I'm brand new to lighting design - so I hope I'm asking this question in the right place. I've got most of my washes and scene lighting and cues set up for a theatre show. I've got 4 MAC 250+ Entours connected to the board. Channels 130-133. I've added those 4 channels into group 1. I've also set up a bunch of palettes for intensity, beam, color, and focus. I'm just not really sure what the best way to program these into my board is. The show is musical theatre - but all of the songs are pop music so there is a lot of programming. We are also adding 12 LED fixtures and 6 white pars for blinders next weekend.
Again apologies for not knowing some of the basics..
a) should I create a single effect for each song with all the F/I/C/B setup as each step? and then add the group + effects to the cues between my other cues? Or should each focus/intensity/color/beam +effect be its own cue
b) any recommendations how to time the moving lights to the music? Should it be programmed in somehow - or should the lighting operator be controlling the timing live?
c) how many decimal points can you have in a cue number? If I have to program each F/I/C/B as a separate cue - its going to take a while. can you have a cue 9.11 and 9.12 or only 9.1 and 9.2
d) is there any easier way to put all the lights to zero to build my scenes? I thought [Clear][Sneak][Enter] would do it - but it doesnt really do anything. the only way I've figured out how to do it is to use Chanel [1] [Thru] [250] @ 0 [Enter]
I've watched the videos on the ETC library youtube page - but it mostly deals with setting up the positioning and other parameters - and not so much on how to move between the different parts of the show.
Thanks for helping out the new guy!