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Special Section: Lighting
From the Cloud to
the Wave
By Justin Lang
In the world of live events, it takes countless man-hours to
produce the show well before the curtain rises on opening
night. Teams of designers, technicians, directors, managers,
producers and event staff are all required to turn out that two- to
three-hour production. Because production staff can be working
from different offices or locations around town and sometimes
around the world, tracking and communicating with the entire
Google Wave can help a
production team get on the same
page when they can’t be
in the same room.
anyone can access, share or modify it. This approach could be a
powerful tool for the production staff, allowing them—regardless
of physical location—to stay in touch and share single
versions of files, photos and schedules, letting anyone on the
staff reference, update or comment on the correct version of
files. One tool that gives production teams just this capability is
Google’s latest creation, Google Wave.
Todd Proffitt
Colin Chauche, lighting and scenic designer, and Gerald Aragon, assistant lighting designer, discuss lighting paperwork for SUNY-Fredonia’s production
of Elektra. Google Wave facilitates communication among a production team when such face-to-face communication can’t happen.
Colin Chauche during the focus for Elektra. Chris
Swinn, one of the Master Electricians for the show,
is on the ladder.
production team, let alone your department, can be tricky.
Before the personal computer revolution, almost all paperwork
was either hand-written or typed, duplicated on carbon
copies, and distributed to the necessary persons. Most times,
after a meeting or run-throughs, paperwork had to be updated:
re-written or re-typed, and re-carbon copied—a time-consuming
and ungreen way to do things.
Then along came the Internet.
Communicating with fellow production
team members (even from
across the world) suddenly became
quicker and a lot more efficient.
With the click of a button, designers
now e-mail their notes to the entire
production staff to team members
who update paperwork or schedule
changes. Designers can now “Skype”
in for a face-to-face meeting.
And progress still continues—one of the newest trends on
the Internet involves “cloud” computing—keeping your data
not on local computers, but on servers on the Internet where
This could be useful for
tracking down mistakes
made during the course of
the wave, and reverting to
an earlier version.
Wavelengths
In May of 2009, Google launched a beta version Google
Wave, an online communication and collaboration tool that
operates in real-time. Think of it as a cross between instant
messaging, chatting in a forum, e-mailing, posting to a bulletin
board, and document editor all in one location. A wave is a
conversation with multiple users discussing and collaborating
on the specific topics and content.
Users can reply any time, anywhere
within the wave, as well as edit content
created by another user within
the wave. A wave isn’t limited just to
words, either. Users can attach web
pages, videos, photos, files—almost
anything—to a wave to share with
others.
For this reason, production teams
will find Google Wave useful in their
work. Using multiple waves, design staff, such as the director
and stage manager, can track progress, discuss changes and go
over rehearsal notes, all in real time.
40 March 2010 • www.stage-directions.com