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Topics - Aerial

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Tools of the Trade / Bubble Machines
« on: Feb 23, 2010, 11:59 pm »
In my current show, we are using a bubble machine (DJ grade) to create an effect going into a heaven sequence.  The floor has been getting a little slick over time in the area that the bubbles are mainly landing.  We have had some success with laying fresh sawdust over the area and sweeping it up.  We have also made some progress with a strong concentration of ammonia in water (which was used to great success cleaning large quantities of glycerin based blood in a previous production).  Does anyone have any other suggestions of techniques they have used to to clean up slick surfaces?

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Tools of the Trade / mobile printer
« on: May 14, 2009, 01:27 am »
I have started to travel around a lot more recently for work, and I am looking into getting one of those little mobile printers.   I have known a few people who have the Canon ip-90, but that one is just so expensive.  HP makes one that's not as expensive....has anyone ever used that one?  Or others?

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The Hardline / LORT rehearsal/performance hours question
« on: Dec 27, 2007, 07:39 pm »
Background: I'm a PA at a regional theatre that has a company of actors.  We started rehearsal today for one show while we are still in performance for another.  The company signs a new contract for each production.

We encountered a few questions today, that we have been unable to glean answers to from the book.

*Our deputy has brought up that because they have a performance at night, they are only allowed to rehearse 5 1/2 hours (they voted not to rehearse on 2 show days, so we are distributing the 2 hours worth of extra half hour chunks throughout the week).  This surprised our stage manager, who assumed the rehearsal hours in performance sections applied to the same production, not separate productions at the same place.  Has anyone else encountered this?  Do we have to limit the rehearsal hours of the folks involved in both shows per the rule that says there can only be 5 1/2 hours of rehearsal on a one show day?

*Related to that:  If we do have to limit our day to that 5 1/2 hours worth of call, does it have to be consecutive or can there be a meal break in the middle (we were originally going to do a full day, and the director has an newspaper interview during this already scheduled break)?

*Also: How does this affect our span of day? Does the day for the overlapping actors need to be calculated from beginning of our rehearsal to the end of their performance for the other show?

I know we won't get an answer before we have to make a choice and put out our daily, but I'm curious to know what other people think.

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Employment / indicating new plays on a resume
« on: Sep 17, 2007, 12:37 am »
I'm in the process of reworking my resume, and in the last few years I have worked on a large number of new plays.  I'd like my resume to recognize these.  Looking through the Resume Browser, most people list them as World Premiere Production or something similar.  I'm hesitant to use that term, because while some of the shows I've done clearly fit that category, others are less clear cut (having had smaller workshop productions, or the like, in the past).  All of the plays I'd like to classify as new plays were very much in development for the process I worked on them.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might phrase this my resume?  Or is this not even an issue for my resume and better belongs in a cover letter, on an as needed basis?  I'd love to hear people's opinions on this.

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Tools of the Trade / Cleaning Plexiglass Mirrors
« on: Sep 09, 2007, 05:09 pm »
Does anyone have any suggestions on a good method to clean plexiglass mirrors that doesn't leave them all streaky?  We've been using Windex (and the little Windex cleaning cloths, but that just seems to leave them streakier than when we started.  A little dish soap in water with a rag didn't cut it either.  Does anyone have any ideas?

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Uploaded Forms / Scene Timing Grid
« on: Sep 02, 2007, 03:28 pm »
I've been meaning to upload my scene timing grid for some time.  My boyfriend wrote me an excel spreadsheet to do the time math for me  if I just let the stopwatch run, and wrote down successive times.  I've used it for about 2 years now and I love it.  It's not the most intuitive document at first, but once you learn it, it's pretty simple.  Below is the instruction sheet I created to go with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the scene and pages columns you can just input information as you normally would.    At the top of the timing columns there are spaces to input date, and such.  All of these spaces are formulated as text, so whatever your type will appear exactly as typed. 

In the timing columns , you will note that there are actually two columns.  The larger column contains the formula.  You should never type in that column(unless the formula's not working, then you should copy it in from another cell).  The smaller column is where you input each successive time.  It is formatted so that the text is white, so that what is entered into that column is not visible on the final output. 

Times must be entered without their colon.  For example:
12:13 becomes 1213
4:54 becomes 454
0:36 becomes 036

The formula in the large column will take the time you enter and subtract the time in the row above it, so that you end up with the time for just that scene.   

Say scene 1 ends at 2:36.  In the first box in the little column, you enter 236.  In the first box in the large column 2:36 appears.  Then say, scene 2 ends at 5:21.  You enter 521 in the 2nd box in the little column, and in the 2nd box in the larger column 2:45 appears.  Note that it takes into account that math with time is out of 60.

Finally, at the bottom, there is a row that says TOTAL.  In this row, you type in the last time that your stopwatch said.  Unfortunately this version of the scene timing grid does not do the addition for you. 

Another shortcoming of this version of the scene timing grid is that it cannot group sections like acts, because if you interrupt the column of times, the formula starts again.  So this is okay if you restart the stopwatch after every group of things you ultimately want a collective time for, but not if you keep the stopwatch running.

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Next week and the following, I have to go speak to a group of campers at a theatre camp that our local touring house hosts every summer about stage management.  These kids range in age from 8-18, are predominately girls, and are there to perform. Most have no idea what a stage manager does. I talk to each group for 15-30 minutes.  I did it last year, and sort of plowed through it, but I would love to know if anyone has any ideas on how to make what we do seem more interesting to these kids.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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