Hybrid Live shows and Film

[Ryan Gallagher]

For venues that have this capacity, how have you seen it tackled?

I'm talking about a live show that is larger than can fit in front of the screen or be set up there during a crawl. We are a traditional theatre that has full crew and plenty of live space upstage of the screen.

Both our live and film programmers are aware ticket sales are massively improved, often sold out, and can be at a different price point too when there is a live component, be that guest speakers, remote speakers, Q&As, a band somehow related to the film, etc etc. Most of these come to us as "roadshows" via a booked tour, but we've rolled some of our own too.

We can pull it off with a short "pause", either a-vista or with the main drape closed. But the pause is required for us because our center channel truss is on slow motors, and cannot fly out directly without doing a little dance to breast the house No.1 soft legs downstage to permit the cabinets/cables to clear the system pipe the legs are on. Those legs are part of our screen setup for masking in the wings. In those situations we also place our subs on furniture dollies and are able to move them offstage rapidly. Normally for storage, the center channels truss comes in to the deck and the subs get hooked to it for flown storage, but we skip that unless we have a full 20 min intermission before the live act and have reserved space on deck for that to take place.

For bands that play a score during a film we have to use an alternate smaller screen above them, I'd love it to be big enough to use our cinema projector, but so far that hasn't been a viability because of inadequate zoom range and 2K preventing me from wanting to scale it smaller.

But generally doing a true "reveal" is not something in our capacity right now. If it wasn't for the center channels truss issues it would actually be, cause the screen itself can directly fly easily.

Note we do have a fully separate live PA with L+R clusters, it's own subs, and delays in this room. Current processor is an AP20, surround amps are in the booth, center channel and subs in a rack onstage (analog signal path).

I have a few thoughts, but curious to hear input first.

[Ryan Gallagher]

My production spidey sense must have been tingling when I posed that question this morning.

Today's show was advanced to be in front of the screen for a 90 minute live portion after the film. Napoleon Dynamite Live. We've done this one both ways in the past... as a blu-ray stereo into the live PA with a fast reveal behind the screen, and earlier as small set downstage of the screen. Their production needs have grown over the years... we were expecting a pivot when they arrived, and sure enough the 8ft deep space downstage was not going to be adequate for all the elements they have added to this show.

We had the 5.1 DCP this time too, which we intended to stick with. So we kinda invented a new option on the fly in an hour during sound check. Stage was set behind the screen with the LFE outboard of it on wheels.

During the credits our carpenter and the flyperson did the following:
- unplug and roll the LFE cabs into the wings
- fly the acoustic baffle out.
- raise the screen channels truss to an acceptable height that will continue to play music through the screen, but not be as much of an eyesore when part of the reveal.
- set downstage microphones

We had 2 min of crawl and were not gonna play the bonus scene. They managed to get everything done in time for the shutter and VOG to intro the live portion.
Screen flew out in a reveal as the crawl finished.

As the live portion got underway we raised the screen channels truss until it was out of sight behind the No.1 border. Flew in the Pinata pipe, and took out the screen top-masking. The kinda new invention was learned our speaker cables can reach that far without unplugging the rack. We could have also unplugged it provided I did a graceful fade first.

It requires a bit more attention and communication, doing the truss move in the dark or as talent are going on stage, but we pulled it off. Will only work on shows with adequate deck space, and a decent crawl length... shorter than 2 min and you probably need to start adding bodies to divide the work for a shorter shift during the crawl.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess the big advantage you have is that your place is a real live performance theater with an actual stage house, probably sufficiently high to fly anything beyond the proscenium arch.

The last time we did live + movie was with a symphonic orchestra in the room. We used the actual screen, which did overlap with the orchestra, but we had to create a special version of the movie anyway. Since the studio couldn't get us a version without the film music for most performances. So we zoomed in the image and masked the part of the screen that was not in use. In order to avoid too much of the stray light from the projector ending up in the eyes of the orchestra, I used my friend duct tape to temporarily mask the image on the projection porthole...

We used both the cinema sound system and a separate, temporary PA system for the orchestra. The result was better than expected, certainly given the difficult acoustics in the room.

[Steve Guttag]

It's going to depend on the venue. I did one at a live venue in DC (that had/has film...the Lincoln Theatre) where they wanted to transition from the film to a street scene set. The screen channels were on their own batten. They were connected with Speakons. So, when the credits rolled, we transitioned the sound to the house sound, which freed up the speakers..stage crew could unplug the speakers and fly them up while the credits rolled. At the next cue, douse the projector, fly the screen and bring up the lights on the "set." Ta-da.

Every live venue we support has a different means of dealing with the speakers. I have one where the speakers are on the 1st/2nd electric (gets them close to the screen). The screen is a roll-down (no real fly space. They could, likely do a reasonably fast transition or possibly switch to house sound for the credits:

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I have one where each speaker is on its own wench others where a truss with the speakers are on their own wench. Again, the screen is a roll down:

image.png

So, a transition is going to be at the mercy of the speed of the screen and speaker lift system. If on a batten they can move pretty briskly but without a fly tower and a wench system, they tend to move quite a bit slower.

