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Lilly WEST graduated from Fredonia College in 1992. It's a State University
of New York (SUNY) school. She graduated with a degree in communications with
an emphasis in audio and radio production. She "did" a lot of radio shows, but
also had a music minor and has performance in her background as a violinist.
WEST also worked theatrically in upstate New York summer stock. Her first paying
professional gig was in 1994 in Chicago with Northlight Theater. The production
was called “Quilters.” She moved to the windy city to take
that job and has remained there ever since.
What follows is the conversation from LIVE SOUND!'s visit to the Briar Street Theater for Blue Man Group (BMG) in late December 1998.
LSMAG!: Tell us how you landed this gig?
LW: I was working on a job here in Chicago, “Always Patsy Cline.” People I knew already had jobs with Blue Man Group and they kept telling me they were looking for sound people for Blue Man Group. I sent them a resume late in their hiring process, so I got here just in time.
In August 1997, they flew people out to New York City for a week-long trial to see if you could do the job and how you fit in. It was a challenge but the engineer at the time was excellent, he was a great teacher. I was able to learn the show in only five days. After the trial week they said, 'okay we like you', you're hired for the Chicago production. I've been working in this in Chicago production for 15 months.
LSMAG!: Clearly, Blue Man Group is an established long running success, but it still seems to be a work-in-progress. How does that effect you in audio world?
LW: Work-in-progress certainly applies to sound at the BMG company. They always like to tweak, especially if it's something that's been in place since opening and they've never really been quite happy with it. We're constantly discussing how to improve the details.
They are currently working on a CD in New York and experimenting with a bunch of different studio things, including different versions of the songs than are in this show. They are trying different equipment through some inventive research and development.
Here at Briar Street, we're constantly coming up with new mix ideas and changing details. For example, for over a year the band' s monitoring system has been headphones instead of floor wedges. They're considering changing that.
LSMAG!: Are those traditional headphones or earwom monitors?
LW: The (3-piece) band uses traditional headphones. The Blue Men have the option of using earwom monitors.
LSMAG!: The Blue Men can't be all places all at once. There must be a "reinventing" of Blue Men and a torch passing with these guys. Who is that process director producer? Tell us about the creative decision-making process and the core thinking involved.
LW: Actually that continues the work-in-progress method. They currently use what is called the Directorial Committee. I haven't really counted them. One of the directorial committee is a former deck hand, one is a former creator of all the video.
LSMAG!: We noticed the Dali reproductions in the lobby, from paintings
hanging at the Chicago Art Institute. Is there any part of the live production
localized for Chicago audiences?
LW: Interesting..... well when the Directorial Committee flies into each city and they are constantly doing check-ups. They are trying to implement a more localized version, like you've asked about. We don't have a Director per-se. That is something they are working out. They are considering the band captain as an artist or musical director.
There is a certain part of the show that is done only in Chicago and Boston, not in New York. Obviously every performance space is different. New York is one third the size (of Briar Street), so things are going to play differently. Essentially the show is the same.
Structurally, the same thing starts the show in Chicago, Boston and New York. The show finishes the same way, but of MIDI .... not only the execution of playcourse it looks different, sounds different. Although I haven't been to Boston or New York in a year. But people have been telling me it sounds completely different in those places.
LSMAG!: Your sound sources are mini-discs. Are they identical to the other locations?.
LW: As far as I know, all of the original recordings for the playback sound FX were recorded in New York and then recorded on mini-disc. Boston took those files for their mini-discs. What Jim (VAN BERGEN) did was take those original cuts, clean them up a little and now they are on our hard disc here.
LSMAG!: So you don't use mini-disc playback at all?
LW: Nope, it's all hard disc. according to scene.
LSMAG!: That brings us to the general idea of sound sources and show control. In traditional theater, when actors on the stage, technicians listen for someone calling cues into a headset. Does that happen here?
LW: That does not happen here. The only time I'm on headset at all is the very top of the show and it's the stage manager making sure I'm at my board position and ready to go.
We have cue lights for certain things in the show including playback or muting. At those cues, I get a cue light on as my standby and it goes off and I go. That's our mode of production communication.
The stage manager is also watching the stage intently. Many cues are fired solely based an their timing and what's going on on-stage. Sometimes we will have to abort certain cues depending on what happens on stage. In that case, I just skip ahead on my cue menu.
The key word for operating the show is options. When I first started running the show, in fact until very recently, the only option for firing a cue was a peripheral on the computer, the keyboard or the mouse. Now we use MIDI triggered-control for the software on our Windows '95 computer.
LSMAG!: What software controls those MIDI pre-sets?
LW: It's a program called SFX by Stage Research.
LSMAG!: And you use hardware-based MIDI control?
LW: A big GO box, yeah.
LSMAG!: So, essentially it's a GO button for you, so whatever cue is
next sends out program changes to change reverb settings etc.?
LW: It is not as complex as that, and it doesn’t really conrol FX. The effects, like reverb and delay, are pretty static throughout the entire show, although the delays receive a MIDI change in one section of the show. But it is not a constant, changing according to scene.
LSMAG!: So do you have a sequential cue list? Is there a cue number 56, for example?
LW: There are cue numbers in their (stage manager’s) book. But we don’t have numbers. We don’t run it off numbers. We run it off what happens next. I have a run sheet. And that’s how I train my subs. I printed out a run list with every part of the show, every little scene and what happens and what you do next, what the cue light is for, and it’s worked fine.
LSMAG!: What about the complex cues that need to be managed by MIDI?
