Two days ago, we started and finished filming for my March SDA. How did it go? It went well, not perfect, but well. Could I use another shoot day? Definitely, but that won't happen. So, while editing together the scene, it is time to break down the shoot day.
In my original outline, I determined that I would need about 2-3 crew members with me. My logic behind this decision was more simple than it should be: I believed I would have more time to program lights instead of doing a live shoot. Looking at my timeline, I realized I was short on time. In MASK, we have very few lights actually programmed other than one board. In total we usually will have a lighting crew of about 6-8(excluding myself and other high school advisors). I assumed that I could get away with about 6 crew members. There were a few things I forgot to take into account - like stage setup, an extra lighting hand, one or two camera operators, and a runner(basically an assistant).
Before, I realized I may be a little short handed, but I believed I would still able to make things work. What I did not anticipate was last minute cancellations. Although in this journal I could argue about what "Should" means when making plans, and it would make for a very entertaining journal, I do know that at times, situations arise and we all make scheduling errors. Although I may be upset that I came up short handed the night before the show, I understand that schedules are subject to change.
What does that mean for a lighting director/designer? It usually means that we have to be extremely flexible and adaptive up until seconds before lighting a show. I have talked about flexibility, and how it is important in case of equipment failure, and there are many more times we have to be adaptive and quick on our feet. So late Monday night, I reached out to anyone I could. I contacted advisors, past crew members, Emc-ers, anyone I could to help me out with lighting. This did change the playing field though, I now have to teach others how to operate lights instead of just telling a crew what I needed. I ended up being able to get a crew of six, but this was not enough to do everything I wanted. I had to cut some light cues, and my entire moving light system. Why cut the moving lights? I cut these because I felt that these would take longer to operate, and I should have came in another time to program these lights.
I was now operating under a smaller time frame. Instead of having from 2:30-4:05, I was unable to go to the middle school until 3:10 since part of my crew needed after school time. This meant I only had one take to get this right.
After cutting a few lights which I will breakdown in my edit of the film, we were able to incorporate most lighting systems, with some minor cue issues. I am very happy with what we accomplished, though. We built a crew and a lighting design even if we had to cut things, and this was all done within two weeks and only one shoot day. If I could have another shoot day that would be great, but schedules made that impossible. In MASK, we have months of so many hours put in after school, So with less than an hour of rehearsal, learning the cues, and executing the scene, I believe it went well. I now know where I can improve, too. I would also love to showcase the capabilities of the moving lights in a future product.
Now it is time for me to get back to editing and preparing another project!
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