then the fact i still dont really have any idea what dramaturgy really does but ey it dont matter

Until next time,

moondy

Now the stage managements role throughout the play can be compared to as much work as the director role. Scotty’s been explaining to me just how challenging the task is. The upside is that lighting works directly with stage management which just makes my life a bit easier by not having to go through a middle man.

Throughout the lesson it was mostly quite and productive with Scott (our director) proclaiming that we had completed the preset amount of pages and that we had 30 minutes to go over our 10 page introduction. The lesson consisted of me trying to plan a table for each page and having 2 columns:

• LX (Lighting Effects) and
• FX (Sound Effects)

Those columns are basically empty as we are still uncertain of if we are looking for a ‘eye candy’ effect or a ‘naturalistic’ effect. Personally, i would opt for the eye candy effect as in my opinion it would add a more personalised effect and could really be used by our ‘over acting’. My idea was to simply use a complex string of lighting events that help direct the audiences eyes to points of interest. For instance, if i was walking in with a tray with my waiter role, the spot light would instantly fade on me, follow me and fade off when i walk off the stage. This could be used with an intelligent light if we have them available.

Another idea i brought up was to have cardboard cut outs as our ‘band’. Then the lighting effects will take care of the rest by using Gels for different colourful effects and combinations while lights focus on certain ‘band members’ to give an almost life like effect. Most people in my group appear to dislike this idea as they think we shouldn’t have any band at all and just get the actors to ‘pretend’ while they are listing to the song (preselected from the script). Boring anyone? I mean seriously now who would want to sit there for 3 minutes staring at the actors looking behind the audience? So all i am asking is for someone like Kim to attempt to get 3-5 life size cardboard cut outs and i would take care of the ‘light show spectacular’.

Nevertheless i will abide by the majority vote on a lot of my decisions as this play is a team production and it should really stay that way. For now though, i am going to try and complete a workout plan for each of the pages and find out the various lighting effects and help goofy with his sound.

 Until next time,

moondy

I also brought up a number of issues with it being slightly irrelevant at the time but i figured I’d rather get them out then keep them in and forget them. So for the most part people disagreed with my BYO idea, because it might offend the principle and various other school hierarchies.

But my question to all of you is this. You seem to be concerned of the highly unlikely event of kids getting drunk, but not of the extremely grotesquely explained references to a mans genitalia?

That’s my 2 cents.

Until next time,

moondy

Just an update surely all should know about. I have just landed the job of being Stage Manager! I think its an awesome title but with great power comes great responsibility. So I’ll do whatever i can to make sure you all get the most out of my amatureish style of thinking (however of course I’ll be learning along the way). So now technically i have 4 jobs! From most important to least important are:

Stage Manager

Lighting

Acting (simple role with no lines, wont require too much learning on my part as i will simply hand over the Stage Manger job over to Scotty and he will take care of it for a minute. Plus i have the script in front of me a lot of the time so i wont need to learn enter and exit ques back to front.)

Multimedia (very little things like our logo, but still collaborates with Kim and willing to help out at promotion whenever needed.)

The 2 in bold are my main concerns obviously. I’ll of course give an even effort at all my roles. I’ll make sure that the Stage Management and Lighting is taken care of BEFORE anything else.

So from a difficult task transformed into mammoth challenge from this new role, i really do think it will be a fun and productive combination and i hope to get as much out of it as possible.

Until next time,

moondy

Due to my poor handwriting i asked our director Scott to take notes on my behalf. Also, i gained a better insight by not having the distraction of taking notes, so it was good to just zone in and hang on every word he said. He seemed to know what he was talking about in every way, he would probably be the best guy to ask when i have completed my first draft lighting plan. Some of the lighting equipment terms really ran over my head, the names were just pretty hard to remember and doesn’t have anything to do with what the light actually does.

 Nevertheless i have constructed a small list of terms here for future reference.

• Gobo: The Gobo is a light that has the ability to split the beam up in certain shapes. You cant add colours. This is probably best used for zoning in on specific areas, highlight crucial characters at the right time. This helps direct the audience where to look.
• Fresnel: A Fresnel is a light that is probably used for a more general lighting effect. The Fresnel has soft edges so it would be used to light up a stage as a general rule. You can add certain colours but its not as controllable as the Gobo.
• Intelligent Light: An Intelligent Light is just what the name suggests. It has the ability to track a character with using signals to and fro the light and the human (using a signal box attached to the human). It can also be operated manually by an operator and has the ability to be a soft or hard edge and can change to any colour desired automatically using a set of pre-configured commands. It is however very expensive and it would most likely not be used within our performance due to the tiny scale and limited movement of our characters. Of course this is not a final ruling.
• Profile- The Profile is the correct name for the light known as the spot light. As the name is self explanatory, the idea of its purpose is simply highlighting an actor and has the ability to focus. Gels can be added but needs to be added manually.
• Parcan: Similar to the Fresnel, its much larger and sports a soft edge spot light.
• Gels: Gels are the coloured disks that can be inserted or already installed in certain lights to give a different colour effect. They are commonly used in most theatre productions as they can have a profound impact on audiences reaction to certain colours (like red suggesting ‘evil’ force is about to be reckoned with).

LX stands for Lighting Effects. Its based around the concept of the well known term FX (Video Effects).

My job now is to sit down and work out where i am able to put down different LX’s instead standard ‘down light’ effect. Many questions are still being decided upon by me and my fellow crew and i hope we can all work together to fully understand and collaborate responsibilities to give everyone a better chance at perfection.

Until next time,

moondy

So far the lighting is going pretty well in terms of research.  I have found a number of interesting techniques but unfortunately due to a lack of knowledge i have not thrown myself on top of one particular idea. The text book examples  (which happen to be of ‘After Dinner’) really gave me some great ideas but i have yet to put them down to paper (mainly because i cant draw for shit).

Acting is somewhat a lesser role for me as i have no talking parts in the play, which can be said to make life a lot easier. However, i do believe i will be working as hard as anyone else of the other performers. I have to make sure the audience can relate to the same experiences that they might have had with a rude and downright prick of a waiter.

I have given myself the task of updating this blog at least once a week but i will most likely have to pile on the blogs when the load of work starts to get to much to keep in me

Until next time,

moondy