LIPA Light Night - Light Show Programming and Playback

Lots of people have asked me how I went about programming the Hope Street light show so I've written this short piece to answer some of the more geeky questions...

I programmed the show on the free Chamsys MagicQ PC software as a cue stack. This version of the software has a basic built-in visualiser which was ideal for this project, meaning that I knew exactly how the show would look before the kit even arrived. Each cue was set to fire from timecode, although in this case I was using the software's internal timecode, rather than using an external input (a free alternative, given that the interface costs about £650!). The internal timecode starts as soon as the cue stack is activated.

I then recorded the timecode stamps onto the cue stack using the 'Record TC' function, meaning that every time I press 'GO' in real time, the cue stack remembers the timecode stamp. There was one slight problem though - there were 347 cues in 3 mins 29 secs so I had no chance of remembering where they all went! My solution was to notate where every cue went using the Sibelius software (being a musician has its perks), so when I went to record the timecode, I simply read the music and pressed GO every time a note was shown. It did take several takes to get it all completely right!

My next conundrum was the playback: how to get the audio track and the cue stack to line up (the problem with not using an external timecode trigger). I decided to figure out the musical tempo of the song and create a click track (similar to what musicians might use to record to, or keep in time when playing live), but in this case the click track only lasted the duration of 1 bar of music before the song begins. The click track would only come through my headphones (not the main PA!) and once I had heard 4 clicks, establishing the tempo, I knew to press GO on the 5th click. The timecode took care of the rest of the show and I could go and watch! 

Here's a video compilation showing the recording of the live show, as well as the pre-visualisation, the cue stack and the click track audio at the beginning:

REACTION: A critic's plea: stop all arts funding now

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11630643/A-critics-plea-stop-all-arts-funding-now.html

This article just makes my skin crawl. It is thoroughly flawed and fundamentally wrong:

Looking at this purely from a producing theatre viewpoint (the article itself completely disregards other areas of arts funding), Douglas McPherson doesn't acknowledge the breadth of Arts Council England (ACE) streams within the theatre industry, instead insinuating that arts funding is only directed at writers, who should be 'supporting themselves with day jobs as waiters or whatever, until they produce a saleable script'. To say 'I can't think of one funded show that was any good' demonstrates a lack of understanding of how theatre is produced or funded, as well as spouting contentious sweeping statements.

Most of our flagship producing theatres in the UK such as the National Theatre or the Royal Opera House, and most of our regional producing houses are heavily funded through ACE, as well as individual theatre and dance companies, site-specific projects, educational services and arts festivals.

The idea that the best art will be commercially viable is just not true. Some of the best work I've ever seen would not have been commercially viable without public funding and would not have received corporate sponsorship because such theatre is a very high-risk investment. But more to the point, the arts are not about making money, they are about enriching our culture.

There is abhorrent snobbery in his attitude towards 'subsidised theatre', as if it is somehow inferior just because of its funding structure. In fact, on the contrary - commercially-funded theatre is often subject to the pressures of influential producers, who have the capacity to stunt artistic development and intuition in the cause of financial gain should they wish to.

The statement 'Well, those living rich on state handouts would panic, wouldn't they?' is dangerously close to the anti-poor, anti-benefits rhetoric that we hear from the right-wing press and political parties. There is much more that I could have said here, but suffice to say this is not the kind of thing we need to hear right now with potentially more arts funding cuts looming, especially from someone who has been reviewing theatre for the past 20 years.

Something to Shout about

It's been a very long time since I posted anything on here so I thought it was about time really, and now I have something to write about.

I've just spent the last two weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe as the Production Manager for 'Shout the Mod Musical'. I have to say, daunting, nervous, sceptical and responsible were all words that would describe my state of mind in the days leading up to it. My first main worry that we wouldn't fit everything we needed in our fairly compact van was soon overcome with the use of some strong, brainy people who had a good grasp of 3D tetris, and I imagine 7 years of packing the car for boarding school probably helped too!

