# timeline and cues



## NHStech (Dec 27, 2010)

Perhaps this may make a good poll question(s) if streamlined, but I am curious for those of you who do high school/college musicals (or pros, I suppose, for that matter, if working with unions are not substantially different than volunteers, but I would obviously know nothing about that)...
A) Who writes in/establishes lighting and/or sound cues? Your director, stage manager, lighting designer, sound designer, none of the above...?
B) regarding sound cues - do you use actual calling of cues (sound cuee 1, etc) for the turning on or muting wireless mics as actors go onstage/offstage, or do you just write in the prompt book as "go mics 1,3,4, etc.."
C) What is your timeline for writing in light/sound cues? Do they start getting shaped after the first few observed rehearsals, do you wait until the week before, two weeks before...?
Thanks in advance, everyone.


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## mstaylor (Dec 27, 2010)

Most don't call sound mix cues, just effects or recorded cues. Sound is unique in that they need to be free of headsets to be able to mix. Lighting cues are a work in progress. Who writes them, timeline and the adding and subtracting depends on the director and lighting designer.


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## Les (Dec 27, 2010)

In my experience, no one would know better as to when to mute a wireless mic than a good sound board operator. A stage manager talking in their ear would only mess them up. I am in agreement with MStaylor regarding only music playback and sound effect cues being called by the SM. Of course, there are always special circumstances, such as off stage mics, singers in the wings, etc which may need to be called.

As far as lighting goes, a rough idea of cue placement will generally evolve when the rehearsal process begins, production meetings start happening, etc. Generally, I won't know exactly how many cues I will end up with until the end of tech-in (one week prior to open). Even after that, there will generally be minor adjustments and additions throughout the tech rehearsal process. 

Usually the director and I (lighting designer) will collaborate on where we want cues. They will be notated in the script, and final looks will be created during the programming process. Usually the director will come up with a few dozen "how about if we..." moments, but that's to be expected. The only involvement the stage manager will have at this point is writing the cues in the script as they are programmed.


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## rochem (Dec 27, 2010)

To expand a little bit on what Les said, in the world of lighting cues, the Lighting Designer is king. Usually when you first read the script, you place a few obvious cues (scene changes, beginning and ending of the show, etc.), then you start to dig in a little more into where you might need cues. At the designer run, which is usually one of the last rehearsals before tech, the LD tries to finalize their list of lighting cues as much as possible. Usually I will just write the letter Q in my book and possibly a quick description of what needs to happen. 

In the time between that and the beginning of tech, that gets turned into a complete cue list, with cue numbers, descriptions, pages, and possibly rough indications of cue timing. Depending on your SM and the company, you may meet before tech for a "paper tech" where you tell the SM where each cue is, and he/she writes them in their book. Regardless, you show up for tech with a pretty solid idea of where every cue will go, and if you didn't have paper tech, you relay them to the SM as each one is programmed. Inevitably, a number of cues will end up being added or removed during tech, and these are given new numbers and relayed to the SM as they are written. 

While the director obviously has a say in how the lighting looks, it is the lighting designer's final call on what cues to place where. A good director will never say "I want a light cue here that turns the stage blue because she's sad" or something like that. The workflow I usually see is that the LD builds a cue, then the director says something like "I feel like this cue is too frivolous for the character's emotions, can we maybe isolate her a bit more?", and the LD responds by modifying the cue or building a new one. Officially, the SM should never have a say in cue placement or timing, other than determining when to call the cue to anticipate the lighting designer's intended timing.


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## HSSBO94 (Jan 4, 2011)

NHStech said:


> Perhaps this may make a good poll question(s) if streamlined, but I am curious for those of you who do high school/college musicals (or pros, I suppose, for that matter, if working with unions are not substantially different than volunteers, but I would obviously know nothing about that)...
> A) Who writes in/establishes lighting and/or sound cues? Your director, stage manager, lighting designer, sound designer, none of the above...?
> B) regarding sound cues - do you use actual calling of cues (sound cuee 1, etc) for the turning on or muting wireless mics as actors go onstage/offstage, or do you just write in the prompt book as "go mics 1,3,4, etc.."
> C) What is your timeline for writing in light/sound cues? Do they start getting shaped after the first few observed rehearsals, do you wait until the week before, two weeks before...?
> Thanks in advance, everyone.


 
I'm in high school and here's how we do it:
Our director will come to me and either give me a whole bunch of sound cues, or tell me what he wants and I'll have to get / find / make some. Sometimes he has a specific place where he wants it, other times we'll work together and decide where (mostly he says where he wants it, and I, based off of what I know about the cue if I made / found it will incorporate into the scene / transition as best I can)
If the stagemanager is not there I then go tell him in one of our meetings or my notes after rehearsal if it's tech week and he writes it in his script. As far as how the cue is called, it's up to the SM, the only thing is I might request a longer stand by or some sort of 2 minute warning. Once or twice I've just taken my own cues, the the SM still has these in his book and will have worked with me on the exact timing that was agreed upon.
One of our new SM's started calling "standby mute mic" and it was a problem. When I have 8 mics saying "mute mic" is just confusing, and if I do have all those mics, I prefer to be not on headset so that I can listen to what's going on in the house.

I like to go to my director as early as I can for the sound cues just to get an idea. That can be as early as 2 months before the show. The week before tech week I try to have the bulk of the stuff to show him; but everything is subject to tweaking during tech week, right through final dress.

I realize the high school way isn's always the correct way, but since the OP asked about high school I thought I'd give how we do it.


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## LXPlot (Jan 4, 2011)

Here is how it is done at my high school. The lighting and sound designers do their designs, find sound effects, and set up the actual equipment over the course of the rehearsal schedule. Then, they each write their own cues and give them to the stage manager. The sound person writes each individual mic addition and cue in their prompt book, the lights guy writes the timing of each cue than names the cue on our computer's cue list, the name being the line that is said before the cue. That way, a stage manager isn't vital to the performance. The stage manager still calls cues for lights, and I believe only gives warnings to the sound person with the exception of for sound effects. The director is never really a part of the process, other then telling the designers whether or not they like the looks of the cues.


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## kiwitechgirl (Jan 7, 2011)

Professional world, but anyway....

- Lighting designer will watch several runs of the show (having read the script and had discussions with set and costume designers and the director) and mark cue placements in the script. Sometimes we do a paper tech where SM, LD and director sit down and talk cues through, but not always. In the plotting (or levels) session, the cues are built and the SM writes them into the prompt book. In terms of sound cues, we run Show Cue System in rehearsals as well as performance, and sound effects will get fed in throughout rehearsals, so that by plotting, we know where they all go, it's just a matter of setting the levels, which is done in conjunction by the director and sound designer. The SM transfers info on cue points from the rehearsal script to the calling script (that is, if they're using two different scripts!)
- Radio mic operator is NOT on comms and marks up his own script. SM does not have any microphone information in the prompt script, unless there are pack switches to be done during the show, and that info will be in the script. 
- Sound cues go into the script as the effects go into rehearsal. Lighting cues don't go into the script until the plotting session - which for us, is normally the Tuesday before a Saturday opening.


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## nd925a (Jan 7, 2011)

I'm a high school student.
Our SM is only interested in back stage, so the lighting and sound guys get their own scripts to mark up how they choose and the director will tell them if he/she doesn't like something. Cue building normally happens for lights after all the focusing is done on Tech Sunday, for sound it's the first tech rehersal with a prebuilt mic list after we get a final list of actors and currently working mics


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