Beginners Questions

We did a 1st light blocking exercise today for May Poppins Act1. A couple of little things came up and we didn't have time to wade through the books so I'm sitting here tonight trying to re-create and solve but if anyone gets there before me I can knock off earlier;

Saving Cues; Lights were changed and [Record][Cue][#] entered. 1st column of PSD would give cue number and Int Up / Int Down would show ( 5 ) as expected. Now our designer went to save another cue but this time it didn't look like it had "held" I.E. His recorded cue # appeared in the left hand column but there was nothing in the Up/Down columns?  The only way I can reproduce that this evening is if I try to save a cue that has no changes from the previous one! Because, if I go back and change one channel even very slightly and come back to record I get both the cue# and the Up/Down. Am I correct in this assumption?

And lets say I have recorded cue 3. Do I HAVE to [Record][Cue][4][Enter] or is there a shorter way whereby 4 is assumed?

Now lets say we have 60 cues in the PSD. He got annoyed because he would forget his next cue number to record and looked at the PSD, when he entered [Record] or [Record][Cue] however the PSD screen had scrolled back to the 1st few cues! I.E. He would have to press page up (or was it down) to get to the end of the list! (If we had an auto number, see last question) this would be mute.

Last question honestly - when clearing the command line and the red light came on the [Clear] button he had to press [Clear] or [Backspace] several times, now I am sure I saw somewhere a single key entry to clear the whole command line - was it [Undo]?

OK - now back to hacking this out. 

 

 

  • I'll do my best:

    Recording Cues: After [Record] [Cue] [#] has been executed, (I think) the data in that cue should have been saved, regardless of the numbers in the Int up and Int down columns in the PSD. When you get back to the console, could you try playing back these cues to see if the expected data is stored in such cues?

    Recording the next available Cue number: Thanks to @ for the command in this thread: [Record] [Cue] Shift+[Home] [Next] [Enter]. (Shift+Home posts the number of the last cue in the cue list to the command line, next selects the number after it)

    Clearing the command line: I believe what you are thinking of is Shift+[Clear]. [Undo] opens a menu in the CIA to undo the effects of previously executed commands.

    Please reply if you have any more questions!

  • "And lets say I have recorded cue 3. Do I HAVE to [Record][Cue][4][Enter] or is there a shorter way whereby 4 is assumed?"

    If you are still in Cue 3 (i.e. you haven't selected a different cue) you can use either the syntax above [Record] [Cue] Shift+[Home] [Next] [Enter]

    ...or just [Record] [Cue] [Next] [Enter]
  • You can save a keystroke and use [Record][Next][Enter] if your last record target was a cue.
  • Thanks sk8rs_dad, Salazar and BenjaminA. You sorted out the NEXT CUE thing and clearing whole command line neatly. [Record][Next][Enter] is a true keystroke saver and it makes the scrolling back item redundant. The [Shift]+[Home] could also prove useful. I think tonight (2nd act) is going to be a lot smoother.
    An Expression III user of over 15 years, the lighting director (after 1/2 tuition and me standing behind him) said the programming session with the brand new Element 2 was "The least stressful" he had ever endured! He totally loves the MS which I loaded with the shows lamp plan. Phew!
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