10
FINDING SOLUTIONS
The human brain has selective memory; we tend to forget, or at least push into the far recesses of our minds, the disasters we've all faced—you know, the important lamp that blows just as the curtain goes up or the color that looked great in rehearsal but now seems washed out. These things happen to every lighting designer and are unavoidable. The important thing for a designer or technician to know is not how to place the blame or make an excuse but how to deal with the problem as quickly and effectively as possible.
PROBLEM SOLVING, STRESS MANAGEMENT, AND INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
The best designers are skilled in the art of problem solving. They communicate well and possess the ability to make on-the-spot decisions. They do not procrastinate. On a day-to-day basis, I choose to work with other designers who possess communicative and decision-making abilities over more creative persons who cannot verbalize their thoughts and ideas. Concerts are a collaborative venture; when one member of a creative team is unable to deal effectively with the others, that person drains everyone's energies.
Let me tell you a personal story. When I was in graduate school, I was assigned to stage manage a show. The lighting designer assigned to the show was very highly regarded by his professors, who thought he had a bright future. On this particular production, the director was a visiting professional. He took a nontraditional approach to the play, forcing us to look at it in a new way. In the early meetings, we all heard his explanation, and in subsequent creative conferences the design team contributed ideas. When it came time for the lighting designer to explain his thoughts, the director listened carefully. After hearing him out, he commented on his approach, saying everything was fine except for one key scene, which he asked the designer to rethink. In the next meeting, the lighting designer reiterated the exact same concept. Again, the director said, no, rethink it. Technical rehearsals of the play began, and guess what? The look the director had rejected showed up on stage. Again, the director was patient (an uncharacteristic quality among his peers), but he said, “Okay, I've seen it, and it still does not fit the imagery I wish this scene to create. Show me something different tomorrow.”
As the stage manager, I called the crew together for tech cleanup the next day before the dress rehearsal. The electrical crew was on time, but no lighting designer. We waited 2 hours, and still he did not appear. The board operator said, “What do we do? The director will hate it if I bring up the same preset again tonight.” Figuring the designer had an emergency, we decided to cover for him and programmed a different look before the rehearsal began. At rehearsal time, the designer walked in—no emergency. He simply said, “I went to the beach to think.”
We need not carry this story any further, except to say that this highly promising designer never made it past small community theatre. His talent was wasted, to be sure, but even more tragic was that his teachers did not educate him in the art and science of problem solving, stress management, and interpersonal communication.
DECISION MAKING
Part of the author's life was spent as an air traffic controller. How that happened was simple: I joined the Air Force, and they said, “You're an air traffic controller.” Life often plays tricks on us; we may see no reason for certain events as they're happening, but they turn out to be pivotal influences later on. That was the case here, because air traffic control is essentially a game of juggling schedules and making commitments. The greatest lesson learned was:
Do not be afraid to make decisions.
As an air traffic controller, even the slightest hesitation to commit yourself can be fatal to the people on a plane; therefore, a lot of time was spent teaching us to make decisions. The ability to make decisions is a learned skill, and being able to work under great pressure is equally critical.
A failure of our educational system is the lack of instruction in the psychology of taking action or making decisions. Theatre, film, and television are action-oriented professions. We all must work to a production timetable that, it is hoped, brings all the technical and acting elements together at the same time. My earlier story is a classic case of a creative mind being unable to deal with the realities of group-created art.
The best designers seem to be those who work well under pressure. Sadly, many who have the creative and even the communication skills necessary to be good lighting designers cannot deal with pressure. The best lighting designers know how to handle disasters, both physically and psychologically.
What do you do when you encounter a problem—for example, discovering you've used the wrong color? The solution is simple: Admit your mistake and change the color. For most people, the problem is not in changing the color, but in admitting that they could have made a better choice, and that is what it is—a choice. There is no black and white here, no life and death decision to make. It is no different when an actor cannot seem to find a special. Though it may be the actor's fault, do not even think about arguing the point with the director. Change the special. And don't think the crew is standing behind you laughing; they'll only laugh if you are too foolish not to change it.
