Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998 - 27

and the dimmer racks (ETC Sensors) in and amongst the
bushes, which is pretty standard. But the light pipes are pel~
manent, and there are a lot of them. I keep getting calls from
the park, asking how we can take them down when the parade
closes. I offer to send them a great big saw. They don't like that
much, but what can we do? They want a show, of tllis size, they
have to pay a small price."
Although hiding the dimmer racks was simple, and only
required longer runs on the circuits, there were questions
about the DMX. "We specified a color changer that could opel~
ate on a DMX cable run of 350 feet," said Lindsey, indicating
one of the thirty-eight light pipes which hold the vast majority
of tlle lighting equipment. "But the tlling is, we say tllat, figUling
tllat 350 feet is far beyond what we need, and then we get these
contractors in here, digging trenches, installing conduit that
has to be run to code, and suddenly we're worried whether
350 feet is long enough to stretch from here to tllere." He
pointed to a straight-line run of about seventy-five feet.

:?ec!zti1!l and (]ttcti1!l
Teching a show like Light Magic is by no means a piece of
cake. "We programmed it like one show," Gale said. He
pointed to the far end of the warehouse. "We started by setting
up one plot at the far end of the warehouse, moved a float in,
and programmed the show. Then, when we went to outside rehearsals, we took tllat group of channels, and duplicated it
down the line fourteen times, wllich covers all the channels for

both shows. When we go to lUll tlle show, we suppress tlle channels we don't use for tlJat pelformance, so iliat the Small World
lights aren't working for tlle Main Street shows, and \~ce versa."
It gets a little complicated for tlle second show at each location, tllOugh-when tlle show finishes at one location, it heads for
one of tlle two oflStage areas at each end oftlle parade route, and tums
around for tlle ne,\1 peIfOlmance. Gale said, "TIlat makes tllings a
little lIickier. For tlle second shows, we have to llip tlle plots end
for end, so tlley have to be symmelIic.'l1 as well (the sanle focuses
at tlle sanle position eiilier side of center)-at least for tlle PARs.
Swapping tlle VL6s is easy." Now tllat tllOse problems have all been
worked out, of course, it's only a matter of swapping disks.
The average tech began sometime in the afternoon, \~th a
float in the warehouse, doing cue notes. "There are about 150
Wholehog cues in the show," Gale says. "Then you add in
about 1500 MIDI cues on tlle onboard Impressions, and cues
for the fiber optics." To keep tllings sinlpler, tlle fiber optics were
progranmled by anotller team entirely, and most of tlle intemal
float lighting (grain of wheats and otller built-ins) were fired by
relay instead of dimmers. TIle relay channels were mapped to
MIDI notes, wllich meant tllat acn,a1 programming of cues was
greatly sinlplified. "Instead of setting cues for all that, it was easier
to link a channel to a MIDI note, so tllat evel)' tinle a french hom
sounded, say, ilie grape bunches would light."
In tlle warehouse, tlle show was programmed on tlle spare
Wholehog 2, (for tlle fixed focus and VL units) and on an Expression (for tlle float's built-in units). TIle initial programming (or
notes, for tllat matter) wOltld use SMPTE. The operator would Plint

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998
