My working day

Exif data

2011-10-12T00:41:00.000+01:00

Must remember to remove the exif data, or change it in some of the photos I give to people. This is because Facebook seems to want to automatically use the copyright in the description and so my web address is being published.
Not that this is a bad thing... more that it has caught me unawares and it currently points here... so you can see that I'm a little out of date!
Maybe this is a kick I need to get this blog running again?
Lets see...

Blimey.. not again!

2011-04-14T21:28:00.000+01:00

Sorry, not neglecting you. Just I've been boring myself recently and didn't want to inflict it on you.
Interesting post coming up over the weekend.. promise! :o)

RCF ART 322A attention

2011-03-29T21:27:00.009+01:00

You remember this post where I found out where the awful smell and not a lot of noise was coming from? Well the spare parts eventually came (note to self, try to avoid Italian kit.. getting burned too often by it!).
So here I thought, just gotta pop this in and away we go again. Erm, no.
Well the new driver went in well enough, unfortunately when hooked up to a signal not a lot came out. Bugger!
Here I was in two minds. This came from the perceived closed boxed'ness of an active speaker - you'd think it was more complicated than an outboard amp for some reason?
On the one hand I just wanted to pass the problem on to someone else.
And on the other there was no way I wanted to pay SLX to just look at it for £70 to find that it was an easy fix or totally knackered.
Naturally I got my screwdriver out. This is what I saw and did:

RCF ART 322A - Backplate

1. Just take out the slightly larger screws from the backplate housing

2. Prise the guts out and lay somewhere handy and then unscrew the little screws from the zinc plated covering that goes around 3 sides. Remove this cover leaving the back plate, centre electronics, an end support and heat sink.

RCF ART 322A - amp hanging out

RCF ART 322A - not a lot to see here!

3. Now, there aren't many 'user serviceable parts' inside here but there are quite obviously two fuses!

I took a look at these... hummmm there appears to be an airgap inside them. Sweet, could this be it?

RCF ART 322A - see the fuses? They are it for user serviceable.

4. So pop em out and wander round to the stores to get replacements... F4A... knickers, everything but... ok then Maplin next... Ah, everything but. Ho humm. Fine, CPC for next day, everything but too... blimey these fuses are weirdly rare?
Ah, of cause, Italian... they wouldn't consider it good design if you could order parts easily!! Anyway... RS came up with the goods.
£1.17 for 10 fuses inc postage... Awesome. They came today.. got stuffed straight in... and... Woop... firing on both drivers again :)

I'm glad I at least looked at - let alone fixed this speaker as when you have little bits of knowledge like this in your arsenal you can really save someones day, not to mention wallet! :)

Mind: I was still flabbergasted at how little there was inside the amp considering it is a 450+W amp. Goes to show how much of a general purpose amp is wasted because it has to cover a lot of uses.

There is this game we play...

2011-03-24T21:56:00.001Z

And hopefully he will be man enough to admit that he looked at this page and so I will have passed it on in a much more interesting way than that in which I came by being IT for a while.

Oh, and I promise I'll post properly again soon... got some nice pics of the inside of an RCF ART speaker coming up next, if I fix it!

Yesterday's Trouble!

2011-03-04T22:41:00.003Z

Wilo Pumps in the DC plant room

So yesterday morning I was woken up by a phone call from Dance City's AD with email server problems. We tried sorting it over the VPN but in the end a local hard reset was what was required.
But I couldn't avoid coming in as he also informed me that the plant had shut down due to a leak and so there was no heat... worse still was that the janitor was about to have a go fixing it!!
I arrived to find leaks from the 3 of the 4 sets of Wilo pumps you can see, but with most water coming from an expansion joint. I isolated this, the on call engineer from Integral fixed it later.
I spend more time in this room than I feel I want to... and why does the plant always break down when the operations manager is away.

Gel/colour/filter...

2011-03-02T21:17:00.002Z

Call it what you want - I just know I detest sorting it.

DC Crossover store

So it is certainly a job I hate... and it's what probably makes me miss my assistants the most. No matter how hard I try, the store where it's all kept always looks like a bomb has gone off in it when I'm left to my own devices.

On the upside: I have found a load of colours I had no idea we had
On the downside: no idea where I just filed them! :/

So, that's where the burning smell was coming from!

