Production Week:Wednesday

WEDNESDAY 27^th March 9am- 11pm:

So today was the day of the first performance so everything had to step up a gear and made sure that everyone and everything was ready for tonight’s performance. Unfortunately Will wasn’t able to come in until later so I was mixing the band and Microphones for the first rehearsal that day, which didn’t mind because I was only going to touch the band mix if I really had to. While the cast and band once again were doing there warm ups I started to look through the script so I could start to remember microphone changes. I also started adding notes at the beginning of scenes of what character had what microphone to remind me. After the first rehearsal of the day we got really positive feedback from the director saying that the sound really had improved since the day before which was huge leap forward.

There still was a couple of issues to address but these were only minor at the moment which was a really good sign that our work was starting to pay off. Some of the thing we had to change were the volume levels coming through the 4 foldback speakers we had and then a slight change in volume on the PA. I had to make a slight adjustment to the mix of the keyboards so that the Musical Directors wasn’t overpowered by the others.

Just after I had made these adjustments I had a break like everyone else before we moved onto a dress rehearsal, we were going to face new challenges here when it comes to the wireless microphones placement on their costumes. The one costume that we had to worry about was Julia’s Wedding Dress, because Erin has a great voice but it hasn’t got a huge projection to it so we needed to make sure we were still picking up the vocals and the speech.

Not long Will arrived with a box full of adaptors and extra cables that we order a while ago for the show, we now could change parts of the band set-up to make it sound even better because it meant at place we could do a correct job instead of a botched job like we had. After we had finished off these minor changes it was time to do the Dress rehearsal before the first show. This went alright, I was still making a couple of mistakes but I was just going to have to try not to make them on the night. After we had finished we did ask to go over certain numbers once more just to try them again and for me to take some notes. We had one final job which we remembered right at the last minute which was that we had to create a safety announcement with some of the characters, Will raced off to create something on the computers while I tidied up the sound area so it look tidier to the Audience.

Evaluation:

The first show in my opinion could of gone a lot better in terms of the mixing of the wireless microphones, I managed to make quite a few mistakes and cause a couple patches of feedback, I think this also was down to the fact I had only done it 2 times before this one so was still trying to figure out the play itself, the band was still maybe a bit to loud for some people liking but again it was still an on-going mixing battle through-out the performance, the radio sound that came with the guitar was rather much louder at parts so we need to see if there is anyway we can attempt to change this. Also right on the opening number and for a small period after we totally lost the lead actors microphone, we didn’t know why because after a small amount of time it just came back and started working again. For the first performance give the time we have had as a team we worked well together and tried to overcome the rubbish parts. There are a couple of things that need doing before the second show but we also need to take on board the director and musical directors feedback.

Production Week: Tuesday

TUESDAY 26^th March 7.50am-10pm:

On the Tuesday I seemed to arrive ridiculously early so the first thing I decided to do was continue the tapping of cables backstage where there were walkways. Again there were a lot of cables running along the floor from the staging to PA Systems etc.. So I taped all of these down to help with the safety of cast and crew when working backstage during the performances. I then also used duct tape to help keep the huge multicore cable above the Fire Exit, and then put a layer of tape over the cabling that ran down the wall.

Today was going to be when we got to do our Technical Rehearsal’s and then go into a full run-through for the first time, so today was going to be a stressful and fun filled day. By the time everyone had arrived everything had been turned on, while the band and the cast were doing their vocal warm up’s we were preparing the wireless microphones because they were going to be used during the technical rehearsal so Mark who was going to be mixing them started to practise. The technical rehearsal for sound was really only for the microphones. We only made slight adjustments to the band during the rehearsal, at points I did jump in and help Mark out with the wireless microphones at points where they got a bit harder.

The main points that came out of the technical rehearsal was the fact that one that the wireless microphones weren’t sounding great but this was just because it was the first time we had rehearsed with them, and then the cast were complaining that they couldn’t hear the lead actors over the band. To solve the second problem we rigged up my personal PA System at the front of the stage, then we purely sent the wireless microphone mix through them so the cast on stage would be able to hear cue lines etc...  Also during the Technical Rehearsal we did sort of play around with the mix of the band just to see what sort of effect certain changes would make.

