I have been involved in a lot of focus calls and pointed countless thousands of lights. From when I worked as an electrician up in the catwalks manipulating the lights themselves, to assisting other designers, to focusing lights for my own shows, I have seen a lot of different systems for focusing lights. Sadly I have seen more poorly called focus sessions than I have good ones. Hopefully this post will help outline some good ideas for a fast and efficient focus call. This is geared towards Master Electricians and Assistants who will be directing the focus session. It is by no means complete and I would welcome suggestions and improvements in comments.
I have focused lights everywhere from 60 seat off-off-B’way houses in New York, to Broadway national tours And everything in between. Over the years I have developed some best practices for making the process go smoothly and quickly. Remember, the designer probably wants to get through the focus as fast as (or faster than) you. Focus is not exactly fun, but it is a necessary part of the process to get on to the interesting work. The focus session helps to set the tone for the production. Having a quick and efficient focus allows the designer to enter the technical rehearsals in a state of calm, ready to create.
Any designer who has properly done their homework, with regards to working out the angles of their lighting system, will be able to start anywhere on stage and is not dependent on “Oh we need to begin with channel 1.” Rather than asking “where do you want to start,” because the honest answer is probably something akin to “With a beer at the bar down the street,” figure out the best place to start in your theater and ask the designer “Can we begin at such and such a position?” Chances are the designer will say yes. The designer is busy enough thinking about how a particular light will be used, “and should it be cut off the Act 1 or the Act 2 legs,” that they don’t need to worry about what light they are going to next. That is your job. You should direct the focus call such that the session moves at an average of about a minute and a half per light. Faster is nice, but much slower gets very tedious.
I like to start with something easy like catwalks or balcony rails to get everyone into a rhythm. Once a good working rhythm has been established, mixing up more difficult positions into the focus (like climbable torms) can balance the pace with something easy light PARcan backlight systems. The person calling focus needs to think systemically to make the process go fast. Systemically in terms of how the designer laid out their lighting systems as well as the systems of the lighting positions. Act like an electrician, think like a designer.
Once you have determined the optimal starting positions, you need to break your crew up and send them to those positions. For the purposes of this post I will be assuming a 4+ electrician/1 ME crew for a standard three position focus. This means that three electricians are pointing lights and one (or more) is acting as a runner/lift mover, while the ME turns lights on and off at the console. How you divide your crew up can be critical to the speed of the focus. If you don’t know the skill level of your crew, putting everyone front of house to focus can be a good way to find the fast/skilled electricians and the less proficient ones. Once you know that, you can move on to more complicated positions.
Here is a basic rundown of the tools you will need to call the focus:
- A console with the completed patch
- Full size copy of the plot (1/2″ or 1/4″ as needed)
- Printed Channel Hookup
- Printed Instrument Schedule
- Laptop with the current Lightwright (or other lighting database) file
- Note paper
- Two different colored highlighters
- Writing Pen
If you are an assistant you will also need:
- Blank Focus Charts
- Tape Measure
- Sharpie
- Painter’s Tape
A quick note on plots. I have seen, on smaller shows (typically 100 units or less), a tendency to print the plot on standard office paper. While this is faster (at first) the end result can be a nightmare. Units often get hung in the wrong place and have to be moved at focus, numbers can not easily be read, and sometimes the wrong fixture entirely gets hung at a position. Taking the half hour to go make a large format print of the plot will save you hours of work down the road. Trust me. It’s worth it.
When you send your electricians to their positions it is a good idea to glow the units they will be going to. This allows them to get in place and start working faster. Once you glow a unit, put a dot of highlighter 1 on the channel on the plot. This is an easily visible way to note a channel you will soon be going to, and with the plot in front of you, allow you to strategize the best path through the plot. Also, when you stop for breaks, this will be a quick reference to get right back to where you were. When a light is turned on to full for focus, you fill in the channel circle with highlighter 1 completely. If you need to skip a light, or it is broken or has otherwise been touched but not completed, put a dot from highlighter 2 over the Unit Number. Write down any worknotes that can not immediately be solved on your pad of paper. When the light is focused, you fill in the whole instrument symbol with highlighter 2. This is a clear graphic way to determine what you have done and where you have to go.
When you turn a light on to full, call out to the designer the channel number and its purpose. For example, “This is channel 2 Front Warm DLC.” This allows the designer to get to focusing the light without fumbling over their own channel hookup or cheatsheet. This will save you about 10-20 seconds per light. When you move on to the next light turn the new light on FIRST, call out its number and purpose, THEN turn off the previous light. This will save you about 10 seconds per light. This total of 30 seconds may not seem like much, but in a 250+ unit plot that means almost an hour and a half that could be spent fixing troubled gear or getting to the bar sooner. The bigger the plot, the more the time savings.
In terms of assigning electricians I find the following system works very well. If your crew is widely varied in terms of skill, pair your best and worst electrician on symmetrical systems(Box Booms, High Sides, etc.). When you turn the lights on, turn the light for the worst electrician FIRST. At the same time you glow the light that will focus in a mirror location for the second electrician (If electrician one is Focusing “BB Frm Lt FAR” you glow “BB Frm Rt FAR” for electrician two) . The first electrician will take however long they take. Because you are glowing the mirror image for the fast electrician, they are probably paying attention to the designer and focusing that light while it is glowing. So while it may take the first electrician two minutes to point the light, when you turn on the next unit it is all focused except for shuttercuts and color. It takes 30 seconds to focus that one and thus you have an average of 1:15/per light. Not too shabby.
Keeping a steady pace is critical. If you are always one step ahead of your designer and thinking with them in terms of systems you can get your plot focused quickly and efficiently. The faster the plot is focused, the sooner we can all get to the bar. Or in the unfortunate case that there are serious problems, or the set moved and thus half the lights need to move, you have the time built in to the focus session to deal with those scenarios. The technical rehearsal will start at the same time no matter how long (or how complete) the focus is. We don’t want to be rushed. We want to move quickly.
How do you call focus? This is only one person’s system and there are infinite details which can not be put in a single blog post. I would love to hear your thoughts in comments.
