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Part V: QLab Show Control and Networking
Foreword
From black box theaters to Broadway, cues are being fired and organized in Figure 53’s excellent application, QLab. What started in 2006 as a simple way to cue and fade audio playback has grown into a staple of the live entertainment industry, now being used in classrooms, cruise ships, mega churches, and arenas alike, controlling not just audio, but video, projections, and network show control protocols and even running the lighting rig.
As a multimedia artist with a wide range of projects myself, from concerts to Broadway to industrials to installation and gallery work, I have used QLab on many occasions as an indispensable tool to produce my effects and show control sequencing. On some shows, I utilize nearly every function of it, providing video playback for projection mapping, controlling audio levels, and sending lighting commands, while on other shows I might just be using it as a hub to control the other show control computers, such as Watchout rig or ETC Eos lighting desk.
Just as the magic that we see on stage is powered by the unseen machinations of designers and technicians such as myself, behind QLab’s friendly and simple user interface lies an astonishingly powerful tool capable of sequencing and managing even the most complicated technical shows. Fortunately, Jeromy Hopgood has provided a text resource matching the excellence and beguilingly elegant simplicity of the software itself. In fact, I was fortunate enough to use QLab 3 Show Control as a primary text for a Projection Design course I taught at Pace University. Jeromy carefully laid out every part of QLab 3 in great detail, providing my students with a perfect reference.
This new version expands on the approach of the first one, adding new projects and designer tips while streamlining the examples without sacrificing clarity or utility. One of the major themes I have learned in my career is that it isn’t just what you know, but also how you go about applying it. Fortunately for the reader of this new edition, they are given the opportunity not only to add to their knowledge base but also how to apply it to their projects. I look forward to the continued success of both QLab and this accompanying text.
Foreword by Projection Designer Daniel Brodie (Broadway: Motown the Musical, Disney’s Aladdin, large-scale video designs for Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival)
Acknowledgments
As a theatre artist and a teacher, I constantly extoll the virtues of collaboration to my students. Writing a book is a similar undertaking, in that there are countless people who work together towards a common goal. There is no way I would have been able to finish this book without the help of so many people along the way.
To Stacey, Meredith, and the rest of the team at Routledge, many thanks for helping turn this into a reality. As always, thanks are due to the amazing group at Figure 53, who continue to answer so many questions and requests and without whose support this text would not have happened. Special thanks to Mic Pool, Rich Walsh, Jeremy Lee, Sam Kusnetz, and Andy Lang for always being willing to field a question – no matter how obvious the answer seems. To Daniel Brodie, an exceptional projection designer and all-around good guy, thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to write the foreword for this edition.
I have had the pleasure of working closely with the folks at TLS Productions, Inc., in Michigan for the better part of the last decade. Thanks to Dustin Miller of TLSP for his editorial assistance and general wealth of knowledge when it comes to macOS nomenclature. There are a number of colleagues who answered questions, explained things that I didn’t understand, and generally were there to offer support at the right moment: Wendall Harrington of Yale, Alex Oliczewski of the Ohio State University, Daniel Fine of the University of Iowa, David Stoughton of Illinois Wesleyan, and Jake Pinholster of Arizona State University. Thanks also to Ellen Lampert Greaux and the good people at Live Design for always being so supportive of my work.
It has been a pleasure to serve as a professor at Eastern Michigan University over the last nine years. I am proud of the work we do here and so happy to call EMU my home. To my ED&T and Theatre students, thanks for being such an inspiration and helping keep my batteries re-charged. You are why I do this work. Thanks, especially, Kathy Stacey, Don Ritzenheim, and the College of Arts and Sciences for supporting my research. To John Charles, Melanie Bond, and Madeleine Huggins, in particular, there aren’t enough words in the English language to say how much you have helped me over the years.
Finally, so many thanks are due to my family for their love and support in everything I do. So many times, the work that we do in this field can really take a toll on family life. I’m so lucky to have the team of Katie, Kira, and Isabella to keep me going. Thanks, ladies, for all that you do and for understanding the hours of time I spent at the laptop. I truly am the luckiest guy on the planet.
Preface
If it is true that an artist is only as good as their tools, then we are all very lucky to be living in this time period with so many excellent design and technology tools at our disposal. These days, the entertainment industry seems to evolve at a breakneck pace, with new resources and even fields popping up all around us. As a designer, I know that I am always looking for a new tool to speed up my workflow and assist me in turning my concepts into reality. For me, few have been such a game-changer as QLab.
Back in 2008, I started showing some of my design students this new application that offered Mac users an alternative to SFX for sound playback. It was a robust program with an interface that my students took to effortlessly. What’s more, Figure 53 (the makers of QLab) was a small company that really got how customer service needed to work for those in show business. I quickly implemented QLab control systems into my performance spaces and classrooms. With each subsequent version of QLab, more features have been introduced, from video to show control – and lighting. Over the years, even though the company has grown, it has maintained that same commitment to customer service and its user community that it had back when there was just one person on the payroll.
In 2013, I released QLab 3 Show Control, a text I envisioned as one part handbook, one part workshop. The concept was to create a practical book that would function both as an instructional manual with hands-on projects and a useful quick reference guide. In addition to the book itself was a collection of supplemental material on a companion website with instructional videos and dozens of downloadable project packets for the reader to work through on their own. In the years since the book’s release, I have been pleasantly surprised at the number of people who have reached out to me with stories of how it has pulled them out of a bind or helped figure out a nagging problem.
In late 2016, Figure 53 launched QLab 4 with a number of changes to the software, most notably the inclusion of lighting control. This new book addresses the changes in QLab since Version 3 and offers a number of new projects and exercises. Furthermore, this edition adds dozens of new Design Tips to help the designers better understand how to work with QLab and develop their own sense of workflow. The chapters are broken down in concise numbered sections that allow you to easily identify and focus on a topic. Like the QLab 3 text, this edition also makes use of a companion website with instructional videos and project packets. By downloading the project packets from the companion
website (focalpress.com/cw/hopgood), not only can you read through the projects in the text, but also tackle them at your own pace on your computer.
QLab 4 is a requirement for the projects accompanying this text. To download a copy, visit figure53.com/qlab/download. One of the things that makes QLab so great is a strong user base that loves to share their own experiences and assist one another. The QLab Discussion List, housed on Google Groups, is a great place to access years of data and connect with other QLab users. To see the discussion list, visit figure53.com/support and click on the Discussion List button by the QLab icon.
Finally, one of the difficulties of writing about digital technology in the print medium is how very quickly software can change in relation to a book’s print cycle. In an effort to keep up with major software updates (which often come out every 6–10 months), visit my Entertainment Design & Technology blog at jeromyhopgood.wordpress.com, where I will post important update information as it is available.
