With the performance week fast approaching, and the previous session ended without making as much progress as we should have, I made the conscious decision to take a back seat on devising conversations this week and, instead, focus on the ground plans, LX plots, and risk assessments that I needed to compile. These would need to be completed to a good enough standard that they could be left with our Technical Supervisor after I had rigged them, which made it infuriating when I found that the list of equipment we were to be given was not yet published, and the only technical drawing of the venue I could access was a basic pdf ground plan. However, as the team began to talk about the idea of snapshotting action, focusing on small parts of a bigger scene during the performance, I began to think of how I could best light this in a way that would still be relatively easy to operate, but without making it as boring as a permanent wash. I devised the idea of using the LED par can sets from the AV store and ratchet strapping them to flight cases, creating roaming lights that could be moved across the stage during performance to focus on specific action. The rest of the group thought this could be a really cool idea, along with my suggestion of taping a square on the floor to give a clear, defined performance area, in what can feel like quite a wide, church-like space. With this concept in mind, I started drawing.
Working on a plan like this alongside rehearsals was very beneficial as I could start to gauge where I’d want light to be focused, adding in pars upstage for backlight and a profile and fresnel bank to light from the front. Halfway through the second half of the session, the Venues team sent an email to us, detailing that we would be able to utilise all of the lamps and desks available in our venues. This was liberating, as it meant I could have free reign of whatever lamps I wanted, though I was careful to make sure anything I added in was still user friendly.
The session ended with a brainstorming chat, with the group pitching what they felt could be hazards arising from the performance that I would need to risk assess. It also gave me a chance to outline and explain how the risk assessment procedure could be carried out in my absence, with David volunteering to be a stand-in Stage Manager, in order to ensure all of my control measures were put in place. Overall, this week has felt incredibly productive for me, though I feel sad that I couldn’t contribute as much to the actual content of the piece as I may have wished to. However, I accept that the paperwork I wrote needed to be put to the group prior to the rig, and this was the best and easiest way to make sure that happened. We closed with a game of Ninja – just for the fun.