# 5 minutes of panicking yields 5 minutes of pride



## snarefire (Dec 12, 2010)

So, im relatively new to theater, having not done real work in a theater since highschool (3 years ago) Many things if not all are still hazy to me. thus my pride in my little work. I work part time with a theater, many of its shows are one weekend or two weekend ordeals, with small cue list. So i come in open the doors, turn on the dimmers, load the show, and check the sound system. No problems until the house is loaded, and the clients tech realizes that the show is not the same. Turns out over the week we had been out, someone had opened the clients show and written their own overtop, going from about 20 cues, to 250. Wow what fun, writing cues with a full house, in 15 minutes, when im not a real tech for this theater at all...... Wooh! any similar expereinces?


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## Pie4Weebl (Dec 12, 2010)

Nope, I always carry a disk with the show (or flashdrive), as I'm sure you've now learned to do 

Welcome to CB! Hopefully you can learn a few things to save you from future panics, I know I have!


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## techno89 (Dec 12, 2010)

I had to redo a 100 cue show but since I was the designer it was no big deal. I just came in one day and went through the book and re-did it. It was easy since I designed it.


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## snarefire (Dec 12, 2010)

I would have carried a disc, or flash, if i had designed the show. According to my boss no one had been in the theater since the last show, so according to his theory there was no need for me to worry. As of now, i have set up a copy of horizon on my computer complete with patching and submasters so that if i have to redo a show its not a big deal. Though from now on a copy will be saved on my email, computer, and show computer


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## cpf (Dec 12, 2010)

Never had this happen. Most decent consoles will also let you set the showfile as read-only, preventing accidental overwrites, which is also great when dealing with a "basic_lighting_when_we_dont_want_to_pay_someone_to_run_theIevent.spf" type file where the "operator" might not know what they're doing.


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## snarefire (Dec 12, 2010)

That was a definite fact for today. The clients, wanted to run the show themselves which was fine by me considering it was in hindi, and so was the prompt book. Though i found it funny when they couldnt run the show because i disabled the tap to click button. instead of just pressing the space bar. If i figure out how to write the program as a read only, i will. Thanks for that tip. I wish i had the foresight to create submasters, where as the light designer hadnt, it would have made that 5 minutes much easier.


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## cdub260 (Dec 12, 2010)

About ten years ago I had just finished programming a show with, if I remember correctly about 60 cues on our ETC Microvision. When I went to save the show to disk, instead of saving, the console dumped its memory. I lost cues, patch, subs, everything. I reprogrammed the console set-up and the show from memory and my script notes. I somehow managed to get all but three of the cues right, and those three just required a little tweaking. I refused to save to disk on that board again until the show closed. Never had the problem again though.


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## snarefire (Dec 13, 2010)

Well Im glad that you managed to get it all back. I set up a basic cue list for them from what i knew of the show, which was very little since the show was in hindi, as was the prompt book. Though from now on, im requesting a prompt book in english a week before the show. Anyone got any tips for working with horizon?


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## DuckJordan (Dec 13, 2010)

snarefire said:


> Well Im glad that you managed to get it all back. I set up a basic cue list for them from what i knew of the show, which was very little since the show was in hindi, as was the prompt book. Though from now on, im requesting a prompt book in english a week before the show. Anyone got any tips for working with horizon?


 

Try to find something different... I worked with horizon for 4 years and to make the files read only you have to use windows and make it read only on the show file itself. I also would like to point out that horizon doesn't like anything new in the system. So get a basic system run only windows xp or 98 (it didn't seem to like 2000 very well). and only put horizon on the system.

Another thing is you don't have to have a sub-master wing to use sub-masters. There should be a bar on top that has numbers or if they have changed them names and you can run through values by clicking and moving the mouse.

On a good note about horizon, it can be fairly stable as long as you run it without anything else on the system (it is a lighting desk treat it like one, you wouldn't put quake on your GrandMA would you?) Also since it is discontinued parts for it may start becoming cheeper since they are trying to get rid of old stock. 

But remember Horizon is fairly basic when it comes to theater control for anything other than 1-1 dimming and if you plan on getting any fixtures that use DMX signal for anything other than intensity then first upgrade to a decent console.


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## coldnorth57 (Dec 13, 2010)

I run a Marquee whith Horizon Softwear and the softwear saves a whole bunches of backup file to disk ever time it dose a save and I have had to go back to the backup files a few times and open up the lastest clean or good file (may have losted a few cues) but not the whole show .


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## snarefire (Dec 13, 2010)

Well as far as changing or upgrading the console, i have no choice in the matter. I am only a part time tech. The theater is a small production place, at best it seats 40-45 people. Its owned by a much larger parent company, who own several theaters here in northern Virginia and of them it is the smallest. 

The school i work for has an older encore system 250 i think, that does the job well.

Im running a copy of Horizon on my personal computer, with the dimmer patch currently setup for the smaller theater, so that in case of dire circumstance, i have the program set to run a basic light plot, which with luck i can edit on the fly. 

As to Horizon having software problems, i have yet to have any, and i am running it on windows 7. Though if you have any newer software suggestions i am more then open to them. I am still learning the software and its short cuts, hell still learning why a 1-1 is not a practical setup for dimmers. Thanks for the info so far you guys have been really helpful


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