CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

I mentioned this in a previous posting. Professor John Flynn coined the term moth effect to describe the tendency of humans in commercial establishments, like bars and restaurants, to gravitate toward the lighted area or, at least, to sit facing the lighted area instead of with their backs toward it.

In the theatre world, we engineers take great pains as lighting designers to set up areas on the stage that are lit for each scene. We focus the FOH (front of house) lights, consisting of parcans and long-throw ellipsoidals from the catwalk, on an area designated by the director, then fill from the forward overhead electrics with fresnels and special short-throw ellipsoidals, then back-fill from the rear electric with more fresnels. When we're done with a light design, we walk through it with a piece of white paper to make sure it's evenly lit, then we bring actors out in costume and set the color gels to work with the costumes and the set.

Then we build the light plot, program the board for each scene or "look" and we're ready to run two days of tech rehearsals, that is, with lights, sound and special effects, followed by two days of full dress rehearsals with actors in costumes and makeup. Then it's showtime. Opening night. Full house, audience of paying customers, everyone's excited.

What happens? Act One, Scene Four. The stage manager calls to the booth on the headset "We're dark upstage right." The lighting tech looks at his light plot, runs the slide pot for channel 47 up and down and realizes that he's dead on 47, a long-throw ellipsoidal from the catwalk. He immediately dispatches a tech to the catwalk with a replacement bulb. These babies are 40 bucks apiece, by the way. Now, the tech can't swap out the bulb in the middle of the scene; that would look awful, so the lightboard operator and the tech hold off until channel 47 goes down then the tech has minutes or seconds to make the swap without throwing the ellipsoidal off its mark. In the meantime...

...all the actors, for some reason as yet unresolved in the theatre world, decide to skip their two months of blocking rehearsal and move over to upstage right. Why? I dunno. I act sometimes when I'm not tech directing. I guess it's a safe place but it's guaranteed: blow a lightbulb anywhere, there go the actors. We call it the reverse moth effect. We don't know why it works, we just know that a blown lightbulb means a blown show.

Here's the trick. Hey, directors! Get a clue! When you're blocking your show, tell your actors that lights are going to go dark. They just are. They're silly wire filaments in glass bottles and they burn out every so many hours. That's why they're called lightbulbs... duh! What are the odds, when we throw 48 high-intensity lamps onto your set that one of them is going to burn out in the middle of a scene? 100%! Guaranteed we're going dark in some area, every show! So: Tell your actors that they must improvise their blocking and stay the hell out of the dark spot until the techs swap out the bulb. It's not rocket science, it's just Theatre 101. Teach it to your cast. We can't change the laws of physics. You can produce smarter actors.

posted by C. J. # 9:41 PM