After a long and sleepy van ride to Edinburgh by the very capable (if not mildly terrifying at times) driver Hayley, we turned up at our accommodation, dumped our stuff and headed for the Royal Mile where we would be spending every afternoon for the next 11 days, presenting complete strangers with a flyer and trying to convince them to part with their money and watch our show. I reckon you get about 2 seconds of initial attention from them, in which time you have to pique their interest by saying something like '60s musical, live band?'. If you get past that stage with more than the shake of a head or 'no thanks' or simply being ignored (rude), then you might get a few more seconds to say a bit more about the show and tell people how to get there. All this must be completed with sufficient smiling and energy, but not so much as to scare people away. This becomes more difficult when you've been doing it for 3 hours with the usual mixture of bright sunshine and torrential downpours. It is fair to say that while sometimes quite fun and getting the chance to meet some really cool people including inviting Jeremy Paxman and Joanna Lumley to the show (I know, highlight of my career) flyering was my least favourite activity of the last 2 weeks!

To boost our flyering efforts, we took to the mini stages on the mile and performed a medley of the show songs. This quickly attracted lots of attention and big crowds gathered around us. There's something rather heart-warming and satisfying to see those people who grew up with the music of the 60s singing along with us and remembering all of the words.

That first evening we did a rather squashed run through of the show in the living room of the new flat, the first time that we'd actually run this cut-down version of the full show that we put on back in April in Liverpool. The next morning we were up at 5am to get to our technical rehearsal at 6am. Not cool. Some of us had less sleep than others due to a rather loud snoring problem... (you shall remain anonymous *cough* Adam Murdoch *cough*). Because we'd brought so much equipment with us, we had very little time to actually 'tech' the show, with just a very brief sound check, a run of a dance routine and a bit of singing. That afternoon, our first public performance would be the dress rehearsal. All things considered, it went very well and resulted in a glowing 5 star review (http://www.broadwaybaby.com/shows/shout-the-mod-musical/701442 just saying...). Over the next 11 performances the audience numbers fluctuated but on the whole we were pretty happy with them, peaking at about 70% capacity. The audience reactions to the show overall were fantastic, if a little embarrassed at the more risqué moments...

Living with 15 other twenty somethings is quite an interesting experience too, sleeping on a combination of double beds, air mattresses and sofas, and made even more entertaining when we had visitors staying too! I found myself chatting to everyone about anything and everything and having those bizarre conversations that can only take place at 4am!

A mixture of antics ensued while we were there, including to-the-point show reviews from a certain actor (Fifty Shades of B*****d Sh*te!), me ending up in a kilt and a fruit hat as part of a comedy routine, people not returning to their own beds of a night and endless singing/humming/melodica-ing of the show tunes. I've had an absolute blast and couldn't have wished to spend the last 2 weeks with a more fun, caring and talented bunch of people. I was worried I'd just have to 'grin and bear it' but instead I could 'forget all my worries, forget all my cares'. Here's to the next time!

Home is....

For many people, home is where they live and spend most of their time. For others, home is where they grew up. I'm just about to move house for the 5th time from somewhere I've lived for the last 6 years (the longest amount of time I've spent in one house) but I don't feel particularly attached to the place. I also went to a boarding school for 7 years of my life, which I regarded as my 'second home' - incidentally, I wonder where MPs regard as home...

Someone said to me, 'home is where your stuff is'. That's all very well except if you find yourself constantly travelling from place to place and living out of a suitcase! For many people home is where their family is, but that concept rather changes when your family is either separated or old enough to become spread out all over the place. When I'd finished my first year of university I was talking about going home for the summer and was told by a friend 'no, you're leaving home for the summer. You'll be back home in September!' 

