Comms Procedure

[paulears]

Just more practice required, that's all.

[cedd]

A common trick (in my kneck of the woods anyway) is to split differing audio across a headset.

 

For instance, one of our Air Traffic Controllers (we're of course talking about my day job now - they're not much use in the theatre!) will hear aircraft transmissions in both ears. Should they then take a telephone or intercom call (from a controller in another sub-centre/control room/positon) this audio turns up on their non-boom side of the headset. If they're also monitoring a second radio channel (say 121.5Mhz - the UK distress frequency) this audio will appear across the headset but at a lower (-10dB) level.

This method allows them to differentiate between different people, but keeps their own channel at number one priority. The aim is for no other call (be it intercom or radio) to make their channel unreadable.

 

I've never seen this done in theatre, but have often wondered if an SM could have 2 different circuits split across each earphone of a headset to allow differentiation. A quirky side effect of this is that new users often turn their head slightly to the side the audio came from to reply. In "my world" it's very common practice, I'm very used to it (we don't talk on the radio, but we still monitor and take intercom calls) and it just becomes second nature.

[dbuckley]

Twin channel headsets and beltpacks exit and are used, but aren't terribly common. I have one (of course!) but I've never actually used it in anger. Two seperate channels of comms, one comes out one ear, the other through t'other. Two volume controls, one for each channel. Two mic switches, to switch the single mic to either or both channels.

 

Twin (or four) channel bases with mono headset is far more common, often used by lighting directors; they most listen to SM, but talk to followspotters.

[J Pearce]

I've bodged a headset for sound before to do cans on the eat with the mic and pfl on the other. The mic was split for talk to desk or talk to cans too.

[Kingstech]

Ive done a show wearing cans and without cans, the one with is the major production we do each year where even tho I had cans I still ran all my cues from a script and cans were in use for the followspots and any emergencys that should occur as well as so I knew when to take out houselights and start the show which was the cue for the band to start playing.... and the show without was a play so when I was given the cue from the doors I just pressed go and ran from a script...

 

Cans are a useful peice of equipment in the theatre wether it be emergency or cueing... but I still think common sence running from a script can be done anyway

[Bobbsy]

I'm sure that this post is going to be viewed as condescending and anti youth, but...

 

...isn't interesting how it tends to be students who don't think a comms system is a necessity and professionals who say it's a must have, even if it means cutting back on other things?

 

Doing sound, I spend less time on cans than many--but, when they're needed, they are REALLY needed.

 

Bob

[dbuckley]

... anti youth...

not anti-youth, but anti-experience. Us old gits have all done this enough that we intrinsically know the value of comms. When you don't have that wealth of experience (and usually the scars to prove it) then what we think of as obvious ain't necessarily so.

 

The old proverb: you cant put an old head on young shoulders...

[elvenprince]

I'm sure that this post is going to be viewed as condescending and anti youth, but...

 

...isn't interesting how it tends to be students who don't think a comms system is a necessity and professionals who say it's a must have, even if it means cutting back on other things?

 

Doing sound, I spend less time on cans than many--but, when they're needed, they are REALLY needed.

 

Bob

 

Probably because most student (talking secondary school level) productions don't use comms; I used them once during my time lighting school shows, because for one of them, I couldn't see all of the stage from where I was sat, and so took direction from the SM. For bigger shows like school musicals, I would have liked comms, but not having them didn't make the show worse. It would have been interesting to see what happened if, for example, an actor fainted backstage, but during the tech and dress, everybody could see or hear each other; sound was next to lighting, who could both see the director FoH, and said director would call for the band or SM team to stop / appear if he wanted to stop. Everyone knew the show so well, a show caller wasn't needed; everyone ran their own cues, and it worked perfectly.

 

Students (on the whole) have far less contact with comms systems, and yet still manage to put on productions, hence the view that they're not essential. Of course, when you experience different venues and more professional theatre to less forgiving audiences, you realise that comms are crucial! I don't think it should be seen as a case of "kids know nothing" but more "kids haven't been taught / experienced it yet".

[Bobbsy]

You're possibly right. I suspect your key phrase there is "forgiving audiences". Once you get beyond an audience of doting parents, the tolerance for things going wrong goes way down--and expectations go up. If you add in any safety related elements (pyros, flying, heavy moving set pieces, etc.) then effective communications becomes an absolute essential.

 

Perhaps my own children (now grown and out working, one in the industry) were lucky though--their school had a fairly extensive comms system as long as 10 or 15 years ago when they started getting involved in theatre there.

