orchestra

I recently did a major musical, and when I say recently I mean it closes tomorrow.  Well to save money, we decided to not hire any musicians and rent the computer genterated track from real-time music solutions.  Sinfonia. Oh the bain of my life for the last 4 weeks.

Sinfonia is what i call Sibalus for beginners, only you can't program the music into the computer. Sure you can control tempo's and keys and even repeats and vamps. You can also control individual volumes on instruments as well as muting them. Sinfonia is supose to be a orchestra suppliment, meaning you have 3 or 4 musicians in your pit and the computer plays along with them. We didnt do that.

I'm glad we didn't. While the orchestrations are nice, the issue was volume with the tracks themselves. Example, when you open the program for the first time all instruments are at 100. If you think of it like a soundboard 100 actually is 0, 0 would really be -100 and 200 would be +100, Understand.

So lets start the first song.

Oh thats sounds nice, wait where did the music go?, Oh there it is, HOLY CRAP WHY IS IS SO LOUD.

No joke that was the first 2 minutes of the first number. Now imagine having to sit down and edit every song and every point where the music could be at a more constant level. I'm not talking equal volume the whole show, I mean barely anything showing up on the sound board sensors to everything peaking in the matter of a measure. 

So for 2 weeks I edited and fixed and worked on everything. Then load in occured and we went into the theatre.

Everything I had mixed and edited was trash, but the problem was the show didnt sound right at all. I called Sinfonia and they didnt know what the problem was, in fact they still don't.

While our audience likes the orchestrations and they sound good, my suggestion, ude at your own risk first. It may make your life a lot harder as a sound designer.  I didnt get a decently sounding run thru until the night before opening, and after rehearsals it would be the director and myself in the parking lot working on 2 to 3 hours of notes on just sinfonia.

The sound guy's case

What is in my sound case?

First wig or toupee clips

I use these in alteration with bobby pins to attach a cable to someone.


Next would be Tagaderm tape and medical tape.

Tagaderm or medical tape is super useful to get microphone cables to attach to a person's body.  The great thing about Tagaderm is that is it super hard core and doesn't come off easily. The bad thing about Tagaderm is that it is super hardcore and doesn't come off easily.  It leaves a residue on the cable that is hard to get off. But I have a remedy for that too.

Isoporpyl Alcohol this can sanitize a surface but also can take tape residue off a mic cable.

Floral wire

#30 to be exact.

Its small and can be bent and moved easily.  If I am using a wig line mic on someones face I wrap the floral wire with it about 3 inches from the end then take the wire down to the edge about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch from the head of the microphone. wrap it around the cable once then bend down just before you come to the head.  This allows sweat to drip off the mic without damaging the physical mic. 

For one show I had 8 lapel mics and needed head mics (it was RENT) and so I made head contraptions out of small gauge electrical cable (single style) and attached the mic to the cable using spike tape.  If the cable was blue, orange tape was used. Pink/ green... so on and so on.

There was a sound blog that actually suggested a certain kind of marker in different colors as well as finger nail polish and nail polish remover to repaint the cable to hide in peoples hair and skin tone better. I don't do this but I have thought about trying it.

Would you make the same decision…

Recently, I got an email from the school asking me to take part of a survey. What my school wanted to know was how extensive did my education go for me, as well as how many types of papers I did versus test versus lectures versus types of classes I took. This was interesting to say the least, but while I was filling out the various answers, there was one question that just resonated with me.

If knowing what you know now, would you still choose this institution again.

My answer, NO.

Why, I was failed by this institution. You see, I am not the target audience that they are going for. I am not directly out of high school, I will be 30 this summer. So why should I be upset. From my first day on campus it was a cluster. It was truly a sense of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.  If I needed an answer to a question, I would go to one person, who would send me to someone else, who would send me to someone else, who would send me to someone else. Literally, there was one entire day I spent running around the campus looking for certain people who others said had an answer but in fact didn't.

Then you have the bickering. My department has always had this issue. The professors just don't get along and from a students perspective, they don't want too. I had two of my good friends who used to be student liaisons. What they would do was be available to students who were having issues and then be invited to a department meeting and share these concerns with the faculty. The problem was, the issues the students were having were the professors not getting along. My friends, when they sat in this meeting, watched for 2 hours, as professors made snide comments, argued and berated each other for the entire meeting. Then closed the meeting with, "what's going on with the students?". Seriously, our problem is you.

