theatre Stranger Things: The First Shadow and your (small) stage To anyone in my amateur theatre circle that hasn't seen it watch Behind the Curtain : Strange Things - The First Shadow on Netflix. It's a far bigger production (obviously) than anything (even professional) I've been involved with but a good insight into the process
techbodgery Contour Shuttle as EOS Encoders Another classic bit of #techbodgery, a simple encoder option for ETCnomad (or an Element!) is the Contour Shuttle Xpress. This is a decent quality encoder that's priced about £50 (2024) aimed mainly at video editors but it works as a great encoder for other
mac Move Mail to New Mac Having recently purchased a new mac I decided to start with as much of a 'clean slate' as possible, and not use Migration Assistant to copy 100s of GBs of stuff I don't need. But I did need my email, all of it. And
theatre EOS Timecode Companion I often (well, reasonably often) work with timecode and ETC Eos. The excellent CuePoints has revolutionised this work flow, and exports files suitable for ETC Eos (and most other desks) to import. However, I wanted to be able to get these cues into an
customer service Brevo 'transactional' email I recently discovered Brevo, formerly known as "SendInBlue", when looking for a reliable eMail provider for transactional eMails as an alternative to Sparkpost as they have a more generous free tier and I'd had some deliverability issues to one provider in paritcular with Sparkpost.
ios The Simplest Kiosk Necessity is the Mother of all Invention. Or so says the ancient proverb. And it seems to be pretty accurate even today. More than once I've found myself searching for a simple iOS 'kiosk browser' app, something to be used in conjunction with Single
theatre Rosco Opti-Sculpt Calculator I've recently (re)discovered Rosco's excellent Opti-Sculpt filters, there's plenty of good resources online about them and some wonderful reviews from others waxing lyrical about these magical pieces of plastic. However, it surprises me that the official calculator for the resulting beam angle is
techbodgery Denon DN500BD Network Control Quick hack for controlling the Denon DN500BD over a network without the remote.
theatre Music is not free... ... nor should it be. Because this has now come up no less than three times this week, I decided to rant about it in a (slightly) more durable medium (no pun intended) In theatre, professional or amateur, it is not acceptable to steal music
theatre Lights and Music One of the biggest challenges (or rather most time-consuming things) I have to deal with every musical, pantomime, or concert-type production is making effective lighting in time with music. The answer is, of course, time code and ETC Eos and QLab make this rather
theatre Big Designs for a Little Theatre Everyone is looking to reduce their energy consumption, either to reduce costs or their carbon footprint or both. And there are grants available from organisations like the Energy Saving Trust to achieve this. Working with a local community theatre, we knew we could benefit
techbodgery Pi Prompt Corner Display Another in the #techbodgery series on using technology (on a budget!) to deliver features typically usually found in big venues to smaller theatres and entertainment venues. Today, we visit Prompt Corner, and look at how to make our SM (Stage Manager)'s life a
techbodgery House Lights Simple 0-10v Theatre house light control system with ESP32 controllers and outstations.
privacy EV Privacy : More than just your salary sacrificed? I'll preface this with saying I do not have a salary sacrifice car (my employer doesn't offer it yet), but many friends and family do. Also, this has a focus on Tesla as this is what I'm most familiar with, but I expect a
consumer rights Registered Keepers (Or Not?) I'll preface this with saying I do not have a salary sacrifice car (my employer doesn't offer it yet) or lease car, but many friends and family do. In the UK, the keeper of a vehicle is not necessarily the owner. This is long
theatre Community Theatre Gatekeeping Another day, another rant.... what is it about community theatre and 'gatekeeping' - if people want to learn, help them do so!
theatre A Theatre Wedding I've been meaning to document this somewhere for over a year but, as in most of my life, 'we get around to it eventually' I got married! (a little over a year ago, as I said, it took a while to write this), in
customer service WeatherFlow..oh no, that's not included. WeatherFlow make decent weather stations, but their customer service is appalling!
techbodgery BOCA IMAGE (sort of) The BOCA MiniMB (Now Lemur) printer has become a de facto standard in theatres and other entertainment venues for ticket printing. Unlike Zebra (which has numerous excellent online tools like Labelary's Free Online Editor for their ZPL language), tooling for the BOCA FGL (Friendly
techbodgery WLED and ETC Eos TL;DR - At the time of writing this there is no official profile for the WLED ESP-based LED controller, so I've put this one here so I can find it again (and for anyone else who needs one) https://rmlx.co.uk/eos_
aviation NATS AFPEx Mac This page is probably only useful to GA pilots in the UK, if you don't know what NATS or AFPEx is then you're in the wrong place! AFPEx is the UK service offered by NATS as a gateway into the AFTN for filing flight
customer service time4stress? Avoid time4sleep (or at least certain products!) unless you have time4stress and time2waste when it goes wrong. Quality control is non-existent and the customer service wasn't much better sadly.
techbodgery ThermoBeacon - Low Cost Multi-Zone Temperature Monitoring Well, that title was longer than I'd expected. I've recently become responsible for the tech and facility management at a small, 70 capacity, village theatre. One of our biggest problems is heating (it's 28kW of electric fans... hardly efficient in the modern world!) but
pids Digital Signage iPhones The perfect device for low-cost Digital Signage might just be a broken iPhone.