 

Bob

[paulears]

School shows are school shows. I've done enough to know that the relationship with professional practice is often weak or non-existent, and it doesn't matter a jot.

 

The general attitude to technical expertise suggests that as long as the show actually happens, then there is no need to mimic professional practice, because it costs money, and as everyone is saying, it's not 100% necessary. You don't need to see the stage to work the lights - and it's easy to see how even an inexperienced and out of depth teacher would understand the need for comms to solve that one, but it can be done by walkie-talkies, can't it?

 

For every school show with excellent facilities (I was in one yesterday that would compete with, and beat many pro venues) there will be another seriously compromised. However - they both put shows on. Quality of performance and production isn't really that important.

 

I sometimes volunteer to play in the band in school shows, and it's very strange seeing technical activities being masacred badly. Very often, the technical crew are selected based on their lack of acting ability. Anybody can work the sound and lights, apparently.

 

Once you move to college, post 16 - then I'd have a big think about any college course that didn't do things properly - find one that does is the obvious solution. At school there probably isn't a reason to do it in a pro manner, as long as it gets done. If there are comms, then everyone turns their mic on and shouts louder than everyone else, in the same way that if there is a followspot, it gets pointed at everyone in the room at some point.

 

There really is no need for comms, if the end product doesn't need the edge of professionalism that it provides. When do I start acting? when the lights come up? When do the lights come up? When you see the actors? It works.

[dbuckley]

Interesting that Paul.

 

In these parts our schools take their stagecraft fairly seriously.

 

Our amateur dramatic society has a set of comms, and we hire it out to other like minded organisations, and in my recent memory that has included three different schools.

 

I dont know how widespread it is generally, but the schools round here have a serious attitude towards the performing arts. They have kids in their last year of school who have been doing theatre in a technical capacity since they joined the school, and they can rig lights, plot a show, create and edit sound fx, rig and run the video, and set up and operate the sound. Their crew intermingle with the amateur clubs. These guys participate in Stage Challenge. One of the other amateur societies has been running technical training sessions recently, and these junior techs attend them with the older junior techs.

 

Ok, theres some variable quality and knowledge there, but these kids do technical theatre because they want to do technical theatre, and make a pretty good fist of it.

 

(I've just discovered a new stage manager from a school show last year, and she's already done her first show with us, and I hope she stays on board for a long while)

[andy_s]

There really is no need for comms, if the end product doesn't need the edge of professionalism that it provides. When do I start acting? when the lights come up? When do the lights come up? When you see the actors? It works.

 

Well Paul, for the sake of debate, I'm going to present an alternative point of view ...

 

"communication" is of course essential for the smooth running of a theatre performance. Whether a cans system is an essential tool for communications in every circumstance may be up for discussion.

 

Actors learn their lines, rehearse the timing, and deliver their performance without wearing a headset* and having a standby given. I hope nobody would suggest they lose an edge of professionalism because of this. Surely technicians are at least as clever as actors, and perfectly capable of achieving such standards, knowing the show and being "off book" when it comes to performance time. Perhaps what is needed is a recognition that technical staff need a minimum of three weeks' rehearsal just like actors, then we can get rid of all those nasty uncomfortable double-muffs and trippy-uppy wires.

 

* Off Topic a bit - actually I have seen one show with two actors where one of them wears a discrete earpiece and is fed lines and cues by the other actor.It uses a guest actor who has never seen or read the show before, stepping on to the stage to perform that night. It's called "An Oak Tree" At the beginning of the show, the actor has no idea who the character is, or why the character is there, or what the other actor is doing there. It's a uniquely moving piece of theatre. I saw it with Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger) in the guest role.

[Bobbsy]

This discussion is turning interesting!

 

Frankly, (though this may shock the traditionalists) I'm not so worried about every cue being given a standby and a go. On sound I tend to have far more cues than are ever shown in "the book" (every dip or boost of level for example) and I'm used to MOST of my work being taken from the script and from knowing the show well.

 

And, indeed, many professional shows have been done for years with a cue light system rather than cans anyway.

 

However, as I said in my first post, where an intercom system comes into its own is when things aren't going right: the mess up in the wings that requires me to hold off on the key sound effect--or loop the intro music several times. Or, how about when I pipe up to say "battery warning on radio mic 6--grab it when he comes off stage and shove a new one in--dang this batch of Procells"? Or (as has happened) when lights or sound tell the stage crew that the table has been placed wrong as will foul the tabs on the next cue.

