Presenting:
SpotTrack
A better way of
making followspot cuesheets (and supporting worth
causes!), from the people behind
FocusTrack
5th October 2009
The people behind FocusTrack, the increasingly
popular tool for documenting show lighting, are
delighted to announce the launch of another useful
lighting tool: SpotTrack.
SpotTrack is a new program for making and managing
followspot cue sheets - something that has
traditionally been done in Excel or Word using ad-hoc
documents created from scratch as required.
SpotTrack, by contrast, has been built for the job -
managing shows with one to four spots, and making it
easy to do things that have traditionally been hard,
like printing the cue sheets for each spot without it
being full of blank lines occupied by cues for the
other spots. At the same time, SpotTrack breaks up
the cue sheet into scenes or songs, making it easy
for the caller and all of the spot ops to find their
place when jumping around the show during technical
rehearsals.
SpotTrack also aims to reduce the amount of typing
required of whoever is running the spots - the LD,
associate or spot caller. Clustered around the main
cue sheet area are shortcut buttons that can be
customised with character names, beam sizes or
regularly-used instructions - 'iris in', 'fade out'
or whatever. All of those things are then just a
click away.
And SpotTrack provides a home for lots more
information than just the spot cues themselves: it
can store the setup for each spot (type, colour load,
operator), details of the characters in the show
(name, cast name, understudy name), pictures of the
characters, and even the show's cue list, which can
be imported from FocusTrack which can, in turn,
import show data from ETC Eos/Ion, MA grandMA and
Strand 500-series consoles.
Best of all, SpotTrack supports two backstage
charities: the program is sold per show (think of it
as a consumable, like colour or light bulbs) with
each copy costing £45, but with 15% of that sale
price going to one of two backstage charities:
Light Relief in the UK, or
The ESTA Foundation's Behind the Scenes in the
North America - whoever's buying the copy gets to
choose.
"Spot calling has always been a hard job - processing
lots of information in the fraught period of teching
a show," comments Rob Halliday of FocusTrack. "It's
always seemed to me that there should be a tool
dedicated to helping with this; I'm hoping that with
SpotTrack we've provided such a tool, useful not only
to those in tech and calling shows on tour, but also
to those needing the support of the two fantastic
industry charities that SpotTrack will be
contributing to."
"In creating a new program for managing followspot
cues, SpotTrack has also created an opportunity for
you to help your colleagues in need," says Rick
Rudolph, the Chair of the Behind the Scenes
Committee. "The commitment to donate a portion of
sales to Light Relief and Behind the Scenes will
hopefully inspire others to follow. Our hats go off
to SpotTrack which now joins a growing group of
supporters who have quietly made a difference in the
effectiveness of these two charities."
"This useful new tool will not only help light the
stars but help those who light the stars!" notes
award-winning lighting designer Rick Fisher,
co-founder of Light Relief. "By supporting Light
Relief and Behind the Scenes, SpotTrack can bring
some light to those in our industry most in need."
Further information about Light Relief can be found
here; further information about
Behind the Scenes can be found here.
Further information about SpotTrack, including
download and purchasing, can be found on-line at
www.spottrack.co.uk.