2011-02-23T22:46:00.003Z

RCF Art 322A bass driver - burned out!

Andy pointed out to me that there was a problem with one of our monitors at DC, an RCF Art 322A.
My ears had been blocked up with a cold so I wouldn't have been able to tell... but I had noticed the smell... just hadn't thought about it!

Here is what I found inside the cabinet! Oh well... only £189 +vat and delivery for a replacement!!!

Anyone knows who makes these drivers, I'd be happy with an OEM if it were half the price.

Next consideration is to put some limiting on the system it's used in... I've been trusting the users not to overdrive the speakers... 1st mistake!! ;)

More Blood, Sweat and Tears

2011-02-20T23:33:00.004Z

Last week I was down in Huddersfield for the day and a gig to help with and then watch "Blood, Sweat and Tears" by BalletLorent at the Lawrence Batley Theatre. They've no crew available to op the show at Bridlington so I was there to learn it for this one off!
At DC we have a Congo Jr... BL have just bought a ETC ION... they are not even remotely similar :/ I've notes from watching Matt operate the Ion but they have been slow to sink in. As a refresher I thought I'd install the EOS software on my PC.. when I noticed that it'd work in OS X, sweet... that would be much preferable.
Here's the top of the show:

ETC Ion screen shot

All of a sudden I'm less afraid as the operating system won't be so alien now and my notes make sense again! :)

With a bit of luck - actually - I'd be really unlucky if it works out to be otherwise... I'll just have to patch, refocus the movers, check haze and and then run the show :)

Hopefully there will be a post in early march saying all was fine?!

Computer Hardware Chart

2011-02-13T22:34:00.000Z

Spotted this on Geekologie, then followed it to the original creator Sonic84. There were interesting things to see on the way.

I've posted it here so I know where to find it... as I reckon it'll be useful tomorrow when I finally stick my head back inside the ailing PCs at DC again.

Darlington Arts Centre

2011-02-11T01:57:00.003Z

Well I've seen that much has been made of "Save Darlington Arts Centre" of late...

They haven't exactly convinced me that they are that deserving.

Ok so they have quite a few moms and kids moving through the place doing 'Music with Mum' or something like... which in it's self is a bit weird, if you are a Dad does that mean you can't come. The title is what's it's judged on.. I'm a Dad by the way of course!

Today I was there in the Theatre Space with Appetite Dance Productions and company...

Darlington Arts Centre

So, they knew that there weren't many tickets sold... and I suspect that is why we were given fairly second rate service. The techs kept disappearing, the dance floor was poorly laid and cleaned.. and no one, and I mean NO ONE from the venue had the least bit of interest in what the company was presenting.

So now, and I'm sorry DAC... but you must try harder, I'm not that bothered about saving you right now, if you are not interested in me then I am not interested in you either and I think that's fair!

Today I shall mostly be measuring the deflection of my LX bars

2011-02-07T20:20:00.005Z

Some kit I shall be using:

In the end it was well worth doing... I think I have made a mod to the truss that will allow the engineer to give me a lot more flexibility on loading? :)

Chinese New Year

2011-02-06T20:17:00.002Z

This year the Chinese Students and Scholars Association chose to host their New Year Garden Party in Dance City... Good choice as outside it's been tipping down with rain all day.
Here is the dressing-up room (Studio 5):

These guys consisted of some of the nicest and most helpful new people I have met in a while.
They pulled in a good crowd over the course of the day and the kids had fun :o)

Odd...

2011-02-06T00:09:00.002Z

But I feel like I'm not allowed to dislike work that is presented in the Lab.
I like the choreographer, the dancers, the costume, the music... just not the piece as a whole. In my eyes it failed.
I got no narrative from much of it... I enjoyed watching the dancing - but just didn't really get it.
This isn't to say that no one liked it, or understood it.

Just waiting...

2011-02-03T01:45:00.002Z

This is how I left the Dance Lab tonight (apparently I shouldn't be calling it by this name any more... it should be just "The Theatre", but whatever)...

I couldn't help but think that it looked like it was between jobs, just waiting...

there are many ways to die...

2011-02-01T19:40:00.002Z

And this is just one of them.
I found this plugged in to the wall of my theatre. The adapter is fine, shuttered with earths etc. The way the Chinese 2 prong to 5A, fig8 IEC fits isn't good at all... especially as there were two little children in the theatre with the company that day with fingers just the right size to die!

