Having completed years as a house lighting designer and working at several festivals around the globe, I have become streamlined when building punt shows. Rock ‘n’ Roll rarely sticks to a cue stack, so I decided to put together my 10 top priorities for a punt show.
1. Patch
Patching the show is obvious. You have to patch a rig to control it, but there are a few tricks that aren’t obvious.
Make sure that your fixtures are in basic mode. When you are building a punt show, time is precious. Patch your lights in basic or standard mode. You get the same impact.
Patch your fixtures into layers with generic labels. I like to use 4 or 5 layers. Wash, Spot, Strobe, Beam, LED. Keeping your fixtures grouped by generic purpose allows you to change and clone them more easily when the fixture type or locations change.
Keep your fixture profiles handy. Nothing worse than arriving on site and the fixture mode your show is programmed on does not appear in the console. KEEP your profiles. Save it to a stick and again to dropbox.
2. Groups
I usually allow the console to generate my ALL groups for me. The ALL group incudes all fixtures of a fixture type. Then I will take those fixtures and break them into purpose-based groups. Washes, Spots, Strobes, Beams and LEDs.
3. Positions
Program as few position presets as possible. Programming too many positions is time consuming and most of them won’t be used because you won’t have time. I like to use 10 position presets.
Position 1 — This is my workhorse. It is symmetrical, beautiful and effective. The front light covers the entire band, the sidelights are hitting the stage, the sharpies are in an array, etc.
Position 2 — is very similar to Position 1 but it crosses the beams when they move.
Position 3 — is similar to Position 1 but is farther upstage so that when my tilt effects spill into the audience I can throw them into Position 3 to bring them back to the stage.
Position 4 — is similar to Position 1 but it’s asymmetrical and abstract. I use this position when the song is weird and I’m tired of symmetry.
Audience — I point the lights at everyone in the audience except me and I save this as a position for later use.
DSC — This will be used for lead singers
DSL/DSR — This is usually where the guitar player will be and the random MC that wants to make an exciting announcement before the show.
Drums — There is often a drum solo. Be prepared for it.
50/50 — Tilt at zero and pan at zero. Prevents flips when focusing.
4. Colors
I try to use color-mixing fixtures whenever possible when punting. Poorly timed color wheel scrolls can ruin a look for too easily, but are often unavoidable. Having a huge color selection is key for a programmed show, but when time is important, you need to limit your palette. I program my colors in this order: OPEN, Congo, Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Pink, Yellow, Orange, Red, CTO, LED White.
I store all of the color attributes for the fixture into each color. Many color mixing fixtures cannot mix a bright green or blue. They are nice to bump between. Now I can bump between the color wheel and a color mix color without worry that the wheel will get stuck in color when I change. Same applies to the CTO channel.
I build an executor button for each color separated by spots and washes. When punting, I limit my looks to two colors. When punting, you need to keep it simple but effective.
5. Moles/Audience Blinders
Audience Blinders are crucial. Do not abuse the audience with blinders. I see too many young designers use the moles as a kick snare and they smash the audience in the face with Mole Richardson for 45 minutes. Stop it.
I usually build three faders that double as flash bumps:
Odd
Even
Sine Wave (A sine wave effect through all of the blinders that adds some sparkle)
6. Strobe Hits
I store six strobe hits, depending on the heavy metal of the band.
Odd/Even — Odd/Even half-flash bumps that I can tap with time when necessary
Pulse — Slow, pulse-y strobe with no color information
Random — Random strobe with no color information
RANDOM — Fast random strobe that takes the strobes to open white
NUKE — Super fast random strobe that takes the strobes to open white and includes beam fixtures.
HYPER BURST— Put the strobes or Flares at full intensity — no strobe rate = retina burn.
7. Movement
I want to maximize my fixture movement options on as few faders as possible. In order to do that, I build four different movement faders set up as temp faders that Crossfade the cue on when pulled up, and off when pulled down. This allows me to have a small/slow movement look and a big/fast movement look on the same fader dependent on speed and rate. I attach all of my movement effects to a speed master that lives on the main punt page.
Wash Pan Sine — All of my U.S. Wash fixtures in a pan sine wave effect.
Wash Tilt Sine — All of my U.S. Wash fixtures in a tilt sine wave effect.
(If I push up both faders, I can get a ballyhoo/circle effect, depending on the crossfade. Repeat the cues with the spot fixtures.)
8. Color Effects
I apply the same thought process as my movement faders to my color effects. I want as many color options taking up minimal desk space.
I build three effects that are attached to a speed master: a cyan flag sine wave, a magenta flag sine wave and a yellow flag sine wave. One at a time, I apply these effects across an effective group of my upstage color-mixing spot fixtures. I store each effect to a temp/crossfade ICBF/Overide fader. This gives me thousands of two-color effects on three faders. If I simultaneously push up the cyan and the magenta fader to full, I will get a Congo/white chase. If I push up the magenta and the yellow faders, I will get a red white chase. You get the idea.
9. In-Between Look
I always build a crossover look on a fader that is easily accessible. This is a simple blue wash with a front wash that works between songs.
I also add a macro into the cue that kills all the running effects and resets the colors of the upstage fixtures. This allows me to get out of whatever hectic look I am in from the prior song and give me a clean slate.
10. Haze/Smoke
I separate haze from smoke whenever possible. I keep haze on all the time and save smoke for big moments in the song.
Chris Lose is a lighting director, content designer and programmer with Las Vegas-based Q3 Las Vegas.
