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Messages - abhibeckert

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1
I?ve got a bit more experience with this now.

My setup is an iPad with an Apple Pencil (stylus), a wireless keyboard, and a stand to prop the iPad upright when I?m using it on a desk.

The script was already a word document, but I made sure the director converted this to a PDF to guarantee the page numbers never move.

For my personal copy I used a somewhat convoluted process to add margins to the PDF so that it is the same width and height as the iPad (in landscape orientation), with the page in the middle and large margins left & right. I do this so that I never have to scroll around a page.

I use the Pencil to draw a box around a cue line and a line from there to a note in the margins. This process is seamless and efficient ? I?m able to do a rough draft during rehearsals then tidy it up later at home when I have time to think about wording and timing.

During the tech rehearsal I quickly decided this wasn?t working for me. The iPad is great for data entry, but I can?t stand using it to read the script. I like to peak a few pages ahead to check details of an upcoming scene change/etc and sometimes and this works better with paper. So I?ve printed my digital script and used colour coded highlighters on all of my calling cues/etc.

I used the iPad all through rehearsals and switched to paper for the first tech rehearsal.

Overall I?m very happy with this setup. Crisp black printed text in a small font is much easier to read under dim backstage lighting and the ability to make changes easily means I?m more likely to to correct slight mistakes.

I tried a bunch of apps and I?m not sure which one I like best yet. Anything that can annotate a PDF will work at the end of the day.

2
I'm not a fan of working with Microsoft Word - two computers printing the same document can have inconsistent page numbers. I try to work with PDF files - where edits are done by replacing entire pages.

There are various tools for adding notes to PDF files, but I recently discovered Stage Write and will try that for my next show.

The basic process is to import a PDF, then overlay it with sound cues, blocking notes, general notes/etc.

You can also chart the stage with blocking / set pieces / props / etc - these are then linked into the script PDF with a reference number.

Then you can either print the calling script or call it from within the app.

Again I've only played with it - but it looks really good.

3
Tools of the Trade / Re: Sound Software
« on: May 14, 2019, 10:00 pm »
I think QLAB is definitely the way to go. A Mac Mini is very cheap and you can save money by going secondhand (just make sure it has an SSD -  it required but much more reliable).

The “basic” license for QLAB is free and probably has all the features you need.

I wouldn’t use a laptop - the ergonomics are all wrong for long periods at a desk. For our sound desk we have a Mac Mini and a MacBook Pro - with the MacBook Pro used for training and as a backup.

As for cabling that will depend on your sound system. With our old sound desk we just used the headphone jack. With the current one it’s a USB cable.

4
We had closing night on the weekend... I'm exhausted.

Generally things went better than I expected, the biggest issue being some jokes that were never quite on point, however the main issue was a lot of social tension in the greenroom - I think largely caused by the added level of stress.

Thanks for the support and best wishes.  :)

5
Thanks for the advice. It's a niche play written relatively recently, so no chance of finding someone who's done it before. And everyone involved in the show is either unsuitable or unavailable for the entire run. Our prompt and voice/accent coach would have been perfect for example, but he will be out of town starting in a few days.

We spent an hour brainstorming names and making phone calls last night, and found someone experienced who could drive in immediately to do a full run of the show, script in hand while everyone else ran it as a full dress, rehearsal ran until midnight and was very exhausting, but went far better than I ever could have expected.

I think this is going to work.

Thanks for the advice on making a script for reading on stage - that will work well I think.

6
We’re two days out from opening night and our lead has had a heart attack today - I’m told the doctors think he will be ok but definitely can’t do the show.

We don’t have an understudy and are looking for someone willing to pick up a major role where they need to memorise 20 pages of dialog where they’re doing almost all the talking.

Does anyone have advice to help someone learn the show as quickly as possible?

I’m thinking of wiring up an ear piece so someone can prompt if necessary in the first few shows. Has anyone tried that? I wonder if it would be distracting.

Edited to add topic tag- Maribeth

7
For my last show we had up to 25 people on a small stage at the same time, often with a lot of movement.

We captured every scene on video, including the director telling people if they needed to be a step to the left. Videos were posted to facebook for everybody to watch/memorise/reference.

For notations I kept it simple "X to DSR" and so on, where "X" might be a person or a whole group. More concerned about timing in relation to the script than precisely describing the action.

8
For my last couple of shows I've started printing double sided with a large margin. Less sheets of paper means less weight, smaller folders, less space on my bookshelf at home (I keep all my folders).

