For the Christmas show we had an allocated slot for the lighting team to rig lights, unfortunately because of the set design we was not able to access one of our lighting bars. On this particular bar there were four moving lights on the plan. To make it easier we rigged these in everyone else’s lunch hour before all of the set was put in to the theatre. We done this by bringing the bar down as far as it would allow to try and reach working height. We then rigged the moving lights equal distance apart as on the plan. They are rigged by using the G hook clamp and safety bond which is rated for the weight of the light. As they are moving lights we could not use the dimming channels and they were being used by other lights. To solve the issue we then run power to them from one of the wall boxes which has a sixteen amp outlet. They would then have power but no signal so the next step was to run DMX. The DMX works by connecting all the lights in a chain; to make it easy we started at one end of the lighting bar and worked towards the wall box which has DMX socket. Now the moving lights will have power and signal to the lighting desk. All moving lights are slightly different but will either have a lamp or L.E.D; for a rig full of generic lights you would simply warm them by doing a rig check and slowly bringing the level up over time. For L.E.D moving lights they do not need to warm up but always worth checking in a rig check. The other light source in a moving light is a lamp, after powering them up you will need to lamp them on which means they need to warm up before you can use them. When powering down you will need lamp them off before turning the power off; the reason for this is because you need to let them turn off gradually, if you just pull the power out you effect the lamp in reducing the amount of hours you can use it for. Each lamp should have a rated amount of usage, usually in hours. A moving light will pull more power when lamping on as it takes more power light up than to run it, each moving light will have a start-up power rating and a running power rating

The actors did not come in today as the set is not finished yet, so whilst the construction team were finishing it off. We set up the production desk on the seating bank.

I also rigged four birdies on the set, there are two inside each structure to light behind the scrim just in case the directors want to put anyone behind there for a scene or tableaux.

At one o’clock was the final production meeting, I filled everyone in one what we had done that morning and found out that plotting will begin tomorrow afternoon.

After the meeting I led the rest of the team in setting up the footlights and birdies, I did this by linking the footlights into three groups (Center stage, stage left and stage right) and using grelco's to link the birdies together on each side. This meant that only five dimmers were needed and I could fit everything into one spider under the stage, I then ran socapex to the upstage left wall box and used another spider to plug everything into the dimmers.

I then left my team  to put in some A7’s behind the cyc (for back-light) whilst I started making groups and palletes to make things easier tomorrow.

I also created this floor plan to show the location and channel numbers of the birdies, footlights and the two new A7's:

Today we rigged in the auditorium for oh what a lovely war. This is the lighting plan:

Generic lights:

           When rigging generics the first thing you should do is hook the clamps onto the bar (use the lighting plan to ensure you are putting the right lamps in the right places.) Make sure the bolt is out far enough for the hook to go all the way down to the bar it shouldn't be hovering. Make sure that the lantern is facing the right way by looking at which direction it is pointing in on your plan, the fixtures cable should be at the bottom.. Once the light is properly hooked onto the bar, tighten the bolt (Hand tight is fine, if you do it too tight you will probably just dent the bar.) Put the safety chain around the bar, if the chain is not attached to the light then put it through the bracket, make sure you do not put the safety chain around any cables.

              Plug the light into the dimmer socket, if it does not reach you can use 15amp TRS cable to extend the reach of the plug. Making sure that there is enough slack left for focusing, tape the excess cable to the bar (If needed) to keep everything tidy and in place. Finally open up any barn door or shutters, if they are left closed then this could cause the person patching the lights into the desk to think they are not working.

Moving Lights:

                   Moving lights are rigged the same way as generic lights except that they require hard power and cannot be dimmed, this may sometimes mean that they are plugged into a separate socket from the ones on the bar, if there are many lights on one bar you may need to use ray guns to loom them together if there are not enough sockets.

Today we rigged and focused in the venue. Ollie (Our designer) went home ill so we had to do our best without her.

There are four bars in the venue, one has four source 4’s on it , one has two 1k fresnells and two source 4’s, one has 2 500w fresnells & a par can on it and the last one has four par cans and two source 4’s.

We have rigged and gelled them and focused what we could as we are having problems with the dimmer pack.

Also today we had another production meeting for Oh what a lovely war, the notes I made were:

General notes: Same seating as dance show - 148 seats available. Tickets cost £10, £8 concession, tables cost £10 per ticket and you must buy all five seats for the table. Using 2 projectors, one for video and one for song lyrics. Due to budget and time limits the will be no aerial work.