Electrician
Throughout my career thus far in the theatrical arts, I have been an Electrician more than anything else. Between helping in the shop in shows that weren’t ‘mine’, or puzzling over some frustrating control issues with intelligent fixtures, I’ve probably racked up more time with a wrench in hand then all my other design work combined.
Though Home and Away comes close.
The following is some of my notation, plots, and other such work from the more intensive projects I’ve been a part of.
Home and Away Plot, Sheet 1
Home and Away
University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance, Fall 2020
So far, Home and Away has certainly been the most challenging electrical work I’ve ever been a part of.
The layout of the plot was not complicated in scope or scale- all said it was a drop-dead simple rep plot. Easy to hang, cable and patch, so there weren’t any noodly instruments or anything of the kind.
The complications came from the confluence of COVID-19 restrictions and safety standards, and the incredibly short time tables.
With the advent of COVID-19, safety guidelines mandated that nobody was to be allowed in-space unless they have a class there. As this precluded our ability to have calls of the entire department, and with the department’s manpower shortage with the graduating class, our work teams were often limited to no more than four students, in for only two or three hours a day.
Combined with the time table I was working with- light sketch was a mere two weeks after the semester started, as our first batch of filming was scheduled for a month in- and it was a hectic time, to say the least.
The eventual solution was not particularly elegant, I’m afraid to say, but it did work pretty well. Coordinating with the Lighting Designers for the first filming session, I prioritized troubleshooting for only those systems that would be used, knocking them out in a few days (remember- I was only allowed in space two days a week, for less than 10 hours total), which allowed me to get a precious few more days to work while the designers did their bit. In the end, I only finished the actual troubleshooting the week of the first filming, with everything after being maintenance and such.
Home and Away, Front of House Plot
Zodiaque Company Spring 46
University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance, Spring 2020
This project was not particularly complicated, in scope or scale, but there were a couple of interesting elements that were out of the ordinary.
The first of these was the use of the electrics as a scenic element for one of the pieces, where they were lowered into the space, evocative of an orchestra shell.
This of course ruined any chance at focusing the lights for that piece, as we did not have access to near the amount of intelligent fixtures to try that. But that was mostly a design problem, rectified with liberal use of side lighting and usage of the movers. What I ended up needing to do was making sure the electrics were as tidy as possible- turning from a lighting element to an scenic one. Past that, a little bit of work on trim heights for when they were lowered to get the effect the LD wanted without removing too much space from the dancers, and the first unusual element was complete.
The second element that required a bit more effort was the introduction of a large 5K lamp as a practical light.
We sourced it from a local news station, but actually implementing it was a bit more of a challenge. For one, the instrument’s cables were insulated with asbestos, thanks to the age of the fixture. As we couldn’t change that ourselves without violating UB health and safety guidelines, we had to outsource that.
The second challenge regarding the 5K was its dimmer situation. Requiring a 50 amp dimmer was a difficulty, considering almost the entirety of the stage is run on handier 20 amp systems.
We ended up salvaging a 50 amp dimmer, and the associated hardware, from out Sky Cyc system, which we replaced with 20 amp dimmer in parallel. We could have done it either way, but in the end it was more convenient to just pull the 50 amp and move it for a downstage drop than it was to drop the 20 amps there.
Emerging Choreographer Showcase
University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance, Fall 2019
ECS was an interesting project that I got to work on during my Lighting 1 course. Although I never did any design work for it, as I was busy working on Guys and Dolls, I did have the chance to do some electrician work, and draft out the rep plot the class agreed to share.
The biggest challenges in this space was just how old everything was. Our instrumentation was fine- the same Source4s and LED bars we’ve used for years. But the actual infrastructure was an absolute mess.
The stage was old, a TV recording booth for a local news agency once, and so it didn’t have any proper DMX or the like. We ended up just running it straight from the booth. Lucky the space was so small- any longer and we wouldn’t have enough cable.
The biggest issue though was the circuits. Or rather, the lack of them. The wiring and layout of the space was fixed- built into the catwalks and the walls of the studio. But perhaps only one in six actually worked- and the notation describing which was which was not up to scratch.
We got it wired eventually, with cables going wherever we had power for each position. Accordingly, the channel hookup was a mess, with no actual organization or thought behind it thanks to the ruined circuitry, but it worked, and it was safe, which is what matters in the end.
Hand Drafting
University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance, Light Lab Grid
Practice makes perfect, or so they say. These two drafts, although I’ll be the first to admit they are rather scant for such terminology, were my first attempts at hand drafting plots. The lineweight is entirely too light, as I was afraid of tearing through the thin paper we used for drafting with my pencils, my lettering is off by a mile, and more besides.
Nonetheless, it was here where I started to learn how to correlate lights on a plot to lights in space inside my head- when plots and photometrics stopped looking like instructions, and started looking like art, and possibilities. Technically minded art, but art nonetheless.
University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance Light Lab Photometrics