This was suppose to be a simple audio setup (on Sunday the 16th) and strike (on Friday the 21st). It turned out to be a week long video gig for me (no complaints here!). The production company basically left it to us to setup everything – so I had a lively week. The hi-light of which was two 60ft screens lined up at a right angle. Screen #1 was setup up on day one – it was up all week till the strike; we had to setup Screen #2 on Wednesday so we could focus/blend the projectors, and then strike it (leaving the projectors in place). After the Awards Show on Thursday night, we had one hour to turn the room around – my job in that hour was to get Screen #2 up and the projectors focused/blended in that time. Job complete – NEXT!

This one ran from the 14th to the 15th.  I ran rail for the setup through the rehearsals, but they forgot to bring a video engineer with them so I ended up engineering the show. Total rush job cause there were 31 video roles (half the show was video) and I walked into it 3 hours before doors with no show flow (so I didn’t know which video ran when), none of the clips were marked (didn’t know which one was which), and none of the runtimes were written anywhere (so I didn’t know how long any of the clips ran for). I had a 3 hour prep that went straight into a 3 hour show. No problem after the prep was complete though…

For those of you who don’t know, prep consisted of getting a show flow, watching each video to see where it fit into the show flow (taking notes on my show flow), how much “room” I had before and after each video (taking notes on my show flow) and the actual runtime for each video (taking notes on my show flow) and getting my version of the show flow to the stage manager (so she would know what was running, when, and for how long). Without the prep the show is DIW (Dead In The Water)…

I can’t apologize enough to those of you waiting for it…

For those of you who don’t know what it actually is: this website will be a video log of what I do, who I do it with, and where. It will allow my, and my buddies, potential clients the ability to meet the guys (via interviews right here on the site), see the gear we have, and see our venues first hand. There will be a lot more to it than this, but I’m not in the mood to write at the moment…

Right now is the perfect time for me to start this thing cause it’s really dead right now. Everyone has the time for the interviews, all the venues are empty (so I can get some good footage of them empty), I have plenty of time to sell the idea (or get sponsors for it) to local crew, A/V companies, and venues, and I have plenty of time to edit it all right now…

The problem, it’s dead and I have no money to buy the equipment to get started. All I really need is a decent camera with a decent audio record on it. I’ve been looking at the small-hand-held sanyo’s, but who knows at this point…

This ran on the 9th – I ran rail, which is why the pics are from Stage Lt.  I like these shows.  Wish there were more coming – hell, wish there was more of anything coming at the moment – the island is pretty much dead for work…

This, The Spooktacular, ran the 26th and 27th. 26th was the public event, and 27th was two kids shows in the morning – they literally ship the kids in throughout the whole island via bus…

About an hour before the show the stage manager came up to me and the audio guy and said that “we don’t have an intro. We have an intro every year for this and we have none right now.” We ran through what we had and then through what we could do with the time given and she said the magic words “We have 5 dancers in the back with jail outfits and the conductor will be dressed as V.” Neither of them had seen V before, but I had the plan from the moment she said that and went with it. We made 2 CD’s, one with emergency service sounds (fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, etc…), and one that started with 5 explosions, went into the sound of a battle (multiple machine guns, tanks, etc…), when they all died down you could hear a bomber dropping three bombs, in the silence after the bombs you heard 5 quick burst of single shot gun fire and then 3 spaced out shots…

The stage manager and audio guy sold the idea to the conductor and here’s what we had happen:
1) Sound began with the 5 explosions
2) Lights randomly lit up and off all over the theater and the fog machine covered the front of the stage…
3) About 10 second into the mahem, the dancers came out (in jail uniforms) and pretended to be running from something…
4) About 10 second later the three bombs hit, and then the burst of 5 gun shots – two of the dancers played dead…
5) The single shots took out the other three dancers
6) The conductor walked out as a triumphant V…

Anyway, you should have seen it. I should have recorded it, but I need a new camera. Very cool, especially if you consider how quickly we came up with it and that all sound came off of my iPhone!

We did not do this intro for the kids shows which ran this morning – don’t stress, we have more taste than that!