 

All these are easy with an intercom--or an obvious problem with the show without. And, of course, these little problems are probably more likely with a school show than in the professional world--at least I hope so!

 

As for Paul's post, I fear he is right. However, I also know there can be quite a variation between schools and some try to make the learning experience for the technical crew as valid as the one for the actors.

 

In any case, although a lot of schools do try to get away without an intercom system (or misuse them if they have them) when somebody asks a question on the Blue Room, I think professionals should give a professional answer--and, in this case, that answer is that the OP should have a comms system. If they (or their teachers) choose to ignore the advice, so be it. However, we're doing a dis-service if we say "it's only a school show, so why bother?".

 

Bob

[peza2010]

I've bodged a headset for sound before to do cans on the eat with the mic and pfl on the other. The mic was split for talk to desk or talk to cans too.

Nicely done my friend, I like that!

[paulears]

I didn't meant to give the impression that it's always bad, but the schools and colleges I am aware of have an extremely wide range of production skills, mainly because lighting is seen as something bolted onto 'drama'. I've had the same discussion from an actors viewpoint when they find that all the things they were taught that acting 'is' - in school are vastly distorted. http://www.daydreameducation.co.uk/catalog/Acting-Skills_LARGE.jpg This poster caused some grief, with the proper acting trained people seeing a lot wrong with it, but the drama teachers pay for the poster. We've got the same problem. Lighting is very often (sadly) seen as plain illumination, and 'doing the lighting' is simply providing it or taking it away at certain points.

 

Of course our kind of lighting does happen at places where they understand production values. Plenty of people have their friends, who know - come in to help with the technical side. Sound has the same problems. A bunch of tracks played in the correct order, is 'doing sound'. Stage Management is really where the communications requirement comes from - but in a drama context, the percentage that isn't acting, is presumably technical, and is relegated to low importance.

 

I've seen the music teacher, in charge of everything run up to the hired in sound desk and berate the poor girl singled out as sound person because she moved a fader away from the place the hire company left it, and yelling at some poor kid for forgetting to turn on their mic pack before they came on stage, and another for forgetting to turn it off!

 

It really isn't their fault. Is it realistic to expect a non-technical person to have an in-depth understanding of our area? How many times on here are we asking keen students at school why they are doing things rather than the staff? It's because they want to do things better, and the staff cannot/will not help. Why is a student having to talk to Avo (in another topic) and re-install software?

 

I can only speak from my own experience of visiting schools and colleges. Those who do it properly (from our perspective) are quite rare. I stopped even commenting on upside down equipment hanging from the ceiling, or pointing out that all the kids were referring to freshnels and power cans. If they are not getting grades from these activities, then it's not my business. If they are - then it is my business and it gets sorted.

 

Some teachers are technophobes - if they teach dance, or drama, then it doesn't matter. If they teach music, then it's difficult to see how they avoid technology, and of course if they teach technology, then it's pretty terminal.

 

In schools, comms are nice to have, but they are NOT essential. The issues arising from their absence can be got around. On a scale of importance, they'll never be a pushed for item, unless they have a person on staff who can promote reasons for having them. I've even offered a school my spare system, free. They rejected it as unnecessary complication.

 

Some school shows are suberb. I've seen quite a few. They are outnumbered by bad ones. Good never equates to expensive, bad never gets linked to cheap. For every stunningly good student who is going to get top grades/marks, there will be a liability - and in group work, a poor team member can drag everybody down.

 

A grades and Distinctions do not mean a school/college production was professional quality, in fact many times they don't even need to be full productions, just be longer than a prescribed minimum.

 

If you look at some of the show your show pictures, you can see many with very high production values, and equally, there are plenty where lighting and staging = illumination and 'yes there was some'. The clues are in the photos and the comments. I think, from memory, that one set of nice moody photos got a comment about being dim - which sums it up for me.

 

I don't really have an overall view. It changes depending on what they're doing. The title of the course is where I point my opinion. Do you need comms kit for drama or theatre studies at Level 3? No - I don't think you do. Do you need it for Level 3 Stage Management BTEC units? Maybe? For the DSM one, yes. For the ASM which has a prop focus, then no - unless it's got a following the DSMs cues focus, then yes?

 

Should a new build school venue have comms? Yes. How about a classroom turned into a drama space? No?

 

Like anything else, comms are a tool. Somebody competent has to decide if the tool is important enough to put into the budget, maybe at the sake of cutting something else?