Thursday, June 15, 2006

Performance Day Analysis

Ok, I've just got home after a very long and tiring day, and I will attempt to make sense of what has happened. I will do this in sections, so that it isn't too much of a tribulation to read. Another point I should make at this is that if my description of events at any stage is a bit on the vague side, it may be because I had to rig and run lights for someone else's performance on the same day as mine!

Morning -
I got into Studio 1 and Jon and Henry had had thoughts on the staging. We compromised and the final stage layout was quite different to what I'd originally looked for; but it looked good.

This also worked for the lighting design, as Jon had partially designed the lighting scheme already.

We had already figured out that this was going to be a very hot day, as by 10am we were very warm.

Once Nick and Claire arrived, we unpacked the van and let them get on with setting up the PA.

SPU mounted the projector from a lighting bar for us, and we began to set up instruments.

Dan had brought 3 Roland pads with him that he set up with an electronic hi-hat sound, an electronic snare sound, and a triangle sound. We attempted to get into the percussion store to retrieve the gong but we couldn't get hold of the keycode. Subsequently we had no mark tree and no gong.

Whilst we were setting this up Jon finished programming the lights.

Once the instruments were set up and Nick had miked them, we started to soundcheck.

Afternoon -
After the soundcheck, we had a run through of the whole show. This was not the greatest run through of all time, but it was clear that it was a lot better than any previous rehearsal so far.

Cathy, bless her, ran up to the library and photocopied the programmes for me. She also agreed to run front of house.

Whilst the musicians have a break to get changed and relax, I helped Tam set up the vision mixer and laptop. For some unknown reason the Chocobo and Balamb Garden video files didn't want to play; something about missing codecs (which shouldn't happen as they were pre-rendered MPEG files). We agree to miss those files out. I talked her through the cues and cue sheet as best I could, but it would take her another run through to have them locked off.

Evening -
Sarah arrived and Jon talked her through his lighting cues so that she could operate the Hog during the show.

The band then got together for a final run-through of all the acts, and they were absolutely note and rhythm perfect. The tricky section in Snake Eater was flawless and I was so impressed.

I quickly reaslised I had 5 cameras to set up, posters and strobe signs to put up, pre-show music to give to Nick, and I had to get changed too, and this was at 7.10pm!

Cathy sorted the posters out for me, and Dan and Stacey put up the cameras. Speaking of cameras, we now had:


  • 1 fixed on Henry,
  • 1 fixed on Dan,
  • 1 fixed on Simon,
  • 1 fixed balcony camera (wide shot of whole band)
  • 1 roving cameras stage left (my brother)
  • 1 roving camera stage right (Dad).

I put a tape in every single one, except I forgot the balcony camera! I then gave Nick the pre-show music CD. The problem was, because I had run out of CD-Rs during this project, I popped the pre-show material on a CD-RW., which didn't play in Nick's CD player! Luckily he found some random tranquil pre-show stuff to play instead, but it mean no One Winged Angel.

By this time the temperature had reached uncofortably warm, but the air conditioning was too noisy to be up high when a performance was on!

I got changed, and hid behind the back door to Studio 1. Jon did too, and the band were already on stage when the assessors and audience arrived.

Jon strode out to take his place, and 10 seconds later, as I did the same and the stage lights went up, I got some applause yay.

The show was a resounding success and I'm so proud of every single person who collaborated with me or worked on the team towards the show. I can't say how pleased I am that things worked out so well, so all I will say is thankyou.

I won't critique the show itself here, but wait for more details on the DVD so that you can all make your own minds up.

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