That isn't even my main concern with the university. Its out for money, the general well being of the student body isn't a concern, instead getting more and more money from each student is. This could be from raising school "fees" more and more every semester, or requiring more gen-ed classes, or even more fees in general.

Let's attempt to break down the program service fee for ETSU. The only document I can find on the ETSU website comes from the 2011-2012 school year.

"The fee is based on the number of credit hours for which a student enrolls and is capped at $531.50 for freshmen and sophomores and $506.50 for all others.  It includes parking, athletics, student activities, and other items.  Students enrolling in certain courses or programs of study will also pay fees to cover additional program related costs."

from What You Should Know About Tuition and Fees

But that itself doesn't break it down, I couldn't get my hands on the most up to date breakdown of Tuition and Fees for the school.  That's ok though.

I recently signed up for summer classes and there is a $750 university charge per class and an additional $500 charge for the summer term. I think that is outrageous. The site doesn't break down what this fee is it just adds it all together.  I want to know what I am paying for.

The Tech Week Sickness

Tech week is a long process, the last year I have only had one show where it truly was a "hell week" but then you are talking about a MASSIVE show that I had been working on for 9 months.  It never fails that when you reach tech week on a show, the tech week sickness starts around the cast and crew. My tech week sickness is generally after tech week is over.  I think that this sickness comes from the lack of sleep and the lack of proper nutrition and food during the long week.

For a tech person, the sickness comes from where you are working. Theatre's are a dusty, dirty, contaminated public space. No matter how clean you keep your tech booth the rest of the theatre will still be dirty. That seat that you have by your board, how many people have sat in it and when was the last time the arms were sanitized. Door knobs are handled by how many people? Even the seats for audience members… think about those.  There are a lot of people that come in and out of the space, wood it cut in and around the space, things are painted, hairspray is sprayed. So there are many fine particulate that are floating around in the space. I worked in one space that in the 9 months I designed for them, they never once changed the air filters, thats not only a health hazard its a fire hazard.

My tech week sickness this time around came the week before tech week, and the week before I even loaded into the theatre. I was on spring break for school, and let me tell you this thing knocked me out. It lasted 18 days total.  It was terrible. It woke me up and made me start taking vitamins again.

Hiding a Microphone

Let's hid a microphone on a persons face.

NO THANK YOU

This is why I hate over the ear microphones. They are so obvious.  I have talked and talked with designers about this till I am blue in the face.  An over the ear microphone is more prone to harm then anywhere else. People sweat, actors have to kiss and breath. These mics pick up every bit of it and the audience doesn't want to hear that scratchy sound any more then they want to hear feedback.

Sure you can hid a mic in someones clothes, however if you want to hear the rustling of clothes be my guest.

I suggest that you place the mics as a wig-line or hair line mic. This is actually one of the best places on a persons face to pick up sound.

But what if the actor is wearing a hat, aren't you worried about sound reflecting off the brim? SURE

But the good part about hair line mics is that they can be moved.

The sound quality from a mic placed in the hair is much better then on the face itself. I have actually place standard lapel mics as wig line before and people working in the theatre would go "are they using one of the new ones?" UMMM, no remember that cheap lapel that came in the box, yeeah that's what they have.  I actually changed out 3 over the ear mics out for wig line during the run of a show once and the performers didn't want the over the ear mics back because they said they sounded better.  The wig line mic is a better view for the audience as well, think about how you take an audience member out of the moment when they see the over the ear mic on a actors face, with a wig line they done have to see any of that.

Microphones and the theatre

No matter if we as theatre people want it or not, microphones are here to stay in theatre. As a sound reinforcement the audience needs to be able to properly hear a performer. The acoustics of a theatre today are different from that of 50 and 100 years ago. The older theatre's were designed to project the sound properly to the audience members. In a series of post I will go into the various types of mics, the various places to place them and hide them, and lastly various items and things that every sound person might need to help change a mics color, hide a mic, and even protect the microphone from body sweat.

Over the past 6 years I have done numerous musicals. All of the theatre's claim that one style of microphone is better then another.  I for one think this is untrue. While I have my preference no-one microphone type (not brand) is better then another.

There are a few types of microphone, DPA is one of the top brands that you can purchase or rent.  They offer two types themselves. The miniature mics and the headset mic

The miniature mic is similar to a lapel style, but a smaller head that is easier to conceal. This mic can actually have an adapter to make it a lapel style mic. 

This mic is best for lapel or wig line. Both of which I will go into more detail in a later post. 

