1st July 2012
FocusTrack, the show lighting documentation system, is delighted to welcome New York production electrician Kevin Barry, who will now be providing direct support to FocusTrack users in the US.
An IATSE Local One, ETCP-certified electrician, Kevin Barry has worked on many of New York’s biggest shows of the last decade, including The Lion King, The Boy From Oz, Mary Poppins, Billy Elliot and the current hit revival of Evita. Constantly striving to apply new technology in service of maintaining the quality of the lighting on his shows, he has been a FocusTrack user since 2006’s Mary Poppins. He will provide support to FocusTrack’s many users in New York and across America while continuing to work on Evita and other new productions.
“I’m delighted that Kevin is now a part of FocusTrack, rather than just one of its keenest users,” comments FocusTrack’s creator, Rob Halliday. “Having worked with him on a number of shows and experienced first hand his positive, enthusiastic, can-do attitude, I can’t think of anyone better to have as a first point of contact for the many electricians, programmers, associates and lighting designers already using FocusTrack or trying to find out how it could help them document their carefully-created lighting. Plus of course it will be invaluable to our many FocusTrack users in New York having someone right there when they need help during those critical tech rehearsal periods, rather than having to wait for a suitable overlap in time zones to England!”
“FocusTrack is the most comprehensive lighting tracking system I have ever used,” comments Kevin Barry, “and it’s been fascinating to be part of its evolution and development over the last few years as a user suggesting new features and sometimes seeing them implemented! Now I’m looking forward to playing a more direct role, working with Rob to introduce more people to FocusTrack and how it can help them document their lighting without all of the manual work of figuring out which lights are used in which positions that people have traditionally had to do.”
FocusTrack assists with this task by taking the show data from the lighting console (currently ETC Eos, MA grandMA or Strand 500-series consoles) and using that to generate information about the show, including a list of used focus positions for each light, the patch including details of which lights are used, which gobos and colours are actually used, plus the show cue list. FocusTrack can then control the console and a digital camera to record each focus position, this allowing even complex shows to be documented at high speed.
Long established and with a proven track record, FocusTrack is already in use on some of Broadway’s most successful shows, including the Tony Award-winning Once, the Tony Award-nominated Porgy and Bess, the Tony Award-nominated Follies, Anything Goes, Evita, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Sister Act and others, as well as on other productions around the world.
Further information about FocusTrack and its companion SpotTrack, for creating followspot cue sheets, and freely downloadable trial versions of both, can be found elsewhere on this website.