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I'm normally not afraid of any console. I can sit down and within half an hour figure out the basics and how to write enough cues to punt through a show. Until today. 

           Well it’s really early for me right now and I’ve finally found some time to write after a long week and a half. I apologize for the delay but lately in my life I’ve had to tend to some things that have been happening with my career as of late. To start I have finally been getting asked to do some cool work so I had to sit down and do a lot of thinking on what the hell my next step was going to be. I’ve pretty much got it broken down it to phases. Well to begin, I started my career with one of the best up and coming bands in America, EastonAshe whom I will never forget and will definitely want to work again with in the future. These are the guys I’ve been writing about for the longest time in my blogs. Lately I have gotten some opportunities elsewhere to allow me to facilitate my career further and make the next step in pursuing my dreams. To start, the first phase of my journey was pretty much in taking a new type of craft from what I learned in college which was of course stage lighting. Through this phase it has helped me construct a unique plethora of chops and ideas to bring to the lighting console. Problem was that I wasn’t making enough dough to use the “big boy” shit yet.

   So I was talking to a psychic the other day. She told me that dead people are bored a lot of time and are looking for a job they can do to help out people here on earth.

So below is my sketch (sorry I was having trouble importing my 3ds max version) of Dream Theater’s lighting rig for their summer tour. If you’ve seen it in person you’d know it looks bad ass.

For the past few days, I've been spending a lot of my time watching tech. rehearsals, doing small, odd jobs and helping in whatever way l can, but it's given me the opportunity ask lots of obnoxious questions and a lot about lighting design.

The more time I spend here, the more I seem to discover the enormous scope of a lighting technician's job. Yesterday, for example, I helped log the RSC's recent purchases on to a spread sheet and even though it might sound strange, I actually had a lot of fun discovering everything that the RSC had to buy for their recent shows, Richard II and Henry IV parts I and II.

For a long time I've been wondering why most Lighting designers stay away from the color green. They certainly like it on their currency, but they rarely use it on stage. 

And it's not fair. Green is my second favorite color and I use it all the time. It goes so well with blue or magenta. It turns into a great rock color when joined by amber. At Christmas time is the only time I will use it with red, but that's because you can get away with it then. But mix some hard edge lights in green with a congo or lav stage wash and you have instant sexy colors. Pale green is fantastic to use in any stop cues in a music based show. So why are people afraid of it?

As I write to you, oh ardent citizens of Technopolis, movers surround me, putting most of my worldly possessions in the back of a truck.

It reminds me, surprisingly not, of a load-out.

For the next week, these brown cardboard boxes will travel roughly eight hundred miles, en route from the Windy City to the Big Apple.  (Those of you in NYC, don't hesitate to drop me a line, as I will soon be your newest neighbor.)

So, since things are a little busy in the Gilbert household, I thought I'd shower you with a few random thoughts and a little link-love.

Today I’m going to start filling you all in on exactly what I’ve been writing lately in my notebook. There are three main topics: A couple cue ideas, and Casino Arizona lights. For starters I wrote a new trick I like to use when there is a dynamic arrangement in the song.

I have to start out by apologizing that it has taken me so long to start posting, but now that I'm comfortably over here in Stratford, I'm fully ready to tell you about (and I hope not bore you with) all of the details of my job at the RSC. At the moment I'm working at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I've been learning so much and having a great time. The people I work with are so patient and hugely accepting of me. I really appreciate their willingness to explain anything and everything I don't understand and I couldn't be happier to be working with such wonderful people. (And I promise that I'm not just saying that in case some here reads my blog; I really do mean that.)