January Evaluation | Production Arts
The Rehearsal Process
Self Evaluation
From the start of September through January, I’ve learnt a lot of hands-on pieces of
Production work including the maintenance of Moving Heads, Microphones, Equalisers etc.
This has presented a lot of progress within my technical side of Production and has
enhanced my knowledge greatly. I’ve dabbled within most sectors of production having a go
at lighting, sound and even costume design and gained experience across the board whilst
also learning how each sector works. Since September, I’ve furthered my speciality within
lighting, creating better designs and being able to operate better too to create a smoother,
more polished performance. This has worked and was portrayed within the show closer to
the end of the show, which is where I had more experience than I did at the start when I
created cues for pieces in September. I believe that I was already very experienced within
the production theatre however, if i could rate myself more experienced than I was when i
made the audit, i definitely would. I did some audio work with cutting and editing music
however not enough to considerably progress within that sector. My main strengths since
September have definitely been lighting and meeting deadlines, this has been shown during
the large lead up into the show, i was expected to light and operate the second half of the
show and i was only notified on a very short notice however i planned, designed and
operated the lights regardless of the timeframe and the show turned out to be a major
success in the end.
Group Evaluation
Personally, from the technical standpoint, I believe that the group worked very well together
during the performances and during rehearsals leading up to the show, this includes
completing deadlines, working together as a team to ensure that the performances looked
professional and presentable, helping out in different sectors to theirs, such as dabbling in
for opinions on lights or costumes. A lot went well through the Production Team when
working together and with performers from all years, everyone contributed towards all tasks
and most people gave it their all. All performances went well, not everything could’ve been
perfect and it wasn’t, however the key communication between the teams helped put the
best show we could on. Regardless of how well the show went, there are obviously parts of
the team which should be improved and worked upon, this includes communication as
during the show, there was a major lack of communication between the team, there was very
minimal queuing, this lead to large quiet areas between performances and didn’t come off
appealing towards the audience, this can be worked on by more tech rehearsals before the
show. Another thing to be worked on was the meeting of deadlines by the crew, some crew
didn’t meet deadlines as early as they should have or some work was rushed before to meet
the deadline which created an under-produced piece or pieces, this should be worked on for
the next show. We could improve this by becoming more used to communicating using more
tech rehearsals and rehearsals in general with the lower years and the full production crew
to attempt to enhance these skills for the next show. We could also do a full tech run through
before the show to make sure that cues and equipment are all working properly and as
intended.
, January Evaluation | Production Arts
The Show
The first piece was The Opening Light Show. The lighting designer for this piece was Pruthin
and the lighting consisted of blue spotlights, blue moving heads which moved at set cues
throughout the intro and red washers, the group size we were lighting for this piece was 0,
we didn’t have any dancers or actors for this piece. This piece included no costumes or
props. My evaluation for this piece is: the timing of the cues was nearly perfect with the
exception of the moving heads spinning in blue (Cue 7), this was about 1 second out of time
however it didn’t make a major impact on the piece and the whole piece went well. This gave
the show a great opening and really created the atmosphere.
The second piece was Come Alive. The lighting designer for this piece was me and the
lighting consisted of blue and red washers to fit the theme from the musical itself, white spots
for the actors and dancers, we also had orange moving heads. The group size we were
lighting for this piece was 14, including actors and dancers. This piece included dark purple
tutus with black leggings and shirts for the dancers and the female actors wore dresses (red,
green and blue) and the male actor wore a suit and top hat to represent the main protagonist
from the musical. My evaluation for this piece is: The crew member on microphones forgot to
turn 2 of the packs on / ensure that they were on, this allowed the 2 centred cast members to
have no audio into the hall, however the other 2 members did have audio which we had to
compensate the loss for, this made the performance run a bit tacky however the dancing and
choreography all worked out and still made the piece enjoyable for everyone.
The third piece was Honey. The lighting designer for this piece was myself and the lighting
consisted of blue / orange spots, blue / orange Washers and blue / orange moving heads,
there were set cues which made the colours change depending on which ‘team’ was present
on stage at the time and there was a mixed cue for when both groups were on. The group
size we were lighting for this piece was 14. This piece included Orange and Blue tops with
black leggings. My evaluation for this piece is: Unfortunately, the Sound crew had an issue
which made the song play from the middle, this confused both the crew and the dancers on
stage. We rectified the issue by pulling the dancers back off stage, blacking out and
restarting the song from the start. This worked and the performance went ahead. The
remainder of the piece went well.
The fourth piece was Iwan’s Solo of ‘Stars’ from Les Miserables. The lighting designer for
this piece was me and the lighting consisted of basic white spotlights due to this being a
singing piece, the group size we were lighting for this piece was 1. This piece included a
smart-casual unbuttoned shirt and smart trousers for Iwan. My evaluation for this piece is:
Iwan sang the song amazingly, he really amplified his voice and stood proudly in the
spotlight. The audience thoroughly enjoyed it and so did the rest of the crew & cast.
The fifth piece was The Lorax. The lighting designer for this piece was Me, Tilly and Jamie
and the lighting consisted of yellow, pink and blue to signify each character and bring the
attention to said characters from the audience, we used red lights and moving heads to
signify the main villain of the piece and spotlights for the rest of the group, the group size we
were lighting for this piece was 9. This piece included A decorated box and a leaf headband
for the tree growing. My evaluation for this piece is: The signs created by the rest of the crew