I print at about A5 size in the centre of an A4 page. Nearly all my notes go on the outside margin (opposite the holes), but will use both sides sometimes.

I keep most of my notes short and to the point and write small, with a 0.3mm mechanical pencil, and once things stop changing I re-do all my notes with a 0.3mm Zebra Sarasa black pen (amazing pen!) for improved legibility. I also switch from pencil underlines to highlighters during this process.

Plus I have thin colour coded adhesive tags everywhere. Thousands of them.

I use full notes at first, but for most of the script switch to abbreviations. If someone else calls my show they might see "Robert Enter DSL" above an orange tag, but later on it will be "R. DSL" above the tag. By then they will have learned Orange always means an entrance and there's only one character with an "R" initial.

Sometimes I insert a blank sheet of paper as "page 42.5" for additional notes. So far I've only ever needed that for the beginning of the show and interval.

Finally, I use the binder for storage and transport. During the show or rehearsal I'm working with loose sheets. That way there are no rings and I can jump to other pages without losing my place. If I need to discuss something in detail, I can just grab that page and walk over to another person, instead of trying to carry the entire folder.

Being relatively new (5 shows) I'm still developing my system, but this seems to work well.

9
Tools of the Trade / Re: Breaking and reforming a board
« on: Dec 09, 2018, 06:39 pm »
Velcro will be hugely obvious to the audience. Every night a great big RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPP will be heard by everyone in the space.
3M sells something similar to Velcro that doesn't use there regular hook and loop system. Instead it has thousands of straight pins that slot into each other.

They sell it in white or black for picture frame hanging, not sure if it's available in tape form.

They come apart silently, and have stronger sheering strength (but weaker pull-apart strength).

10
Stage Management: Other / Re: Circus
« on: Dec 03, 2018, 06:42 pm »
My dad is involved in circus (though mostly as a musician) and he brought me in to work as crew a few for a few travelling shows. He doesn't like how animals are treated in circus so hasn't got involved in any circus with animals.

I think the biggest difference is the show revolves around a particular skill the talent has created on their own, it can take several years to develop a 30 second stunt before it's good enough to perform on stage and they "own" that work, taking it to various productions over their career.

If they're having trouble finding work, they'll often do small shows on their own with no production and no crew at all. Sound is often edited to the point you hit "play" before they walk on stage and hit "stop" after they walk off, or sometimes it's controlled via foot pedals on stage.

Compared to theatre the talent plays a much bigger role in deciding how their act should be done, what safety precautions are required, and often they provide their own props/costumes/music/etc especially if these are integral to the act, though of course changes are always made to integrate various acts into a cohesive show, which is where our job would come in.

My "crew" role was just setup/takedown and then during the show I was doing front of house stuff. There were some people doing proper crew work during the show but nowhere near as many people as a theatre production would have.

11
Tools of the Trade / Re: Dressing Room Mirror Lights
« on: Dec 02, 2018, 10:16 pm »
We've had a terrible heat wave the last couple weeks and I've been struggling to manage temperatures especially during matinee runs.

Our mirrors use standard E27 bulbs and it was bad enough we considered removing every second one, just deal with the reduced light. But in the end we installed LED bulbs. They generate almost no heat — perfect.

I wouldn't assume that's true of all bulbs, at full brightness my LED torch gets dangerously hot (I've burned my fingers a few times). Fortunately don't use it at full brightness very often.

Beware a lot of dimmable LEDs "lower" their brightness by basically strobing at full brightness. Gives some people a headache, the lower the brightness the worse it is.

12
As a computer programmer who works with databases for this kind of stuff at my day job all day...

For stage management I prefer to keep it simple and go with a spreadsheet. I actually prefer even simpler, and use the "table" functionality in my word processor, because those tend to print better. And the printed contact sheet in my folder is the only one I care about.

Make sure there's plenty of blank space next to each entry so you can write stuff down. And if you're sharing the contact list with other people, make sure to include a date when the document was last updated.

Inevitably there will be corrections or additions you'll need to make to your contact sheet, and when you're flat out busy it's easier to make those corrections with a pencil on the printed copy. Once you have a spare 20 minutes, then you can type it up and re-print a fresh contact sheet.

Nothing beats the flexibility of paper. You tried to call and it went to voicemail with someone who sounds 30 years too young? With paper you can underline and add "wrong number?" in the margin. With a spreadsheet or database unexpected things like this can be a headache.

