kuilo Countdown to 200 - #5: The Glitch - hotamboyan

We are to number 5 in our (say it with me) No Particular Order look back at 10 of our favorite posts. This is the first one of the group that we are looking at gear on the road. This post has few things that stand out for me:

• A favorite movie quote to start the post.
• A couple of paragraphs I am very proud of as a writer: fun, informative, and give a much needed reminder about things.
• A favorite movie quote to end the post.

The Glitch

Looks like we’ve had our glitch for this mission

-Apollo 13

I used this line on a regular basis on show days, and fortunately in most cases it was just a simple glitch… a hitch in the giddy-up as it were; a quick fix and we were on our way. Today we look at gear breaking down on the road, and what to do about it. In no particular order:

• Remember: it will break: Day in, day out. In rain and blazing sun. Bouncing down the road across country in a truck. The gear takes a beating before you even turn it on. Moving lights and consoles are made of hundreds of parts, pieces, motors, and computer boards. It’s not if something on the show will go down, but when it will go down.

To the designers, board ops, and production managers: Read the paragraph above one more time. Before you freak out on your techs that things aren’t working, give them time to fix the problem or come up with a plan to fix the problem later in the day. The VL 3K Spot (still a work horse in the industry) came out in 2003. That’s over a decade of being on the road, and that is a lot of miles under the tilt belt. Take a breath, and let your techs do their jobs.They want you to have the rig just as bad as you want the rig.

• Fix it: Pretty simple, right? If you have done even a handful of shows, you know that isn’t always that simple, solearn to trouble shoot. This is crucial when you run into an issue. Maybe it is an easy fix on the fixture itself such as a blown lamp or loose connection. Maybe it’s not a quick fix and you need to swap it with a spare. Maybe you are out of spares, or have none to begin with. Then what? Hell, maybe it is a data or power issue. Are your connections good? Is it the (rare) board op error? I could fill the rest of this post with what-ifs like this, but you get the idea.
  My rules of thumb for bad fixtures were if it couldn’t be fixed in five minutes, then use a spare, and fix the bad one later in the day. If there are no spares, then pull the bad one and repair it after the rest of the rig is up. Either rope the fixture back up, or bring the truss in when it is convenient for your LD.

• Always have a plan: Handle the situation. That’s your job as the tech. There will be times when your show isn’t 100%, but do everything you can to get it as close as possible. 

To my LDs and PMs: Your techs hate it when the gear isn’t working and are doing all they can to fix it. Your lighting vendor should be equipped to handle any emergency that may arise. It may be a day or two, since it takes time to get gear from Point A to Point B, but it will get fixed. Everyone needs to work as a team to handle whatever may arise.

• Trouble shoot: I cannot stress this enough. A good tech can save untold amounts of time over his career by knowing how to best solve problems with his rigs. There are hundreds of variables that go into trouble shooting, way too many to get into here.

• Learn your gear: I mean this in two ways:
  1. Learn the quirks (both good and bad) of your gear. Good quirk – holding the “up” and “enter” buttons at the same time to strike a VL. Bad quirk – weak data connections on cyber lights (I once laid on a truss holding a data cable in a cyber for a whole show. Good times.)
  2. Learn the proper names for the parts and pieces of your gear. I can admit that I was horrible at this and I know that the guys at the shop were not pleased with me because of it. Try to avoid saying things like, “That part that connects the lens to the guide rod thing.” The nice thing about technology today is that you can take a picture with your cell phone and send it, but you still need to be able to ask for the part by name.

There you have it. I’m not sure if those were tips, tricks, reminders, or just random thoughts, but hopefully you learned a little something new, or simply got a chuckle as you thought back to your own glitches.

Until next time, “Screws fall out all the time; the world is an imperfect place.”
-John Bender (The Breakfast Club)

Mark