LW: Actually the whole show is managed by MIDI. What I mean by the whole show is, not just the execution of the playback, but the mute scenes on the (Soundcraft Series 5) consoles and the setting of scenes on the two (Yamaha 03D) outboard mixers. Basically that’s the sound control hub of the show.
LSMAG!: Was there ever a moment where software control failed during a show?
LW: Yes. The computer system wasn’t stable until very recently either when we integrated an essentially fail-safe back-up control system together.
LSMAG!: We call that working without the net. Do you have any control "war stories" you'll share with us'?
LW: (Laughter) Well, we did up to nineteen shows a week during the last holiday season .... for Blue Man. Last year's "holiday season" was in the midst of some computer hardware problems.
The outputs of the sound cards are small, because they are designed for home studio situations. But now they're shellacked into place. Still, they're eight-inch stereo outputs, and last year just a sneeze could've knocked them out. So I always had two people in for that entire week. And there were a couple shows that I wasn't here that my subs had to run entirely off CD's because of computer problems. BUT THAT WAS LAST YEAR!
LSMAG!: That's important stuff. Tell us about your original crash protection/stabilizer/backup.
LW: Our backup wasn't really a true backup system until a couple of months
ago when we reconfigured that part of the show control scheme. John HUNTINGTON
recently implemented this current control network. Here's the block diagram.
LSMAG!: Were there ever any scary moments with audible artifacts during your earlier computer crashes? For example, did it ever go down with all this data is flying around, and have something strange come spewing out of the system?
LW: Yes! But it wasn't that scary. Once for a playback song near the end of the show, we had a nasty wave (wav.) file corruption and it sounded like there was a top layer of a song playing, but little bits of information were popping up underneath. Naturally I went to cross-fade to CD and it saved the moment. Then I restarted the computer and it was clean. That was pretty silly.
LSMAG!: How did that experience effect you?
LW: It was just another way to fine-tune my trouble-shooting skills, and practice doing everything on the fly. Like I said, we have backup CD for if the computer ever went down.
I just have the CD in Stand-By and tell the stage manager, okay "I've had a crash" and then I got the CD going and would try to re-boot the computer for the next cue.
But with redundant computers we have running now, its rock solid. Plus the back-up computer system we have now keeps it's identical cues current, they are nearly phase-linked at every moment.
LSMAG!: Do you communicate with the on-stage band during of show?
LW: During the show, I can on headset. Well not normally, if there is a problem, given the nature of the mix position, I can just walk back and talk to them during a slow part (for me) during the show. I am responsible for their monitor mixes but they are generally pretty set to how they like them.
If they need a change to happen we have a sound check everyday before the show, an hour and a half before curtain, and it will happen then. They'll say, "Hey, last night I didn't have enough of 'X'. Can you give me more of that in my monitor?" And it's a done deal. And since they have their own little mixers they can tweak during the show as much as they want. They have control.
LSMAG!: So you're sending them some set of sub-mixes?
LW: I have one mix, we call it the console mix and it's comprised of certain instruments that are played by the Blue Men. It also has playback and it has video voice-over. There's some video parts in the show and the dialog from that is fed to them as well. That's on one separate control and the rest of their reference is a direct split off their instrument inputs. There's a splitter back there and what they get is that signal split into their cans. So, I don't control that at all.
LSMAG!: Do you have a video monitor?
LW: I do, I have two. I have infra-red and color.
LSMAG!: So I am to assume by that there are enough moments when things are dark that you need to see where they are and really need to see with infra-red?
LW: Actually, I relied on that more when I was still new to the show, but now I have a pretty good feel, I use it twice on each show.
LSMAG!: Tell us about how you use this Meyer Sound RMS™ Remote Monitoring System, that's displayed up on this CRT.
LW: This remote monitoring system is an excellent tool. Basically, it reads each Meyer speaker. (see Figure #I) It tells me when it’s offline when it’s not getting power, It’s really great for system confirmation, especially since we run the audio all alone for this show.
LSMAG!: So there are six functional (XTA) DP200 & two spares. Is their function to time align the loudspeaker system or for FX?
LW: The function is to time align the loudspeaker system and there's also a section of the show where it takes care of volume.
LSMAG!: What do your subs (assistants) do during the show? Do you have one or two? And are they both here each night?
LW: I have two subs. The way it works here, they allow me to have nights off, and they represent me in the space. They know the show and know running the show as well as I do. But not necessarily maintenance and all stagecraft issues. Occasionally, if we have extra work in the theater that requires more than one person to play something and one person to listen..... I'll call them in to help. We're basically the staff.
We also have something called "Show Watching." A lot of people in the company, especially band members and myself, watch a show that our sub is running just to make sure it is sounding pretty much like our own OR sounding good, representing the show.
Blue Man is very focused on communicating about the way the show is performed. We do "notes" after every show. We talk about how the performance went, if there was a technical problem, what the problem was, how it can be fixed. We are constantly updating our subs with notes on mix improvements and technical changes.
LSMAG!: So you have to solve every problem? The show must go on and it's all your deal?
LW: That's the way it's been with Blue Man Group.
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Blue Man Group Sound Equipment
Briar Street Theater 3133 N. Halsted Chicago, Illinois  Output Transducers 7 - Meyer UPA- 1P 4 - Meyer PSW-2 4 - Meyer 650-P 4 - Meyer UPA-2P 2 - Meyer MTS-4 2 - Meyer MSL-4 2 - Meyer CQ-2 l - Meyer CQ- I 6 - Technomad Vienna front-fill all-weather speakers (for environmentally unsafe locations) JBL Control Is (for walk-in & lobby system) 2 - Tannoy 600 dual concentric with LIMPETs (for nearfield mix position monitors) |
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