Stage Team Updates
Stage Screen Doors
As many of you know we have been removing our band risers from the stage for our message setting for several years now. This has caused us to have to engineer some fairly ingenious systems for moving set pieces around on our stage in order to remove the risers. We came up with a plan to create an entrance door to move the risers through on a more permanent basis so we don’t have to reinvent the process of removal for every set. Because of circumstances we were able to demo the walls under the stage at the beginning of the summer.
Although establishing the entrance doors was the end goal, we have been using this area for backlighting some set pieces all summer. We used this time to design the doors and get the initial construction of the doors done. We installed the doors as we changed out our fall 2010 set.
These two doors swing using a pipe hinge. Both doors are just over 13′ wide and swing to a 70degree angle creating a lot of space for the risers to roll through. This space has helped to speed up our transitions and make removing the guitar pedals via the guitar sleds a real easy addition to our transitions. We are able to clear our stage of all band gear in less than one minute. These doors have allowed us to further accomplish our desire to have a clear stage for our communicators and the video products that we create.
Design:
For those who are interested, the door was designed to be modular. This is so we can easily remove the sections allowing us the flexibility to use this space to project on set pieces or light set pieces from behind. The whole structure rolls on six wheels. It pivots from two ball bearing pipe hinges mounted on the floor and on the support beam below the screen. The wheels are staggered at a slight angle allowing the door to rotate easily on its arced path.
The wheels are mounted to a footer beam that was constructed by wood, gluing three 2×4x14’s, that had been cut down to 13′4″, together. This creates the base for the entire door. The hinge section of the door consists of a pipe cut to size running vertically between the two ball bearing hinges. The pipe is bolted to four 10″ horizontal 2×4’s via carrier bolts. The hinge section continues across so that the entire section is 41″ wide. This was intentionally done so that all four sections of the door are 41″ wide. This keeps the seams in the door evenly spaced. The other three sections of the door are 2×4 structures constructed individually with framing nails. The four sections are bolted together so that they are easily taken apart. The front of each section is surfaced with a 3/4″ piece of MDF cut to size and screwed to the 2×4 structure. 3/4″ MDF was used because the MDF is smooth enough to match the drywall once painted and thick enough to staple or drill set materials on to it. The whole structure is sured up using a strand of aircraft cable with a turnbuckle running diagonally across the back of the structure. This allows us to pull the top right corner tight into alignment with the bottom left corner. Each section of the wall was then strapped to this cable using corrugated metal straps. The whole structure if unbolted can be removed in five relatively light sections.
Assistant Stage Manager
New Volunteer Position:
Assistant Stage Manager
Reason for creating position:
- To give leadership to the stage crew posted on the left side of the stage.
- To further develop volunteers in leadership roles.
Responsibilities:
- In charge of managing and executing the stage left part of the transition.
- To assist the Backstage manager in all other backstage related activities.
- To help develop new backstage volunteers.
- Responsible for Baptism Microphone Check.
Introducing the GUITAR SLED!
Okay so these have been around for the better part of the summer but they are finally being utilized for what they were originally designed for.
We started broadcasting our service online earlier this year. We are using our jib camera to get wide shots of the room in an attempt to draw people in and make them feel as if they are a part of the service. The shots that the jib is able to get also get the guitar pedal boards, their wires and all the other gak on stage. So our mission was to figure out a way to completely clear the stage of all band gear and unsightly wires. Part of our solution was to build out the stage and create the thrust. The second part was to figure out a way to remove the pedal boards and their wires from the stage.
It was determined that we needed to create some sleds that were universal enough to accommodate any size pedal board that a guitar player might bring. We decided to use a sled system because unplugging and re-plugging the board was nearly impossible with the tight transition times that we have here. So we knew we wanted to have a rolling sled and that we needed to keep the sleds as low to the ground as possible so that the guitarists didn’t have to adjust the way they played. The biggest challenge was to figure out a way to quickly and quietly brake the sleds so that they didn’t roll around while the guitarist was playing. We also had a challenge in the amount of cables we have on the stage and the crossover that can occur with the potential of getting hung up on cable while trying to remove sleds and risers, as well as moving props on.
In the search of a fast and quiet braking system we came across a “pop-up brake.” These brakes are small compact air pressurized pistons that are used on assembly lines. This was the perfect braking solution for our dilemma. The opportunity became how do we pressurize the brakes. They needed 50lb of pressure per brake and we decided that each sled only needed two of these each. The search for a tank began and after weeks of searching we found a small cost efficient HPA (high pressurized air) tank that was manufactured by a robotics company. This would allow us to refill the tanks easily on site with a basic air compressor.
The sled was designed with some pockets able to store the tank, brake, regulator, gauges, hose, and control valve, as well as the SGI for Audio, and 4 xlr cables.
We designed two different size boards. The small board is capable of holding over 60% of the guitar boards that our regular guitarists currently have and a larger board that is able to accommodate even the largest pedal board our guitarists currently use.
We decided to forgo the risk of crossing over cables and wired all the sleds back to our main two risers. During our transition we quickly attach the sleds to our risers via some quick-release pins mounted to the side of each rise. The sleds areattached, their cables are wrapped and placed on top of the sleds and then the whole system is rolled off the stage. This along with placing table, chair, and other props on stage is all done in less than one-minute 15 seconds by a small army of the greatest volunteers in the history of stage volunteers.
East Side Walls Removed
Big changes are happening in the backstage world of North Point Community Church. We finally removed a 14 foot section of wall underneath each of our IMAG screens in the East.
We did this primarily in order to rear project graphics on the set pieces for Drive, and it looked very cool. However, this has been a desire of ours for nearly two years now. This change will allow us yet another entrance and exit to the stage for the purpose of removing risers for the message. The 15 foot holes will soon be equipped with doors allowing for set pieces to be mounted and ride with the make shift walls. We will also have the option of removing the door and rear lighting set pieces like we are currently doing with this set.
These new entrances will create an opportunity for us to create background elements in the view of our slash camera angle (camera 3) without having to re-engineer a way to remove those background elements just to get the risers on and off the stage. The doors should be a Permanente solution to the problem of moving set pieces.
Wall Reinforcement
Good News!
We have reinforced the proscenium walls with a 1/2″ thick piece of plywood. Before you ask; no this does not mean you can willfully aim for the wall with the risers. This however should help prevent big gaping holes from accidentally appearing on our proscenium walls.
