Variety
Almost Famous Theatre Production
About
~Overview~
Variety is a show that Almost Famous put on every year and like the title suggests it is a range of different acts: guitarist, accapella, dance and much more!!
My Role
~Sound Operator 2~
The role I had in the show was to make sure the mics were turned on/off and handed to the correct performer/s accordingly to the mic plot.
I’ve never worked with headset mics until this show so learnt about positioning on the face and how to use the mic packs!
Although this was a smaller role, the smaller jobs make all the difference!!
Microphones
~Headset microphones and hand held~
During this production I worked with both head-set microphones and hand held.
As I was Sound Operator 2 I had to make sure everyone had the correct microphone so that it correlates with the spreadsheet that sound Operator 1 has.
This sounds simple enough but during the short change over times and some sets having a mixture of hand held and head-set this can get confusing in such a small space.
Another thing I needed to consider is when the packs were worn for more active performances was to make sure the pack doesn't mute itself and if so how to smoothly turn it back on if possible.
Frequencies
~Microphone Channels~
With having two different types of microphones I also had to concentrate on which channels each microphone was on. During set changes the microphones would come back to me and I would turn them off straight away and look at the spreadsheet and see which microphones came next.
Some instances I could give out the microphones for the next two acts. However, I needed to check the frequencies the microphones were on for example: a hand held microphone that is being used on stage might be on the same channel as the head set microphone that the next act might be using so I wouldn't be able to turn on the head-set microphone until the handheld had been returned and turned off.
