SPOTLIGHTMAESTRO

The master plot

The whole show,
on one layout.

The master plot is the followspot plot as the designer and caller see it: every spot side by side, every cue a row, reading down the page in running order. It is the document the paper plot always wanted to be, and it is live and tracking data.

The master plot: three followspots side by side, one row per cue
Three spots of a twenty-spot capable plot · the active cue held centre as the console runs
Scene 5 · Written the way spot plots are written
Active 1

Every cue, fully described

Each row is one spot cue, with its own number and the console cue it follows. Each spot gets four columns: action and intensity, character, frame, size and time, and location and notes. Scene breaks divide the plot the way they divide a cuelist, and a preset row at the top says what colour each spot loads before the show starts.

2

Grey means no change

Held values are shown ghosted, so you can always see what a spot is doing without re-stating it. Held values sit back; stated values sit forward.

3

It all feels familiar

Intensity icons, scene breaks and the active cue follow Eos colours. Frame changes get bars across the row, snaps and hard edges are flagged where they happen, and the plot tracks colour frame use and highlights changes.

4

Active cues come forward

Active spot cues are highlighted and spots that are off fall away to the background. Intensity arrows show up, down or hold, worked out from the spot intensities themselves.

Big shows, wide desks.

Which spots a screen shows, and their left to right order, belongs to that screen. Put spots 1 to 4 on one monitor and 5 to 8 on the next, or give the associate a screen of just the truss spots. The show is one plot; every desk arranges it to taste.

Two monitors side by side: spots 1 to 4 on the first, spots 5 to 8 on the second, one show across both
One plot, two screens · Spots 1 to 4 on one screen, 5 to 8 on the other

Editing at the speed of a tech rehearsal.

Every cell edits in place. Tab walks the row like a spreadsheet, skipping spots that are off. Dropdowns carry the show's own vocabulary of actions, sizes, characters and frames, and typing something new adds it to the list on the spot.

Insert Cue drops a point cue exactly between its neighbours and shows you the number it will use before it uses it. Goto Cue jumps every view by console cue, spot cue or scene name. Find and Replace edits more than one cell.

The insert cue dialog offering insert above and insert below
Insert shows the number it will use before it uses it

How the app keeps the show's data.

A followspot plot is weeks of decisions. Data integrity is central to Spotlight Maestro.

Data · Show file

One file per show

Everything about a production lives in a single show file on the host machine: cues, users, settings, vocabulary, photographs. Nothing is in a cloud.

Data · Autosave

No save button

Every edit is written the moment it is made, to a proper database on disk, and broadcast to every device. Everyone in sync the moment you finish typing.

Data · Undo

An undo history in plain words

The last twenty changes, each described as a sentence with a name and a time. Pick any point and the app spells out exactly what will be undone. A single undo, or hopping back multiple steps, are all in the app.

Data · Log

A change log that settles arguments

Every edit, every sign-in, logged against a person and a clock. When the plot says something surprising, you can find out who changed it, and when.

Data · Sync

Sync that just works

iPads sleep between acts and Wi-Fi drops out. Spotlight Maestro expects both: every device reconnects on its own and checks where the console is the moment it wakes.

For the times everything changes.

Preview reshuffles. Acts swap. A spot can't get the shot and another takes its track. The Advanced tab does the surgery, and it shows you the operation before the change.

Advanced · Spots

Move, copy or swap a spot's cues

Moving, copying or swapping cues horizontally across the plot. Ranges of cues moved are blocked, so every cue still reads exactly as it did and nothing inadvertently tracks through.

Advanced · Blocks

Move a block of cues

Lift a run of cues and set it down elsewhere in the running order, everything they carry travelling with them. A song from Act 2 moved to Act 1? Spotlight Maestro has it covered.

Advanced · Levels

Change intensities across the show

Shift every level up ten because the venue is bigger, or turn every 80 into 60 for the new followspots. Blanks are never touched and zeros are never raised.

Every advanced operation dry-runs first. The app lists precisely what it is about to do, and the tab opens with the sage advice: back up before you use this.

Next: what the operators see.

Three layouts per spot, from big tracking cards to the traditional spot sheet.

Operator views Download the demo