The owner got a free 13A to Fig 8 IEC and a threat that if anything similar is plugged in in my theatre again then she should very quickly unplug it and leave with it never to return.

House

2011-01-30T15:50:00.002Z

I've been helping an artist, Liz Connor, to create and publish footage from a site specific performance piece that she and her colleagues did a while back.
Here is the vid... I'd have quite liked to have attended the performance as it looks quite interesting.

http://liz-dancearts.tumblr.com/

MEWW really do seem to have disappeared! :/

2011-01-28T19:01:00.000Z

Website not there

Phone not available

No resellers

Oh well...

It's a shame then that we have problems with loads of these... on top of the lights from yesterday.

The switched 240v pass through on the controller doesn't pass 240v through! Not much use then really, although it does run the EM light mode still... so no rush to fix it.

Another post from the glamourous life of a technical manager!?!

2011-01-26T22:00:00.001Z

So not a lot going on this week with tech in the theatre... But this doesn't mean that there isn't tonnes of other stuff to sort out... I was just passing my Operations Manager's office when I got pulled into this little gem!

Here we have a non-maintained EM light with switched normal light. Didn't seem to be anything wrong with the supplies, 240v on all rails... it just doesn't come on under normal use... but still comes on in an emergency.
Well lets just replace the control gear then.. ah.. MEWW seem to have dropped out of existence online! Shame that the fitting is designed to fit around this gear then!! Ho humm!

My 1st ever go at a promo video

2011-01-24T23:23:00.000Z

Client seemed happy with it.

www.zendeh.com

Hopefully any others will be shorter?

Some lessons learned in the making of this:

film the media yourself
question wether it really needs to be filmed in HD
don't delete the master files until you are really, really, really sure the job is finished

A little bit of lighting...

2011-01-21T00:14:00.000Z

That I threw together for ITV to film Appetite's rehearsal for their upcoming show in:

It must be getting on for a couple of months since I last touched the Congo?!

What could be simpler...

2011-01-18T21:02:00.001Z

...than a big ol' box truss system with some lx bars hung on it?

On first sight it looks simple, and the load ratings look simple as supplied by the engineer. But this system is a complicated system, it can take a lot more that this implies. Calcs are based on simple suspension, there is no simple suspension anywhere on this truss.

Unfortunately Litec, the manufacturer of the truss really couldn't care less about helping the end user, so we are left to try to make the most out of what we have according to the specs they provide.

Henry

2011-01-05T19:14:00.000Z

Sometimes it's the most domestic things that make me happy.
I've finally been allowed to buy my own vacuum cleaner for the theatre... I went for the obvious and traditional choice: A bright red Henry by Numatic :)

Xmas Hols

2010-12-18T21:00:00.001Z

"
Dance City Tech is now on winter holiday till the 4th of Jan 2011, we've had a pretty cool autumn season and are over due a break...

If your inquiry is urgent please call: 07980585577

Else please only expect sporadic replies till then.

Still, seasons greetings and best wishes for the New Year from James and 'Team'.

Look forward to speaking to you soon :)
"

QLab

2010-12-15T22:00:00.002Z

Wow, wow, wow!
Today I had a school in for their xmas show... they brought in a load of video files... different types, aspects, sizes, various artifacts etc.
So we ran the matinee using; Quicktime, Windows Media Player and Real Player on their laptop. Which worked, but I was left guessing where the end of the playback was and trying to open the projector shutter just as the OSD was fading out. Ho humm, not stressful but really was a bodge.
I thought that there must be a better way... I've seen people using QLab and knew it did video.. just have never touched it myself. And here was an opportunity begging for the control it should give.

So I bought a one day license... booted up the software... fiddled with the video output settings, then my Mac, then re rendered some of the footage... and bingo a show!
Awesome, didn't even need their manual.
Highly recommended... and their support, well nearly instantaneous... although I had sent them a thank you email not a bug report! ;)
I'm going to be using this a lot now I suspect.
QLab: http://figure53.com/qlab/

Sorting a PA installation (again)

2010-12-09T20:32:00.000Z

I still have a few legacy jobs that I just can't seem to shift. Here's one of them, although to be fair considering the time it's been in - it's not really so much trouble.
Alvino's Bar is probably my best installation. This would be due to the fact that I really didn't want to do it so stood my ground on budgets for equipment.
It's a zoned system.
Main PA is RCF Accoustica series... top notch, powerful, passive boxes in a small tidy enclosure.
JBL contractor series in ceiling speakers, great dispersion and ease on installation.
Yamaha P series amps. Awesome value for money, attractive with some nice touches.
DBX brains: a Zonepro 640 and a Driverack PA.
It's the 640 that holds it all together. It adds remote control, all the delays, and auto leveling.