DESIGN, CREW, AND EQUIPMENT FAILURE
An important thing to realize is that we fail as often as we succeed. Every success contains elements of failure, and vice versa. The types of failure that lighting designers commonly experience can be put into three categories: design, crew, and equipment.
Design Failure
There is no such thing as a perfect design. Based on that premise, all of our designs fail in some way. Artists, critics, audiences, managers, producers, directors, and teachers all decide in their own terms whether a production succeeds or not, and their evaluations are important, especially in the professional world. But, honest self-evaluation will do you the most good. Learn to step back and review your own checklist, asking if the show worked for you—as the director or artist defined the problem, as the physical limitations of the production required, and as you conceived it on paper. Ask yourself what you learned from this design experience. What could you do differently next time? Each production requires you to rethink ideas or solutions that may have worked perfectly in other situations. To think you will succeed on the basis of your past glories will be the death of you as a creative person.
Crew Failure
Regarding the crew, ask yourself if they failed or if you failed them because of your bad instructions, your supervision, or your lack of communication skills. When crew members fail, look to yourself first and then do not look any further! Did you give them all they needed to succeed? If they failed, it was probably because you did not communicate your needs adequately. You would be wise to study the many good books available about motivating coworkers; I particularly recommend People Skills, by Robert Bolton (1986, Touchstone Books).
Television pilots most often have a hectic pace. On some productions, usually under budgeted ones, we often encounter problems that would be easy to blame on the crew if we chose to do so. It's notuncommon to be short an adapter or cable or to forget a lamp, especially when you're working on a limited budget. You can't bring the whole warehouse. Most likely, the problem is that you've put more effort into the complicated production and did not spend a lot of time working out the nuts and bolts of this “simple” project.
Why waste time fixing blame? Do something! Maybe you can gang circuits, or look for a place where a luminaire can be moved and used to solve the problem. Maybe you did give the correct list to your gaffer or the rental shop, but that does not help you now. Before the next show, say a word to the person who you believe forgot to check the equipment. The person will appreciate that you did not reprimand him or her in front of their co-workers and will be more careful the next time.
Equipment Failure
No one is necessarily to blame for equipment failure, but you are responsible for finding a quick solution. While working on a series for the USA Cable Network, we shot more than 120 half-hour wraparounds. Those are the in-studio segments that lead into and out of a field report such as you see on “60 Minutes” or “20/20.” These had been shot in groups of 20, with a month off between sessions. When we came back for a fourth session, the lighting was put back but we couldn't get the same intensity on one part of the set dressings, even though we had the same studio, same dimmers, same luminaires, and same set. Why? We never figured it out. Under pressure to get tape rolling, the solution was to add a small luminaire that was available, and to achieve the lamp intensity that was needed I put it at spot focus. About an hour into the taping, there was a violent failure (see Chapter 9). Luckily, the Fresnel lens kept the hot filament fragments and glass inside the instrument. We quickly changed the lamp and went on taping. An hour later, it happened again. We then exchanged luminaires, and the problem was eliminated.
When the producer asked, “What the hell is going on?” I could have blamed the lamp, the luminaire, or the equipment rental house. What I said was, “I screwed up.” Finding a scapegoat or going into a long explanation on focus and lamp failure would only have extended the problem and wasted everyone's time.
DIMMER PROBLEMS
Here is a common problem: dimmers that develop minds of their own. It doesn't happen often in permanent installations, but rental gear is subject to invisible damage. Portable control cables get run over by forklifts, and constant patching and bouncing around in trucks can take a toll on dimmers.
One of the live award shows I have worked on, “The Golden Globe Awards,” had such a problem. The show was syndicated at that time and therefore did not have a big budget. I pride myself on being able to work with a limited equipment budget, but this time it caught up with me. The stage was lit adequately, but I did not have a lot of toys to create different looks. I was depending on creating most of the livelier looks in one area where singers were to perform and otherwise keeping the lighting simple. In addition, because backstage space was limited, the fire marshal ordered us to put the dimmers outside the building.