Most theatre companies and rental houses in the region only use one type of microphone, that would be AudioTechnica.  These mics packs are pretty good. However, the mics themselves are terrible. I actually replaced 30 AudioTechnica over the ear mics with microphones from Microphone Madness. A replacement mic from AT runs around $250 but the MM mics cost $100. Based on price, the MM mics sound like they are cheap and terrible. however they are more durable and better quality.

The second type of microphone is the over the ear style. This microphone is exactly as it sounds, the fits over the ear of the performer and rest within a few inches of the performers mouth.  The boom of the mic is reasonably flexible and can be adjusted on each performer, within reason. I have see numerous mics broken because performers will bend and adjust the mic over and over again on their face, breaking wires in the boom.

All these microphones are still fragile, users need to always remember that. When you bend a microphone repetitively the insides wires and cables can break. Another thing that can go into breaking a microphone quickly is passing a microphone between users.  Yes, you can pass a mic, however you need to teach every person how to do this. I stood backstage at a show once that had 30 mic passes between 10 mics. I saw people literally take the over ear mic off and pull the pack up thru their dresses by the cable, then throw it on the table and walk away. And this theatre company wonders why they spend 3 grand on replacement mics and repairs a season. 

I was at the mic rental house I use a few weeks back talking to the guy I use. He was telling me how they are no longer going to rent over the ear mics, why you might ask?  they rented 8 a few weeks before for a show for 5 days, when they were returned only 2 were in working order. 

When I bought the MM mics, I asked some twitter people what they thought of the company. I was told only use them on children cause they could break and who cares you are out less money.  When I replaced the first 10 mics for a theatre, let me say how much better the MM mics stood up against the destruction that was this theatre. The only issue I had with them was the wires would come out of the plugs (remember pulling up thru dresses). 

FInding a theatre

A few weeks back I started a contract for Spring Awakening the musical. I have really loved this show for a long time. The story is something that still rings true even though it was written in the 1890's. The show deals with a few issues, that of sex, abuse, and suicide. Though the musical itself somewhat follows the storyline of the original pal, Duncan Sheik wrote the score with Steven Sater writing the book. In 2008 Spring Awakening won the Tony Award for Best musical, best orchestrations, and best original score, and a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. 

The company this show is with doesn't have a permanent home or theatre, so rehearsals are held wherever they can get a place to do them, and performances are always at different theatre's and spaces.  I think its a great concept but in our area its a hard one to do.  Lets look at the list of theatre spaces available in the area. 

Barter Theatre- Abingdon, VA- 2 spaces both in constant rep with the equity shows. I won't go into the details for this space cause no one can rent it.

Theatre Bristol-Bristol, TN- a 99 seat proscenium space that runs maybe 5 shows a year, but doesn't currently have any full time staff and is run part time by the board. Leprechaun 1500 or 1600 board with 24 dimmers one of which is constantly on. 

Paramount Center- Bristol, TN- a 756 seat fully equipped proscenium space that acts as a local touring house, also brining in its own season ticketed shows. ETC Express with 96+ dimmers, no movers or LEDS, but has 4 scrollers in house.

Cameo Theatre- Bristol, VA- a shabby movie theatre/ vaudeville house that was run by a christian radio station. It currently is in need of MAJOR repairs as the basement floods because its part of a creek bed. The building is currently for sale. no lighting or sound installed in building 

Kingsprt Theatre Guild at the Renaissance Center- Kingsport, TN- this is a 200 to 300 seat theatre with out of date 2 pin patch panel with analogue light board and out of code rigging that attempts to put on shows. I attempted to design one show with them 3 years ago, the budget $0, my pay $0, the show Little Shop of Horrors. Needless to say I never went back after the initial meeting. 

Toy F. Reid Employee Center- Owned by Eastman Chemical Co- Kingsport, TN- i have never been in this space, heard it is massive and awesome. unknown lighting and sound 

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   Wellmont Theatre at Northeast State Community College- I took a tour of this building just before it opened, other then not having movers or LEDS it was pretty decent. For a theatre built in the last 5 years I would expect something other than an ETC Express at the lighting helm.

   
   

   Milligan College Theatre- Milligan College is a Christian College with a 4 year old amazing theatre, scene shop located off the stage deck, plenty of fly space, and awesome lighting. No movers. It also has a ETC Express for a light board, but because the theatre is used for worship services, lectures, shows, and more it is attached to a server that can hold multiple shows at the same time. Kinda cool, but why use the Express?