The 640 that I installed is serial only for programming which is a bit of a faff these days. Plus the software is windows only... hence the bootcamp and prey the usb serial drivers work! Which they did very well.

1st Show Day Tomorrow...

2010-11-30T22:32:00.000Z

Silk goes live tomorrow...

It's been a challenge working with the company... one that allows the director to be questioned... but that could just be me and the fact that I don't do a lot of theatre.

Still, lots of interesting things learned about the making process that will help with future work :)

I'm already looking forward to seeing what comes next!

Good day teching for Silk :)

2010-11-28T23:26:00.000Z

Didn't get to drop the load though! Disappointed! :/

Confetti drop update :)

2010-11-26T22:03:00.000Z

Whoop! It works... the LEDs have stopped blowing up, the additional diode has even (not surprisingly really) stopped all electrical noise from the system.

This ran over 20m mic xlr cables with no bother too... Now to load em up, make a mess... and hope they don't get cut! :/

Flhip Flhop

2010-11-26T00:00:00.000Z

A top performance tonight by Rannel. Amazing timing and super jokes.. good crowd - other than a particularly outspoken kid :)
Once again it was brilliant to welcome a lovely company into the Lab, will look forward to the next time they come this way.

I did learn a little more about effective touring LX today too, which is always useful :)

3x Solenoids

2010-11-24T09:24:00.000Z

Yesterday I was making up three 3 solenoid circuits to allow remote operation of some confetti drops.
The prototyping went well, except that I burned out the 12v indicator LEDs.

So it looks like I have to add a reverse bias diode across each coil to prevent the back EMF of the magnetic field collapsing from overloading the LEDs the wrong way.
Vid of the end result will follow soon! :)

She writes again...

2010-11-16T21:43:00.000Z

More Mac repairs...
The G5 editing machine has been having trouble writing CD/DVDs that are readable in our show playback. (The show playback is a TASCAM CD01U and therefore quite picky!).
Today I replaced the original DVD writer with a new one... not a lot of choice on IDE writers it seems.

The new LG went in quite easily and preliminary test burns have gone well :)

Just another day at the Mill

2010-11-08T19:10:00.004Z

So after a month or so of preparation Ockham's Razor finally arrive with their show the Mill. I was glad we had done the pre preparation work, everything went in quite nicely. This is what we ended up with... Quite unusual I think you'd agree! :)

We had a great time with the company, they were all very professional and lovely to work with, would have them back anytime.
Do check out their website I have linked, they've some interesting work and videos on there.

Sketchup again...

2010-10-26T20:43:00.001+01:00

To save model boxing a show that is being created... I offered to build it in 3d in Sketchup. It's been a while since I've run the app, and also it's seemed a good project to use to start getting to know my new MacBook with!

I started with importing PDF plans of the ground floor layout. Then overlaying construction lines that I tidied up and then pulled up into 3d. Only done some of the stage and half the seating rake so far... check back soon for a more finished view of the Dance Lab at Dance City.

Just Jam 2010 International Battle (and sequences!)

2010-10-25T14:57:00.003+01:00

This weekend just gone has been a busy one... following the New Art Club show we had two sold out houses for a Bboy theatre show and then a Bboy international battle.
All the performances involved busy turnarounds in to various configurations.

Most importantly we finally understood how to write chases on the Congo Jr. And this wasn't as painful as expected... and it helped us to make it look like we were doing much more work than we may have been! ;)
Give it a couple of days then search for "just jam 2010" on Youtube... there should be plenty of evidence!

Backstage :)

2010-10-21T19:38:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow night we have the New Art Club in for a performance. They asked if we could reduce the stage size down to 6m... Obviously happy to help. So we've moved the upstage tabs to midstage.
Shame we only have the extra space for one night only as we have BBoying in for the two nights following...