About halfway into the live broadcast, one of the dimmer packs overheated and started flashing individual dimmers on and off. Naturally, it involved a critical lamp: the key light on the master of ceremonies' podium. The first time it went off, I thought we had a blown lamp, so I quickly got a follow spot onto the speaker. Only a semi-disaster, I thought, and the show was saved by my quick action … or was it? When we went back to the presenter, I put the follow spot on the podium. The lamp then came up. What was the problem? Was the problem a short in the luminaire? Or was it a bad twofer or cable? Frankly, the last thing I suspected was a dimmer problem, as the equipment was from a top rental company and had worked perfectly all during rehearsal.
The next time we used the luminaire it came on as it should but then started flashing on and off. Then I knew it was a dimmer problem; however, figuring out what the problem was took several minutes, and all the while the flashing continued oncamera. Now that's a disaster. I asked the master electrician to shut the dimmer down and we finished the show using a follow spot to cover the area.
This was not the time to remind the producer that he had cut the budget so tight that there was no money for backup luminaires, which normally would have been built into the design to cover such a failure. I, after all, had ordered the equipment. On live broadcasts, it is considered standard operating procedure (SOP) to double hang areas such as the emcee's podium in case there is a lamp failure or to use only follow spots; I could have saved a couple of lamps from other areas and used them to back up this critical area. I did not.
COMPUTER PROBLEMS
The author prides himself on being an early advocate of computer lighting control. I believe I was the first to use a Century—Strand Light Palette on a concert tour with John Denver in 1974. But, failures do happen. My most recent failure came at a corporate show for a major auto manufacturer. We had rehearsed for a week, two shows were behind us, and we had one performance to go. After a quick run-through in the afternoon, we were ready for the next audience.
I was sitting next to the console reading when my board operator returned 20 minutes before the curtain was to go up. As I looked up to greet him, I saw both of the console's video monitors go blank. My first thought was that we had lost power. We checked and the power was okay. I reset the switch, the screens came back on, and then we watched the computer go through its internal diagnostic program. The show program came up and immediately went blank again. We went through the check and diagnostic program once more, and again the screens went blank, only this time smoke came out of the back of the console.
Now we knew there was a serious problem. While the operator opened the board, I ran for the telephone to get a backup console on the way. then I went looking for the producer to tell her we were dead in the water, so to speak. After the color came back to her face, she asked the obvious question: “What can we do now?” I calmly replied, “I'm not sure there is anything we can do.”
By this time, the cover was off the console. We found burn marks near the power supply, and a burned wire lead. We replaced the wire and the computer was back on line—with no show program! The power failure had caused an electronic spike that destroyed the disc drive module. The backup console arrived, but it wasn't a match, so at this point I had to make a decision. Should I go with the new console and reprogram the show from scratch, or stay with the one I had? I decided to use the backup board. By reprogramming the soft patch and reassigning channels to the 24 submasters (luckily the board had that many submasters), I felt I could at least do the basic show looks. To reenter all 137 cues would have taken too long, so while the board operator entered the dimmer-to-control channel patching information, I went to work laying out the submasters so we could run the show manually. We brought the curtain up 40 minutes late, but that final show turned out to be better than the first two.
However, the problem never should have happened. I should have required a computer with dual power supplies or a standby duplicate console. It's easy to say that in all the times I had used this particular board nothing had happened. I failed by falling into the it never happened before syndrome. There is always a first time.
BEING PREPARED
Early in my training as a designer, I learned a wonderful lesson from Dr. Sam Selden, author and for many years chairman of the Theatre Department at UCLA, who came to Southern Illinois University as a visiting professor. I was assigned to be his stage manager on a production of “Peter Pan.” Things had been going pretty well, and I was feeling cocky when he came up to me and asked what I intended doing if a particular hydraulic lift did not come up on cue. I hesitated, and he told me to come to him later with three solutions to the problem. His point should be taken: We should constantly be considering what ifs.
Several of my colleagues brought up this point. A good production manager or lighting director always has Plan B and Plan C, so when a truck goes missing with half the lighting we can move to Plan B. When the house can't hang a truss where you wantit, use Plan C. It's like being prepared with an excuse when you think someone is angry with you. Your mind races through all manner of possible excuses. Well, this is no different; you will be damned by someone no matter what you decide, so just do it.
I'm not saying we should or could build redundancy into every part of every system, because that isn't economically feasible. But, we should always be prepared for the worst and learn from our misfortunes. The greatest problem is being unprepared.