After the technical run through and lunch, we went into just a normal no stopping run-through so that everyone could pick up on areas that they either needed to rehearse or if there were parts that needed changing.  After this it was apparent that there were musical numbers that needed to be rehearsed again and certain scenes as well. Also they were all saying that the band was still too loud and the volume needed to be brought down and the microphones brought up a bit, so we adjusted the way we were mixing everything through the speakers to alter how it was sounding, and the volume was adjust a tiny bit. One thing we did add at this point was that we added in a limiter to the system which meant we could make sure that the sound doesn’t get any louder than the level we set.

One task that we did have to try and figure out how to do was trying to get a Wireless microphone working on the lead actors guitar. Impact Productions had provided us with and adaptor for a guitar so it was all done for us all we had to do was plug it in, but we needed to add distortion to the guitar for the songs otherwise we weren’t going to be getting the right sound. After several different attempts/methods we got the now Wireless Guitar working with the distortion, but the downside was we were now experiencing a weird interference. What was happening was when we turned up the wireless guitar microphone we got a radio playing alongside, luckily it was a lot quieter than th guitar so we would be able to hopefully hide it during performances.

What then happened is they started a full run-through and aimed to get through as much of it as possible before they finished for the day, after this the stage crew realised that they were short-handed when it came scene changes and backstage duties so they needed and extra hand, Mark who was operating the wireless microphone wasn’t 100% confident with the mixing for this show so volunteered to help out with stage, I then moved onto doing the microphones for the show while Will who was just overseeing/assisting us now was going to be mixing the band.

Once everyone had disappeared we began to try and fix and eradicate the radio sounds that were coming out of the speakers when we used the wireless guitar, but this went no-where and whatever we tried failed so we knew we would just have to work around it when it came to the performances. Also we tried to help the acoustics of the theatre by sliding the thick black curtains past the PA speakers and then facing the speakers slightly towards them, when we then played sound through it, it didn’t sound like it had changed but we would need the band to see if it had made an effect. After this we packed up and called it a day.

Its here Production Week: Monday

MONDAY 25^th March 8.30am-10pm:

On Monday morning we didn’t have specific roles to stick to for the time being it was a case of all giving a hand with bring the equipment over to the Theatre. We all worked effectively here and managed to cut down the time it took by assigning everyone with a selection of the sound equipment to bring over, this meant that we only ended up doing 2 trips instead of multiple. After everything had been transported over to the theatre along with the set, this is when I started to work purely on a sound front, while the other members of the production team started on the construction of the set.

When it came to the three sound crew roles, at this point I was purely concentrating on the sound set-up, I found that this would more effective because personally I prefer to be left to complete a task on my own, also as I was going to be mixing the band it was my responsibility to complete the set-up of them. Shortly after we had arrived and finished bring most of the sound equipment over except from the Instruments, Impact productions arrived with the hired equipment.  

The first thing that impact did for us was assemble the staging that we had hired, this meant that the minute it was set-up I could start to get equipment into the places it needed to go and then start the huge job of cabling. The most important job that we had when it came to the sound set-up was the 50m Cable that connected all elements of sound to the mixer. This cable had to be run along the wall but also over 2 Doorway’s in order to get to the mixer, so this was going to present challenges. First thing I did was just unroll the cable into a pile and then placed the multicore part to it at the back dead centre to the band. Then with the help of Mark we managed to get the cable along and up to where it needed to go.

After this was done I had to get it all plugged in to the mixer and get everything powered up. What I did was get a huge blue flight case that is used to transport lights. After the Lights had been rigged I borrowed the case and used it as a sound desk for my Mixer. This case just happened to be a perfect size because we just managed to slide it down one of the rows of seats which added to it stability. Once I had this desk I placed the big 24 track Soundcraft mixer onto the desk and started to plug in all of the XLR Ends into their rightful XLR Sockets. Then after this we just had to get some power to the area for everything that needed power.

My next Job was the positioning of the band, the whole band had not long before brought over everything they needed, so it was my job to place everything where it needed to go. The first thing to be placed was the Drum Kit, this was the biggest item to fit onto the stage. I also got Joel the drummer to actually give me a lesson of how to assemble the drum kit while I was helping him set it up which was educational. After he was in place I started to place the keyboards where they needed to be and then moved onto the guitars, the amps were not going to actually be used as speakers but were being used for their effects to the instrument, I put the Bassist and Guitarist together along with the Reed player. These were all placed together because it was the best use of the space no other real reason. The three backing singers just were placed next to eachother but they had a section to themselves this then also looked like how conventional back singers are placed. After we had finished the Musical Director wanted to go ahead and just do an acoustic warm up which was fine because it meant we could carry on with other things.

