Need Drama Intercom Design

[Brian Busch]

CMN: I'm in need of your past experience before I rent an intercom system for our Christmas Musicial...

Background: The Joy Story, set in a toy store, being crushed by the big FAO Smaltz Store, who is only after money, the owner of the Joy Store is, Mrs. Joy, and the toys come to life and tell the story of Christmas, including Arks, Abraham & Isaac, etc...pretty elaborate set, including lighting, spots, and video. We're also recording it for local cable play later in the month.

Lots of music, dancing, singing, we're renting 7 Countryman e6's vs. the lavs we have to get a higher gain before feedback.

Here's my intercom needs:

Lights: 3 (board, spot1, spot2)
Video: 3 (board [ ME ] , cam1, cam2)
Dir: 3 (director, stagemgr1, stagemgr2)
Audio: 1 (board/computer)

= 10

We have a small 1channel clear-com system which could grow to 10, I believe. However, I don't think we should all be on the same channel. I like each group to be on their own channel, but I want to be [ME] on the video board to be able to talk to the board/director of the other 2 (lights, dir).

When we did this play a few years ago, we were on one channel, and kept chatter down. Now, we're doing IMAG, recording, 2 spots vs. 1, more lights, in a very drama-bad venue, where we need two stage mgrs, due to the lack of a backstage.

Any suggestions? Money isn't really an obsticle, since we're renting.

My biggest concern is the ease of changing channels, should we go wireless (rent) and abandon our wired intercom we have now.

The performance is on a Sat Night, and Sun Afternoon.

Ideas? Lesson's learned? Any, "We'll-never-do-that-agains?"

Thanks

[[Admin] PHugger]

Not sure how you feel about trying something 'amateur', but we (Paul, Kerwin & I) could build you a workable solution based on our Telephone Intercom design. It looks like you need 4 seperate loops and the ability for one station to switch between loops. You can go as wireless as you want (it's just phones) and virtually any headset will work. We could easily do a switch box for one station. I'm sure the cost will be much less that a rental fee and you'll own the equipment. PM me if you are interested.


Best regards,
PCH

[Brian Busch]

Tone: Awesome -- on the 4 & 2 channel stations, how does one switch from one channel to another, i.e., does the TD hear all 4 channels at once (with the aforementioned volume control), or does he have to switch channels to "tap" into a flow?
Phugger: Sounds great for a permanent facility, however, we're renting one and I think it would be easier for me to tell the guy at SystemsWireless that his equipment isn't working, or something, than asking you to come down from NJ to fix something you shipped to me...I'm a build-guy, but this probably is too much for me to deal with, thanks, tho!