   
   

   Johnson City Community Theatre- a 100 year old community theatre that has been continuously producing shows for 60 years in the same space. This is a converted church located in a interesting part of town. The board of directors has been making improvements over the last 2 years. First, there is a newer sound system in place, new sound board, new computer and new wiring. The 170 seat thrust stage is unique that its a wood deck in need of repairs and a good homisote (forgive my spelling on this one) and masonite revamp. There is a TV monitor system to watch the shows downstairs in the dressing room, scene shop, storage, ext areas. They are fundraising for a new lighting system, a ETC Element with LED fixtures to supplement their current 3 dimmer packs on 3 pin multiplex , if all dimmers were working they would have 24, then have 18 with a Leprechaun 624 15' ceiling heights 

   
   

   Blue Moon Dinner Theatre- Johnson City, TN- its amazing what 2 to 3 blocks can do because Blue Moon is located in the heart of Downtown JC. This used to be a dinner theatre, then a gay bar, then another theatre, and now is Blue moon. They constantly have a show running. No idea the lighting or sound system. no fly space though. 

   
   

   Bud Frank Theatre at ETSU- this 250 seat proscenium space is nice. no fly space, 2 48 ETC tour racks, backstage, a Express 48/96, new sound system, LEDs in inventory. 

   
   

   VA Memorial Theatre- Mountain Home, TN- this 112 year old theatre needs help, ETSU was renting it from the VA until 2 years ago when a store came thru and destroyed the dressing rooms and the room, flooding part of the building. ETSU had provided the lighting and sound for the building and when they stopped the lease they stripped the building down to nothing and took it to the Bud Frank (thus why there are 2 tour racks there). This theatre has a hemp rigging system that maybe 1/2 of them work. 

   
   

   Niscwonger Performing Arts Center- I have never been in this space, its large and constantly in use, larger tours come in and out all the time.

   
   

   
   

   So those are the theatre's of the area. What would you decide on? I was pulling for The Bud Frank, because their schedule seemed to work best for the week we needed for tech and load in/out. We ended up getting Johnson City Community.  I may not be ecstatic about it, but it works. I wish that their new lighting system would be installed as I find their current light board a pain to work with, there are also major dark spots on the stage because of the lack of fixtures and dimmers. But Mark your calendars, March 21, 22, and 23 there will be a show.

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

My Design Process

As a scenic and lighting, and sound designer, design is what I do.  I have had conversations with professors and other designers many times over the process, there have even been times where I have had professors tell me flat out that my process is wrong. I will always disagree with the thought process that someones design process is wrong. Every designer works differently.  Be is a play, a musical, a dance piece, or a collection of short pieces; every show is different and requires a different thought process. The two main processes are:

Design without research-
I use this style more with lighting then scenic, however there have been a few shows where scenically the script spoke to me in a way that I didn't need to do research. If a script is written well and has enough of a description, it will tell you what to design. Scenically, I can give two examples of this:

Flags- a modern take on a Greek tragedy to protest the Iraq war, complete with a Greek chorus as news reporters. While reading this script, that takes place almost totally in a families living room, I kept seeing Greek Architecture. So I designed it with columns and a capitol.

Cats- This was just a crazy show to work on from the start. Generally, the show is places in a garbage pile of some sorts, however, my director wanted it placed in a carnival or fair grounds. There was no research with this design up front, later I did more research for small details like painting and such.

Design with research- 
Most of my scenic design is done this way, be it with types of stone, or house styles, or locations. Most recently I used this with a lighting design, but I will talk about a standard scenic design as well.

Voice of the Prairie- This show takes place in the early days of radio in the Kansas area. My research was mainly on when electricity came to the prairie. There is a 15 to 20 year difference between act 1 and act 2, with parts of both acts being done in flashbacks. The reason I researched when electricity came to the area was because it would decide what color the lighting would be as well as what types of practicals would be used. It was gas light by the way, so my practicals had to be warmed up to look like a flame.

Other Desert Cities- This show takes place outside the Palms Springs Dessert in a house that was built in the 1960's. My research focused on the types of houses, what the outside looks like, what the inside looks like.


There have been many shows that require a mixture of these processes. Hairspray was a show that required very little up front research for the original concept, but the actual design needed LOTS of research. Another show was A Piece of my Heart, it needed lots of research before I even started conceiving it because I needed to see more of what Vietnam looked like.

Design evolves and changes constantly, something that works for one show will not work for another.