Just after this the cast started to arrive in the theatre, this was a shock to us because we were expecting to have the day to ourselves so we could get on and get everything sorted without disturbance, this idea was obviously wrong. They had come over because they wanted to start doing some rehearsals in the space that they were going to be using, which at the time they arrived was covered in equipment, cables, set and just general mess but this wasn’t our problem. Because of their arrival we knew they were going to want to use the band to do some rehearsals so we would now have to rush to get the whole band microphones up and get everything connected. For the time being we weren’t going worry about the wireless microphones and purely aim our efforts at the band.

Just after 2pm Will who would be helping/assisting and supervising with the sound on this production arrived, by this time I had only connected up the microphones. So he then helped with pointing us in the right direction for what we needed to be doing first and so on. So Me, Will and Mark began the plugging in of all the Amps and keyboards into the cable drum XLR Inputs, but making sure we were writing down what was going into each input so we knew when it came to working it all out on the board. We also had to set-up the 2x EVSX300 Speakers and Amp that we hired as a band foldback, for this we had to run wires underneath the stage but to do this we used some string and just pulled it through. One thing that Will had provided was the Clip on microphones for the Drum Kit along with 2 Condensers and then a Clip on microphone for the saxophone. The whole process of connecting everything up and making sure everything will be able to be hear, was a long job that had to be rushed because of being pushed to finish. Because of this we made a huge mess of the stage which was then covered in wires. 

Because we were being pushed for time, we decided to set-up any other PA system while they were rehearsing, this would project the sound of the band towards the audience, it also meant that we could share the volume through 4 speakers instead of 2 meaning we were avoiding breaking the speakers but also it would help to make the whole general sound better. As none of the tracks had been EQed it didn’t sound very good and it would have to be correctly levelled and tweaked. During these rehearsals we were getting on with other jobs that needed doing.

The Cast rehearsed for a couple of hours before heading off and then once the band had finished there rehearsing, we could now fix the mistakes that we had made when rushing to get everything plugged in. I personally couldn’t believe the state the band stage was in and I had a OCD Moment where I neatened/taped and untangled all of the cabling on the stage. After about an hour of me doing this I finally finished, the whole appearance of the stage looked 100% better. 

My Role as a ASM during Production Week

During the production week my main role/focus will be that of the sound department, so instead of concentrating 100% on the assembly of the set, sorting of props, painting the last parts etc.. I will be focusing on the set-up of the band, mixer, fold back systems, dealing with microphone issues and sorting out the PA Systems being used to provide sound to the audience.
Then during the show my role is the mixing of the Live Band, and controlling the level of sound coming from each instrument/amp/microphone and mixing them through into the speakers. I will also help with the Pre-sets and jobs needed doing before the start of every show, and the interval pre-sets/jobs, but my own focus will be that of sound.

Its Production Week on Monday!

So after weeks that have felt like years, we are now at the stage were Production Week Starts on Monday. We have finished about 90% Set with just small things to do next week, but these are only small things which is good because it means that these little jobs will not take up a huge amount of time.

Our Production week lasts 4 Days, Monday the 25th-Thursday the 28th of March. The Schedule as it stands right now is as followed:
Monday:
Tech Day, we have the theatre for a the whole day so that we can do all the major jobs like, The band Staging set-up, all the lighting rigged, sound set-up (Microphones) + All the cabling layed out ready to be plugged in etc... also at 9am on the Monday the Hire Company (Impact productions) will turn up with all the hired equipment/lighting/sound and staging, they also provided a technician to help set up the staging and the lighting. The plan is to stay until most of this is done so that is ready for Tuesday Morning!
Also at some point the Band will turn up with all their Instruments so that they can be set-up with microphones, amp plugged in etc... Me and will would then proceed to mix and equalize each and every instrument. 

Tuesday:
The Cast would then come over to the theatre at 9am ready for a full technical rehearsal (with Wireless Microphone) and this would last until whatever time they finished. In the lunch break we would then fix any technical issues or set problems ready for when the cast return after lunch. When they return they will either proceed with going over parts of the play that they weren't happy with that needed more practice. Then they would go for another run-through getting as far through the play as possible.

