Finalizing The Plot

TOC - Creating Other Paperwork

• Checking Systems
• Checking Inventory
• Circuiting
• Channeling
• Accessories
• Specifying Notes

Checking Systems

Now that you have a rough plot, and you've presumably checked that you got all your lighting keys fully written in, it's time to go back and recheck everything. During the time you were working on your plot, the director has undoubtedly changed just about everything about the show. Go back and read the script, talk to the director and designers again, try to look at everything again with a fresh eye. Then walk through the entire show in your mind, applying all the changes you've made, and thinking about how all your lighting systems and specials will play through the piece. Fill in any holes in your design and eliminate any lights you find are unnecessary.

There will be some areas in the script where you are not quite sure what it should look like, or aren't quite sure what the director will finally decide to do with the blocking. This is OK, as long as you have designed enough flexibility into your design that you can handle this sort of contingency. Keep in mind that shows often change during tech, so you may be asked to change the lighting significantly at the last minute. At that time, it's good to have a flexible design, maybe with some extra lights or lights that can serve several purposes.

Checking Inventory

After you are pretty sure you have all the lights you need to achieve your design, you need to double-check your inventory. You've hopefully been doing this as you go along [Eds...need to talk about "pre-renting" earlier...], but at this point you need to combine all your various plots and count up the total number of instruments. For larger shows or if you have the luxury, it's always a good idea to include a few spares, too.

You always have the option to rent instruments if you run short, but if you are way over, or don't have money to do so, then you'll need to eliminate some non-key lights, or compromise in some other way. Regardless, you need to get an accurate count of the number you have of each type of instrument.

Circuiting

The next thing you need to do is circuit your instruments. We've pretty much ignored this until now, which means that we've been assuming that you have as many circuits as you need in any location. For some spaces, like the Mainstage, or in general the Ex, this is approximately true, and so you don't need to worry about this until you get to this point in the design. But other spaces might have much more severe circuiting requirements, in which case this might force you to design around that limitation.

Another limitation that might not strictly be related to the number of available outlets (you can, after all, always rent two-fers) is the number of dimmers. In the Ex, for instance, you have a total of 36 available dimmers. This means, of course, that in general you can only have 36 different sets of lights changing intensity at a given moment. To get more than that throughout a show, you will need to play games with repatching, which becomes a pain in the ass. So, in some spaces, the number of available dimmers may become a limitation of your design.

By the way, if you don't understand how dimmers work and how the various methods of circuiting work, you need to read the Master Electrician section immediately. Although your ME should double-check your work, you can't depend on him or her to catch your mistakes. I'll summarize the procedure below, but a read the ME docs for a more complete discussion.

Each space will be different in the limitations imposed by the circuiting and dimming. You will need to work out ways to get the most out of the available control and cabling (cabling, incidentally, is usually pretty cheap to rent). For instance, you may need to combine several area lights that you would ordinarily keep separate in order to save on dimmers. Or, you may run out of circuits in one hanging position and need to run cabling (if available) from another location in order to connect the last few lights. You can two-fer, if necessary. The most important thing is to ensure that you are following the basic rules of electricity, e.g.:

• The total wattage of lamps attached to a single dimmer cannot exceed the wattage rating of the dimmer.
• The total current running through any segment of cabling or connector cannot exceed the current rating for that connector. Pay careful attention to this when you are two-fering, since two-fers are sometimes only 14ga cable.

You may have to go through several iterations of your circuiting, combining and eliminating lights here to provide you with control over lights there, cutting whole systems that aren't essential, etc etc. Eventually you should find a system that works as well as can be expected with the design that you have. If you decide you need to repatch, you also need to ensure that you will have the crew to do so. You should also aim to make the cabling itself easy to set up. In general, this means circuiting lights with the closest available circuits first, then running cable to remote lights.

Channeling

In most spaces, you should also be able to play around with your channel arrangements. A "channel" represents one control "knob" on your lighting console, e.g. a single fader or numbered control on a computer console. In some systems (like the Mainstage), the needs of the circuiting will determine which dimmers get used by which units and systems, so you won't be able to decide what order the systems appear on your console (leaving aside soft-patch for the moment). In other systems, like the Agassiz, you will be able to decide which dimmers to physically patch individual circuits into. This will often allow you to place similar systems in close proximity on the lightboard. This is desirable to make running the lights easier.

In most modern systems, however, even if the physical patching is determined absolutely, you will still be able to modify this patch in the control console. This is called "soft-patching." When you do this, you can arrange the order in which dimmers appear on your console in any way you want, you can even combine several dimmers into one logical channel (for instance, several dimmers operating a single color of cyc lights). I generally follow a "standard" arrangement of channels, something like this:

One of the main area light systems first, in say channels 1-6, with channel 1 representing the area light for area A, 2 for B, etc. Then the rest of the area lights, say in 7-12, then the toplights, say in 13-18 (again with A as 13, B as 14, etc). Then I proceed to other systems with multiple lights, like sides, washes, etc. Then I move to cyc lights. Finally, I throw in the specials, one by one, in the order in which they are used in the show. If I have the luxury, I might try to start each system on a numbered boundary, like 1-16 are the area warms, 21-36 are the area cools, etc.

You will, of course, develop your own patching schemes. But you should give it some serious thought now when you have the time. A logical patching scheme will save a whole lot of time when you get to tech.

Accessories

You've probably already made lots of notes about which accessories of various types you'll be using with your lighting units. It's now time to work your way through your plot and finish writing them in in a clear way. If things start to get confusing, create a new plate and move some units to that sheet. Draw in things like gobos, irises, floormounts, sidearms, two-fers, tophats, barndoors, etc.

Specifying Notes

The final thing you need to do before you can give the plot to the ME is to write in notes. If there's anything at all that deserves some explanation, go ahead and write a note for it. For instance, note if units are tophung, methods of circuiting if unclear, indicate where repatches during the show will happen, note other special hanging or accessory instructions. Keep going until you are sure that pretty much anybody could figure out your plot with only a little advance knowledge.

You'll also need to number each instrument for easy reference on other paperwork. Units are numbered starting at 1 for the extreme SR instrument on each pipe. Booms start with unit 1 closest to the ground, and pipes that run US-DS are numbered starting with the unit closest to the plaster line. Once this is done, a unit label such as "E1-5" refers to a single unit, in this case the fifth unit from SR on the 1st electric. Note that this also means you'll have to come up with unique designations for each hanging position. Commonly used ones are:

• Electrics, or battens, are pipes above the stage running parallel to plaster line. E1 is closest to plaster, then E2 US of that, etc.
• Beams, or catwalks, are FOH positions in the ceiling, again parallel to plaster and numbered with the one closest to plaster as 1.
• Balcony rail is the position on the front of a balcony, if present. Agassiz and Lowell Lec have balcony rail positions.
• Booms are floor stands onstage. I generally label the booms as BR1, which means the 1st boom US of plaster, on SR.
• Coves are small FOH balconies on the side walls. The Mainstage has coves.
• Tabs are onstage pipes that run US-DS, either on SR or SL.
• There may also be a grid system, in which case there are no canonical names. The Ex has a grid, which has several pipes labelled A-K; instruments can be hung in cells numbered 1-17 on each pipe. So for the Ex, an instrument is labelled as C-12, which specifies that it goes in cell 12 on pipe C, but it would also have a number related to the other units on that pipe.

You can, of course, make up your own labels and numbering schemes, as long as things are very clear and instruments can be uniquely determined and easily located from the paperwork.

TOC - Creating Other Paperwork