Building the plot

This chapter is for the account building and maintaining the plot: designer, associate, assistant or caller. It covers describing the production, importing an existing plot, writing and editing cues, the production's vocabulary, and the block editing tools.

Describing the production

Settings, Show Details holds the production's identity: title, subtitle, venue, show logo, lighting designer, associate, company, tour name, followspot caller and date. These appear on the layouts and the printed documents. Fields fixed by the licence carry a lock badge.

Number of Followspots is set here, from 1 to 20 on a Studio licence, or from 1 up to the number the production licence covers. A production that bought seven followspots and uses four sets four, and every operator layout then offers four. Reducing the count preserves the removed spots' data in the show file, but no layout displays it until the count is raised again. This is different from choosing which spots the Master plot shows, which is a layout choice in Settings, Spots.

Settings, Spots describes each followspot: the operator's name and the position designation. Colour frames are also configured here; see Colour frames and frost below.

Each spot can also be given a colour on the Master plot. Default is the plain plot. Choose any colour from the swatch, or one from the palette beside it, and that spot's cells on the Master plot and its PDF take a wash of it: strong on a cue where the spot is working, faint where it only tracks, and none at all on OFF. The run rules take the colour too, so each spot's runs are bracketed in its own colour. The operator layouts and the calling script are unchanged.

Importing a spreadsheet

Settings, Show Details, Import CSV imports an existing plot from a CSV file in three steps.

Choose File. The wizard reads the file, identifies the row containing the column titles, detects the per-spot column groups, and displays its analysis. Every detection can be overridden, including the header row.
Map Columns. Assign each spreadsheet column to a plot field. Cue-level fields: SQ, console cue, scene, page and trigger. Per-spot fields: frame, size, intensity, time, action, character, location and notes. The suggested mapping can be adjusted before proceeding.
Preview & Import. A preview of the mapped result, options controlling how scene break rows are recognised, and the choice between adding to the plot and replacing the plot. Replacement deletes the existing plot first and requires a typed confirmation.

Import behaviour:

Spreadsheet date conversion is detected. A beam size of 3/4 entered in a spreadsheet is frequently stored as the date 3-Apr. The wizard flags every date-formatted cell with its probable original value so the file can be corrected before import.
Values are canonicalised against the production's vocabulary. Variants that differ only in case, spacing or punctuation, such as Pickup and PICK UP, are imported as one value. Genuinely new values are added to the relevant option list in the order the file introduces them.
OFF in an action column marks that spot as parked for the cue.
Rows without a cue number retain their file position. A scene break row between two cue rows is imported between those cues.

Importing from CuePoints

CuePoints, the rehearsal-video cueing app, exports its cue list as a flat file, CSV or tab-separated, with the columns Track, Type, Position, Cue No, Label and Fade. The wizard recognises the format and offers a CuePoints button on the Choose File step; one press maps the whole file.

Type ("Spot 1", "Spot 2") routes each row to its spot.
Cue No becomes the SQ number and Fade becomes the time.
The Label is read for the details an operator packs into it: an action (a pick up, a fade out, a bump), a character name, a stage position (DSL, MSC, on C), a size (tight, head shot, 2-shot, full body) and a written level. A label that reads as an out imports with intensity 0.
The complete label is kept in that cue's Notes exactly as written, so nothing typed in the rehearsal room is lost to a guess the importer made.

The result lands in the same Preview & Import step as any spreadsheet, with the same add-or-replace choice.

Writing cues

+ Add Cue appends a cue after the last SQ. Insert Cue places a cue between existing cues, offering Insert Above and Insert Below and displaying the point number that will be used. + Scene Break inserts a banner row by the same method.

Scene break colours and types

A scene break is green unless it is coloured. The small arrow at the right of the banner opens the production's scene break types, Default and a typed hex code, so songs, dances or acts can be told apart from scenes at a glance. Every layout and every PDF paints the same colour. New and imported breaks are always the default green.

Settings, Options, Scene break types defines those types. Each is a colour and a name. Click the swatch to choose any colour at all from the colour picker, or add one from the palette beneath the list, and type what it means: Song, Dance, Act, or whatever the production calls them. A type left unnamed is called by its colour, Teal or Raspberry, from a library of colour names. Remove a type and breaks already painted in that colour keep it. The colour menu on the plot lists these types, the calling script prints the type on each banner once the production uses more than one, and the Spot Summary can group its scene list by type.

