Not That Guy
I advance the lighting specs on every gig my acts play. I know I cannot get my rig more than half the time. I’m okay with that. I ask for certain types of movers if I can get them, and show producers are usually accommodating. That’s because I try to not be “that guy.” You know him. The LD who needs his 120K of PARs and eight movers, and nothing else will do, because that’s his skill set. Dedicating one of the dozen movers on the front truss as the lead guitarists’ key light is not an option. He needs those four lekos he demands more than the 100 moving lights provided. Myself, I only need a good working console with some wash lights, some hard edge fixtures, maybe some strobes. And a house programmer with a clue.
I actually don’t need a programmer as much as I need someone to set up a light board in advance so all the fixture attributes are in the console before I arrive. When I advance the lighting, I make sure to tell the programmer that it would be extremely helpful to me upon arrival if they have some generic focus positions already in the console along with the usual basic color palettes. This is not much to ask. I can take 150 movers and come up with six focus positions for all of them in one hour. So can most programmers, if they’re good. The way I see it, these programmers are there days before I get there. I may show up on a plane at 11 a.m. and walk into the gig at 1 p.m. for a 3 p.m. sound check and dinner at 6 p.m. I don’t necessarily have that hour to focus and generate color palettes. But I know the local guy did over the last couple days. If not, they should skip the hour lunch that day and work while somebody brings them a sandwich. That’s what pros do.
Ten Colors, Please
I can walk up to a console and, in 10 seconds, tell if the programmer is any good. Simply by looking at how they built the color palettes on the console. Programmer Craig Caserta has a unique, legendary way of making hundreds of color palettes in increment values of CYM. It’s well-thought-out and cool. But I don’t need it. I look at programmer Eric Wade’s amazing colors, and he has them listed per Rosco or Lee color swatch books, perhaps with descriptive names like tangerine orange and sky blue. Again, this is really happening stuff, and I get it. But I don’t need it today. I just need ROYGBIV along with white, pink and magenta. Ten colors. If I arrive and the house programmer shows me his two cue stacks of color labeled hot and cold, I know he’s not in my league. You punt that way on consoles limited to eight faders, not ones with 30 faders and 80 flash buttons.
Most of all, I need every color palette to have all the color attributes recorded into them. Moving lights have color mixing systems. They have color wheels and color correction filters. When I press a color palette that is labeled “white,” I expect the CTO level to go to daylight. I expect the color wheel to default to the open slot; I expect all the color mixing wheels to go to open white. So the same theory applies if I hit a palette that says “Blue mix.” I certainly do not need a color wheel in any color than the open slot on the wheel or the CTO lens to be in any variation but white. I use color wheels all the time in blue and green looks. Most arc lights cannot cut through the physical color mixing systems in green, so the amount of lumens emitted is dismal. I use the green color wheel to get what I want. But if I bump from my “Green wheel” palette to my amber color-mixing palette, I can’t leave the green wheel in while mixing amber colors, or the light output will go to black. So I open any color palette on the desk and look at the values for each color attribute. If some were left blank, I lose respect right there for the programmer. I did a live televised gig last week. I spoke with the well-known programmer ahead of time and trusted him. When I showed up, he had two focus positions in his console and all his color palettes needed to be redone. My four hours of assigned programming time soon became 2.5 as I did his job. He was of no help to me.
Random Fixture Profiles
Perhaps the biggest argument in the history of lighting consoles is “Who should write the fixture profiles — the user or the console manufacturer?” Well, with the world’s most popular console, one may search and find five different fixture libraries for the same unit posted on their site. Which one is correct? Nobody knows, and I don’t assume the one written by the console manufacturer is the best. I have found this out the hard way. I call other programmers for advice. For instance, I have tried several versions of the console fixture profiles for Aryton’s MagicPanel fixture. I have had issues with several of them, including the one provided in the GMA2 console. So I use a custom one that Chris Lose gave me. He happens to be a clever grandMA2 programmer who also is affiliated with Morpheus Lights, the folks who distribute the fixture in the U.S. He knows it inside out. So last week, when I walked in to a show and saw that the local LD was using the fixture profile provided in the console, I just cringed. I had no idea what was going to happen at this gig, and the way I usually run the fixture was totally different than the one that was in the console.
On the other hand, I can’t say enough good things about LD Jesper Luth. This guy runs lights for Hall and Oates and must play a hundred of these one-offs per year. He also designs corporate gigs, keeping in mind that he knows what good lighting punters require. I walked into a ballroom at 1 p.m. last week and sat at the console. The only focus I needed was a generic band wash. Everything I could possibly need to program was right in front of me. In one hour, I was done. I had a perfect punt page with every button and fader on the full size grandMA2 console.
Not only was Jesper my hero that day, I now know that he could cover me on any show, because he knows how to punt properly.
