When the alarm went off at 4:15 this morning, I was dreaming that the alarm was just a dream. Unfortunately for me, it was the dream that was a dream and the alarm was real. We had a 5:00 a.m. call for a 5:45 load-in and it felt like it. After everything was unloaded and set up, I turned on the console and I wished I was dreaming again. The first thing I did was to try to grab the spot fixtures and make sure they were working. I was working with a HogPC with a programming wing and a playback wing. On a Hog, to grab fixtures I usually push the Group button until the display highlights the fixture group I’m looking for, then I type in the fixture numbers. But when I pushed the Group button, as soon as I would start typing in the fixture number it would jump to Catalyst instead of Spots. What the…? I tried it again and again, over and over with the same results. I tried staring at the console very long and very hard but that didn’t help. With just a few minutes to doors I wished harder for dreamland.
My intuition told me to look in the patch, so I did. I found six spot fixtures patched to DMX addresses starting at 300, and…light bulb!…fixture numbers starting at 101. Now I understood the problem. When I started typing the fixture number, since there was no spot number 1 but there was a Catalyst number 1, the console naturally assumed I wanted the Catalyst, not the spot. With my newfound knowledge, I went back and pushed the Group button until it went to spots, then I typed in 101 through 106, and, viola, there they were.
An assistant had patched the console and he assigned fixture numbers by fixture type – spots starting at 101, wash fixtures starting at 201 and conventionals starting at 301. I assumed that he didn’t understand the patching functions of the console, so when I saw him I explained my "problem" with it and I explained that it’s okay to assign DMX addresses according to fixture type but that the fixtures could be numbered by type starting with 1, i.e., spots 1 through 6, wash fixtures 1 through six, etc. To my surprise, he said he did that on purpose. He explained that by numbering them by fixture type, you didn’t have to push the Group button, you could just type in 101 and it would automatically grab that fixture because it’s unique. I didn’t know that was an option.
My initial reaction was, no, that’s wrong. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I thought back to a book I recently read called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. The premise of the book is that rapid congnition – your impression the first couple of seconds after an event – can be very powerful and useful. He calls it "thin slicing." The part on which I was reflecting was about the art of improvisational comedy. According to Gladwell, the reason improv works is because the actors have been instructed to accept any premise. So if, for example, one of the actors says, "Didn’t I see you downtown in a chicken suit?," then if the other actor says no, it doesn’t work. The magic happens when everyone accepts any premise. I thought that was a very useful gem that could work in almost any situation. So instead of dismissing the assistant’s idea out of hand, I decided to embrace it and give it a try. Well, the jury is still out. I was able to grab any fixture I wanted but I’m not totally convinced it’s a better way to go since you have to remember the fixture numbers. But I want to try it for a while and see if it sticks.
There is more than one way to do things, and sometimes you can get tunnel vision and become locked into your habits. When it comes to programming, there are many different ways to do things – You say potato, I say pappas con huevos – that doesn’t mean either way is right or wrong, just different.
Now, back to bed and that dream.