Settings, Options, Adding & inserting cues selects the entry style: a pop-up form, or an inline blank cue placed directly in the plot with the cursor in its cue reference field.

The structure of a cue

Each row is one spot cue. At cue level it carries the SQ, the console cue reference, and optionally a scene, a page number and a When: the trigger on which the cue is taken. Each spot then has four columns:

Action and intensity. The action, drawn from the production's action list, and the level. FL denotes full. A value with a slash, such as 0/90, denotes two movements in one cue, ending on the final value.
Character. The person the spot covers, drawn from the cast list.
Frame, size and time. The colour frame, the beam size, and the fade time in seconds. A time of 0 is treated and flagged as an instant move, called SNAP or BUMP as chosen in Settings, Options, Flag Options.
Location and notes. The stage position and any further instruction.

A blank cell means no change. Values are held from the last cue that stated them, and these held values are displayed ghosted, so the current state of every spot is always visible. A value is entered only when it changes.

Editing

Every cell edits in place, on the Master plot and on the operator List layout. Tab moves through the row in reading order, skipping parked spots, and continues to the next row. Dropdown fields carry the production's vocabulary; entering a new value through the Other option adds it to the corresponding list.

Goto Cue moves every view to a chosen console cue, SQ or scene.
The arrow keys step the current cue through the plot.
Find (Cmd F or Ctrl F) opens a small panel that floats over the plot and can be dragged anywhere by its title bar. Type the text and press Enter for the next match, Shift Enter for the previous; the plot moves to each one and the panel says which cue, spot and field it is in. Tick Replace on the panel to add the replacement box and a Replace button, which changes every match in one operation that one Undo reverses.
The row's delete control removes a cue.

Moving one spot's instruction

A whole row rarely needs to move, but one spot's instruction often belongs a cue earlier or later than it was written. The Move button on the Master plot toolbar, an up and down arrow between Log and Scene Break, shows a pair of small arrows at the right of every spot's cell. The up arrow moves that spot's information to the cue above; the down arrow to the cue below. The row itself stays where it is, and so does every other spot.

An empty cue, or one where the spot is OFF, takes the information outright. Moving up into an OFF turns the spot back on there.
A cue that already has information for that spot asks whether to Replace it or Merge. Replace puts the moved information in place of what was there. Merge fills in only the moved fields and leaves the rest as it was.
The cue the information left tracks the spot if it is still lit coming into it, and reads OFF if the pick up itself moved below.
Scene breaks are stepped over.
One Undo puts both cues back.

The arrows are hidden until Move is on, so the plot stays clear. Turn it on, make the move, turn it off. The setting is remembered per screen.

Copying one spot's instruction

Beside the arrows, the same Move button shows a copy and a paste button on every spot. Copy lifts that spot's whole instruction, action, intensity, character, frame, size, time, location, notes and frost, and outlines the cell so it is clear what is held. Paste puts it onto any spot at any cue, as many times as wanted; the source is untouched. An empty, OFF or tracking cell takes it outright, and an OFF spot comes on with it. A cell with its own instruction asks whether to Replace it or Merge, as Move does. Tracking continues below the pasted cue, and one Undo puts the cell back.

The keyboard does the same: with Move on, click any of a spot's cells, then Cmd C (Ctrl C on Windows) copies it and Cmd V pastes onto the cell last clicked. The copy is held by this screen only, and is forgotten when the page is reloaded.

The set of spots shown on the Master layout, and their left-to-right order, is a per-screen setting: Settings, Spots, Spots on the Master layout. A wide plot can be divided across several monitors. An author can store their arrangement as the default for new screens.

Colour frames and frost

Settings, Spots defines the colour frames. Default Colour Frames apply to every spot; a spot with a different load has Use custom colour frames enabled and its own set. The Colour Frame Note appears beside the frame key on every layout.

Gel references are resolved against a built-in gel database, and the resulting swatches and names appear on the operator cards, the Spot Summary and the PDFs.

Frost is configured once and applied throughout, in Settings, Spots, Frost. A production can have internal frost, frost in colour frames, or both.

