All Things Programmed

This week's class was extremely helpful for me to gain a little background knowledge about programming lights. Although we covered many areas of programming (and at times I felt tangled in a web of terms and phrases), I believe that I have gained a sufficient amount of insight on what to expect in the tech process of Physical Graffiti. 

The electrical theory that we briefly covered at the beginning of class was very interesting, and clarified some of the reasons behind the concept of twofering electrics. I never realized that dimmers have a certain wattage maximum (which makes complete sense, I just never took this into account), and that a designer must be mindful of which lamps are being twofered together. As the dimmers in the Nixon are 1800 watts, a designer must take this into account and do simple math so as to never exceed this watt limit. As I have been on two hang crews during my time in UCI, I now understand why Darrin, Martha and Kristin (when wanting to twofer) had to take moments throughout the hang process to think about which lamps were going to be twofered so as not to exceed the dimmer limit (things make sense now), especially since there are many different ways that one can twofer to a dimmer box.

While learning how to work the board was helpful (and confusing at times), I found that one of the most important concepts that I need to grasp is the idea of communicating correctly and efficiently in the programming process. When a designer is programming, they must efficiently speak in terms of the board in hopes of preserving time and working quickly. As a programmer, I now realize how important it is to pay close attention and truly listen to the designer, all the while making sure that I am paying very close attention to instructions and how the board is operating (especially because tracking can be a result when recording  in between cues and we do not always want this to happen).