Valley of the Dolls

2010-09-30T00:24:00.003+01:00

We have Ballet Lorent in at the moment...
They have a few additional members of the cast in the form of a load of Dolls from Habitat. I've asked for fire ratings on them already... but now it's the day before the show I insisted...
Turns out they are pretty flammable... out comes the Flame Check :)
Here's them drying...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=537GGOjOFLQ

Generators and Stuff

2010-09-14T19:32:00.003+01:00

This weekend I was working in Leicester Sq for a Cadburys promotion, Spots and Stripes game.

It was all a bit fraught... missing the last train and just managing to hire a car in time to get me there for a 4am call wasn't good! But this is what greeted me when I got there:

All in, a nice weekend till this:

This is a photo of an xray of the tip of my finger taken at St Thomas's after the jockey wheel of a trailer generator collapsed... Ouch! And thoroughly frustrating now :(

BBC Look North

2010-09-09T10:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we had a surprise call from the BBC. They wanted to use one of our spaces to film a quick live article on some dance research.
We had a satellite van outside and a crew inside.
I was really pleased with how quickly the Lab accomodated this... and they left with a great impression of the space! :)

DC Atrium

2010-09-03T21:14:00.001+01:00

The atrium at DC really does attract a lot of light at all times of the day. This I caught as I was locking up tonight.

Sometimes when the sun is just right we can get real light into the theatre. Usually when when we don't want it to I might add.

Points.

2010-08-31T19:55:00.001+01:00

Finally.. and probably not before time, I spoke to the steelwork designer for Dance City. He is a dude caller Wille and works for Arup in Scotland.

I had a question over the suitability of the beams from which we suspend our motors from in the Dance Lab. And after one quick calculation he answered it with a "Yes, that's fine. You have a large safety factor in there. I'll email you the calc"

Awesome!!!

Lesson in this is: Stay away from architects, they are making it up. Speak to designers, they do the work!

And for those that are interested, here is the steelwork layout for the 3rd floor at DC:

Tallescope!

2010-08-26T20:25:00.000+01:00

Will probably bite the bullet and move on to a mororised system of access soon. Writing a risk assesment whilst maintaining any sort of productivity with a Tallescope is proving difficult. Just wish I didn't have a sprung dance floor to put a machine on as it rather limits my choices! :(

Carbon Reduction Commitment

2010-08-16T22:18:00.000+01:00

Today I got the draft of a CRC report from EDF energy, our electricity supplier...
All organizations have to assess themselves by sometime in Sept 2010 to see if they qualify for the full scheme and if so register with the environment agency. (This would involve buying carbon credits for the following year)
Luckily we don't, although I wasn't sure there for a while... full registration is required when you consume 6,000 Mwh. Now that's a lot of numbers in a row and it confused me.
It turns out we use about 261,926kwh of elec... double that for gas and we use, lets say: 600,000kwh of energy... 10% of the required amount.
As an additional note... I use a logging tool called Smeasure which compares energy usage to degree days (i.e. ambient temp'ish). This service puts us at above average in the efficiency of the use of our energy.

Good, good night...

2010-08-13T21:05:00.000+01:00

Show day for the Dance City & Claire Dixon's "Urban Summer School" today.

Awesome!!! Love the kids shows. So much energy :)

Busked the lot with 3 effect chases and groups only on the Congo. Easy as :) Goes to show that if you need to make it complicated then you could well be making it harder for yourself.

Oh yeah, and there was some Power Point stuff too... But that's now more or less second nature for this sort of gig now! ;)

It takes two... servers

2010-08-12T23:02:00.000+01:00

Today.. whilst not feeling that productive, may actually have been a good day.

Got an engineer to replace the motherboard in our exchange server... it's now running on full memory.
Restarted the Databox gateway and re ran the services that facilitate the online ticketing system - this saves a few calls to the ticket office.
Met with a structural engineer to discuss loading capacities of our roof beams - got some great advice.
More or less collated everything we need to register for the Carbon Reduction Scheme (more admin load!)

Tomorrow I may do some techie stuff :)

All's quiet...

2010-08-10T20:54:00.000+01:00

This isn't something that you see everyday at DC!

Whilst I was waiting for a meeting to finish... after having used the lift roof to access a fire alarm sounder... I though that I'd play with the setting on the BMS.