Internal frost. For fixtures with a frost lever, tick These followspots have internal frost and set the production default. Any cue can override it per spot from the frost chip, which reads frost, HARD EDGE, or INTERNAL FROST OUT when the lever is out but a frost frame still softens the beam.
Frost in colour frames. Tick each frame that carries a frost. Several can be ticked, for an internal frost plus a frame of frost, or two frames of different strengths. Whether a frost frame is in the beam is read from the frame column, so nothing extra is written on the cue.

The beam is HARD EDGE only when every frost the production has is out of it: the internal frost out, or absent, and no ticked frost frame in the frame combination. The flag appears on every layout, the Spot Summary, the PDFs and the calling script. Settings, Options, Flag Options chooses whether it appears on every hard cue or only on the cue where the beam turns hard, and sets the words used when the frost leaves a lit beam (Drop Frost by default).

When a production has only one frost, losing it is called exactly as those words say. With more than one, the plot and the script name what leaves: Drop Internal Frost, Drop Frost Frame 3, or Drop All Frosts when the last of several goes. The first word follows the Flag Options text, so Lose Frost gives Lose Internal Frost.

A preset row above the first cue states the frame each spot loads before the performance.

Remote control followspots

On a RoboSpot, GroundControl, Follow-Me or Macula rig the intensity moves between the console and the operator. Settings, Spots, Remote Control Followspots turns the feature on and sets who normally runs intensity. A cue that breaks the rule is marked on its intensity owner chip, CONSOLE or OPERATOR, and the calling script says so: "desk takes the level".

When the operator normally runs intensity and a CONSOLE cue takes the beam to zero, the operator's own fader is still up, and the spot would come straight back on the moment the desk hands intensity back. An amber Intensity fader down bar under the notes, the same shape as a colour change prompt, reminds them to pull it down ready for the next pickup. It prints on the PDFs and is spoken in the calling script. A tick box in the same settings card turns it off.

Characters

Settings, Lists, Characters holds the cast list: name, photograph and description. Photographs appear on the operator tracking cards and the Spot Summary. Renaming a character to an existing name merges the two entries and rewrites every affected cue.

The production's vocabulary

Settings, Lists holds the lists used throughout the application: actions, colour frame combinations, sizes with their meanings, characters and action graphics. Intensity icons stay in Options, being a display choice rather than a list. They moved out of Options in version 1.0.6, which keeps only the behaviour settings. Reordering a list reorders every corresponding dropdown. Renaming a value to an existing name merges the two and rewrites every cue that used the previous name. Purge unused removes values no cue references, and lists exactly what will be removed before doing so.

Settings, Formatting contains per-user presentation settings: font, size, weight and colour per column, applied to that user's view only. PDF paper sizes are also set here; see chapter 8.

Change history

Undo holds the last twenty changes, each described in words with the account name and time. The control beside the button opens the full list; selecting an entry displays exactly what will be undone before it is undone.
The change log records every edit and every sign-in with a name and a timestamp. The Log button displays the most recent two hundred entries.

Two operations clear the undo history, because every entry behind them would refer to cues that no longer exist: Renumber SQ Numbers, and a replace-mode CSV import. Both require a typed confirmation.

The block editing tools

Settings, Advanced contains three tools for large-scale changes. Each displays a complete preview of its effect before executing, and the tab's first instruction is to take a backup first.

Move, copy or swap a spot's cues. Transfers a range of cues between two followspots. Moved ranges are blocked: values a blank cell would otherwise inherit from new neighbours are written explicitly, so every cue reads afterwards exactly as it did before.
Move a block of cues. Relocates a sequence of cues to another position in the running order, with all their contents. The operation is refused if the destination cannot accommodate the block.
Change intensities across the show. Shifts every level by a fixed amount, or replaces every instance of one level with another, optionally restricted to an SQ range or a single spot. Blank cells are never altered, and zero levels are never raised.

Renumbering

Settings, Show Details, Renumber SQ Numbers reassigns every SQ to consecutive whole numbers in running order, typically after a rehearsal period has introduced many point cues. Console cue references, labels and all spot data are unchanged. The operation cannot be undone and requires the confirmation word RENUMBER.