We've done two systems (differently in each case) where the screen and speaker system actually moved upstage. On one, the screen system was on I-beams that allowed moving the screen system up stage and on the other the entire screen/speaker masking system is on a trolly and that is moved upstage and a mid-stage curtain hides it, if desired.

The other ones use speakers on casters of some sort and the screen is a roll down.

So, in each case, what is doable varies based on how things move; who moves them; where they have to go (if you have to get the speakers off stage, that is more involved than just rolling them into the wings). I've only once or twice been asked to transition from the movie mode to a live stage mode. if there is a Q&A, the screen becomes the backdrop rather than something to get out of the way. All three of the screens at the AFI/Silver, for instance, had a "stage area to ensure they could have music/Q&A integrated with the show but in no case does the screen system move. In theatre 3, the smallest, the stage area is at the same level as the first row of seats. It is just large enough to accommodate live performances/Q&A.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have only seen shows like this done in big live theaters and orchestra halls.I went to see the Utah Symphony playing the scores to ten Warner Bros Cartoons in the past, and that was awesome.And since late last year there appears to have been a number of famous movies like Home Alone, Raiders, and Star Wars accompanied by either the Chicago Symphony, or the Nashville Symphony. They are working on a Warner Brothers Cartoons Pt 2, so I will likely go see that, but it won't be at locations till late in the year.

[Tj Hopland]

I remember someone telling me about a feasibility study being done to do THX in Radio City Music Hall which among other things required a baffle wall. My first thought was that would be too heavy to fly and that was the deal breaker. I guess it was only like 1/2 the weight of what they could fly there but where the issue came is to meet their change over between live and movies time spec that would have had to be able to fly in and out in something like 15 seconds. That's were the problem came in, being able to accelerate and then decelerate something large and heavy that fast. I'm sure it could have been done even back then in the 80's but at what cost and how much space would the hardware have taken up in addition to the space the wall and speakers would take up. I imagine that's a decent size stage but the stage people always want more space.

[Ryan Gallagher]

It's going to depend on the venue. I did one at a live venue in DC (that had/has film...the Lincoln Theatre) where they wanted to transition from the film to a street scene set. The screen channels were on their own batten. They were connected with Speakons. So, when the credits rolled, we transitioned the sound to the house sound, which freed up the speakers..stage crew could unplug the speakers and fly them up while the credits rolled. At the next cue, douse the projector, fly the screen and bring up the lights on the "set." Ta-da.

That one is similar to something I have imagined. Our screen channels are most like the truss in your 2nd photo, except hang down on more focusable brackets a ways from the truss. And the transition is basically what we did the other night minus the useful audio transition to the live system.

For an AP20 sending analog anyway, how would you recommend facilitating that dual mode 5.1 film while passing some or all channels either pre-mixed down, or to be mixed down to the live PA for that audio transition? Mono is easy via the HI jack, but anything else seems to require a re-thinking of some routing improvements.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I remember someone telling me about a feasibility study being done to do THX in Radio City Music Hall which among other things required a baffle wall. My first thought was that would be too heavy to fly and that was the deal breaker. I guess it was only like 1/2 the weight of what they could fly there but where the issue came is to meet their change over between live and movies time spec that would have had to be able to fly in and out in something like 15 seconds. That's were the problem came in, being able to accelerate and then decelerate something large and heavy that fast. I'm sure it could have been done even back then in the 80's but at what cost and how much space would the hardware have taken up in addition to the space the wall and speakers would take up. I imagine that's a decent size stage but the stage people always want more space.

With the right equipment you can lift some pretty heavy things even on a conventional counterweight system. Broadways are known for "marrying" arbors to double their capacity etc. And that is just what you can do without redesign. I've married plenty of electric pipes for overweight issues before in my Production Electrician days. But for temporary installs. Concert shells and main drapes are also way up their typically too. Would all depend on how the baffle wall was constructed and what methods you were trying to apply, classic fly-person (would easily be a two or more person pull), or some whinch/automation (less speed control back in the 80s).

There is a good book on theatrical counterweight rigging if it is an interest, I may have shared it already before.

"Nobody Looks Up"

https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Looks-Up-History-Counterweight/dp/1508438102

Nobody Looks Up..jpg


Also this fun illustrated table book along similar historical subjects, which feel like the type of thing this crowd might enjoy:

"Moving Heavy Things"

https://www.woodenboatstore.com/products/moving-heavy-things

Moving Heavy Things.jpg

[Ryan Gallagher]

I have only seen shows like this done in big live theaters and orchestra halls.I went to see the Utah Symphony playing the scores to ten Warner Bros Cartoons in the past, and that was awesome.And since late last year there appears to have been a number of famous movies like Home Alone, Raiders, and Star Wars accompanied by either the Chicago Symphony, or the Nashville Symphony. They are working on a Warner Brothers Cartoons Pt 2, so I will likely go see that, but it won't be at locations till late in the year.

Concert accompanied or scored films are kind their own subject distinct from aims to "reveal" to a live show, or transition to a film at the end of a live show.