I reset a lot of the schedules and finally got it to a point where the boilers actually go into standby. Fingers x'ed they come back on when we need them!! ;)

Rigging Inspection Day :o/

2010-07-22T18:25:00.001+01:00

As the title suggests. Today we had our annual rigging inspection. Always a slightly worrying time... not because you'll get caught doing something wrong, but because the cost of a service on a motor can be so high!
Anyway... everything passed and we gleaned some more tips on how to do things better from Darren at SLX. He even helped tidy a few things up for us :)
Here's to another incedent free 12 months! :)

‎"B" for blackout! A very useful key :)

2010-07-22T00:27:00.001+01:00

Today I was forced to learn a little about PowerPoint. Thing is I don't have anything against this software... It does do what it says on the tin and on almost any powered system. But until today I'd never had to turn off a presentation without recourse to a switch or shutter...

"F1" to the rescue.. and surprisingly enough the key [B] will 'blackout' a presentation. I may be using this one quite often now! :)

Woo! A Good review.. in the Theatre Guide! :)

2010-07-20T20:41:00.002+01:00

One of the most high pressure gigs we have had at DC in a while..
2x techs put in the whole show + additional hires from promoter.. 2days incs. in, show and out!
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/secondsout-rev.htm
:)

Blimey... I'm behind on my posting!

2010-07-08T18:52:00.000+01:00

Must do better...
See what I can catch up this week?
J

Glastonbury!

2010-06-25T00:32:00.000+01:00

I'm at Glastonbury Festival at the moment. Been here since a week last Monday.
Quite tired of the gig already, and it's not event the weekend yet :(
Still very happy with the job... although it still strikes me as being a weird one when doing corporate at a festival such as this.

Underneath the Floorboards

2010-06-13T22:30:00.001+01:00

Finally got to teching today on "Underneath the Floorboards". Set, lights and performers are superb (view from the Tallescope above). I'm sorry to be missing the rest of the project... Especially as it seems a bit damp out there and my next few weeks will be in a field at Glastonbury!

For more information about this show: Underneaththefloorboards

Tell them you know me if you speak to them! ;)

Taking it easy at work.

2010-06-12T21:03:00.000+01:00

Today we've been getting in the set for Ballet Lorent's "Underneath the Floorboards", a show for young kids.

Here's Charlie on her lunch break :)

ALG at Public Announcement

2010-06-03T09:55:00.000+01:00

This is a shot taken in rehearsals for Public Announcement last week.

It shows Anthony in front of the projection for his piece. We experimented with some wacky side lighting - super saturated colours.

Andy used VDMX on his Mac to get the origional video images to fill the cyc nicely.

Don't let Andy at me...

2010-05-19T16:25:00.000+01:00

I think I'll try to fix this one myself...

With a bit of luck it could just be the mobo battery?

End of tech days.

2010-05-12T18:58:00.001+01:00

This is the last moments of the last tech in the Dance Lab.

Now follows three days of shows of the students work.

This week is all about the degree shows...

2010-05-12T00:22:00.000+01:00

And if I get time I'll post photos...
Don't hold your breath!?
;)

What else have I done this week?

2010-05-07T23:14:00.001+01:00

Well this pile of "risen from the dead" PCs was a bit of a result...
The whole process was much speeded up by a disk clone utility that did the job nicely: HDClone3.8

Once the HDD was cloned all that remained was to hack the OEM windows key to the one on the box and rename it to a known one on the network... good as new... although largely untested in the wild as yet, but I remain hopeful! :)

Tidy set up..

2010-05-07T22:39:00.000+01:00

Last bit of prep for the degree shows next week. Trying a new arangement of the kit and seeing if it makes a difference to do a complete soft patch for the shows.

We don't normally soft patch as we work with groups for the most part. I think this may be making us lazy so a neat channel layout may help me plot more interesting presets over the coming 26 pieces!!

Not quite what I expected?!

2010-05-05T21:11:00.000+01:00

So I've been pestering the Degree lot for tech specs for all of their 26 pieces to be shown over 3 days...

Today I was given these:

Various sizes of paper, some actually readable... still only 12 of them :/

Oh well...

Getting there!

2010-04-22T22:20:00.001+01:00

It's been a bit of a slog getting the Saros gig together because to save money we've been borrowing kit from here and there.

But today it really came together. Twirlies are here along with a band. Lights are in and PA from STUK Sound arrives tomorrow. 4 stacks of D&B - way too much, I'll not be turning it all the way up.

