30/1/23, 10:00 pm

Bailey Stone was enlisted to operate both lighting and audio for this 60 minute play, written by Enda Walsh.

After being given the base renders and a plot by Miles Punch Lighting Design (linked below), Bailey began to program the show using the LSC Mantra Editor software, as the show was being programmed and operated using a LSC Mantra Lite board.

Bailey knew the limitations of the space, knowing he had 3 lighting bars, and only 12 lighting fixtures, all of which were PARS, specifically Chauvet Colourdash H12IP PARS. Based on the designs that he had been given, he knew that each character (of which there were 6) had to have 2 light fixtures: a facelight, and an accent light (or backlight). Knowing this, he realised that he would have no spare fixtures for seperate accent lighting, or anything like that.

He began to prepare for the upcoming bump in date by drawing out the ideal light placement, well aware that this may have to change based on cable lengths and similar constraints, so that he could get everything moved in a reasonable amount of time. He also knew that everything had to be put back exactly where it came from, so he ensured that everything was labelled correctly so that everything went back to the correct spot.

Bailey had just over 6 hours to programme the 60 minute show, with multiple different states being required. Due to the nature of the show, Bailey decided to programme it slightly differently to how you would generally. Usually, a Lighting Operator (LX) would use a cue list to operate the show, however because of the repetitive nature, Bailey chose a different approach.

On the LSC Mantra Lite, there are 10 Playback faders, by which you can programme specific lighting states into and go between them as you need. Bailey set the first 6 of these to be lights for the individual characters (eg. Character 1 was Playback 1, Character 2 was Playback 2, etc.), with Playback 7 being for transition effects, Playback 8 being the lighting state as the audience walked in, with pulsing green lights, Playback 9 being a solid green on all fixtures and Playback 10 being a kind of “House Light” state, for when actors just needed some general lighting on stage.

With this being done, Bailey began to convert cues and directions into notes for his script, and thankfully this was a fairly painless process, with the help of the directors.

Throughout the 5 show run, there were minor complications, including some fixtures not responding correctly, audio tracks going off at the wrong time, and the video not working 2 out of the 5 shows, however all of these issues were not major, and could either be quickly resolved, or could be left and no one would notice.

Chatroom was a very Tech intensive show, especially for one person to be doing everything. With lighting transitions every few minutes, most of which were matched with an audio track that also had to go off.

Overall, Bailey learnt a lot from this experience, and will definitely be doing more work similar to this in the future.

To get in touch with Bailey Stone Media, check out our Instagram page (http://instagram.com/baileystonemedia_), or email us at photovideo.bailey@gmail.com.