For accompanying, other than with a theatre organ or musicians in an actual orchestra pit, In a perfect world you have a cinema screen that can be located up or downstage with bottom masking to clear orchestra heads, or enough room downstage of the film screen, with perhaps the addition of a pit-lift to augment the stage area. But most often I see them done (in my venue and others) as a simple rental screen flown above the orchestra, smaller and often not aspect matched to the feature. The film always feels very much secondary in these productions. Renting a scope or flat fast-fold type screen should be doable, but that never seems to be on anyone's priority list, and often the video source is custom coming from the tour's sync'd methods to their digital streamers and punches version etc etc. So even the aspect ratio is somewhat unknown until they arrive.

I need to ask someone how our UT's Bass Concert Hall did their Bladerunner Orchestral accompanied version last week, cause they have no cinema system in their huge concert hall normally.

While I was a student, Phillip Glass Ensemble did a hybrid with film/images on a scrim instead of a screen, downstage of the musicians, which occasionally would transition to reveal them. But not sure that mode works for anything other than very "artistic" accompaniment of original works, with the footage being of a lesser fidelity due to the screen material, and stage presence of the musicians very much backgrounded too.

Back to the OP versions, speaking strictly of things that are too big for downstage for us, it's easy when they are willing to do intermissions. But the tendency, depending on the "draw" of the live elements, tends to be a general desire to go "directly" into live, to avoid an intermission giving people an opportunity to consider leaving. But some events are priced for the live component and that is the main draw, so not as much a worry then other than impact to day's schedule.

[Steve Guttag]

RCMH would only get THX approved if they waved most every aspect of their specifications (and I'm not saying that is a deal-breaker, unfortunately). As for a baffle-wall...THX approved "bafflettes" which just went around the speaker.

Anytime you do a room like RCMH, you have compromises. You won't have desirable RT60 times, you'll never get a point-source speaker to cover all 6000ish seats, the surrounds will always struggle to get good directional coverage without deafening those near the speaker while reaching the far side. So, you start doing things that you can do with available technology to mitigate as much as possible. You start using things like line arrays to get coverage but at the expense of directionality (you lose point source). You can do impressive things but NOBODY would design a high-end cinema with the systems that go into a large venue (technology wise) because they perform significantly worse than using conventional cinema speakers in rooms for which they can adequately cover.

The speakers I use in my multi-use rooms, as shown in the pictures above are from JBL and are in their PD5000 (older) and PD6000 (newer) series (PD6322). They are horn-loaded and retain the point-source nature desirable for cinema to attain high directionality (despite using double-12s, they handle 1200-watts continuous and are decent enough on bass). Yet, they are horn loaded to also keep as much of the sound off of the walls so you don't get build up in the room. We try to cover the seating area and nothing but the seating area. You hide the subwoofers under the stage so that they are not rumbling in a stage house, if possible (sometimes there is no place below the stage or you'd be firing into an orchestra pit). Surrounds often bring in "esthetic police." They have to look (or not look) a certain way. The room often has coverage issues.

image.png

So, in the theatre above, the side surrounds use a variable intensity system with bass shading to cover the width of the theatre without deafening the people in the near field. The rear surrounds, which were not "allowed" to impinge on the artwork above are small but in a great quantity to maintain coverage and level. Think about it...there are three different manufactures of speakers I just listed in that room to pull off, what I think, is a "better than it should be" system. The coverage was extremely good. And yes, there is a Q-SYS processor in there.

Every room is different, however. There is no one size fits all. The bigger the room. The less "movie theatre" it is by design, the more compromises you have to accept. You do the best you can with the technology available (and budget). You aren't going to get a dubbing stage out of a huge theatre. It just isn't in the cards (and, more importantly, the physics).

[Ryan Gallagher]

Another improvement to our setup i've considered, is getting rid of the No.1 leg pipe / screen channel truss conflict.

If we were not about to undergo renovations, I would be pitching potentially splitting the pipe for the No. 1 legs, being a hemp house we have such options easily. Our No.2 legs are already split cause we often leave one side out for live monitor console and that operator's sightlines.

If that pipe was split with a wide enough "gap" (wider than the center channel cabinets), the truss could fly directly out (all the way if needed), without a little dance involving the screen being out first and breasting the leg pipe downstage and out of the way for it's travel. There are plenty of times when our regular live shows would also benefit from that leg pipe being a split too.

It wouldn't really speed up our film to live transition that we improved upon the other day, but it would give us the option to do the full storage of the audio system in a short intermission, with less needing to see things as doing it, before we fly the screen and reveal the stage.

But closing the main rag negates the need for all that, cause can just do it the old way and not be seen... would only apply if trying to fully store everything during a crawl, rather than just fly L+C+R out of view. I suppose there is a chance with the addition of the split pipe, the LFE cabs could be stored pointed in the playing orientation, on longer tail-downs, meaning you just send the rig out and it all goes away without touching anything (albeit taking longer to become hidden).

Post rennovations we may have a whole different situation to think about.