Had a result with video too. We couldn't get hold of enough coax cable so some of the long runs were done via ballens and CAT5. Worked a treat :) Just need to bodge a projector shutter for the one without a Walberg and that's all sorted.

Doesn't look like much

2010-04-20T19:00:00.000+01:00

But it was a steady morning to get to this stage:

Before and After:

2010-04-19T18:39:00.000+01:00

A couple of shots of the Fire Station - (Saros) before the production and the dancers arrive.
Some very nice people at BIC hired us a scrubber/drier, without which I'd never have got the place so clean!! :)

Before:-

After:-

Coming soon

2010-04-13T19:22:00.005+01:00

Preparing for the new Cloud Commission art work to go on the walls of the Social Space at DC.

The last work was very popular and we are really pleased to have him back.

http://thecloudcommission.blogspot.com/

Not a workin' day! :)

2010-04-11T23:37:00.006+01:00

So today we weren't working...

We were up in Northumberland climbing on gritstone.

My word it hurts your fingers a lot more than indoor bouldering!

:o/

3D so far...

2010-04-09T22:52:00.000+01:00

Less than a week till we get on site for the Fire Station gig now...

This is the latest render of the 3D Sketchup model I'm using for laying it all out to scale.

The director keeps changing things about but with this app it's easy to keep it all up to date :)

Vinyls

2010-04-08T17:24:00.000+01:00

Here we have a quick vinyl job that I did today.

Customers have been a little confused as to which studios are which.

So there are now big numbers on the doors too!

Just when I thought it was safe...

2010-04-06T21:51:00.000+01:00

I found myself sat in the void above the ticket office with a multimeter, a screwdriver and a torch fixing the control for one of our smoke curtain's.

What started out as a simple battery swap ended up with a search to find an intermittant break in the continuity of the hold up signal for the curtain.

Not a job that could have been put off unfortunatly as the curtain that would normally only drop to protect the ticket office was releasing it's self of it's own accord cutting off Janine from our customers.

So that's where the water is coming from...

2010-04-02T12:00:00.000+01:00

We keep getting a leak somewhere above the USR stage door. It's been a bit of a mystery till this week.

There was a major amout of water on the floor during a rain storm and I actually had enough time to investigate. Looking high and low and getting very confused.

Finally we opened a hatch into some ventalation ducting and this is what we found!
Mystery solved, just got to figure out what to do next...

Someone filled my dock up...

2010-04-02T11:45:00.001+01:00

So we put the access tower in the accessible changing room!

Just fits!

:)

Say no more! :o/

2010-03-30T19:12:00.001+01:00

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/fire/pdf/150865.pdf

Odd thing to fix..

2010-03-16T19:16:00.000Z

Today I was fixing a really heavy thing. This is the generator on the roof that is used as a back up supply for the smoke extract fans in an emergency.

On an earlier inspection the indicators showed that it had failed to start. The short term remidy was to install a new 017 battery. It was fun getting it up the ladder to the genset!!

10hrs...

2010-03-08T22:02:00.001Z

Phew!
In 10 hrs today we did a rig/focus/plot and run for TVD and their Kick Off production, then an AGM for the Children's Foundation, followed by prepping for 3 contempoary classes. (Also including dropping the bairn off / collecting from school and loading set in to my van ready for a trip to Saddlers Wells.

To pre rig or not to pre rig...

2010-03-06T23:27:00.000Z

Today I was asked for a pre rig on a show that's coming up. I haven't even been sent their plot yet!

The shame for them is that they are now at the end of a three night run of different shows in the venue. We'll do our best, but the time to have bought it up was at contract stage several months ago...

Well that was odd...

2010-03-04T22:10:00.000Z

Today was pretty busy. Moving set, looking at fire risk assessment plans... and then a rock gig in an art gallery, the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.!

All active or digital kit... which meant traveling light and home at a decent time.

The Lab

2010-03-03T18:27:00.001Z

This is a view of the Lab having just been turned around from a daytime residency into night time classes. Easier than it looks :)

Nee Naww

2010-03-02T18:54:00.001Z

Early'ish start today for a photo shoot for an upcoming site specific dance production. The gig is in an old fire station, so access into the site is great but it does offer a lot of challenges.

