Day 16

Sorry, I don't have a picture today. I didn't have time to break out the camera. I also vowed not to take "snapshots", but also compose something. It's getting trickier to find a composition, but I will keep trying.

Another chilly day, and some more long-term project work. Not a big post today, as I keep forgetting to write down what i'm working on so I can come back and write about it.

We set up two "trap" cameras today. A trap camera is a dedicated camera used for a specific purpose (In lighting design/electrics, these are called "specials"). The current show rehearsing on-stage is "Madame Butterfly", and it has a motorized, revolving set piece. The operator does not have a clear view of the stage, and they will not move the set there is an obstruction or person in the way. This is where the "video" part of my job comes in. It's our job to give this operator a clear view of every angle of this set piece and the surrounding stage. Ideally, we would put a camera directly above the piece and shoot straight down. Unfortunately, the piece consumes almost half of the stage, and I would need to be much higher than the catwalks to get such a wide shot.

There's a tremendous amount of logistical creativity that goes into this job, because in this case, it's not just where the camera points. You also need to know:

• How is the camera getting power? where is the nearest outlet? Did you bring an extension cable? Is that outlet already in use?
• How is the video distributed? Is it going into a video jack, or directly to the control room? Is there anything already in the video jack? Can it be re-routed?
• Is the camera going to interfere with any other equipment or departments? When you hang a camera in the catwalks, is it going to interfere with the lighting crew?

So it's not just about "hanging a camera", if you can answer these questions successfully, then you can hang your camera. If you get upstairs and have nowhere to plug into for power or video, then your camera isn't going to do jack squat.

Since we can't hang directly above the set piece, we need to hang farther away and at an angle. I find a fantastic spot immediately outside the spot booth to get a front shot of the set piece. Unfortunately, the handheld monitor I brought with me to focus the camera wouldn't work, so I went into the spot booth to grab another one. That didn't work either. Luckily, the remaining one did. I focused the camera, and ran it's cable along the pipe in the catwalk, and dropped it down to an available video jack.

Except the video jack was ripped apart and didn't work. Great. I had to stop working overhead because rehearsal was beginning on-stage, and all overhead activities are banned for fear of dropping and breaking something (or someone).

As for the front trap camera outside the spot booth, we decided to use a video jack nearby that was used for a conductor monitor inside the spot booth. There are two monitors in the spot booth, both getting the same feed from separate jacks. We tied the two monitors together to get the feed from the same jack, and plugged our camera into the newly freed jack.

We also hung a rear camera, so the operator could see the back of the set piece as well, giving access to all angles and making sure everything is clear before moving the set piece.

If you remember the photo of the stage management desk that I took a while ago, you'll remember a large TV on the top of it. Along with that TV, there are other small, 9" monitors that show trap camera feeds. Those usually sit on the upper right shelf, not within easy sight of the stage manager. Karl asked me to construct a shelf that can hold three 9" monitors, as well as the larger TV on top.

I spent the rest of the day drafting, cutting, gluing, constructing and painting said shelf. I'll put a photo up of the completed project.

It's really difficult to do any moderate to intensive A/V projects when rehearsal is taking place on-stage. the A/V team gets in at 9am, rehearsal starts at 10am, breaks at 1pm, and then works from 2pm to around 4:30pm, and we go home at 5pm. If you schedule your lunch right, you have a fragmented two and a half hours to make noise and work overhead. Some of our projects are fairly intense, and we need several hours to complete start to finish. I don't understand why we don't come in around 7am. Even if we only do it once or twice, we would get lots of undisturbed work time. It frustrates me that we can't work overhead, but I completely understand that the rehearsal on-stage has priority. There's only so much work we can do before we need to make noise.

Goal for tomorrow: Haul ass at clock-in, and push the limit to when I have to leave the roof (I won't stay up there after rehearsal starts, of course. I'm learning, Tracy!)

-Matt