Cue Lists

The Cue List patch is probably the most flexible/user configurable component of Theater Max. How it looks and functions is really up to your own tastes and needs. The main thing you need in your version of the cue list patch (in order for it to work with the rest of Theater Max) is this:

In other words, cues are triggered by their cue number, and these cue #'s are sent/received via the send cuego and receieve cuego obects, respectively.

For Theater Max, the cue list merely provides the user with an interface and cueing mechanism for sending out the cue number at the desired moment. Your version can simply be a screen full of message boxes with cue numbers as shown below.

Taking note of lighting board and other show control cueing systems, we found a scrollable list to be the most user friendly interface at triggering cues. And let's face it, the easier it is for someone else to be able to run your show the better. We use the jit.cellblock object to hold our cue list. Here's an example.

We use to have a ton of information in our list: sound file name, mic channel, weather outside (which proved to be very depressing to have on the list during matinee shows...we are in Los Angeles, after all), instantaneous volume information, panning info, EQ values, temperature of the theater, energy level of the actors, annoyance meter for the audience, etc. But when it came to running a show, having this information on the main interface was really not much help to the board operator. Our lists have "evolved" into something quite simple, nothing more that a cue number and a description of the cue...enough of a description so the board operator and stage manager are happy, or perhaps just enough to jog your memory on what the cue is suppose to do for you. All the other information was stored in easily accessible subpatches if needed. In the image above, the cues in orange are the cues that were last triggered (these stay orange for a couple seconds). Cues where the cue numbers have a brown background are cues that have already been triggered (they change to brown from orange after a couple seconds). The cue in purple is the cue that is on-deck (the next cue to go). The cues are triggered by pressing the space bar on the keyboard and are executed in order (based on their order in the cue list, which happens to be numerical order of the cues).

The method above does imply a fairly linear/traditional method for triggering cues. You could instead create something like this:

Yes...it does hurt to look at (Keno, anybody?), but if you are using Theater Max for something other that theater, such as installation sound where cues would be triggered automatically, or by an external source or remote machine, this would be a nice quick summary of the current state of all your cues.

The patch tm.cuelist (and its partner tm.cuelistmanager) explains all the functionality we have decided to include on our version of the cue list. Please refer to these patches for more information.

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