Wednesday:
The Cast would again turn up at 9am, to get straight into Costume ready for a Dress Rehearsal. As we had a performance at 7pm that evening, all technical issues needed to be addressed and sorted by then, (the sound was proving to be the hardest to sort out and this was my department during the show). We would then do the same as Tuesday and go over areas that the Director or the Technical team weren't happy with, and then follow this with the final rehearsal before the first show.
All pre-sets would be made and the cast would go for dinner, we would then fix any problems or do any last minute adjustments that needed to be made.
Then we would have the first show at 7pm-10pm (Approx)

Thursday:
There would be a later start on the Thursday  but the time would depend on how well the Wednesday night performance had gone. If all goes well we would come in and just get ready straight away for the matinee performance at 2.30pm. If there were areas that weren't as good as we wanted then we will be asked in a little earlier to fix/go over these areas.
There would then be the 2.30 performance and then after this a break/if there were still set/technical problems we will try and solve these before presetting for the evening performance at 7.30pm.
The Cast would then all return, get changed and ready for the last performance of the show, the show would go ahead at 7.30.
After the show had finished, straight away the Get-out would begin and the whole set and everything in the theatre would be taken down, packed away and either returned to the Hire company (Impact  Productions) or taken back to college.
After this was done we would all go home and enjoy our holidays.

ASM Theory Lesson Work

This was done a long time ago, but  I have only just remembered to upload it, we did this in a theory lesson to get a better understanding of what happens during Production Week, so that when we came to it ourselves we had a better understanding of what was going to happen.

A Week in Tech:

Monday:

·         Normally have your get in at 8am, including rigging and the fit up.

·         Then around 12pm you would try and start focusing, this will be going on for the majority of the afternoon.

·         Between 4-5pm approximately you would start the plotting, this could take on average 1-3 hours (or for big shows it could take longer)

·         Then at 7pm you would start your tech run, you might not finish the tech run but would make a start.

·         At approx. 9.30pm you would finish, at this time stuff like set painting or if the floors needed painting then this is when it would happen.

Tuesday:

·         You would then arrive at 9am and carry on with the tech run.

·         Then at approx. 4pm you would start the dress rehearsal.

·         The between 8-9pm you would finish for the day.

Wednesday:

·         You would start with a couple of run-throughs at around 9-10pm or what time the Director Requests.

·         You would be touching up any little details that haven’t been addressed in concern to the set, props, and costumes.

·         You would then have a show at 7pm.

·         After the show you would pre-set the show ready for the next performance.

Thursday:

·         You would normally arrive at 10-11pm and check all of the pre-sets are still in the right place.

·         You would then sit down with the director and he would have written a list of notes while watching the performance, which will all be addressed by cast and crew.

·         You would then take a break and then come back ready for a 1.30-2pm show.

·         This show would normally finish around 5pm and then you will pre-set again ready for the evening performance.

·         Then 7.30pm Show.

·         Then at the end of the day you pre-set again for the next show on Friday.

Friday:

·         You will be called in at around 11-12pm ready for the 2pm show.

·         This would be the last show so you would strike and put away as much as possible.

·         After this is done the crew would be allowed to go home.

Paint... Glorious Paint!

Before we could even start painting on the designs and the actual colors that the flats would be during the show we had to put down a base coat of white. We used Rosco white to start off but when we ran out we moved onto basic Matt emulsion. We needed to put down a base coat of white because the canvas absorbs the paint so this puts a layer onto which we paint our designs.
This process of putting a base coat of white on each flat that we were going to use took forever, ages and after (or throughout) we were all hurting and tired from constant rollering of brushes. Luckily there were certain flats that we didn't need to paint so we left them and put them to one side and just concentrated on getting the white on so we could move onto the actual painting.

In terms of Health and Safety when we started to paint everything, we made sure that we vented to room by opening most of the windows to give a good circulation of air within the painting environment  We also made sure that we took regular breaks and avoided breathing in to much of the paint fumes because this could effect our breathing.

When it came down to picking what to paint onto what flat, it fell down to me as the set designer to decide what to paint and how to paint it. I had a vague idea of what I wanted from the minute I started designing my set but I did rethink certain parts after looking/listening to what my other classmates were going to do, doing this helped because it led to greater outcomes.

