I’ve been working on a serial with pretty big stage rigs.  One of the things that the DP would do right before first team came in was turn everything from the truck package off one at a time so he could orient himself on what was serving what function and get an idea of how much each light was contributing to the whole image.  Often in wide setups, he would want me to flash things several times for the same reason.

In my template file, my default sneak time has been one second for a while now.  (For those who are not Eos users, Sneak is a function that releases values to their background in a pre-selected timing.  Combine Fade Changes in Hog or Program Time in MA with Clear. The default time is 5 to fade manual values, I shifted it down to 1.) But my DP hated the fact I would select the fixture, hit out, and then sneak the value back to it’s level.  He wanted to see the pop to help attune his eye to what was happening.  So I changed it to zero and he was happier.

As I programmed with it over weeks, I realized if that is the preference of the Gaffer or DP, it’s actually very rare that I need to sneak a value with time (mostly to affect changes when the cameras are rolling, and I wouldn’t do that in my default of 1 second anyway) so I lost nothing hitting extra key strokes.

Do with this what you will.  But I think this will be a change that follows me forward (except for whenever I return to Theater and other live events) as I see the benefits to the work flow.

What other little changes in preferences or settings have you seen a benefit from?  Hit me in the comments.

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Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film, television and theater based out of Albuquerque.  He grew up in live entertainment and has been a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate.  Mark is a proud member of IATSE Local 28 and 480, an ETC Eos trainer and an enthusiastic trainer of many other platforms and subjects.  He offers remote console coaching in 30 minute to 4 hour times as well as a full range of training in person.  If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts on the website to appease the Algorithm.