Also make sure you can open (and edit) the document on your phone.

13
Tools of the Trade / Re: Smart Watches
« on: Nov 07, 2018, 08:49 pm »
Sorry to bring up an old thread... but it's been a year now and smart watches are getting better.

In some ways they're frustrating — for example, I really wish mine had *seconds* on a digital watch face, is really that too much to ask?!

But overall they're great. For example it has the best stopwatch I've ever seen, with four completely different visual modes to display the same data, depending on the situation is.

I love being able to leave my phone at my desk while still being able to make and receive calls/text messages... those are a distraction during a show but they're oh so important in the couple of hours before the show starts. When someone's car breaks down and needs to be picked up, it's invaluable to receive that call immediately instead of being greeted by a voicemail whenever I happen to be at my desk next. And I like not having to check my phone regularly to see if there are any voicemails.

Once the show does start, simply flip the "do not disturb" switch and the distraction is gone. My pre-show procedure includes a reminder to do that.

When I work as crew, I like how mine (an Apple Watch) is available in an entirely black model, with no white writing or shiny silver or glow in the dark dots that would prevent me wearing a typical watch during a scene change. It even has a theatre mode where the screen stays off unless you tap the touchscreen with a finger. I like to run a stopwatch for the length of each act and take note of how many minutes into the show each of my tasks usually happen. When I have a break, I find it easier to relax if I can glance at my wrist and see how much longer I've got before needing to be in position.

I frequently use the voice assistant to take notes when I haven't got my pen and paper handy. Usually I just set a reminder to write something down later on.

I feel like there's a lot more I could use it for - there are smartphone apps for stage management but none for a watch that I’ve seen. And it seems like a smartwatch plus wireless headphones could be part of a perfect comm system. But even without those things it’s already indispensable to me.

14
I have, so far, been mostly lucky. The only time I've been sick was very early in the rehearsal phase (we had barely finished auditions). In that case it was definitely the best option to stay home, even though I was healthy enough to do my job. The last thing anyone wants is to make everyone else sick.

Later on in rehearsals and certainly while running the show, in my experience everyone comes in no matter how sick they are. I've seen people vomiting into a bucket seconds before and after going on stage, but somehow still performing so well you couldn't tell from the audience. The last time I saw that happen was someone with a minor role who could easily have been cut from the show and nobody in the audience would notice.

Sometimes major changes have been made to reduce the workload of the sick person. Ranging from swapping two crew members to cutting out physically demanding parts of a show to having someone who lost their voice just mouth the words while someone behind a curtain spoke their lines and sang their songs.

The only time I can remember someone missing a performance it was the sound operator, who was in hospital with an illness so sudden we had to find a friend in the audience, who had never even seen the show, to operate sound that night (and she came back every night for the next week). For scenes with complicated sound cues we had a second person who was familiar with the show, but didn't know how to operate a sound desk, sitting next to them helping out.

For me that night demonstrated how critical it is for everybody to strictly turn up by the final call time. And when I'm Stage Manage anyone who is especially irreplaceable is given an even earlier call time, so that if they don't turn up I have as long as possible to figure out how to deal with the situation. I have had complaints about unreasonably early call times, but most people are happy to relax in the greenroom for a while.

I sympathise with your stage manager. If you really are too sick, then it would be really really helpful if you could somehow still come in even if all you do is spend a few minutes telling your replacement what they need to do.

In an ideal world, I agree nobody should be working while sick. But sometimes that's just not an option - and when you do call, rather than saying "I can't come in" try to approach it as a discussion of how the situation can be dealt with. You're likely to get more sympathy that way, and maybe they'll just say "No worries, we can manage without you. I hope you feel better tomorrow!"

15
Introductions / Hello there
« on: Nov 07, 2018, 06:21 pm »
Hi, I'm a relatively new but very passionate stage manager who has managed a few shows at The Rondo Theatre in Cairns, Australia and before that done ASM/Crew at a few small theatres around the area.

My current show is Santa the Adventure Begins! — a Pantomime written by the director, Noelene Reese, which opens at the end of this month. It's a show full of dancing and music mixed with endless annoying dad jokes, performed by a cast of 25, mostly children who also do competitive cheerleading, and a few very strong singers.

For now all my work is volunteer stuff, though I might like to make a profession out of it some day.

At my day job I work as a computer programmer at a small local startup.

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