This was an image that I just found
that looked near perfect to the effect
I wanted to get.

There were 3 Sections to the set that needed to be painted:

1: The Dumpster: From the start I knew this would be bricks, just bricks like the outside of a building. The bricks would obviously be faded and one would be different to another and these would cover the the window flat and also the 0.25m wide flat. Because it needed to be as realistic as possible I went and measured a brick and made some templates of a brick. Me and Danielle then drew the outlines of hundreds of bricks onto these flats ready for them to be painted.

2: The Wedding Venue (a Touch of Class Banqueting Hall): This was really a late decision on what color to paint these 3 flats, the Doorway and the 2 x the 1m flats. I knew that I wanted it to look like the inside of wedding venue and back then it was very one color, and very light and pale... so we went for a light blue. Dan (HND) then volunteered to paint all 3 flats in the same color. He did this because it meant the whole thing would have the same brush stoke/painting pattern across it so there wouldn't be any patches that looked out of place.

3: Robbie's Basement Bedroom (Basement being Key): Originally on my model box I had painted these flats a light cream/peachy color. Originally I was happy with this choice but when it got round to have to decide on what we were going to paint onto the flats I thought of a different design idea of breeze blocks, these would then show the representation of the scene being in a basement environment and it also the plan was to then decorate the flats with posters/t-shirts and other items. I decide to again create a template of a breeze block to use to draw on the design/pattern which would then be painted later.

For all these designs, I had to draw up on all the designs (with Danielle's help on the brick sections). This took some considerable time but it gave us a clearer understanding of what paint onto the flats.

After all the decisions had been made, we proceeded to move on a implement our designs. What actually happened what that after Ii had marked out one of the 1.75m x 3m Flats, (which also happened to be the window flat), with the brick pattern that I wanted in which I had included a wooden mantel, I mixed up/helped mix up the paint (Rosco) that would be used to paint the bricks. We went for a reddish brick color but it did have a touch of peach/cream to it, we then added a darker red color on top of this to create the desired effect. After the paint had been mixed Hannah, Amy and Mark made a start on the painting of the brick design which had been drawn out. This was a time consuming process but this was down to the fact that they had to be visually effective and also add to the whole image of the Dumpster section to the set.
After the main bricks has been painted we mixed up a light pale/cream color that would be used to represent motor/cement used to form the walls, we then we around each brick and filled in the blank sections that we included into the design. This was a much quicker process but it finished off the whole design and added that finishing touch needed.

As you can see in the image (Above) the brick effect worked excellently when viewing it from a distance, (This image is from a later stage, that I added onto here because I didn't have any other images). Hannah, Amy and Mark did an excellent job at bringing my vision to life and once again if we hadn't all contributed ideas, skills and teamwork into the mix the final outcome wouldn't of been as good.

I then started to make some progress by starting to paint the breeze blocks, I just repeated the whole preparation process by mixing up some grey paint to use, I made sure it was like a distorted dark grey. I managed to create a color that I was happy with and went about painting the breeze blocks on which I had marked out onto a 1.75m x 3m flat and a 1.25x 3m flat.
(This picture is also taken from later on during production week, but I added it to show how we had design and painted it.)
I used a much larger brush compared to the others who were painting smaller bricks, this did mean that I was done alot faster but still managing to get the effect that I set out to achieve.
Again we used the other paint that we made up to finish off the bricks we then used this to finish off the breeze blocks and this worked nicely.

After these 2 Sections had been done we moved onto the flats that will represent the 'Touch of Class Wedding and Catering Venue' and these were the easiest of them all, because they were just going blue all over, as a group we did discuss if we should paint on a pattern across the top of the flats to break up just the huge expanse of color and then also add a block along the bottom and around the door as well. We decided against this due to a couple of factors, we had a lot to get done ready for the show and this wasn't going to be a quick job and we didn't know if it would turn out good for sure so didn't want to risk having to paint over it and start again.

In conclusion as a group we all worked together to complete, design, mixing of paint, drawing of the brick and most of all the painting of the designs. We all took different roles and used our strengths to help get everything done. The whole process of getting these all done did take a couple of weeks but by the end of it they were all looking ready to be assembled and used for the final set, but most of all we were all happy/proud of what we had achieved and it was looking good. The next couple of lesson/the last couple leading up to production week are going to be now focused on completing everything ready for it to be taken over to the theatre.