Cue list = Excel spreadsheet
Cue = effects behavior after
Cue = command to go to a specific snapshot at a specific rate
Visual lighting sequencer = video editing for light design
Keyframe = effects behavior before
Keyframe = snapshot
Historical theatre = humans can't do keyframes and can only do 1 cue at a time
Modern theatre = computers can do 1,429,047,217 keyframes at a time
However:
Modern lighting software can't do keyframes and isn't designed to run more than a few cues at once
WHY?
There are two completely different ways to think about light design for music: we can either think in terms of animation or in terms of cues. We can either think in terms of an Excel spreadsheet or in terms of a video sequence editor. We can either think like, "I want this look here" or in terms of "I want to start going to this look here". We can choose to use a video editing approach or a more traditional cue list approach. If your brain prefers to think in snapshots at specific times, you can program with snapshots. If you prefer to write commands to go to a specific snapshot at a specific rate, you can choose to do that as well. If you're doing timecode work, you'll probably choose to work with keyframes and animate. If you're doing non-timecode work, you'll probably choose to work with cues to make it easier for the humans. Everyone gets to choose how they want to work. The tools typically chosen for timecoding are completely different than those for traditional, non-timecoded theatre. In timecoding world, we typically use animation tools like graph editors, keyframes, and dope sheets. We use the other tools too, just not many cues.
But that's not true, is it? It's not true at all. The underlying logic of it makes sense, but it isn't a reflection of reality. In reality, everyone is forced to think the exact same way about light design. It doesn't matter if you're doing a 4-cue middle school theater show or if you're LDing for Taylor Swift. Everyone must use cues. Keyframes can sort of be used in a weird window on MA that nobody talks about or uses very often, but the desks that technically have that functionality are very much built for cues. Everyone thinks in cues. Keyframes are an after thought if they exist at all. Keyframes are for animators, not for timecode lighting designers. Get it together.
If you want to think in keyframes like an animator, you have to translate your natural thinking into cues.
If you want to visually see a 2D representation of your light design like a video editor can, you're SOL because that doesn't exist for you.
You have to think in cues. You have to think in terms of an Excel spreadsheet. Your computer is confined to human limitations. Your computer is confined to cues. You are confined to a single way of thinking. A single way of thinking that was developed ages ago in the earliest days of theater. In Shakespeare's day, people running theaters had to do everything by cues: this happens, so you then do that.
But computers don't need to think that way, do they?
Why does every single desk force me to think in the exact same, unnatural way?
Thoughts?
(I helped build a working Visual Lighting Sequencer btw)