Maybe home isn't a fixed thing, nor does it have to be a single place at any one time. I think home is where you feel safe and comfortable. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel:

"Home, where my thought's escaping

Home, where my music's playing

Home, where my love lies waiting silently for me"

We Will Remember Them

''Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries'

- Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Boston Marathon blasts

Tragically, yesterday (at the time of writing) 3 people were killed by bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, 15th April 2013. Over 140 people have been confirmed to be injured including runners and bystanders. 

On the same day on the other side of the world, 31 people were killed and over 200 people injured in road-side and car explosions in cities across Iraq. 

The latter of the two stories has become so commonplace is our news bulletins, perhaps replacing the word 'Iraq' with 'Syria' or 'Afghanistan' that we don't think twice when we hear of it. But when the news broke about the explosions at the 2013 Boston Marathon, we were instantly looking at the news channels and websites to find out the full details of the story (myself included); the BBC news website had the Boston bombings as its top story, with the Iraq bombings tucked away at the bottom of the page and there was virtually no coverage of it on the BBC's dedicated news channel. Both occurrences are desperately sad and will have repercussions for the family and friends of the deceased and also the witnesses of the events, but we simply must not dismiss these tragedies when they happen in the places where 'they always happen'. 

Remains of an Iraqi car bomb

There is a challenge for us when we hear of such horrible and shocking news from the USA, or anywhere else for that matter, not to lose focus on what is going on in the rest of the world, like for example that an estimated 70,000 people have died in the last two years as a result of the conflict in Syria. 70,000 people. The purpose of doing this is not to belittle what is going on in the mainstream news, but to remind ourselves that just because the news editors think the Western World is more important, doesn't mean that we have to agree. It is relatively unusual for something like this to happen in the USA, or generally in the Western World and it is therefore probably more shocking to hear, but the reality is that in a place such as Syria, the threat of violence of this nature is very real and ongoing. 

We should treat the loss of human life in any country, of any race, of any social class and in any number as a tragedy. We will remember them.

Growing Up Online

What do you put online? Status updates? Photos? Videos? Probably when you log in to Facebook or Twitter you have a quick flick through what's on your screen at that moment, maybe scroll back to a few hours ago. You might 'like' the odd status and 'comment' on a picture and then you forget about it.

For the first time, the adolescent years of an entire generation have been documented in a whole new way. The photos that would once gather dust in a cupboard are now online for the world to see. More exciting that that, though, is that our thoughts have been captured and saved. People who would otherwise have never written a diary or journal have suddenly found themselves sharing their feelings and ideas with everyone else.

Using Facebook's timelines, you can scroll back and look at how people's appearances have changed (or not as the case may be) but you can also track how their personalities have evolved. I did this to myself the other day and was mildly amused to meet my 13-year-old self in words and pictures. I'm sure you have your own opinion about whether this is good or bad. Personally, I don't mind it and as a social experiment (intentional or not), I think it is fascinating.

Shhhh...

I think I'm addicted to now. By that I mean I start to get a bit twitchy if something is going on and I don't know about it! If there is a big news story breaking, I'll be on Twitter for the rest of the day and watching BBC News 24 because I have to be the first to know. Even if something more low key is going on, I'll be checking my phone constantly to keep in the loop.

It can be quite difficult to switch off, both in the sense of turning off phones/computers but also mentally switching off. We love to have 'stuff' going on, whether it's listening to music while working or leaving the telly on for background noise while doing the washing up (I am as guilty as anyone!).

The value of silence tends to get lost in all of that. But for me, silence is so important. Firstly it gives me a chance to relax and unwind a bit. It also gives me a proper opportunity to think about things without getting distracted by a new notification or a farmville request. Silence in conversations can't last more than about 5 seconds without someone uttering the words 'well, this is awkward'. In church services, during the prayers they will often say 'let's keep a few moments of silence' which generally lasts no longer than 20 seconds. Silence needs more time than that and I think silence deserves more respect than that.

So why not try it: just for 5 minutes, turn off your gadgets, sit down and just enjoy the silence - I dare you.