This last week I’ve been programming second unit on a Hog 4.  That’s not my usual console, so it’s been a fun challenge.  I used to do a lot of live programming on Hog so it’s been interesting figuring out better ways for me to work with it on set.  

On Friday we were filming a tunnel with about 100 titans lining it.  We would do intensity gradients and stuff like that to increase the sense of depth to the set.  We also had some sky panels as key (or effect) lights with the usual activity of setting up non-sequential lights for various purposes. The Gaffer was jockeying between these numbers often and sometimes I wouldn’t be as fast as I usually am to recall what light was the intended when he’d request “that light”.  Then I realized a very simple trick- don’t clear the programmer so much.

When I was in live entertainment, clearing the programmer was a frequent habit.  Program, Record, clear.  Program, Merge, clear.  But since I didn’t choose any of these channels and this was an unfamiliar setup, it made my whole life easier for the day to not clear the programmer for small changes to keep a record of what fixtures we had recently been playing with. 

It’s obvious now, but it wasn’t obvious day 1.5, so I’m happy it occurred to me.  I also learned a new-to-me trick to recall fixtures that were at a certain value.  The tunnel at one point was being lit in intensity chunks rather than gradients.  Live @ 30 Enter allowed me to call the lights into the programmer that we had set at 30%, making it very fast to then bring them to 25 or 35.

I’m a noob programming on film on Hog, so small things can feel like a big deal.  Are you all already doing this? What tips and tricks have you discovered when not programming your own console?  Would love to hear about it in the comments.

***

Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film and television based out of Albuquerque.  He grew up in live entertainment and was a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate.  Mark is a proud member of IATSE and an ETC Eos trainer.  If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts (on the website) to appease the Algorithm.