After that it was straight into meetings with Yorkshire Dance. We were showing them how we do things at DC and then trying to learn from each other.

All part of the job... :o/

2010-03-01T20:10:00.000Z

Oh the glamour of this job!!!

On my way back from a trip to Stage Elecs today, I get a call from Clare saying that there is water coming through the ceiling of the Playroom. So I rush back to see what I can do whilst we wait for the maintenance contractors to arrive.

I end up with my head in the access area of the cisterns in the ladies changing, looking at a hole in a cistern where the divert should be. Luckily when the engineer arrived he had spares. A trip to B&Q for a wet/dry vacuum and an annoyingly late night later, it's sorted.

300 plotting for Fathom at Saddlers Wells

2010-02-17T21:39:00.002Z

Today Andy Coates was in pre-plotting a show for The Fathom Project that we are both working on at Saddlers Wells, as they have a Strand 530i there. I designed the original lighting for the shows at Dance City quite a while ago.

This 300 is the old DC house desk. It came with the original installation of the Dance Lab and really didn't last very long as a reliable desk. It received some tlc from service engineers but the "0" button remains a bit of an issue as spares are now unavailable for it!

Nevertheless it is still a handy piece of kit to have about for those techs that come in that just don't have the time to pick up the syntax of the Congo Jr.

2010-02-15T22:57:00.000Z

Tonight I'm trying to put together a vid to the show on Saturday. Video isn't really my thing. I'm happy cutting up a single camera shoot down to something that is DVD ready... but this time I enlisted some help and shot with two cameras.

I wish I had more time to set them up properly... they aren't quite white balanced the same or even leveled the same. Ho hum!

I do a lot of the video stuff at home as there just aren't enough hours in the day at work. Here I use Sony Vegas and this is due to growing up with Soundforge I guess. Vegas certainly seems to be good value for money and fairly easy to get good results with.

Goodbye and hello :)

2010-02-12T21:30:00.000Z

Today was the last day of Fiona Wright's residency at Dance City. Fiona gained a place in a pilot scheme we are running called Labspace. She had a good week in our Dance Lab working on video and material for her ongoing work. She's off to Berlin again now but we are looking forward to her coming back soon.

Then it was hello to my Venue Assistant, Clare, who's had a few days off. With her back, we managed to get a head start on tomorrow's performances by pre focusing and then more or less dressing one of the pieces that we'll be presenting. There is a great vibe around tomorrows event. Hopefully I'll be offering a bit of video of it soon after.

Gobo wash for Michaela and Rachel

2010-02-11T19:48:00.003Z

Here are the lanterns that are making a gobo wash for Michaela and Rachael's piece to be performed this weekend. Selecon Acclaim zoom profiles are what they are. They are quite bright considering that their rating is 600W and generally a tidy fixture. Downside to them are that the yolks always need tightening up, they take an 'M' size gobo (this size isn't a popular one to tour it seems) and the lamp can be a bugger to get out in one piece.

We generally use gobos from Rosco and in particular you would find 77406 in our lanterns.

Just when I thought it was over...

2010-02-10T22:14:00.000Z

Whilst sat at home this evening, nursing a beer, I received a call from work saying that part of the CCTV system wasn't working. As I was about to set off I thought it would b a good time to see it the remote access to the server would finally allow me through to the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) over the network. Woop, woop! One VPN (Virtual Private Network) jump and a scratch of the head, trying to remember the IP for the DVR, later I was on! All was actually well with the system... so no need to leave my nice warm flat.

It would have been nice to have actually finished something today :o/

2010-02-10T19:29:00.000Z

Today was when I started to prep the Lab in earnest for this weekend's Public Announcement event. So setting up the lighting desk ready for plotting as the opportunities arise was a priority. The desk is a Congo Jr. It's been a bit of an experience getting used to it and installing version after version of the operating system. Fingers crossed the present Beta software is stable. Good results so far. (Posting on the Congo may be quite regular btw)

Other than lighting in the Lab, there was point to point patching of video around the building - successful... eventually! And coaxing into life of an obsolete microwave proximity sensor that controls the lighting in one of the public areas.

First post... hope it continues and I don't get bored! :D

2010-02-09T22:35:00.000Z

This is what I am doing now... Working on a 3d model for a gig that I am the site and production manager for. You will probably see more of this in the future as we get nearer to performance day. It will be a site specific dance piece to live music.